Vaelrick struck first.
A pulse of gravity-warping flame erupted from his outstretched hand—reality folding inward as dozens of defenders were ripped into threads of memory. Time shattered in waves. Some warriors began to age and de-age at once, flickering between bone and bloom.
Brent lunged through it, armor blazing with both Flame and Shadow, his blade singing through dimensions. He met Vaelrick's meteor hammer midair—force against fury. The impact cracked the sky above the Nexus.
"Lysa! Now!" Rae cried, soaring overhead on wings of refracted moonlight.
Lysa dropped to her knees, slamming both palms into the sundered ground. Her Emberheart expanded, sending forth a radiant ward: Kindle Nova—a blinding pulse that stabilized the battlefield for a heartbeat. It bought Rae time.
Rae vanished in a blink, then reappeared behind Kalen's cloned husk.
"Forgive me," she whispered, placing her hand on his shoulder.
From her Soul Core erupted Lunarch Break, a reality-cleaving blade of empathy and finality. It didn't wound Kalen's body—it sliced clean through the fragment of Her essence tethered to him.
The husk screamed—not as Kalen, but as a voice older than memory. The echo of Her shattered in the wind.
But Vaelrick didn't falter.
He absorbed the backlash of severed divinity into himself, laughing, a god-drunk lunatic now crowned in stolen power.
"You cut Her from him—but now She lives in me."
He raised his arms. The skies bled.
A new wave of monsters descended—not Abyssborn, but Memoryspawn—shattered pieces of Brent's past, Rae's nightmares, Lysa's regrets. Visions that bled, fought, and screamed.
Brent looked at the specter of his mother's final breath—poisoned by Vaelrick's ancestral betrayal. At a phantom Rae once forced to betray a friend. At Lysa's own childhood self, choked by black tar, eyes pleading for breath.
This was no longer just war. It was internal apocalypse.
System Notification:
Challenge Tier: GODFALL
• Requirement: Mastered Unity Fusion
• Perk: Resonant Will Amplified
• Warning: Failure will collapse personal timelines
Brent stepped forward, igniting his Unity Core until the sigils bled white-hot across his skin.
"I'm done fearing ghosts."
Rae clasped his hand, her Soul Core wrapping around his flame.
Lysa linked their energies, her Emberheart beating in rhythm.
Three voices spoke as one: "Unity Ascension—Phase Two."
Their forms merged—not into one being, but a trinity of synchronized fury.
Brent moved like a star reborn—faster than thought, stronger than prophecy. Rae danced around time itself, folding it in strands of lunar steel. Lysa became a walking supernova of rebirth, undoing entropy with every step.
They crashed into Vaelrick.
His power was beyond godhood now—but so was their will.
The skies ruptured, not from his rage—but from their refusal to break.
The Nexus trembled. The second Gate flickered with wild resonance.
As Brent locked blades with Vaelrick again, blood trailing from his mouth, he grinned through the fire.
"You think you inherited Her power," he said, "but we forged our own."
Vaelrick roared—a sound that shattered mountains and stilled hearts.
From his spine erupted six wings of fractured crystal, each radiating stolen divinity from worlds long consumed. His cloned Kalen husk collapsed into ash, spent, leaving only Vaelrick as the singular embodiment of rage, ambition, and the broken will of Her.
And still, Brent did not retreat.
He dove forward with Unity Blade ignited—a coalescence of every battle, every scar, every soulbond he had endured and overcome. The sword didn't cut through matter. It severed destiny itself.
Rae danced beside him, glowing with Soulveil energy, forming lunar glyphs mid-combat that bent incoming magic back toward its caster. Lysa stood at the heart of the storm, her Emberheart pulsing with Phoenix Echo, resurrecting fallen allies and burning away the corruption Vaelrick had unleashed.
And still, Vaelrick pressed harder.
His arms widened. From the sundered sky poured an Oblivion Spear—a weapon made from the bones of dying stars. He hurled it with a word older than time.
Brent intercepted it—barely. His Unity Blade cracked, the pressure of the spear forcing him to his knees. Rae gritted her teeth and extended her Soulveil around him. Lysa wept light as her Emberheart cracked under the strain of undoing time itself to heal them both.
They were breaking.
Vaelrick laughed. "You have power, but no vision. I offer mercy. End this. Bow to me—and live in paradise forged from obedience."
Brent looked up, battered and bloody, and smiled through the crimson dripping from his lips.
"Funny thing," he muttered. "We don't bend to tyrants. We break them."
And then—he let go.
Let go of fear. Of restraint. Of the last tether to who he once was.
Brent roared and stood as his Unity Core surged.
System Notification:
Unity Core: Final Stage UnlockedTrait Unveiled: Twilight CrownEffect: Channels pure Resonant Will. Binds multiple Reality Threads into a singular strike.
The battlefield froze.
Rae's Soulveil curved into the form of a translucent crown above Brent's head. Lysa's flames spiraled into wings on his back. The three of them now moved as one mind, one will, one fury.
Brent stepped through time.
Not forward, not backward—but through, landing a strike upon Vaelrick not in the present, but at the origin point of his corruption.
The blow echoed across past, present, and the possible futures.
Vaelrick screamed—not in pain, but in disbelief. He staggered, and from his wounds, the stolen energies of countless worlds began to bleed free. His wings cracked. His skin pulsed with unstable divinity.
"You—no. You're not supposed to be able to—" he started.
But Brent was no longer listening.
He whispered a single word: "End."
With that, Rae unleashed the Lunarch Eclipse, severing Vaelrick's stolen soul-links, and Lysa followed with the Ember Spiral, igniting the fragments of godhood he had consumed.
The impact tore the battlefield open. Vaelrick was hurled into the heart of the collapsing Gate.
As the winds screamed and timelines folded around them, Brent, Rae, and Lysa were flung back, their forms dimming.
They landed amid scorched earth, exhausted, bodies trembling.
The second Gate had closed.
Vaelrick was gone.
But the sky still flickered with instability. The war was not over.
Brent lay still, staring up at the stars they'd nearly lost.
"We won... right?" Lysa gasped.
"No," Rae whispered, feeling something far older stir beneath the earth. "We bought ourselves a moment. But something else is waking up."
Brent's eyes narrowed as his Unity Core flickered. Deep in the ruins of the collapsed Gate, something pulsed once—slow, deliberate.
And then again.