This was the end.
Inferna and I fought across the End's fractured landscape, our battle reshaping reality itself. Every strike carried decades of history. Every exchange was weighted with everything we'd meant to each other.
Creator and creation. Father and daughter. User and tool.
The lines had blurred long ago.
---
THE BATTLE.
She came at me with everything she had—fire and claw and a lifetime of training. I met her with everything I'd learned—a thousand years of combat, the best armor ever made, enchantments that bent reality.
We were evenly matched.
That was the point. I'd trained her to challenge me, and she'd exceeded every expectation.
"YOU'VE IMPROVED,"I said, deflecting a blast of dragonfire.
"SO HAVE YOU. OR MAYBE YOU'RE JUST FINALLY FIGHTING FOR SOMETHING."
"What do you mean?"
"BEFORE, YOU FOUGHT TO SURVIVE. NOW YOU FIGHT TO LEAVE. THE DIFFERENCE MATTERS."
She was right. For a thousand years, combat had been a means of survival. Now it was a means of freedom.
That made me dangerous.
---
THE WOUNDS.
By the first year, we were both bleeding.
Her scales were cracked in a dozen places. My armor was dented and scorched. Her fire had found gaps in my protection; my blade had found weaknesses in her natural armor.
"NOT BAD," she said, favoring a damaged wing. "FOR A HUMAN."
"You're one to talk. For a dragon."
"I'M NOT JUST A DRAGON. I'M YOUR MASTERPIECE."
"And I'm not just a human. I'm your father."
"YES. YOU ARE."
She smiled—a dragon's smile, terrifying and genuine.
"I'M GLAD, FATHER. GLAD YOU MADE ME. GLAD I EXISTED, EVEN IF ONLY TO END."
---
THE END APPROACHES.
By the 1year, 11 months, 23 hour, we were both failing.
Her movements were slowing. My reactions were dulling. We'd pushed each other to the limit, and past it.
But we weren't done.
"THE COORDINATES," she said. "WE'RE CLOSE."
I checked—the obsidian platform I'd prepared was meters away. The kill location. The corruption point.
"Ready?"
"ALWAYS."
She lunged—not at me, but past me, toward the platform. She wanted this over. She wanted to fulfill her purpose.
I followed.
---
THE FINAL STRIKE.
We landed on the platform together. She turned to face me, fire building in her throat.
"DO IT," she said. "NOW. BEFORE I LOSE MY NERVE."
"Inferna—"
"NO SPEECHES. NO GOODBYES. JUST... DO IT."
I raised my blade. The netherite sword that had killed billions of mobs, that had served me for decades, that had been with me through everything.
"I'm sorry," I said.
"DON'T BE. I'M NOT."
I struck.
---
THE CORRUPTION.
Her death triggered immediately.
The enchantments embedded in her body—the hundreds of experimental magics, the corruptions, the foreign code—they all activated at once.
Reality SCREAMED.
I felt it in my bones—the fabric of existence tearing, warping, breaking. The game's code tried to process what had happened and couldn't. The rules that had governed this world for a thousand years collapsed.
The End cracked.
The void swirled with colors that shouldn't exist—blue and gold and white, showing through from somewhere else.
A portal.
---
THE DOOR.
It wasn't like any portal I'd seen before. Not Nether purple, not End white. This was something new—a tear in reality leading to another world entirely.
The world I'd been trying to reach for a millennium.
I looked back at Inferna's body, lying broken on the obsidian platform.
"Thank you," I said. "For everything."
I didn't know if she could hear me. I didn't know if anything remained of her consciousness after death. But I said it anyway.
Then I turned toward the portal and ran.
---
THE FALL.
I jumped.
Into the tear in reality. Into the impossible colors. Into whatever lay beyond.
The Minecraft world—the world that had trapped me for a thousand years—fell away behind me.
I was falling through dimensions, through realities, through something that had no name.
And then—
Light.
Blue sky. Real sky, not blocky, not pixelated.
Wind. Real wind, carrying the smell of smoke and fire.
Sound. Explosions. Screams. The chaos of battle.
I crashed into concrete.
Real concrete. Not blocks—continuous, unbroken surface.
I looked at my hands.
Fingers. Knuckles. Skin.
Human.
I was human again.
---
THE NEW WORLD.
I stood slowly, my damaged armor absorbing the impact. Around me—
War.
Flying machines pouring from a massive portal in the sky. Aliens—actual aliens—attacking everything in sight. Buildings burning. People screaming.
And in the chaos, I saw figures fighting back.
A man in a red metal suit, flying. A man with a shield, red-white-and-blue. A blonde man with a hammer, calling lightning. A giant green figure, smashing everything in its path.
Heroes.
This world had heroes.
And right now, they were losing.
I drew my sword—the same netherite blade that had killed Inferna, that had killed billions before her.
The enchantments still worked. [Sharpness], [Fire Aspect], the custom modifications—they all hummed with power.
I smiled behind my helmet.
After a thousand years of being the only fighter in a world of NPCs...
I finally had allies.
"Let's see what this world can do," I said.
And I flew into battle.