The void pulsed. It was no longer silent. A steady thrumming shook through the whiteness like the heartbeat of a dying world, each pulse rattling Mira’s bones until she thought she might come apart entirely.She crouched, palms pressed against the nothing beneath her, fighting to stay upright as the force grew stronger.The Architect’s towering shape loomed over her, robes shifting like smoke, those blinding star-eyes fixed without blinking. The god walks. The cage is broken. Now comes the end.Mira’s chest tightened until she thought her ribs might crack. Her mind screamed at her to deny it, but she had seen it, Kael’s body ripped apart, the monstrous Ascendant standing free, its wings blotting out the sky.“No,” she whispered, voice raw. “There has to be a way. You wouldn’t have shown me this if there wasn’t a way.”The Architect tilted its head, as if studying a strange insect. There is a way. But all ways demand sacrifice. The weaving of fate does not permit clean hands.Mira stag

The battlefield lay in uneasy silence. Smoke curled in black tendrils, ash drifting like snow through the fractured sky. Yet amid the devastation, two forms remained locked, impaled, one heart against divine fire.Kael’s body trembled, blood spilling from where the Ascendant’s clawed hand pierced his side. His human eye flared faintly, struggling to remain steady, while his other half the raw, fractured power of the Ascendant wavered like a dying sun.The Ascendant groaned, a sound that was neither roar nor whisper, but the grinding of worlds colliding. Its wings hung limp, radiance sputtering, but its golden-black gaze remained fixed, burning with fury and calculation.Mira crawled toward them, every step agony. Her chest heaved as if she had run a thousand miles, her arms scraped and bleeding. Lyra followed behind, her sword useless in her hands, her eyes wide with terror.“Kael!” Mira screamed, tears stinging her burned skin. “Hold on! Don’t you dare leave me!”Kael coughed violent

The air quivered. Not with wind. Not with heat. Not with fire. But with weight. A weight that pressed on the soul, pressing thoughts into shadows, twisting reality until the ground beneath Kael and Mira cracked like dry parchment.The shadow had landed. It was impossible to comprehend. Not a god. Not a beast. Not a man. It was older than time, older than the Ascendant, older than the world itself.Its presence stretched outward like a living void, an abyss that devoured light, heat, and even sound. Every step it took left the ruins trembling, and yet, it did not move. It simply existed immense, eternal, absolute.The Ascendant staggered, claws digging into the fractured sky as if the earth itself could support its form. Golden black flames flickered weakly, sputtering against the shadow’s encroaching darkness.The god’s voice, once a roar that had shattered mountains, now trembled. “What… are you?”The shadow’s answer came not in words but in presence. The air thickened. Thoughts slow

The world shattered around them. Kael’s body was slammed into the scorched earth with the force of a collapsing mountain. The Broken Blade flew from his hands, spinning through the air, its white-hot light flickering against the encroaching darkness.Every nerve screamed, every muscle ached, and pain tore through his chest where the shadow’s claw had struck. Yet, through it all, the tether to Mira flared violently, a lifeline pulling him back from the edge of oblivion.Mira stumbled forward, gasping, energy pouring from her like molten stars into Kael. “Kael! You… you have to hold on! Don’t let it… take you!”He gritted his teeth, blood streaming from his mouth, limbs trembling. “I… won’t… not… now…” His human eye flickered, but the spark of defiance remained, a lighthouse against the void of despair.The Ascendant hovered beside him, battered and weakened, wings flickering with molten fire. Its claws scraped the fractured ground, but even its presence alone radiated raw power, standi

The battlefield trembled as the shadow’s surge erupted outward, a wave of nothingness so immense it threatened to erase the very essence of existence.Rocks shattered into dust, molten rivers boiled, and flames twisted into chaotic spirals as the world itself screamed beneath the weight of the entity’s power.Kael’s body was thrown backward, crashing into jagged stone, his breath ripped from him. Blood and ash coated his face, his chest heaving in agonized defiance.Yet through the chaos, the Broken Blade remained in his grip, tether flaring violently as Mira’s energy poured into him like molten light.“Kael! Hold on! Don’t let it… consume you!” Mira’s voice rang in his mind, every word a lifeline, every pulse a reminder that they were bound together.He gritted his teeth, pushing against the force. “…I… am not done! Not… yet!”The Ascendant, battered and scorched, hovered beside him. Molten fire sputtered from its wings as it battled against the tendrils of the surge.“Mortal… your d