"One last time? What are you talking about? You'll see it plenty... perhaps even enough times to get sick of it"
Nightwalker lingered for a moment, then shook his head softly.
“I'm afraid it doesn't work that way:
Just then, a long cut suddenly appeared on his cheek, swelling with blood.
Sunny stared at him, dumbfounded.
‘What? Where did this cut come from?’ Nothing had attacked them.
Nightwalker turned to Naeve, as if intending to say something.
But by the time he did, two more jagged cuts appeared on his body.
“Nightwalker, what the hell is happening?" "Father!"
He staggered and fell to his knees, letting out a quiet groan.
“No, n—nothing... it's just,,, mortality. It has a way of catching up with you. "
Countless wounds had revealed themselves on his body. Sunny finally flinched, realizing what was happening.
The Eternal City still had its claws in its prisoner. Nightwalker might have reclaimed his shadow, and they might have escaped... but that did not erase the past.
So, every wound he had received over the decades was catching up to him now. “Arght!"
His bones cracked with a terrible sound, and his flesh was split open.
He was dying. He was going to die a thousand times over, until there was nothing left of him except scattered fragments of bone and a sea of spilled blood.
“Ah... it's been a... pleasure. I always thought... I'd die on the deck of a ship..." Sunny stood there, frozen.
‘No, it can't be. Not after everything I've done!"
..Luckily, Nephis was not frozen at all. Appearing near Nightwalker, she placed her hands on his shoulders and looked down. “Do not die on this ship, though.’
A soft radiance suffused her skin, and the terrible wounds on Nightwalker's body began to heal.
And new ones appeared to replace them. His body was mangled, mutilated, and destroyed. His skin was flayed, and his flesh was torn. His limbs were ripped or severed, and his eyes were gouged out.
No matter how used to pain Nightwalker was, he couldn't help but scream.
However, Neph's flames healed him at the same rate as he was being destroyed and shredded by the blades of postponed death. In the end, Nightwalker's body was entirely torn apart.
And yet, Nephis flame healed that damage, too.
‘Come on, come on..."
Sunny did not notice when he had held his breath.
Who was going to win?
The laws of the world, or Nephis?
Naturally...
In the end, Nephis won.
Nightwalker survived.
He escaped the Eternal City, at long last... And so did the rest of them, with him.