Because the door opened outward, there was no need to clear away the sand. Shade turned the handle and, amid the sound of bending metal, pushed the door outward from its warped frame with considerable effort. Windblown yellow sand immediately poured through the gap.
Shade narrowed his eyes and slipped sideways through the doorway, then looked over the ruined Saint Derain Square, at the fountain of a girl holding up a water jug, more than half buried beneath the yellow sand.
In the distance, the black Sun was wrapped in a red-and-white halo. Shade had no idea what the thin red thread flowing down from its lower edge represented. The enormous Floating City in the sky, shrouded by storms and lightning, seemed to be in a somewhat different position from last time. But time had no meaning here; after all, there was no trace at all of the damage to Saint Derain Square caused by the previous two battles.
Yellow sand rolled through the cracks between shattered bricks and stones. As his boots stepped onto the ground, the deathly silence of the earth and the emptiness that seemed to leave behind only a shell showed that this world had truly reached its end.
Standing at the edge of the square and taking in the desolate sight, Shade did not immediately head toward the center to face his powerful foe. Instead, he took out that delicate ladies' pocket watch, held it by its chain, and watched the round case spin before him.
He had expected something strange to happen, but even after waiting for quite a while, he noticed nothing unusual.
Look down.
A prompt sounded beside his ear. Shade, standing beneath the steps outside the house, lowered his head. On the shattered brick-and-stone ground where the yellow sand rolled, a