"I gave him what he wanted." Alex didn’t let the question hang before answering, the words arriving a moment after Regrim finished speaking, clean and unhurried.

He paused for a moment and then added. "But since none of you know what that is, I’ll explain it." He let his gaze move across the twelve leaders before continuing.

"Ahrimon, in your eyes, earned a legacy that turned him into a madman. That same legacy also earned him the enmity of the laws themselves, the fundamental architecture of existence rejecting him so completely that he cannot leave the Veil that covers the Demon Continent. Cannot step outside it, cannot exist beyond its borders, without inviting a death penalty."

He paused, letting that settle.

"That same corruption made him mad enough, or perhaps simply desperate enough, to conspire against his own people. Against his own brother, and eventually to kill him." A ripple moved through the seated leaders, subtle but unmistakable.

"Ahrimon made you believe the reason he remained still for seven decades was simple recovery, from the injuries incurred in his battle against Ahura, the Dragon King, and the First Guardian. Time spent rebuilding his strength, his armies, while this Domain’s own strength dwindled around him, waiting for the right moment."

Alex looked around the throne room.

Faces dropped, and eyes widened. The particular quality of realization moved through a room full of people who had spent decades circling an uncertain answer and were only now, finally, being handed the full shape of it.

It was an insult to even consider that the leaders present hadn’t suspected something more lay beneath Ahrimon’s actions.

The Guardians and the clan leaders were among the strongest and wisest minds this world had produced across centuries of survival, so believing they had simply accepted recovery and preparation as the whole of the explanation would have meant believing them naive in a way none of them had ever been.

Their suspicion had hardened into certainty the moment Ahrimon broke his silence entirely, orchestrating an invasion of the Human Continent for the sole apparent purpose of meeting Alex, and then sparing him without so much as a scratch.

It would have been equally foolish to dismiss that they didn’t see the timing of it all, Ahrimon stirring into motion in the precise window after Alex was chosen as Domain Ruler, making it apparent that the two events were connected by something more than coincidence.

All of it had only ever added weight to the same unanswered question that plagued their minds. What did Ahrimon actually want?

"Ahrimon needs me," Alex said. He let the words settle for a long moment and added. "But not in the way any of you think."

Eyebrows rose across the chamber, as frowns deepened. The confusion was visible and unhidden, the room clearly expecting something specific, something that only a Domain Ruler could provide him.

"Ahrimon does not need a Domain Ruler for the gifts that status offers." Alex’s voice stayed level, deliberate. "He has no use for the Ruler Shop. No interest in acquiring some cure for the ailment that plagues him."

He let that land before continuing.

"He needs me... A Domain Ruler." He repeated it, giving the words room to be understood properly this time. "Ahrimon needs an individual who is a Zenith Mortal, someone who has reached the absolute ceiling of every stage available to a mortal soul."

"Mortal Rank. Elementalist. Elemental Ruler. Pushed each one to its uppermost limit." He paused. "Only a Domain Ruler is destined to reach that particular height."

The room was utterly still now, every eye fixed on him.

"Ahrimon carries a Devourer’s Legacy," Alex continued. "And the only path available to him for ascension, the only way past the ceiling that traps him, is to devour a Zenith Mortal. To take that mortal’s gifts, of being recognized by the cosmos itself, and make them his own."

"Doing so would break the curse that makes him an abomination the laws themselves refuse to acknowledge. It would let him shatter the ceiling of Ninth Rank entirely." A final pause, deliberate and heavy. "And ascend to the cosmos beyond."

The silence that followed was suffocating.

Heads dropped across the chamber, under the sheer weight of comprehension, the particular heaviness of finally understanding something that had haunted an entire Domain for seven decades and finding the answer far worse, and far more personal, than anything they had allowed themselves to imagine.

Eyes went wide and stayed that way.

Alex let them sit with it.

He let them work through everything the revelation implied, not just what Ahrimon wanted, but what it meant that Alex himself was the one thing standing between the Demon King and an ascension that would free him of his acursed chain.

He let them arrive, on their own, at the quiet and terrible understanding of exactly how important the ascension held to Ahrimon and, by extension, what he would be willing to do to achieve it.

