The familiar car overturned on the road, as if it had an accident on the way to the cathedral, and her uncle was obviously in the car - Vanna's mind, which had been a little dazed due to fatigue, tensed up at this moment, and she rushed to the side of the car in almost the blink of an eye.

Then, she suddenly noticed that the arm outside the car window was slightly trembling, and the blood-soaked palm seemed to be slightly raised as she approached.

Uncle is still alive!

Vanna reacted instantly, and rushed forward to steady the car with one hand, and broke the deformed door frame with the other hand. Then she leaned in to prop up the deformed internal structure while checking Dante's injuries. She rescued her uncle from the car while trying not to cause secondary injuries, and then immediately cast her magic, and with the little energy she had left, she called upon the moist sea breeze, trying to bring life back to Dante's body who had already lost consciousness.

The almost suffocating hot wind was still raging in the streets. The scorching ashes and falling sparks made the city-state look like purgatory. Vanna stretched out the power of protection around her, resisting the deadly environment around her with fierce pressure. She laid Dante flat on the ground, and after some rescue, she finally saw the relative who had depended on her for eleven years open his eyes slightly.

"Ah...Vanna...you're back..."

These were the first words Dante said after he opened his eyes.

"Yes, I'm back." Vanna didn't realize that there was anything wrong with Dante's "back" at first. She just stepped forward and held Dante's hand subconsciously. "How do you feel now? Can you still get up? I'll take you to the cathedral..."

"No... don't bother with me, a burden." Dante shook his head slightly. He held Vanna's hand with a little force on his fingertips. "I should have thought that there would be such a day... They would come to take the price... You should leave quickly before they find you... Leave Plande and go to a place where no one knows you..."

Listening to her uncle's whisper, Vanna was suddenly startled. She suddenly realized that her uncle seemed to know something that she didn't know, which made her voice tremble slightly: "What do you mean? Who are they referring to? What price did they take? Did you... know what happened in the city-state a long time ago?!"

Dante propped up his eyelids. His artificial eye made of ruby ​​had been broken at some point. Blood flowed down the wound on the edge of the eye socket. The fire all over the street was reflected in the only human eyeball left. After a few seconds of silence, he finally spoke softly: "The Preachers of the End... and the warp behind them... Vanna, do you still remember the fire eleven years ago?"

"The fire eleven years ago..." Vanna widened her eyes slightly, "You actually remember that fire?!"

"How could I not remember it...it burns before my eyes every day," Dante said with a wry smile, "but I thought I could deceive myself forever."

Confused thoughts were boiling in her mind. Vanna seemed to have forgotten her fatigue and pain at this moment. She stared at her uncle's eyes, which had already begun to become cloudy. Various information about the fire, the black sun, the warp and the End Preacher kept emerging in her mind. Before these clues almost buried her, she finally asked: "But what does this have to do with the warp and the End Preacher... and me, what does this have to do with me? Why did 'they' come to find me? What 'price' are they going to take?!"

After Vanna asked these questions, she felt a little regretful. She felt that she was not talking to her uncle, but rather judging a criminal. However, Dante obviously did not care about this. He just took a few breaths and then whispered in a dream: "When the fire started, I saw... a ray of projection of the subspace. When the ultimate and dangerous truth came, I made a wish to the subspace."

"You made a wish to the warp?" Vanna looked at Dante in astonishment. "What wish?"

"I wish nothing had happened, I wish you... were alive."

All the expressions on Vanna's face froze in an instant.

Dante stared at his niece quietly. The expression on his face seemed like he was crying, but with a hint of bitter smile. He slowly raised his hand, as if he wanted to touch Vanna's hair. His lips moved and his voice was low: "Vanna...you have grown up...I'm sorry, I'm really sorry, uncle is useless, back then...I couldn't save you..."

"But I remember you took me away from the fire..."

