Love this scene in Trails into Reverie.

The Legend of Heroes Trails into Reverie

[@tycoonajv]

I cried seeing Valimar again makes the game complete.

[@thesib3053]

Honestly as much as I LOVED Trails Into Reverie, this part and the whole corrupted Elysium as a whole never really made sense to me. I fail to understand how Elysium could have been corrupted by the mere possibility of Ishmelga Rean occurring in a possible timeline when it didn't happen in this one. And then there's this final battle. We have the Zeroth Knight, basically the combination of all 7 Divine Knights, and yet it loses against 3 Knights at a mere fraction of their power since they were only imbued into the Soldats at the time. At least with the Rivalries, even though Valimar and Ordine were ranked near the bottom tier, you can argue they won against the higher tier Knights due to Valimar absorbing the Knights over the course of the Rivalries and having Ordine as backup. I just don't see an argument for the win here though other than "power of friendship" ex machina. Despite that though, still loved this game. Rufus's storyline was really interesting, and some of the party lineups they gave us for certain chapters was neat. Looking forward to when we get Kuro no Kiseki in english.

[@obato76]

I think the turning point in the battle was when Lapis severed Ishmelga-Rean's connection to Elysium. Ishmelga didn't actually fully exist in this world yet, not while the real Rean was still around; it needed to assimilate him first. So it was never at its full power as the Great One. The battles were only to distract it while Lapis and KeA/Tio/Renne went to work.

[@Maho-ln2fu]

@@obato76The person in control of the divine knight is crucial. This isn’t really different than how Cedrick lost to Juna, Kurt and etc with the vermilion knight. It’s not like ishmelga has high experience in being a suitable vessel to wield the great one. On top of that, he also doesn’t have the time and experience utilizing the zeroth knight either. Considering he’s only used it 2 times out of the story

[@anomalocaris9298]

Elysium was corrupted by simulating Ishmelga Rean because its simulations are near-flawless and Ishmelga is by nature a corruptive entity. Imagine if you asked Chat-GPT to create the worst computer virus in the world, and it makes one so powerful that the mere act of it displaying the virus on your screen at all causes your computer to crash and get taken over by the now-real virus. And then the virus goes and 3D-prints a body for itself so it can take over the whole world. As for the 3 Divine Knights defeating "7" Divine Knights... they _didn't_ defeat him. They just kept him busy long enough for Lapis to sever his connection to Elysium, and with it most of Zoa Gilstein's power.

[@rainbowsnail4171]

I know I am half a year late to this, but I think it was said Elysium was already up and running, doing it's thing in the background, during the Great War. So Ishmelga started corrupting it BEFORE the end of CS4 where he was killed. Leaving some trace of himself, or maybe just the "curse" corrupting Elysium. At least that was how I understood it. Also this is a JRPG, the power of friendship could destroy even all Sept-Terrions combined, lol.

[@ExernisZ]

To explain how the Zeroth knight lost well... it didn't. It's wrong to say the Zeroth knight lost because it's more like Ishmelga-Rean got flustered and outplayed. Ishmelga-Rean was so sure of his victory due to Elysium knowing the possibility of the Zeroth knight losing was 0%. However Ishmelga-Rean didn't account for the 3 divine knights to come back and fight against him. This left him in a flustered state of mind for a possibility that wasn't foreseen ahead of time. This made Ishmelga-Rean give his full attention to Rean, Crow and Rufus which made it possible for Lapis and co. to sneak by and severe his connection to Elysium. Which alongside Rean rejecting his other self and defeating himself, this left only Ishmelga who was already dead and immediate fading power of the Zeroth knight. So to sum it up: Vailimar, Ordine and El-Prado return --> Ishmelga-Rean gets flustered --> Ishmelga-Rean gives full attention to Rean, Crow and Rufus --> Lapis and co. sneak by an occupied Ishmelga-Rean --> Lapis severes Ishmelga-Reans connection to Elysium --> Rean defeats his alternate self --> Ishmelga and the Zeroth knight become an impossible existence --> Zeroth knight and Ishmelga fade away The best way to put it Ishmelga-Rean incorrectly asked Elysium if the Zeroth knight could lose instead of asking if he himself could be defeated. Side note: To kinda of explain how Elysium got corrupted by Ishmelga-Rean, It comprehended the possible existence of Ishmelga-Rean which with the power of the Zeroth knight (which can go through space and time) that was all Ishmelga-Rean needed to corrupt Elysium. Ishmelga himself is a master of corrupting stuff so I imagine that it wasn't difficult for Ishmelga-Rean to take of Elysium.