"My love, you're finally free."

Those were his last words to the princess before she killed him. No, liberated herself.

It's what had to happen. After everything he caused, his heinous actions that had caused so much pain, grief, the hundreds of lives he'd ended just because he was too blind from his self-hatred...

Death is all that was left for him.

Her swinging the key and bashing it into his head was the biggest mercy anyone could have done. To both him and herself. He couldn't live anymore, not after what he's done. And with him gone, she can move on. Live without the suffering he had started.

Black. Like the vessel he'd been stuck in for so long. That's all he saw after the hit.

Then... He suddenly woke up.

Is this Hell? He knew if there was the afterlife, he certainly wouldn't be going to Heaven, so...

But as his vision cleared, he had to blink multiple times just to be sure. He was still at the bottom of that cliff. Still himself, still... Alive.

But she had killed him! He- he saw it himself, and it was supposed to happen. How could this be?

There was still some of the apparent black goo from his Nowhere King form that was still piddling around under him. He could feel a bit seeping out from his mouth too, but he was far too shocked to wipe it away.

Why isn't he dead? He should be dead.

He has to die.

And yet he was sitting there, as alive as ever. At the bottom of an empty, rocky cliff.

The ground stretched out in a rough sprawl of sun-baked rock and dust, with jagged stones jut out at odd angles, casting short, stubborn shadows in the harsh light. Like a wasteland decimated by war. One which he caused.

The air feels dry and heavy, carrying the faint scent of barren earth. The towering cliff walls rise around the space in layered shades of black, their surfaces carved by time, making the whole place feel vast, silent, and almost forgotten.

"Why... Why am I...?" The elktaur could only mutter to himself, looking down at his bare self with uncertainty and horror. He was supposed to be gone, and yet here he sat.