"So? What will it be? Will you die or let your neurons bloom?" Narf asked. She knew Emily had no control over that. But maybe if she kept provoking and poking, it would force the girl to activate her powers.

Narf then picked up one of the confetti pieces falling and threw it at Emily. The child quickly jumped aside, and the confetti slammed into a building behind her, causing the structure to collapse.

"A confetti did that? How?"

"Very well, but can you survive this?" Another attack was launched, and the child once again jumped and dodged, but this time, another confetti came from the direction she ran, hitting her leg and making her fall to the ground.

"Argh..." She moaned in pain while trying to understand. Narf hadn't moved, so where did this attack come from? Was she controlling the confetti falling around her? How did it appear in front of her again?

"Who knows?" The general asked mockingly. "It's actually a very simple and obvious trick. It's a bit embarrassing that you haven't figured it out yet. But what can I say? You're dumb, ha, haha, hahahaha."

"I know that." The girl murmured. That wasn't news to her. The child didn't like to read or study like Lysa, and she knew how foolish she was; she had tried to be smart. But books tired her head, and she couldn't stay still. Others didn't want to teach her anything, and when they tried, they got annoyed because she didn't learn or because she got distracted. So they gave up trying. If others gave up, then it was obvious that it wasn't meant for Emily.

That was the conclusion the child came to. If others give up on me, it's because it's not worth trying.

"Exactly. At least you have a minimally decent mind." Narf had done it again. Read what was going on in the child's mind. Sorry, Emily, but there's no privacy with this girl around. There's nothing hidden in the shadows for her this time. "I strongly believe we should accept things as they are. If only you weren't aware of your stupidity, you could be happier. But now that you know, the best thing to do is accept that you're incompetent."

Narf threw another confetti, this time Emily couldn't dodge because of the pain in her leg. The attack pierced her abdomen, making the girl collapse to the ground.

"Girl, you don't stand a chance while you keep being yourself. Call your more competent version and then we can talk on equal terms, okay? If you don't do that..." Another confetti rested on her hands. "...there won't be any version to help anyone. What will you do, Emily? Die as a useless one or fight as a competent one? The only way to stay alive is to give up who you are, because your true self is the most useless of all. Emily, why don't you do a favor to all humanity? Turn into your other version and never come back. You're unnecessary. Refusing to see this just shows how ignorant you are. Accept the truth. Stop pretending you can do something in this situation that you can't."

Narf's words were deliberately cruel, meant to twist and break every little bit of confidence the child might have. If she wanted the other Emily to emerge, the original had to disappear.

And it worked.

The child cried, not in a wail, but in a silent cry of suffering. Her eyes then glowed blue, and the girl got up from the ground. Now she could calmly, as her brain reached a new level of understanding, the pain in her leg and abdomen turned into mere information, and the girl felt nothing.

"Here I am, Narf. You annoyed me, so I hope you don't regret it."

Without a face, it was hard to tell what the deceived one's expression was. But I'll tell you, it was incredulity. Narf's plan was to steal all the information this new version would have for herself, but who would have thought...

The child's thoughts were too complex to understand. Too much information. Too fast. With difficult words. Several languages at once.

"But... how can you handle so much reasoning?"

"This child's body can't handle it, and that's why I avoid being here. But I came here to tell you that you're wrong."

"Wrong? About what?"

"That this girl is useless. I assure you she is far from that and, as proof..." In front of Narf's face, something incredible began, electric discharges started to appear from the girl's body and swirl through the air like a storm of lightning. "...I will defeat you using a power that belongs to her."

"Oh, I see." Finally, the general regained her composure and returned to her usual carefree attitude. "So electricity is Emily's own power. I'd ask how you activated it so easily, but I'm talking to a genius; you simply reasoned your way to her power, didn't you? I'm sorry to tell you, little one, that it won't help." Just one look from Narf made the lightning turn into confetti from one end to the other. Emily, however, showed no sign of surprise or fear.

