— "So this is how it all ends,"— muttered the hazy blue figure, surrounded by fire and chaos, as she watched the world colpse and crumble.

  — "How hard I fought to get to this moment. It's so sad, yet iable. It seems I failed in the end."— Those words echoed ihoughts, a mix nation and bitterness.— "It shouldn't surprise me. So many brilliant geniuses before me have tried and failed."

  As everything crumbled around her, she turned her gaze to the ter of all that destru: the Fe of Creation. It was the crystallization of aire world's efforts, a st desperate attempt to save Alfia's pn. Built to recreate a universe in colpse, the Fe was supposed to be the fme of rebirth, but it had failed long before her arrival. After all, there was nothio save. All that was left of Alfia's glorious world were ruins and her.

  "A huhousand years ago, at the height of the world, they believed they were entering a new era, when in fact it was the st glimmer before death. It was ironic how, just at the st breath, all civilizations, races, and anizations came together to create this st hope. The Fe was supposed to ignite and bring redemption. But instead, it brought disappoi." She recalled the signs of the end: the massive loss of mana, the radical areme ge in the enviro, and the chaos in the ws that goverhe world. The destru was relentless. Humans perished first, followed by other races. Only the vampires, with their durable and regeive physiques, survived the age—aually, even they succumbed. She was the st. Born among the ruins, where the Fe's entire operation had once beeered. There was little to do but survive. In her moments of rest, she read the remnants of lost knowledge. It took her two hundred years to finish reading it all. At one point, she found what seemed to be the cause of the Fe's failure. She gathered her strength ahrough near-death situations to reach the heart of the mae. She corrected the error and tried to activate it. Nothing happened.

  As the "sky" seemed to shatter and the st breath of the universe annouhe end, she allowed herself a moment of defeat. She sat in front of the Fe ahe tears fall. "I was foolish. How did I think I could achieve what thousands could not?"

  It was at that moment that something ged. A growi emanated from the Fe. When she looked up, she saw a fme emerge from withiifact. It was unlike anything she had ever seen before. It was the Fire of Desotion, a fme that seemed to e the void around it. She felt the devastating and creative energy pulsing, as if the universe was whispering to her that this was the moment.

  A moment of crity illuminated her mind. The meaning of everything came to light.

  'Life ah... Creation demands the sacrifice of the st spark of life. I am the st, and therefore the key.' — Her heart sank, but resolve shone in her eyes.

  With slow steps, she approached the Fe, feeling the heat of the Fire of Desotion grow. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. — "If I am the st fme of life, burn withihe strength to be reborn."

  Without hesitation, she threw herself into the Fe. The fme roared around her, but it did not e. It transformed. The energy of life ah merged in a single moment, and the universe reacted. Absolute emptiness gave way to a glow, like stars emerging from nothingness.

  The fmes that ed Tang Li were both hot and unbearable. Each spark seemed to carry fragments of the desotion of the old world, as well as the hope of a new beginning. At first, she believed she was beiroyed, obliterated along with the world she had tried to save. But then something ged.

  Within the fmes, she began to feel. Not just pain, but every moment of her existence—every victory and failure, every smile and tear. It was as if the universe, in its infinite wisdom, was carving away at her soul, ripping out the pieces that were unworthy of tinuing and reinf what was unbreakable. The sensation was excruciating, as if she were being dismantled and rebuilt over and ain.

  'Is this the end?'— she thought, as a silent voiside her whispered, 'No. This is the beginning.'

  Her body was no more, but her esseruggled to remain whole. She felt as if the fmes were trying to devour her, but at the same time, something in them reized her. It was a stant battle between giving in to nothingness aing to maintain her identity. With eaent, it felt like another piece of her was shattering, and the pain was almost unbearable.

  Tang Li bit into her own sciousness, an invisible force she barely uood. 'I have survived the end of a world. I will not fall apart now.'

  And so, each wave of pain made her soul more solid, more pure. As her essence merged with the fmes, an artifact began to take shape. First, she saw the structure of a delicate silver object, like a moon fed from metal. It seemed to be molded directly from her soul, glowing with ahereal hue, half silver, half dark. When the object was finally plete, Tang Li felt her e to it as if it were aension of herself. It was the Lunar Umbrel, a symbol of destru ah.

  But the process was far from over. The fmes now turo her esserying to fuse her soul to the umbrel. Tang Li screamed, or at least she thought she was screaming, but no sound echoed in the void she was trapped in. Every fiber of her bei like it was about to unravel. It was a stant struggle not to succumb.

  A voice, perhaps her own, perhaps something greater, echoed in the void:

  — "You are the link. What ects the end to the beginning. Persevere, or all will be lost."

  With every shred of her strength, Tang Li resisted. It was endless suffering, but she khat giving in would mean losing everything. The umbrel glowed brightly, refleg her indomitable spirit, until finally, the fmes extinguished.

  When it was all over, Tang Li hovered in an unknown space. Her soul now exuded an aura of nobility and mystery, like a bea born from the ashes of her universe. The umbrel floated beside her, a symbol of who she was and what she had sacrificed.

  But before she could fully prehend what had happened, her soul was sucked in by an invisible force, drawn to a distant pce. It was a calling, a destiny she did not yet uand. The void around her whispered secrets, promises of power, dangers, and an uain future.

  — 'I still exist,' — she thought, feeling strength reborn within her. — 'And if I do, I will tio fight.-'— That was her st thought before drowsiook over her and she passed out..

  Aug_N7052