The world was thawing.
For the first time in an age, the horizon shimmered with sunlight, not the sickly reflection of snowlight, but real warmth. I could feel it trickling down through the clouds, touching skin that had forgotten the sun.
Glae stood in the center of the ruined temple, her translucent form glowing brighter than it ever had. The frost that once veiled her skin was melting away, revealing lines of celestial symmetry running through her like rivers of frozen light. Sage sat a few meters away, half-awake, her breathing steady but shallow. I knelt beside her, watching the faint blue shimmer beneath her ribs, where Glae had taken and reforged a part of her into Killiden.
It was quiet, save for the faint hum of the Blade of Malfunction beside me. The calm was almost unsettling.
Then Glae spoke.
"Vice," she began, her voice crystalline, every syllable reverberating through the temple like struck glass. "You've seen power in fragments. Psy. Killiden. The furnace. But you still do not understand what governs all of it."
Her eyes shifted toward me and Sage. "I will teach you. Not because you are ready, but because you must be."
I straightened. "Teach me what?"
Glae raised her hand, and the air itself began to ripple. Streams of light and shadow bent around her palm, weaving together until four distinct spheres appeared, one bright and sharp, one black and hollow, one heavy and pulsating, and one unstable, flickering between everything and nothing.
"These," she said, "are the four faces of force, the systems that govern all Remnant and mortal creation alike."
She motioned to the first sphere. "Psy. The projection of self. Thought, made physical. It is the will that takes form."
Then to the second. "Umbrä. Negative energy, hunger that shapes itself through subtraction. To wield Umbrä is to erase without destroying."
Her hand hovered over the third, the heavy one that seemed to distort gravity itself. "Nex-Matter. The hidden geometry that binds existence, what keeps chaos from devouring itself."
Finally, she looked to the last, the flickering one. Her tone lowered. "And Counterflux. The inversion. The antimatter of thought. It doesn't destroy, it rewrites."
The spheres pulsed once, syncing with her words. "All Remnants can command these freely. We are the inheritors of the Vault's first code, the equation that defines all motion and stasis. That is our divine right, our curse."
She turned away, her voice cold but not cruel.
"You, however, are something else entirely. You shouldn't be able to touch any of it… yet you already have."
I frowned, glancing at my hands. "So what does that make me?"
Her eyes met mine again, sharp as diamond points.
"It makes you dangerous."
The word hung heavy in the air.
Sage stirred behind me, sitting up slightly, her voice weak but clear.
"Dangerous? He saved the world, didn't he?"
Glae's gaze softened for a moment. "He saved a world. Not the one that matters."
The room went silent again. The orbs above her hand began to merge, swirling together until they became one, a single point of blinding light.
"Understand this, Vice," she continued. "Each of these forces shapes reality differently, but all bend to the will of the Remnants. And Malfious…"
Her tone sharpened like the crack of frozen glass.
"Malfious used none of them."
I blinked. "What?"
She nodded once, slow and deliberate. "Not Psy, not Umbrä, not Nex, not Counterflux. Not even Killiden. He wielded power, yes, but it wasn't his. That is why you defeated him so easily."
I felt something twist in my chest. "So what are you saying? That the thing I fought wasn't Malfious?"
Glae looked toward the horizon, where the sunlight and snow met like two worlds colliding. "You fought a vessel. A shadow carved from his doctrine, sustained by those who still believe in his ideology. The true Malfious never left the Void of Preservation."
The revelation burned in my ears. I looked down at my hands again, half human, half something else. "Then where is he?"
She raised a finger to the sky. "Beyond the Veil of Silence. Waiting. Watching. He cannot leave until his vessel's death ripples through the ether, which it just did."
Sage tilted her head, confusion clouding her eyes. "So what happens now?"
Glae stepped forward, the air freezing slightly around her feet. "Now? The world heals. But the balance shifts. With the gas cloud gone, the Void's influence grows weaker… yet Malfious's reach grows stronger."
