The sky fell in pieces.
Celestial shards, each a memory made solid, rained down like meteors—fragments of past worlds, past choices. Jack shielded his eyes as one struck the ground beside him, splitting open to reveal a vision within:
—A child, alone in a burning village.
—A woman cloaked in violet, whispering into a newborn's ear.
—The Devourer, weeping beneath a tree of stars.
Kael shouted, dragging Jack back as another shard nearly cleaved him in half. "This isn't just an attack. He's showing us what came before!"
"No," Jack muttered, steadying himself. "He's making us remember."
The false Jack—the First Devourer, the one who had walked this cycle countless times—descended until his feet touched the fractured earth. He looked around the battlefield, where the remnants of armies had once stood. Now only five souls remained—six, counting the one Jack used to be.
"I offered you silence," the Devourer said. "Peace. And you chose this."
"Peace?" Nyssa stepped forward, her bow half-raised. "You mean oblivion."
The Devourer tilted his head. "There's no difference."
Lola's voice cracked with fury. "You lied to us. Lied to me. I gave everything to protect the seal—and you broke it yourself."
"I did not break it," the Devourer replied. "I merely... remembered how."
The ground groaned. The entire Maw pulsed with light, responding to his presence. From its abyss, roots of nothingness began to crawl upward—long black tendrils of time undone, seeking to unmake the world from its core.
Kael stepped in front of Jack. "We're not going to let you restart the Sundering."
The Devourer smiled sadly. "It never ended."
And then he moved.
One blink—he was upon them.
Kael met him first, blades clashing in a blast of force that cracked the air. Sparks erupted as their weapons collided again and again, each strike bending gravity, each clash echoing across unseen timelines.
Jack raced toward them, but something blocked his path—his own shadow, alive, dragging itself upright.
"You again," it hissed in his voice. "You keep trying to undo me. To deny what you are."
Jack drove the Blade of Echoes into the thing's heart. "Because I'm not you."
But it didn't die. It split, twisted, bled white light.
"Every time you deny me, I grow stronger," the shadow said.
Lola unleashed a barrage of flame-runes, carving a path toward Jack. "MOVE!"
He ducked just in time as she incinerated the shadow-being in a burst of sunfire. "You owe me so many answers after this."
Jack coughed. "Assuming there's an after."
Meanwhile, Kael had been driven to one knee. The Devourer pressed down on his blade with a single hand, his gaze distant, pitying.
"You were my champion once," the Devourer said softly. "I remember you kneeling in the Valley of Bones, swearing to end me."
Kael spat blood. "I still might."
"You never did. Not in any of the cycles."
Kael screamed—and the Blade of Ancients in his hand changed, flaring white-hot as if some long-buried truth within him had finally awoken.
The strike he landed shook the mountain.
The Devourer staggered back. For the first time, he bled.
Jack seized the opening and launched forward, slashing down with the Blade of Echoes. The Devourer raised an arm, catching it between his fingers—but the weapon burned him.
"You forged this with my blood," the Devourer whispered. "So you could kill me. Every version of you has tried. None ever succeeded."
"Then maybe I'm the one who does," Jack growled—and shoved the blade deeper.
The Devourer pushed him back with a pulse of force that threw Jack twenty feet, but he didn't follow.
He looked at his wound—smoke trailing from it—and frowned.
"You are not like the others," he said. "You've touched something different. Her flame still burns in you."
Lola stepped beside Jack, steadying him. "Damn right it does."
The Devourer turned his gaze to her—and for a moment, something flickered in his expression.
Recognition.
"…Aelira."
Lola's face drained of color.
Nyssa drew in a sharp breath. "What did he call you?"
The Devourer closed his eyes. "You burned with me once. The first Flame. The Last Fire. You cast yourself into the void to stop what I was becoming."
"I don't remember," Lola whispered. "I can't remember."
"You were always meant to."
And then—
He stepped back.
Not in fear. In reverence.
"I do not fear your blade," he said to Jack. "But hers—hers is the only fire I have never unmade."
The Blade of Echoes began to glow brighter, as if in response.
Jack's heart pounded. "Then maybe we're not just fighting you."
The Devourer looked up.
The sky had begun to mend—light stitching itself into the breach.
"You would rewrite the story again?" he asked.
Jack stood tall. "No. We're ending yours—and writing ours."
And then all of them moved—
Together.