Rebirth: Necromancer's Ascenscion
Chapter 185: The Demon...Is Dead.

The sky over Esgard had turned into a noose.

The Crown of the Forgotten still glowed with dying embers, flickering shadows straining against the golden storm Mark wielded like a god's hammer.

The air inside Ian's domain crackled, thick with death magic—but it wasn't enough.

Not anymore.

They fought like men possessed.

Eli roared as he spun through three strikes, his red-marked blade howling as it clashed with Mark's golden halberd. Each collision sent out shockwaves that splintered towers and shattered wardstones.

Ian followed behind, a blur of soulflame and fury, his blade Judgement now cracked along the edge.

It didn't matter.

He struck again. Again. Again.

Soulbound swarmed from the mist—Havoc lunged with spectral claws while Fang hurled a spear of voidlight from above.

And Mark—

Mark stood untouched.

Wounded, yes. Blood ran down his ribs. His lip was split. The corner of one brow burned where Eli's fire had landed true.

But his eyes—his eyes burned with that same calm certainty. Not rage. Not hatred.

Pity.

Ian screamed as he drove his dagger toward Mark's throat—one of the Vowbreakers, pulsing with soul residue from over a dozen dead champions.

Mark caught it midair.

With two fingers.

He twisted.

Ian stumbled.

And then Mark slammed a glowing fist into Ian's chest. Ribs cracked. Air fled his lungs. The force hurled him backward across the broken street, through a collapsed wall and into what had once been a noble courtyard.

Blood filled Ian's mouth.

Eli didn't scream.

He moved.

Lightning surged from his legs as he blurred toward Mark in a single heartbeat, red eyes flaring as he swung his curved blade in a wide, descending arc.

Mark met him with one hand.

The impact detonated the ground beneath them—dust and blood and broken runes exploding in every direction.

But when it cleared—

Eli was still.

His sword trembled in his grasp. His jaw clenched.

And then—

The glow vanished from his eyes.

A soft crack echoed in the stillness.

Mark's hand was buried in Eli's side.

A hole burned clean through the Kingkiller's abdomen, dripping red.

"Ah," Eli rasped, coughing blood. "Fuck."

Mark leaned close, voice low and clinical.

"You were terrifying once," he said. "You should've stayed a legend."

Then he ripped his hand free.

Eli collapsed, unmoving.

Ian forced himself up, hands shaking.

"No…"

Mark stepped forward.

No triumph in his expression. Only inevitability.

"You fought well," he said. "But this was always the end."

He raised the golden blade—shaped like a fragment of the sun itself, glowing with the weight of judgment.

Ian couldn't move.

His limbs felt distant. The world tilted. Soulbound flickered and died around him, unable to hold shape anymore. Havoc roared one last time before fading into ash.

"Goodbye, Ian."

Then—

A voice.

Clear.

Soft.

Commanding.

"You've done enough."

The light stilled.

Mark turned slowly.

Velrosa Lionarde stood at the edge of the ruined courtyard.

She wore no armor. No defense. No illusions of war. Just a flowing dress, blood-stained at the hem from the bodies she'd passed to reach this place.

And her eyes.

Those haunting blue eyes—moonfire made human—locked onto Mark's.

"Doesn't this satisfy?" she asked. "You've broken the city. You've proven your point. He's lost. Just please...don't kill him."

Mark's brows drew together, but he didn't strike.

Instead, he turned to Ian.

Looked down at the broken form, gasping in blood and fire and exhaustion.

He stepped closer.

"You want me to kill him?" he asked, but not to her. To himself. To the voice in his mind. "You want a clean ending?"

He lowered his blade a little.

Then smiled.

"Why bother?"

He turned his gaze on Ian again, and his words cut deeper than any sword.

"Let him live."

Ian's heart thundered.

Mark's voice softened, laced with cruel clarity.

"Let him crawl through the ashes knowing he was never enough. That no matter the power he stole, no matter the souls he bound, or the name he wore—he couldn't keep anything. Couldn't achieve anything. Couldn't protect anything."

Then—he turned to Velrosa.

And in a single motion—

Pierced her heart.

The golden blade slid cleanly through her chest.

Her breath caught.

Blood sprayed once, then slowed to a trickle that soaked the silk of her dress. The fabric darkened instantly.

Velrosa's lips parted as if to speak, but no sound came.

Only a faint exhale.

Her hands rose… weak… trembling.

And then—Ian was there.

He didn't remember moving.

Didn't remember standing.

One moment he was broken on the ground.

The next—she was in his arms.

The light from the domain shimmered again, but it felt distant. Dying.

Her head rested against his shoulder, and her blood—so warm, so terribly warm—flowed down the front of his chest.

"Vel—"

He couldn't finish her name.

Her eyes found his.

Still bright. Still alive somehow.

"Ian," she whispered.

And smiled.

She was always good at that. Even when the world was burning.

Even when she was dying.

Then her breath shuddered.

And stopped.

His grip tightened, but she didn't move.

Didn't blink.

Didn't breathe.

Mark stepped back, blade dripping red.

"Now," he said quietly, "he'll understand."

Ian's hands shook around her broken body. His hair fell across his face. He didn't look up. Didn't speak.

Mark stared at him one last time.

"You've always been pathetic," he said.

And then—

He vanished.

No sound. No flash of light. No trace of mana.

Just gone.

Leaving Ian kneeling in a crater of ruin and dead ash, the corpse of his closest enemy—the woman who had dragged him out of the pit as a slave and named him champion for her selfish cause—held close in his arms.

And the worst part?

She didn't die by his hands.

She didn't die as they had planned. As fate had promised.

There was no inevitable betrayal.

No last battle between them.

No final lie that gave him closure.

There was only this—

A hollow stillness.

A stolen ending.

And the weight of a crown that had meant nothing in the end.

Ian buried his face in her blood-matted hair.

His shoulders didn't shake.

There were no tears left to cry.

Only silence.

And the promise of what would come next.