From the shadows to my side, a demon lunged at me, its razor-sharp fangs dripping with vile drool and its claws ready to tear me to shreds. Before it could reach me, Darkness caught it in midair, hurtling the demonic entity into the widening abyss.

As a second demon charged toward me with fury burning in its eyes, Storm twirled her finger from afar, summoning a fierce wind. The creature lifted off the ground and was sent flying through the air with an unbridled force. Storm raced to my side without hesitation, her eyes scanning me intensely.

“Are you okay?” she asked, the words spilling from her lips.

“Yeah… yeah. I think so,” I said, wrapping my hand around the medallion as if begging it for guidance.

Nightmare joined Darkness to fight off the advancing demons and Light Beings who, in an instant, had turned their focus to me. They had one thing on their minds and it no longer was fighting one another. All they wanted was to take the artifacts from me to have absolute dominion over the realms.

To me, the artifacts were useless, likely because I was just a human who didn’t know how to use them properly. When the medallion had helped me in the past, it wasn’t because I knew what I was doing… it had chosen on its own to help me.

I twisted violently as an arctic shiver slithered like a spider across the side of my neck. A demon with massive square pupils tugged at the necklace as it grinned. Reacting with primal instinct, I jerked my arm back before forcefully thrusting my elbow into the demon’s grotesque face. The impact sent it reeling, stumbling backward several feet as its smile turned into a distorted mask of pain.

Storm took two giant strides, picking the creature up by the back of his neck with a violent grip. She puffed out her cheeks and blew the monster away as if it were nothing more than an evil bubble. Her breaths came rapidly as she locked eyes with me.

“They’re coming too fast,” she said seconds before throwing her fist into the face of a thin Light Being. “You need to get out of here.”

“Where should I go?” I asked, my eyes darting around, searching for safety.

Chaos raged in every conceivable direction for as far as I could see. Amidst the tumult, my gaze landed on Noah and The Oracle’s deceased bodies.

Overwhelmed by the sheer magnitude of death, destruction, and despair, I took a step closer to the abyss. If it was all ending, what was the point of seeing all of it crumble?

With the tremors challenging me, I balanced on the edge, peering down into the bottomless pit. They all wanted me… the violence and destruction wouldn’t stop until I was out of the picture. Perhaps that was what The Oracle was trying to tell me before Noah murdered her.

Darkness’s eyes widened in horror as he saw me precariously teetering on the edge of the abyss. Agony twisted his features as he desperately reached out his hands from over twenty feet away.

An anguished cry erupted from between his lips, “Nooo!”

Chapter

Thirty-One

ALight Being grabbed Darkness’s arm, wrenching it with merciless force in the opposite direction until it snapped. The limp appendage hung grotesquely at his side as he sprinted toward me.

“Stop!” I screamed, but every single creature continued their relentless pursuit.

Storm and Nightmare fended them off with frenetic speed, straining to repel the ceaseless onslaught. Their efforts proved insurmountable as the creatures piled on top of them, pulling them to the ground.

Blinding light beams crashed into them while wicked fangs hungrily sank into their flesh. Honor was on the ground, staring at me as blood leaked from the corner of his mouth.

I wasn’t afraid of the creatures.

I wasn’t afraid of dying.

But I was terrified of what would happen to my Aunt Joyce and the rest of the world if I didn’t try something.

With a defiant breath, I tore the necklace from my neck, launching it with as much force as I could muster into the gaping abyss. A palpable wave of shock rippled through the pursuing horde.

Some of the creatures stopped their advance, wailing in agony as if I’d ripped out their hearts with my bare hands. Others, consumed by an overwhelming compulsion to seize the coveted artifact, plunged into the pit, chasing after it.

Methodically, I tore each artifact from my body, casting them one by one into the ominous void below. As my grasp tightened around the last artifact — the medallion — the clasp loosened effortlessly. It throbbed a single warm beat before turning impossibly frigid.

“Thank you and goodbye,” I said before sacrificing it to the hole.

With my arms extended at my sides, I slowly turned to face the hole. Darkness wrapped his good arm around me and pulled me back away from the edge.

“What are you doing? Open your eyes, Remy! Look around!” Darkness shouted, the urgency in his voice cascading like a waterfall.

I blinked several times, my eyes tracing the rapid ascent of the Light Being into the dark clouds and disappearing from sight. The demons and evil creatures skulked away, slithering back into the shadows as if they’d never been there at all.

“You did it, Remy,” Darkness said, pulling me against his body before kissing the top of my head. “T-this is amazing. You did it. You saved us all.”

“I destroyed them,” I said, looking back toward the cracked ground, which seemed to be slowly shifting back into place. “They’re gone forever. I… I couldn’t think straight. I didn’t know what to do.”

Darkness’s brow furrowed. “I thought you were going to jump in after them.”

“I was,” I said, holding him tightly. “I would have done anything to stop the fighting. The last thing I wanted was anything to happen to anyone else.”

When I was young, I’d hidden from death when it came looking for me and my family. But I was done hiding. I’d bravely faced it head-on and somehow managed to stop the apocalypse from destroying everything and everyone.

“That must have been what The Oracle was trying to tell you,” Darkness said with a small laugh. “This… this must have been your purpose.”

I frowned. “If my purpose was to destroy the artifacts, I wish I would have done it sooner, and The Oracle and Noah would still be alive. Not to mention the countless others that were inadvertently killed before and during the war.”

“You didn’t know, Remy. There wasn’t anything you could have done until it was time to do it,” Darkness said, looking into my eyes. “You did amazing.”

“I destroyed powerful artifacts that everyone cherished, including you,” I uttered with a frown.

“Artifacts that were not meant for this realm or any of the others. No one deserved them. I wouldn’t have been able to do what you’ve done. If it had been up to me, the apocalypse would have come, and everything would be gone, same for any of us. That is why it had to be you,” Darkness said, turning as Nightmare rolled to his side and coughed up blood.

I dashed to his side, placing my hand on his shoulder. Nightmare’s eyes landed on mine, and a huge smile curled his lips.

“Great work, sis,” Nightmare said.

“We need to get you help,” I said, glancing at Darkness’s dangling arm. “You too. Where is Storm?”

“Right here,” she said, limping awkwardly as she dragged her left leg along. “Honor’s still breathing.” She placed her hand on my shoulder and squeezed. “You did it. You restored balance as you were intended to do. I’m proud to call you my sister.”

It had taken hours, but the druid patched up and nursed Storm, Nightmare, Honor, and Darkness all back to health with the help of tiny sprites. They worked day and night applying glittering lotions, slick balms, and sparkling creams while preparing odd concoctions to ingest.

They all stayed at Darkness’s house while healing as I wandered around aimlessly, trying to find a way to help. Storm said it helped just having me around her, but I hadn’t been able to tell if she was being sincere or sarcastic.

Before they left, Storm, Nightmare, and Honor thanked me repeatedly for restoring Balance to all of the realms. They made plans with Darkness to discuss how we could work together to return the Between to the great have it had once been.

After they were gone, it was just Darkness and me in his big, empty house. I woke up in his enormous bed, with a beam of light coming through the window.