The clone did not look back.
Behind him, the world he had left continued without noticing. But above him, the Vault shimmered once more—no longer as a cage, but as a witness.
A Gu worm floated to the surface of the unformed soil beneath his feet. It had not been planted. It had not been refined.
It had always been waiting.
Nameless Trace Gu.
Its body was dust-colored, its shape incomplete—constantly changing in outline, yet never resolving into something that could be described.
He reached down. Not to claim it, but to acknowledge it.
The Gu did not resist. It pulsed once, and in doing so, did not bind to him.
"You have no fate," it whispered.
"Then let us walk where none has been written."
Elsewhere, the Starlight Echo spun once, reconfiguring a thread. But the thread vanished before it could stabilize.
"Not a prophecy," it murmured.
"A path that leaves no trace."
The clone walked on.
Behind him, the land he stepped across began to dissolve—not in destruction, but in unmaking. Every step he took removed a possibility from the Gu World's future.
And somewhere in the immortal heavens, a divination Gu collapsed into silence.