She analyzed the confetti falling, picking them up in her hand, feeling the texture. They were light but surprisingly hard and resistant, like paper made of metal. She recalled every action of Narf from the beginning, deducing what they meant.

Narf threw a confetti, Emily dodged, and once again, it came from another angle, cutting the girl's arm.

"Don't get too full of yourself." Narf snapped her fingers, a burst of confetti happened in the air, and from the explosion emerged numerous lightning bolts. All of them advanced directly towards Emily. The girl counterattacked with more lightning of her own, and soon the current from her enemy dissipated upon confronting her attack. Narf didn't seem surprised. "Ah, impressive. You used your current to redirect the trajectory of mine, a very well-thought-out tactic."

"You did the same with the stone I threw before, turned it into confetti, and then made it appear elsewhere."

"Did I? I have no idea what you're talking about." Emily shot another lightning at Narf, but again, from one end to the other, it turned into confetti.

"Emily, you're too smart to use the same trick twice." Not allowing herself to be provoked, Emily launched another lightning, this time more powerful, strong, and bright. Narf looked at the ground and jumped to the side. The electric charge followed the general. Due to the attack's high speed, Narf wouldn't be able to dodge again, so the empress punched the air, strong enough to push the air against the discharge and neutralize it.

Emily wasn't impressed because it was exactly as she had deduced.

"You have a lot of strength in your arms, don't you, Narf?"

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"I'm talking about the secret of your powers. You have enough physical strength to dissipate an electric charge like that. This would explain how you can turn your confetti into bullets. They are extremely hard, but you have such great physical strength that you throw them as if they were nothing."

"Your logic is completely wrong. The secret of my powers is pure strength? How ridiculous! Tell me, then, how do they attack you from the sides?" Another confetti appeared in Narf's hands, and she threw it without thinking. Emily countered with her electricity, but the confetti coming from the front was now coming from above her. Before she could react in any way, her electricity turned into confetti, again from one end to the other, appearing behind her. The girl would have been electrocuted if she hadn't created another discharge from her back to cancel the attack, and the confetti coming from above was narrowly deflected, cutting the girl's forehead.

"That's it, I already know your secret..."

"By the way, Emily, didn't you forget something?" The general pointed to Lysa, unconscious on the ground. Emily saw that a pool of blood was forming around her friend, caused by one of Narf's confetti. She had been so focused on thinking that she had forgotten the girl was there. All her being was ready to panic, but immediately, reason returned to her body.

"She's not dead yet, I can't worry about that now. Even if I try to save her, as soon as I panic and turn my back, I'll be killed. I want to save her, but my only chance, our only chance, is if I defeat you as quickly as possible and run to save her."

"Totally insensitive. You can't even care about a friend?"

"You can provoke me all you want, I won't lose my focus." Emily closed her eyes and started reasoning. She had to think about everything. To defeat Narf, she had to use all the potential of the hermit's reasoning. She should piece together everything she had about Narf's powers to be sure she had deduced correctly. With her enormous physical strength, the empress could launch confetti from a different material, like bullets. But if she didn't have the ability to control them mentally, then how did they appear from different places and directions? Could she had the power of teleport things?"

It doesn't make sense; otherwise, she would have teleported to escape the lightning instead of facing it directly and revealing the strength of her arms. In Emily's mind, the world had stopped; one second felt like an hour in her head. She realized that the mistake many made was viewing Narf's ability in separate pieces rather than as a whole. What happened with her lightning and the stone should be the same as what happened with the confetti: they disappeared from one place and appeared in another.

"If what happens with the confetti is the same as what happened with my attacks, then that's what this 'snowstorm' is for: to hide where the confetti will appear. With so many falling around me, it's impossible to see where another one comes from. But every power has a condition. I started thinking about what all the things that turned into confetti had in common. But no, I was wrong; I shouldn't think about 'what the things that turned into confetti had in common,' but 'what the things that didn't turn into confetti had in common.' There were two attacks! Two strikes that you, Narf, didn't turn into confetti. When you dodged and then dissipated with your arms. What did both have in common? I've figured it all out. The simple secret behind your power."

