The wind no longer howled across the edge of the dream. It whispered. Soft. Measured. Like the sigh of an ancient soul finally released. Ash stood alone at the threshold where the Codex Nexus once shimmered—a glass citadel now reduced to shimmering sand. The echoes of billions of archived dreams had been absorbed, rewritten into the neural fabric of the living. No more replication. No more resets. The Ghost Code had unraveled itself at last. Behind her, the Dreamwrights’ Sanctuary remained quiet. No one dared call it a ruin, though the architectural bones had buckled under the weight of truth. It was now a monument to endurance. Memory and will. Survival. “Thought I’d find you here.” Ash turned. Vega’s silhouette stood against the twilight, hair tousled by the sea wind, jacket half-zipped like always. He was still wearing the patch from when Kaito had stitched him up two chapters ago. Somehow, they both smiled. “I was saying goodbye,” Ash said. “Yeah?” Vega stepped beside her. “