The skies above the ruined spires of Eleutherion no longer shimmered with divine light. Where once radiance cascaded down in golden torrents, there was now a grey, oppressive silence. The air was thick—not with dust or smoke, but with memory. With absence. With mourning.
Bakudou stood alone at the heart of the Ashen Plaza, where divinity had clashed with despair. His body, still cracked from the confrontation with the Forsaken Tribunal, pulsed faintly with residual energy. Scars laced across his form—not mere wounds of flesh, but spiritual fissures—reminders of the divine essence that had tried to consume him.
He had won.But at what cost?
Eleutherion, the celestial city of gods, lay broken. Its people scattered. Its core destabilized. And worse—Emma was gone.
No body.No trace.Just the last whisper of her voice in the collapsing ether:"You were never supposed to awaken like this."
The Council of Remaining Eternals gathered in secret ruins far beyond the mortal spectrum. Xareth, the Warden of Lost Eons, now led them. His once-pristine armor was smeared with time-scorched sigils, and his face bore the fatigue of someone who had watched too many timelines die.
"Bakudou stands unchallenged. But he is not whole," Xareth declared.
"We must decide—do we fear him, or do we save him from himself?"
The divine factions were fractured. Some saw Bakudou as the savior. Others, as a threat beyond comprehension. None knew of Emma's true nature—her role as the Creator, the silent Architect behind the Ultraverse. And none suspected the truth she had buried in the deepest layers of Bakudou's being.
Bakudou wandered the remains of the Library of Anima, the infinite archive of the Ultraverse's truth. Crumbled monoliths whispered fragments of reality as he passed:
"The first fracture was not the Tribunal—it was her hand that shaped the chaos into form…"
He gritted his teeth, remembering the moment Emma shielded him during the collapse of the Reality Lattice. Her light had been unlike any other—a resonance that mirrored his power, yet extended far beyond it.
Why didn't she tell me? Why did she hide herself from me?
In the reflection of a shattered chronoglass, he saw it—a memory not his own.
Emma. Alone. At the edge of creation.Forging the Ultraverse.Crying.Saying his name for the first time."Bakudou. My last hope."
His knees hit the crystal floor. Rage boiled inside him—but deeper than rage was grief. A grief so vast it bent the divine fields around him, warping the very laws that held this fragment of reality intact.
A being From beyond the edge of collapsed divinity, a voice emerged.
Not Emma's.Not a god's.But something older. Something beneath divinity."You were never meant to rule, Bakudou. Only to destroy. To reset."
A figure emerged from the void. Cloaked in entropy, its presence unweaved the world around it.It smiled.
"Emma's final seal is breaking. And when it does, you will remember who you truly are."Bakudou stood, eyes glowing not with power—but with fear. For the first time, he realized…He didn't know what he was.And the Ultraverse?Was just the beginning.
To be continued…
Next: "Awakening the Architect"