"Oh? Let's see if your deduction is correct."

Kneeling, Emily placed the palms of her hands on the ground and pushed them three times. The first time, there was just a sound of electricity. The second time, Narf felt a tingle all over her body, as if static electricity had passed through, and on the third time, it felt as though her clothes and body hair stood on end.

"Got it?"

"You're so clever, Emily..." The empress threw a piece of confetti. The hermit dodged the attack, and once again, the confetti came from another angle, and she dodged it again, this time without even looking where it came from. "... You sent out electric waves, creating a kind of magnetism in the area, and since everything is now electromagnetized, you can determine all the movements made, or rather, where my confetti will appear. It's like a radar for you to locate which direction my attacks will come from. Very impressive!"

Emily began to run towards Narf, and when she was very close, she created electrical pulses through her body, producing a high amount of volts and emitting a huge glow, so bright that the Empress was forced to look away. For the first time, the hermit was able to strike the general with a punch, electrifying her entire body and sending her flying.

The general slowly got up, while smiling an invisible smile. Even though she had been hit with great force, there was no injury on the faceless one.

"You figured out the secret behind my show? How proud."

"For someone without a face, you have very useful eyes. Your power is sneaky; you don't turn things into confetti, you replace them with confetti. To put it simply, it's as if there were a parallel reality where only confetti existed. You can store and retrieve anything from this reality, as long as it's in your line of sight. That's why the attacks turned into confetti from one end to the other because the back part won't transform until it appears in your line of sight. When my lightning was so bright that you couldn't keep your eyes open, you had to lower your head to rest your retinas and physically dodge my attacks. It's a simple secret but hard to understand in the heat of battle."

"So, what will you do now, Emily? Will you finish me off with the next blow?" No concern, no trace of fear. There was still some trick; Emily knew that. But standing still would do no good.

The child released another bright and fast lightning bolt at Narf, and she protected herself by punching the air again. The hermit spread electricity to her legs, creating an electric pulse, and leaped towards the empress, ready to deliver a brutal attack.

Until blue flames appeared in her path and engulfed the girl.

"Do you think you can defeat me so easily? I am Narf; I may be ignorant, but believe me, I am not weak. If you think I will fall easily, you're gravely mistaken." And as she was consumed by the blazing flames, Emily noticed that the general now held a golden staff with bells at the end, hanging from a hoop, and that hoop produced fire. "Meet my weapon. It creates the fire; I control it... and you burn."

The flames that engulfed the girl grew hotter. Her skin was turning into pure red and fragile blisters. Too intense. Emily produced a massive electrical discharge, dissipating the fire. A little more and her skin would have melted; after all, her shoes and pieces of her clothing had burned. When the child placed her skin on the concrete, it felt as if her skin fused with the material; it was too hot.

"Calm down, I'm not finished!" shouted Narf, making the fire return to Emily. The girl began to produce electricity directly, without rest, and with no time to think. If she stayed one more second close enough to the fire, she wouldn't be able to endure. Her electricity flowed and danced from the ground to the sky, creating a huge barrier that prevented the fire from entering, wearing Emily down as the electrical circuits emanated from her own body, worsening her burns. Her wounds grew hotter and more painful the more discharges she produced. The worst part was the ground; the flames had started to melt it, and the only thing preventing the drastically melted concrete from turning into glue was Emily's own electricity. Somehow, the girl managed to use her power to halt the cellular melting of the concrete beneath her feet. The hermit had to focus on two different points: the barrier protecting her and keeping the ground stable. At the same time, she tried to think of a way to escape. But it was too much effort for the child's body, a body that couldn't handle that level of reasoning. Along with the burns, her nose and ears were bleeding as if her brain was melting and draining from her head. "It must be hard, Emily. Let me end this."

