"I am looking at the ghost of who I was, and he is coming to erase everything I have ever loved."Draven could not move a single muscle. His boots felt welded to the silver floor of the courtyard as the towering form of Valen descended through the roaring, violet-tinged rift in the sky. The sheer physical pressure of the entity was crushing, suffocating, turning the air into liquid lead that pressed down on Draven's chest until his ribs groaned.On the central altar, Jesse was screaming, though the sound was instantly swallowed by the hum of the brass sphere. Blood-red threads of light were drilling deeper into their arms, turning their pale skin a translucent, sickly gray as their life force drained straight into the dais."Draven, please!" Jesse choked out, their fingers twitching uselessly against the stone. "It’s taking... it’s taking everything!""I can't move!" Draven roared, his teeth grinding together so hard he felt them crack. The black glass of his left arm was vibrating vio

"I am completely powerless, Jesse, and for the first time in twelve lifetimes, I can actually feel how terrified I am to die."Draven sat on a jagged chunk of floating marble, staring at his left hand. The pitch-black glass was still there, but the violent violet fire beneath it had vanished completely. It was cold. It felt heavy, dead, and utterly numb, like a useless block of carved onyx attached to his shoulder."Draven, get up," Jesse gasped, staggering across the surreal, fractured ground.Around them, gravity was completely broken. Massive pieces of ancient spires, shattered archways, and glowing debris from past eras floated suspended in a thick, twilight fog. The sky above was a chaotic mosaic of fading memories, shifting images of burning cities and forgotten faces flickering like dying lanterns."I can't feel the Dominion," Draven whispered, his voice shaking as he flexed his flesh fingers against his knee. He pushed himself up, but his balance was entirely gone. He stumbled

"I would rather turn my own brain into ash than watch you crumble into a handful of glass."Draven’s voice shattered against the floating marble ruins of the Core Fracture. He dropped to his knees beside the cracked brass sphere, his human hand shaking so violently he could barely hold himself up."Draven, listen to yourself!" Jesse yelled, kneeling opposite him with their fingers buried in their silver hair. "You sound insane! You want me to believe that giant black hole in the sky is some kind of protective blanket?""It’s not a black hole, Jesse!" Draven rasped, pressing his cold glass arm against his ribs. "It’s a curtain! It’s hiding us! Valen built the vortex because something outside this universe hunts active magic like a beast smelling blood in the water! If we tear down the storm, we are begging to be slaughtered!""People are dying right now!" Jesse screamed, tears cutting clean tracks through the dust on their face. "The lower sectors are collapsing, Draven! People are get

"I am going to murder the world, Jesse, and the worst part is that my hands aren't even shaking."Draven stood at the edge of the central square, his voice flat, hollow, and terrifyingly cold. The wind was a roaring wall of static, blowing hard enough to tear the skin off his cheeks."Don't talk like that!" Jesse screamed, their voice barely cutting through the apocalyptic howl. They staggered across the buckled cobblestones, clutching the repaired brass sphere to their ribs. "We are fixing this! You hear me? We are surviving this!""Look at him, Jesse," Draven murmured, lifting a pale, indifferent hand toward the silver dais. "Look at what I used to be."Valen was no longer a floating entity. The god had merged entirely into the silver altar, growing into a towering, crystalline leviathan of solid, clear void-glass. His massive, translucent ribs encased the entire platform, humming with a terrifying, rhythmic pulse that made the air bleed. Above them, the sky was a falling ocean of t

"I am burning my own soul to ashes, and I have never felt so completely alive."Draven’s voice echoed like thunder across the collapsing courtyard. He stood wrapped in the blinding column of violet fire, his hand locked tight around the god’s glass throat."Draven, stop!" Jesse screamed from the edge of the console, their hands flying over the glowing glyphs as waves of searing heat tossed their silver hair wildly. "The output is off the charts! You're converting your own physical tissue into raw code!""Keep the routing open, Jesse!" Draven roared back, his skin blistering, splitting open to reveal streams of pure, white light instead of blood. "Guide the feedback away from the lower sectors! Protect the people!""It's tearing you apart!" Jesse sobbed, tears vaporizing the instant they hit their hot cheeks. "I can see right through your arm, Draven! You're fading!""Let it tear!" Draven yelled, his eyes burning with a fierce, terrifying clarity.He leaned closer to Valen’s cracking,