And beneath all of it, a smaller mercy, the understanding that Ahura, whatever else his failures had been, whatever inheritance of crisis and decline he had left behind him, had not ended his reign by sacrificing this Domain to save his brother. That would have been the worse outcome.

The unforgivable one. Instead, Ahura had died resisting, had died trying, had left behind a mess that was survivable rather than a betrayal that would have been permanent, something that they had believed he had done in his love for his brother.

Alex gave them nearly a full minute, silent, unhurried, letting the truth settle into whatever shape it needed to settle into before anyone in the room would be ready to speak again.

Then he continued.

"I, for one, simply told Ahrimon to stay still," Alex said it plainly, almost casually, the weight of the threat behind it carried entirely in the calm of his delivery rather than in any volume or heat. "Or I would not be returning to this world at all."

He let the implications of that settle before continuing.

"Which would mean he would be dying, slowly, over time, and this also means with no new Domain Ruler positioned to replace me anytime soon, Ahrimon would simply go mad and unleash destruction across both worlds. At minimum, he would try to destroy mine, and consume the Ancient World in its entirety."

He looked around the chamber, letting his eyes find each face in turn.

"As you can see, there is a certain irony to our situation." The smile that touched his mouth was calm, almost rueful. "I am Ahrimon’s weakness, but by the same measure, the two worlds are mine. He could unleash destruction and death across all of it, indefinitely, until I finally accept his terms."

A pause.

"I don’t intend to see that day arrive. Which is why, for now, the plan is to face that monster in five years." His finger tapped once against the armrest of the throne, a small, idle motion that carried none of the gravity of what he was describing. "It will almost certainly take place on the Demon Continent, and it will be done without outside help."

The silence that followed carried a different weight than before, heavier, closer to the bone.

"But you, Domain Ruler..." Guardian Varon’s voice came out slower than usual, the question sitting visibly unfinished, his ancient mind clearly working through the implications even as he tried to find a way to ask what he already suspected the answer to.

"I am immortal?" Alex finished for him. Varon’s silence was answer enough that he had guessed correctly.

"Well." Alex’s voice carried no drama in it. "I won’t be immortal when I face Ahrimon."

The room absorbed that slowly, as eyes grew uncertain before shock filled them completely.

"You all know this body is an avatar. A form that allows me entry into your world, created by Zero, in service of goals that are entirely his own." Alex spread his hands slightly. "Because of that, I cannot fully command the laws of this world, and by extension, I am considerably weaker than the strength I should, by rights, actually wield."

He let that land.

"To resolve that, I will be merging fully with this body within the next few years. The same is true of every player, eventually, though for most, that stage comes much later than it will for me."

A pause, deliberate and heavy.

"Which also means my immortality goes with it. When I face Ahrimon, it will be, in every sense that matters, a genuine battle for my life." The reaction moved through the chamber like something physical.

Every face present darkened at once, not with the controlled solemnity of leaders absorbing difficult strategic information, but with something rawer beneath it.

Telarion’s ancient eyes narrowed, the ember-colored scales along his jaw shifting as something tightened in him. Bellatrix’s composed grace cracked at its edges, her crimson eyes settling on him with fear filling them. The giant representative’s massive shoulders dropped, the posture of someone absorbing a blow. Even Regrim’s hollow sockets seemed to dim, the cold purple light within them flickering lower, as if some of its usual certainty had gone out of it.

The realization hung in the room, unspoken but shared by every soul present.

Their entire future, the survival of this Domain, the fate of the world rested on a single life. A life that would, when it mattered, be as fragile and finite as any of theirs.

"Now," he said, before anyone could give voice to what was clearly building in the room, "I believe there is only one major question remaining."

He looked around at them, unhurried.

"How can I kill a Sin Monarch, and walk away having paid nothing more than fatigue and some pain as the price?" He said, and barely anyone reacted, the weight of previous truth too heavy to pass away so quickly.

"It’s a bit complicated," Alex said, his tone shifting into something almost nonchalant, at odds with the gravity of everything that had come before it. "But I’ll simplify it as best I can."

"It requires me to grant control to an Ancient being, one whose strength operates on a cosmic scale, and because of the nature of that arrangement, I can only make use of it sparingly."