Narf moved the staff, which began to produce blue and red flames simultaneously. The empress started to control the fire, making it take the shape of a serpent.

Surrounding the electric barrier to strike, her flames mixed and flowed over the already boiling ground. Emily was in a cauldron... the fire began to melt the concrete. The girl's heel slipped, and a piece was swallowed by the molten mass. Feeling a tremendous stab of pain and pulling her foot out, the hermit saw part of her skin fused with the concrete; the pain came instantly, leaving no time to think. Her brain was already at its limit. The fight with Elaine had already worn her body down enough, and now with Narf, it was getting worse.

She began to scream... her previous injuries now burned, and more blood flowed from her body. The worst part was that her blood seemed hotter than it should be. She was thirsty and had a fever, sweating like a pig, and the molten concrete began to enter her wounds.

"You won't survive, Emily." said Narf, as she twirled her staff. "Do you know why motorcyclists have to wear helmets, thick jackets, and heavy pants? I'll explain. Speed produces heat, and heat melts; when a person rides a motorcycle in flip-flops, shorts, and without a shirt and ends up in an accident, upon contacting the asphalt, the speed of the person's body generates an enormous amount of heat, causing the asphalt to melt and enter the person. The biggest problem for doctors is removing each fragment of concrete from inside the person before they can actually heal them. But sometimes, the person's skin ends up fusing with the concrete, and they have to peel off pieces of skin to save a life. Can you do that? Can you peel the skin from your own foot? If you don't, you will never be able to walk again."

Emily tried to ignore Narf and the pain, but what could she do when she was nearing her limit? Her brilliance could be extremely powerful, but the cost of using it was too great. Narf was intelligent; she had surely already realized how this affected the girl and was likely prepared for all the ways Emily might think of to escape and counteract. She had trapped her with her own power in a temporary trap where the girl couldn't think calmly, a trap where each thought was a bit of her life.

If she shot a lightning bolt, Narf could turn it into confetti or use her arms, not to mention that she would end up undoing her electric cage, leaving her guard open for the flames to engulf her and melt her completely. She couldn't, in any way, run towards Narf. She couldn't see clearly the ground on the other side of the lightning bolts, but she was sure that most of it had already turned into boiling liquid. If she ran and stepped on that magma, she would lose her feet forever.

She was trapped. Everything she thought of doing had a countermeasure. If she wanted to win, she had to think of something Narf would never consider; she needed to come up with a strategy that even she wouldn't think of, a strategy where she could avoid the fire and concrete, a strategy where she could kick or punch Narf; a single blow was all she needed.

But how? She needed to win, and protect Lysa. Wait? Lysa? Oh right, where was Lysa? What happened to her? Was she okay? Safe? Dead? Had she woken up? IEmily couldn't see, she wanted to dissipate the lightning just to quickly see what was happening, but if she did that, she would die. Everything around should have turned into liquid by now, but inside the electric barrier, there were few solids, as the electricity was trying to harden the stone again. To protect her friend, Emily had to think of something to avoid being seriously hit. But amidst the desperate thoughts, Narf's voice echoed.

"Hahaha, now that you're more destabilized, I can see a bit of your mind again, brilliant Emily. Would you like me to call you the hermit?" That word sent a shiver down the child's spine, even in the heat, it could give her chills. "Oh, how insensitive of me, since you discovered your truth you don't want to be called that, do you?" After this provocation, there was a brief moment of silence until Narf continued. "It's painful, isn't it? Knowing the truth and having to simply accept it... especially when it wasn't your choice. If you didn't know any of this, you could be in a limbo like the rest of humanity, instead, you had to be dragged here, having to give up your life for all of this. You gained extremely magnificent knowledge and reasoning, but now you know it would be better if you hadn't discovered it. The price of knowledge is far too great compared to the loss of Eden. What to do in a situation like this?"