My heart dropped. "You're saying I freed him."
She nodded grimly. "You unmade the lock, yes. But that was always going to happen. You cannot kill rebellion, only misplace it."
The silence returned, heavy and thoughtful.
Then I spoke, quieter. "If the real Malfious is still out there, how do we stop him?"
Her response came with no hesitation. "By mastering what he refused to use. By becoming what he feared most, unity. You, Vice, are the synthesis of all four. You can project like Psy, erase like Umbrä, bind like Nex, and rewrite like Counterflux. You are the flaw in his code, the one he never predicted."
Sage looked at me, awe and fear mixing in her expression.
"And me?" she asked.
Glae turned to her, the ice in her tone thawing for the first time.
"You are the conduit. The vessel through which his evolution can continue. The Killiden within you will stabilize him, or destroy him, depending on how you choose to wield it."
Sage's eyes widened. "That's… not much of a choice."
"It never is," Glae replied softly
I stared at the ground. The frost beneath my boots shimmered with the reflection of all three of us, the human, the Remnant, and the god.
For a moment, I felt the three voices inside me stir again, whispering in harmony.
V, calm and human: We can rebuild this.
Zane, sharp and calculating: We must understand it first.
Nazz, laughing low: Or burn it again and start over.
The Blade hummed faintly at my side, Killiden pulsing like a heart ready to awaken.
I looked up at Glae, voice steady.
"Then tell me everything. If Malfious was just a vessel, and the real one still breathes… what comes next?"
Glae's answer came cold and precise.
"Next, Vice… comes the unmaking of the Vault itself.
Her words echoed through the ruins like thunder.
And above us, the newly freed sky shimmered, not in peace, but in warning.
"Some laws were not written to be followed, but to remind the gods they can still bleed."
The frost had stopped falling.
The air was clear now, a shimmering haze that bent light into colors the human eye was never meant to see. I stood at the edge of what used to be a frozen plain, but now, faint blades of green strained through cracks in the ice. The world was waking up. Slowly, painfully, but waking nonetheless.
Glae stood nearby, half-immersed in the reflection of the thawing lake. The faint hum of her presence could be felt rather than heard, the rhythm of something ancient remembering how to breathe. Sage stood a few feet away, watching her own reflection tremble.
I turned toward Glae.
"Teach me," I said.
She didn't move. Her gaze stayed fixed on the horizon.
"I want to learn to use what you've shown me, Psy, Umbrä, Nex, Counterflux. I want to control all of it. Every fragment."
Her reflection looked up at me before she did. There was a kind of pity in her expression, or maybe respect disguised as disappointment.
"You would learn to hold what the Vault designed to fracture worlds?" she asked quietly. "You wish to bear what even gods feared to wield?"
"Yes." I didn't hesitate. "If I'm the synthesis, if I'm the flaw Malfious couldn't predict, then I need to understand why."
For a moment, silence. Then Sage stepped forward, the snow crunching beneath her boots.
"Then teach me too," she said.
Her voice trembled, but not from fear. There was conviction there, unrefined, human, stubborn. "You said I'm the conduit. If I'm tied to this, I need to understand how it works."
Glae finally turned to face us. The light behind her fractured into a thousand shards of glassy blue.
"You both ask to dance on the edge of a blade," she said, her tone slow, deliberate. "But very well. I will teach you what little I can."
Sage's eyes lit up, but Glae raised a hand to still her.
"Do not mistake permission for promise," she continued. "We have little time. I cannot remain in this realm for long. The Vault's Law forbids a Remnant from lingering in a single reality beyond its tether."
She began to walk toward us, the snow freezing solid beneath every step.
"If we stay, we begin to unmake. Every molecule that remembers us starts to fold inward, time fractures, matter collapses, and the threads of creation unravel. It is the way of the Vault. The way it ensures we never grow too fond of one reality."
Her voice turned softer. "I am nearing that point. The Veil is calling me back."
