Danny's entire body trembled as he forced himself to stand, the wind slashing across his battered frame like icy blades. Blood trickled from the corner of his cracked lips, and his right hand clenched the broken fragment of the Fate Key so tightly that fresh blood dripped between his fingers.
His eyes, clouded with pain and exhaustion, lifted toward the heavens—just as the colossal golden eye fully opened above the fractured sky.
Claire's voice broke through the roaring chaos, sharp and desperate.
"Danny, don't do this! There must be another way!"
But Danny only turned his head slightly, forcing a pained but peaceful smile.
"There isn't… Not this time."
A storm of regret, love, and unbearable sorrow crashed through his chest.
He had fought fate, broken chains, defied ancient powers—yet, in this final moment, it all came down to the oldest choice of all: Sacrifice or surrender.
His heart screamed to run back to her, to hold her and promise that everything would be alright.
But deep down… he knew.
He had to become the final chain broken—the last debt paid in full.
Above them, the sky no longer looked like a sky—it resembled a cracked obsidian mirror, bleeding golden light from every fracture, as if the universe itself was on the brink of shattering into nothingness.
The air burned with the scent of endings, tasting like smoke and forgotten prayers.
And through the towering rift, the monstrous silhouette of the True Collector emerged—its form so vast it blotted out the dying stars, a being composed entirely of contracts forged from the screams of all who had ever fallen to fate.
With one final breath, Danny raised the broken Fate Key above his heart.
"I choose freedom… even if it costs me everything."
The golden eye in the sky widened, and just as the True Collector reached down with a clawed hand large enough to crush the earth—
Danny drove the key straight into his own chest.
A blinding explosion of pure white light consumed everything.
And then…
Silence.
Did Danny succeed?
Or did the world fall with him?
🎬 [End of Chapter 26 – Sacrifice or Salvation?]