"You accept it." Narf hesitated a bit with Emily's response. "Yes, often it's not necessary to know, to have knowledge. One can be happy in ignorance; that's not necessarily bad or wrong, but once the truth comes to you, you have to accept it. Each person has their individual truth, based on what they have learned, but reality itself is unique. You don't fight or flee from the truth, you learn to live with it. That's how you mature."

"Hypocrite!" Narf said, striking her staff on the ground. "Weren't you the one who tried to deny what you discovered?"

"This version of me knows very well how to deal with the truth. But the one you speak of is the original Emily, just a child. She is still learning, but even if she were older, humans are always learning. Every day they have new information that changes their perspective or reinforces what they have, and so the truth slowly reveals itself to them. You think knowing is painful, but knowing is just living. The truth is not a weapon; it liberates us, for only when we learn to live with it can we find true peace. Eden or the fruit? The answer is obvious. Eden will always be the right answer, but now knowledge has been chosen by all of humanity. We are no longer in the garden. Our option is to live in the world we are in, according to the Truth. For someone who talks so much about accepting reality, Narf, you are still immature with difficulties in accepting it."

"SHUT UP!" Seeing that Narf had now lowered her guard, Emily dismantled all her electric barrier and channeled everything into a single powerful lightning bolt, launching the attack with all her might at the general. The attack went straight through out the faceless girl and hit the buildings behind Narf. "Was this your trump card, Emily? What a pity, you missed."

The fire serpent advanced with a strike.

"Not yet." Emily ran with all her strength and entered the molten and boiling concrete, continuing to run without stopping, dodging the serpent, leaving Narf incredulous with the action. Was the girl crazy? Did she want to lose her feet that badly? Indeed, Emily's legs were burning and a part had exposed nerves. The determination in her eyes didn't wane; since she no longer needed to worry about maintaining a barrier or stabilizing the ground, she could ignore the pain through logic and continued advancing towards Narf.

"A desperate act? I expected more from you." Narf heard a noise behind her and, when she turned around, she realized that the buildings hit by the lightning were disintegrating. All kinds of metal and iron, rebar and similar items surged towards the general. The Empress had forgotten about magnetism; Emily was using electricity to create a magnetic field to attract the metal. Using her eyes, she turned everything in her path into confetti. But again, this opening allowed Emily to get closer, glowing with electricity.

The girl had used some of her last strength to drive away the concrete and propel herself towards her enemy, her veins red and dirty with concrete were evident on her heels. Then, Emily tried to punch Narf with all her might, but she raised a wall of fire in the way.

She summoned all the iron she had stolen above Emily, using her fire to melt the metals and shape them into a dome of melted iron over the child.

A terrible move, Narf.

Emily made all the volts she could summon fly towards the liquid; what was an attack became a conductor for the lightning to double in strength and advance towards the sky.

With that, all the electricity that reached the sky fell at once like a discharge upon Narf. Quick, bright, and too powerful for her to dodge, the attack charred and burned every cell of the girl's body. Every fiber of the ignorant turned black and a burnt smoke exhaled from her body. Due to her lack of face, no one would notice...

But she smiled, thinking she finally saw the moment when the sky touched the Earth... the boy's dream was real.

The golden light escaped and flowed from her being, returning knowledge to all existing space and time.

Knowledge gave all our 8 heroes the same information. The information about who Lily was.

A girl? Yes, but not just that.

An aberration? Yes, but not just that.

They all discovered that Lily was: The virtue of hope that had become corrupted.

Emily had won, but she had no strength to move properly. She fell into the liquid while more liquid fell from the sky. The child slowly sank into the puddle, her body burning, with no more strength to move, she couldn't find Lysa anywhere...

She had probably already melted... Emily's eyes were growing heavy, with a few tears evaporating. Was she going to die right then?

"No, you two won the battles you were supposed to win. There's no reason for me to let you die here." The gentle voice of the one who had called them echoed through the streets. The melted concrete solidified and restructured into its former shape. The destroyed buildings returned to their original form. The cracks disappeared. Emily's injuries healed, the concrete that had fused with her skin vanished into thin air.