"All I took out of the fire was a pile of ash," Dante narrated softly. "It happened in just a split second. There was no time to react. You turned into a small pile of burnt ash... I wanted madly to escape from that nightmare and return everything to the time before the disaster. Anyone who could help would be fine, gods, demons, even the warp... Then, something responded to my wish. It took me many years to understand what it was that responded to me at that moment..."

Vanna seemed to no longer hear what Dante said next.

She just slowly raised her hands and looked at her own flesh and blood body.

After an unknown amount of time, she finally broke her silence: "So, my survival is, in a sense, the result of the blessing of the subspace?"

Dante closed his eyes slightly. He couldn't answer this question and could only accept it in this way.

"Then... how did I become a saint?" Vanna asked immediately. She was asking her uncle, but it seemed like she was asking herself, "How could the Storm Goddess allow a person who survived because of the blessing of the warp to become her believer, and even grant him powerful power and protection?"

"I... I don't know," Dante shook his head slowly, "Perhaps only the goddess herself can answer your question, but... how can we..."

Vanna remained silent. Her thoughts were more chaotic than ever before. The belief that had supported her for so many years had an unbridgeable crack at this moment. She didn't know how to face her own beliefs, or even how to face her own "existence". But after a moment of silence, she slowly stood up and whispered as if talking to herself: "No matter what, someone must stop this invasion of reality. We must... let everything we are familiar with return to the real world."

"Vanna, you will die," Dante suddenly opened his eyes wide, and he used all his strength to prop up his upper body. "You can't stay here any longer. The foundation of reality here is cracking. You must leave Plande and leave this vision until it completely disappears from your memory. Listen, if your survival is really the result of the blessing of the warp, then the act of correcting history may very likely lead to your own annihilation. This kind of paradoxical conflict is not something that mortals can..."

Vanna just stared at her uncle quietly, her eyes gentle and calm.

"Uncle, didn't you say you loved this city and everything in it?"

Dante was silent for a moment, and a resolute expression returned to his face: "...Of course, so I will stay here and face my fate with the city-state. I am ready for survival or death, but...but you are different, Vanna, you can't..."

"Me too," Vanna interrupted softly, "I love this place too, and I'm ready for anything... Just like you taught me since I was a kid, it's my duty."

Dante quietly looked at Vanna standing in front of him, looking at his only relative in this world. The latter's figure was as tall as ever, and as firm and steady as a seawall ready to withstand huge waves.

He knew that his words would no longer have any effect.

So he sighed softly, used his last bit of strength to support himself, slowly moved to the side, and leaned against a nearby street lamp.

"Then go ahead," he said softly, "I'll be here...waiting for you to come back."

Vanna lowered her head and looked at her uncle in front of her.

In her memory, her uncle was still a tall and strong mountain, but since when did he become so much shorter than herself?

She bent down gently, her voice low and gentle: "...If everything goes well, the Plande you are familiar with will return to the real world. At that time...please don't forget me."

Dante said nothing more, just nodded slightly.

Vanna straightened up.

However, the next moment, a disturbing vibration suddenly came from a distance, interrupting her movement, followed by a terrifying loud noise and a teeth-grinding, piercing sound of the building structure being torn apart and collapsed.

Vanna looked in the direction of the sound in astonishment. She had never felt so frightened and uneasy as she did at that moment. The next second, the scene reflected in her eyes confirmed the source of this uneasiness.

She saw a beam of flame rising into the sky from the direction of the cathedral. The blast almost blew away the scorching smoke clouds in the sky. Then there was a blinding and strange flash of light, as if a small sun was rising from the ground, swallowing and melting everything from the bottom up.

Then, something even more terrifying happened.

She heard more explosions and more piercing noises, and saw flames rising up from all over the city-state. Huge fireballs appeared over the sea of ​​fire like miniature suns, and each location where a fireball rose represented a church.

The sound of the bells, which had never stopped even when the city was being melted by the living fire, finally came to a halt, and the isolated islands of protection within the city-state fell one after another.

Vanna felt her mind go blank for a moment, and the next second, driven by instinct, she rushed towards the direction of the largest flash of light, towards the Storm Cathedral in the center of Plande.