The silence in the deep vault did not calm the air; it pressed against their ear drums like a lead weight.Hovering ten feet above the pristine obsidian platform, the pillar of liquid glass pulsed with a terrifying, rhythmic hum that set off micro-vibrations in Cassian’s jaw. Inside the glass, the First Sovereign remained suspended—a towering figure carved from unblemished white marble, clad in armor woven from golden thread, his face shadowed beneath a high administrative cowl. His eyes were not open, yet the solar blade held in his translucent hands shone with a blinding, absolute brilliance that cast impossibly sharp, black shadows across the millions of unwritten books floating in the endless dark around them.Cassian immediately shoved Elena behind his back, his bad knee buckling as he planted his heels into the glass floor, his chest heaving, his single open eye fixed on the tip of the solar sword."He's not a ghost..." Cassian rasped, his voice a dry, ragged tear in the suffoca

The heat of the newborn sun did not incinerate them; it burned away every lingering trace of false record, leaving only the raw, agonizing weight of their living souls.They fell through a boundless expanse of white-hot solar plasma, surrounded by the churning, golden light of the core. At the epicenter hovered young Yuri, suspended in the eye of the blinding storm. In his small, trembling hands, he held the true, original ledger of the universe—a book forged not from calcified bone or ink, but from absolute, unwritten starlight. As the child opened its massive, luminous pages, a deep, acoustic hum echoed through the solar core, pulling the lingering spirits of the dead from the forgotten depths of the fallen kingdom."Cassian! Hold on to me!" Elena screamed over the roar of creation, her hair whipping in silver-and-gold currents as she reached through the blinding light to lock her fingers with his.Cassian strained against the suffocating pressure of the plasma, his bad leg complete

The edge of the iron pendulum did not cut flesh; it struck the living soul with the weight of an unpayable eternity.Elena stood alone on the slippery ledge of gray static, her dark velvet gown billowing in the localized temporal gale. She did not flinch as the three-ton iron blade descended toward her skull. Instead, she opened her arms wide, her pale chest bare where the silver mark had once burned, offering her mortal, unanchored heart directly to the teeth of the cosmic clock."Elena!" Cassian’s scream tore through the frozen air—a primal, shattering sound of pure agony.He threw his broken body forward, dragging his paralyzed knee across the jagged static. His fingers reached, missing her trailing sleeve by a fraction of an inch as the massive iron pendulum slammed directly into her chest.The world did not shatter; it stopped.The deafening tick-tock of the cosmic clock ground to a horrific, screeching halt. Elena’s mortal blood did not spill—it turned into thick, luminous silve

The crown did not rest on Yuri’s brow; it bit into his skull with three dozen black quartz needles that drank his golden blood.A high-pitched, acoustic shriek tore from the child’s throat as the black iron crown fused with his bone. Blinding, violet plasma erupted from his eyes and mouth, cascading down the collapsing marble steps in a torrent of liquid fire. Below, the floor had dissolved completely into an infinite, vertical shaft lined with millions of jagged iron spikes—the gaping, tooth-filled maw of the First Sovereign’s true form, opening wide to swallow the remaining liabilities of the Second Era."YURI!" Cassian screamed, the sound tearing raw from his lungs as gravity snapped.He lunged through the falling rubble, his bad knee buckling under the kinetic force, his bloodied fingers catching the trailing hem of Yuri’s golden tunic just as the boy plummeted into the dark. Cassian drove his quartz shard deep into a crumbling marble ledge, his arm muscles screaming as the weight

The scent of crushed white roses did not bring peace; it made the fresh blood soaking through Cassian’s armor feel sickeningly out of place.The silence of the sunlit garden cut sharper than any iron blade. Sunlight—warm, uncalculated, and untaxed—poured down through the leaves of blooming apple trees, illuminating a gravel path that stretched toward a simple stone cottage. Yet behind them, the heavy oak door stood embedded in mid-air, trembling violently as the miles-wide ink jaw of the First Sovereign slammed against its outer frame. Heavy, rhythmic thuds vibrated through the soft soil beneath their boots, throwing shower petals into the warm breeze with every cosmic impact.Cassian immediately shoved Elena behind his back, his bad knee buckling as he planted his heels into the soft earth, his single eye fixed on the tall man standing among the white roses."Don't move," Cassian growled, his voice a dry, ragged tear in the gentle air, his bare, bloodied hand tightening over his shat