Sage frowned. "So what do we do?"
Glae pointed toward the Blade of Malfunction at my side.
"You," she said, "stabilize your connection. You are the only being who can. That weapon, the one forged from the ashes of a god, can bridge what no Remnant dares cross."
I nodded and drew it. The Blade's pulse matched my heartbeat. I gripped it tight, feeling the familiar burn at my palm as its crimson light began to hum through me.
"Good," Glae said. "Now listen. The key to all power, Psy, Umbrä, Nex, Counterflux, is resonance. Psy is your will. Umbrä your hunger. Nex your anchor. Counterflux your defiance. You must align them, let the Blade act as conduit."
The Blade's glow deepened to violet. I could feel the air rippling.
Glae gestured to Sage. "And you, let your Killiden speak."
Sage hesitated, then closed her eyes. Her breathing slowed. The faint blue veins under her skin began to shimmer, not with light, but with motion. I felt the pull of her power before I saw it. Pebbles, shards of ice, fragments of Killiden dust began to lift from the ground, orbiting her like tiny moons.
Glae's voice was approving. "Magnetism. Not of metal, but of meaning. You draw connections together, threads that wish to unite. Your power will stabilize his chaos."
Sage's eyes opened, glowing faintly. "It feels… natural," she said, awed. "Like I've done this before."
"That is because your soul remembers," Glae replied. "Every Weapon's first song echoes through eternity."
Then her attention returned to me.
"And you, Vice…"
The air bent around me, heat and frost merging into something that made the horizon blur. The Blade pulsed faster, my blood felt like molten Killiden.
"What do I do?" I asked through clenched teeth.
"Nothing," Glae said. "You do not use this power. You become it."
The Blade's hum rose to a roar. The ground cracked beneath me. The four energies, Psy, Umbrä, Nex, Counterflux, spiraled around me, merging into one blinding current. For a heartbeat, I felt everything. The chaos, the order, the void between them, all screaming, all singing, all alive.
Then it happened.
A pulse of force exploded outward, shaking the landscape. The snow melted, then refroze midair. The ice on the lake shattered and reformed in fractal patterns. The very laws of motion bent, rearranging themselves like a puzzle only I could see.
Glae's eyes widened, the first true surprise I'd seen from her.
"You…" she whispered, her voice almost reverent. "You are not just synthesis. You are creation itself… rewritten."
Sage shielded her face from the storm of light and energy. "What's happening to him?"
"Something the Vault never intended," Glae said. "He is becoming the Fifth Force."
The energy around me began to fade, leaving behind a stillness so deep it felt sacred. I fell to one knee, the Blade humming quietly beside me.
My voice trembled when I spoke. "What… what am I?"
Glae stepped forward. Her gaze was steady, knowing. "You are the anomaly. The question the Vault could not answer. The flaw that will unmake perfection itself."
Her form flickered slightly, thin cracks of light running through her translucent body.
"I have little time," she said. "But you have enough. Learn. Control it. Because the next time you face the true Malfious… you will need all of it."
She turned to Sage, her tone softening. "And you, conduit, anchor him. If he falters, this world will not thaw. It will fracture."
Sage nodded.
The light around Glae began to fracture, pieces of her form drifting upward like snow carried by a reversed wind.
"Where are you going?" I asked, stepping forward.
"Back," she said. "Where all Remnants return when the world remembers them too much."
Her last words lingered, freezing into the air itself.
"Remember this, Vice. Power without understanding is collapse. And love without restraint… is corruption."
Then she was gone.
Only the echo of her frost remained, and the faint hum of the Blade in my hand, now singing with a resonance that wasn't entirely mine.
I exhaled slowly. The silence felt alive.
And from within me, the three voices stirred again.
V whispered: We're human again.
Zane muttered: No. We're becoming something else.
Nazz laughed low: Finally… now it begins.
I lifted my head toward the thawing horizon.
The world was breathing again.
And for the first time, so was I.