The monk then appeared walking calmly through the chaos that was becoming order, Lysa slept peacefully on his back, without any injuries. He placed her gently on the ground.

"Are you saving us?" The child asked as her powers deactivated.

"You must fix what was broken, and you are fixing it. I assigned you your respective battles, and you are winning. There is no sense in the death of those who are fulfilling their objectives."

"Thank you very much." The girl said with the purest smile on her face. The monk returned the kindness.

"I wasn't obligated to anything."

The virtue of knowledge passed through each of the heroes revealing who Lily was. But what about Lalá? Well, she was revealed who the monk was.

"Tsk." The girl huffed, gritting her teeth and clenching her fists. "Now everything makes sense about how these humans are here. And to think that someone like that existed... but why? He is so powerful, why doesn't he stop Lily?"

Meanwhile

"WAIT? THE VILLAIN IS HOPE?" Pedro yelled, scratching his head as if it were full of lice. The duo had long since left the bridge and were now on a tropical beach. "AAAAAAH HOW IS THIS POSSIBLE? SHE WAS SUPPOSED TO BE NICE."

"How would i know?" The stressed man replied, surprised by the information, but it was nothing compared to the truth he had received. "It's nothing, Pedro. Stop exaggerating."

"NOTHING? STUART, DON'T YOU UNDERSTAND? WE'RE TALKING ABOUT HOPE! THE MOST IMPORTANT FEELING IN THE WORLD!" Pedro yelled even louder, grabbing his companion by the collar, then he relaxed a bit, as if expelling his energy. For the first time, Stuart saw Pedro show a genuine... emptiness and fear. "I'm only alive now because it's always been with me, keeping me standing. If it's corrupted... what do I have left?"

"Pedro..." Stuart couldn't say he felt the same. He rarely relied on that feeling. For him, hope... didn't exist. He never longed for anything, had no grand dreams or expectations. He just lived.

"I don't understand how it can be a villain?"

"Then you are luckier than many." The gentlest voice that had ever walked this Earth resonated, a celestial, soft, pure, and imposing voice. The two followed its source, and a resplendent gentleman slowly walked towards them. The wind lifted his long white cloak, and the light emanating from the crevices of his helm and armor was like a beacon, no, far more celestial.

"Hope can be extremely cruel, my young friend."

"And who are you?" Stuart asked. The general bowed elegantly.

"Orf, The Gentleman. Forgive me for overhearing your conversation, but I could not help it. Believe me, if I had not destroyed Time, I would have attacked Hope. It can be too draining and turn out to be a traitor."

"Time? But why time?" Now Pedro asked. Orf crossed his arms, sighing.

"I don't feel comfortable discussing it at the moment. My story isn't exactly a happy one. If you don't mind, you two have defeated some of my colleagues, correct? Could you tell me which ones?"

The duo was a bit apprehensive about saying anything, considering the idea that they might anger the enemy.

"I... defeated Leo and an octopus that turned into a man."

"I defeated a nervous kid, fought an arrogant one, but I can't say I was the one who defeated him."

"Leo, Octo, Nightmare, and Uomen. And how were they?"

"For the most part? Terrifying." Stuart replied, completely unsure of what was happening. Where was this general trying to get to?

"Thank you for defeating them. I'm extremely happy to know they died fighting, but even happier to know that you freed them from the suffering they brought upon themselves."

"Are you suffering too?"

"Yes. We all are, but it's the burden I chose to bear. What are your names, humans?" He took a step forward. The two looked at him with more tension. Then another step. The general's murderous intent grew. Another step. Stuart raised his hammer. One more step. Pedro lowered his guard. The general's walking on the sand was calm and steady.

"Stuart."

"Pedro."

"Stuart and Pedro. Those are lovely names, I must say." A sword then appeared in Orf's right hand, the sunlight reflecting off the blade, while the white cloak danced behind in the air. "I will remember them at your funerals."