The reunion in the canyon was a quiet, profound moment, but as Damien looked past his battered students and his newly rescued parents, his mismatched eyes one a void of pitch-black shadow, the other a blazing, tyrannical gold settled on the thousands of Imperial Knights.

They lay unconscious on the jagged obsidian floor, their minds forcibly shut down by the crushing weight of his 8th-Order [King’s Mantle].

Lord Pythios was among them, his core shattered, tossed aside like broken trash.

Damien’s smile slowly faded beneath his elegant silver half-mask.

"They are sleeping deeply," Elizabeth Voss noted, stepping up beside her son. The Empress of Deceit looked at the sea of Central Empire armor, her silver-white hair catching the faint light.

"But they will wake eventually. What do you plan to do with them, Damien?"

"I planned to leave them as a message," Damien murmured, his voice turning cold, analytical.

"But the board has changed. Emperor Aurelius is paranoid. If his elite vanguards return to the Central Capital and report that ’Zero’ has returned from the Abyss as an 8th-Order... he won’t just send an army. He’ll probably mobilize all his forces before we are fully prepared [5]."

Damien stepped forward, his dark leather boots crunching softly against the flash-cooled obsidian.

"I need time to consolidate our forces. And I cannot afford Aurelius knowing that I have returned to the surface."

Alaric, Elena, and Lukas watched from the dirt, still catching their breath.

They saw their Teacher raise his right hand toward the canyon floor.

He called upon the flawless, seamless fusion of his Eclipse Cor.

"To ensure a secret remains a secret," Damien whispered, his cross-shaped pupils flaring with absolute, metaphysical tyranny.

"You erase the witnesses."

[Eclipse Art: Heaven’s Palm]

Damien simply brought his hand down, pressing his open palm toward the earth.

There was no blinding explosion. There was no deafening roar of fire or crack of lightning. It was a localized, conceptual erasure.

The absolute gravity of the Hollow King’s Shadow combined with the obliterating density of the Golden Dragon Aura descended upon the canyon in the exact shape of a colossal hand [9].

FWUMP.

The sound was hollow, like a massive vacuum pulling the air out of the world.

Where thousands of elite Imperial Knights and Lord Pythios had been lying just a millisecond prior, there was nothing. No blood. No shattered armor. No bones. The entire army had been atomized, pressed into absolute nothingness.

All that remained was a smooth, flawless crater stamped into the earth a giant, terrifying palm print fifty meters wide and ten feet deep, etched permanently into the bedrock.

Lukas swallowed hard, staring at the empty, smoking handprint. Alaric gripped the hilt of the Sword of Heroes, his grey eyes wide with sheer, unadulterated awe. Their Teacher hadn’t just defeated an army; he had wiped them from the canvas of reality like a mistake on a chalkboard.

Isabelle, standing loyally at Damien’s right side, simply smiled, her ruby-red eyes glowing with absolute reverence beneath her obsidian horns.

Theron Voss crossed his massive arms, his deep blue eyes gleaming as he let out a booming, rumbling laugh

"You’ve grown ruthless, son. You didn’t even leave them a scrap of iron to be buried in."

"The world demanded it, Dad," Damien said, lowering his hand and turning back to his parents. The cold aura of the Greedy King receded, replaced by the weary but relieved posture of a son who had finally found his family.

"A lot has happened while you were trapped in Layer 9," Damien continued, his tone sobering.

"I wish I could welcome you back to the Voss Manor, but... there is no manor. After the Academy Invasion, Emperor Aurelius declared me an Enemy of Existence and purged anyone connected to our name."

Elizabeth’s serene expression faltered slightly. Theron’s laughter died in his throat.

"Aurelius," Theron growled, his voice instantly dropping the temperature of the canyon. He clenched his fists, remembering the ambush orchestrated by the Second Prince and the Obsidian Sea cultists twenty-eight years ago that had started this entire nightmare [13]. "They have needed to pay for their treachery for a very long time."

"They will," Damien raised a hand, stopping his father’s rising wrath.

"But we need our forces. Dad, the contingency you set up years ago... it worked."

Theron’s eyes widened slightly, and a proud smirk touched his lips. "Elder Magnus."

"Yes," Damien smiled. "Alfred tracked the Hawk Faction to the Eastern Wastelands]. The harsh environment forced them to evolve. They perfected a technique called ’Mana-Breaking’. Alfred managed to reconnect with them, and they have been rebuilding our forces in secret, waiting for the signal to return."

Theron let out a booming laugh, profoundly satisfied. "Magnus... I knew sending that stubborn old warhorse away was the right move. We give the signal, then. We’ll march back to the Dragon Empire, we burn the Second Prince’s faction to the ground, and we reclaim our seat as the Shadow of the Empire!"

"No," Damien said softly.

Theron and Elizabeth both paused, looking at their son in surprise.

Damien stepped forward, his silver half-mask glinting. He looked at his parents, then at the sprawling, war-torn continent of Elias beyond the canyon.

"We are not reclaiming our seat, Dad," Damien stated, his voice filled with the absolute, uncompromising ambition

"The era of the Voss family serving as the ’Shadow’ behind a throne is over. The Dragon Emperor allowed our family to be hunted. They proved they are unworthy of our loyalty."

Damien’s mismatched eyes blazed. "I don’t want to serve the Dragon Empire. I want to take it over."

The sheer audacity of the statement hung in the cold air.

"While Emperor Aurelius and the Central Empire are blindly searching for ghosts and unaware that I have returned," Damien explained, his tactical mind racing,

"We have a window. We will strike the Dragon Empire swiftly, decapitate its corrupt leadership, and seize the throne. We will use their lands, their resources, and their armies to grow our forces. By the time anyone realizes what has happened, we won’t just be a rogue family... we will be a sovereign superpower."

Elizabeth looked at her son, her silver-white hair blowing in the wind.

She saw the boy she had once rocked in a crib, now standing as a King capable of shifting the fate of the world. A beautiful, dangerous smile spread across her face.

"A coup," Elizabeth murmured. "I must admit, it sounds much more entertaining than being trapped in that abyss."

"It requires coordination," Damien said, looking down at Alaric, Elena, and Lukas.

"We have the Black Thread’s wealth, the Valkyries under Lyra, the Beast Tribes under Leona, and Elder Magnus’s forces. But we need to assemble the board before we strike."

Damien turned his gaze toward the southern horizon.

"We are heading to Ironforge," Damien declared.

"King Durin and Hephaestus are my closest allies, and their city is the safest stronghold on the continent. We will rendezvous with Alfred and the rest of my Generals there. That is where we will forge the plan to steal an Empire."

Alaric hoisted his massive sword onto his shoulder, his exhaustion replaced by a fierce, burning loyalty. "Lead the way, Professor."

Damien reached into his coat and activated his communication crystal, setting the coordinates. He looked back at the giant, empty handprint in the earth, and then toward the future.

"Let’s go home."