Time did not pass in the blank world—not in any way that Darius could understand. It spiraled, curled, dissolved, re-formed, then stilled again, as though waiting for him to move first.
He stood upon a shifting plane of endless white, Kaela and Nyx barely stabilized behind him, whispering realities unmade and reborn with each breath. The Crown of Finality rested inert on the altar of nothingness, its purpose spent, its weight lingering.
And then the mirror appeared.
It wasn't summoned. It wasn't born. It was.
A floating shard of smooth obsidian, vertical and tall, reflecting nothing at all. No light, no shadow, not even Darius's figure—only a darkness that churned like thought given form.
He didn't have to ask what it was. He knew.
The final ghost of the Architect.
A mind-mirror, as fragmented and unstable as the realm that birthed it.
