The stars were quiet.
The sapphire coffin shimmered one final time at the peak of the Obsidian Runic Spire and then, slowly, silently, it began to come undone. And just like that…
Vastarael Richinaria's body was gone.
As the final flecks of light vanished into the firmament, a strange breeze rolled across the spire's platform. Then it began.
Minafallen students, all five thousand of them, shimmered faintly, their bodies flickering, shifting between reality and time. The present was calling them back. One by one, they began to vanish in slow glitches, glowing softly as if their souls were being guided back gently by an unseen thread.
They didn't resist.
They turned their eyes skyward, toward the remnants of the floating sapphire light that had once been their savior's coffin and they smiled.
Whispers and silent goodbyes echoed through the air.
"Thank you, Vastarael…"
"We'll remember…"
"He was more than Divine. He was hope…"
They vanished one after the other, dissolving into streaks of soft time-light, returning to the present.
Two lone figures stepped forward.
Shimmer and Runner.
Clad in their mourning cloaks, tiny fists clenched at their sides, they walked with heavy steps toward the Seventh Enlightenment. Their faces were still young but there was no mistaking the ancient sorrow in their eyes. They had cried. They had mourned. And now, they had chosen.
Shimmer raised her chin and offered a small smile.
"We won't be going back."
Runner nodded beside her. "We've made our choice."
The Seventh Enlightenment stood stunned, barely able to speak. Adelasta, for once, didn't argue. Her eyes blinked once before she slowly nodded.
"If time permits, we'll meet again in another place."
Elyonari offered a sad smile, her arms still holding Narisva, who hadn't moved or spoken. Her Divinity flickered with instability, as though she were fading right through Elyonari's arms.
"She's still healing," Elyonari whispered. "But I'll tell her you said goodbye… when she's ready to hear it."
Shimmer bowed. Runner raised her hand in farewell. The Seventh Enlightenment began to fade.
Each of them turned to shimmering light, their Divine signatures unraveling across space. One after another, like pages being turned in reverse, they vanished Until only one remained.
Phaenora.
She stood at the edge of the platform, her head tilted downward. Her bond with Vastarael had snapped. She'd felt the end. She'd felt the silence. But now, she looked at the girls.
Ten-year-old Shimmer and Runner were smiling up at her. And just as the final wave of time began to take her, she saw something. A shimmer. A silver light curling at the edge, almost… watching.
Her lips parted.
"…What is—"
But before she could finish, she, too, vanished. The courtyard was still again.
Only Shimmer and Runner remained.
The Obsidian Runic Spire stood tall above them, Vastarael's grave now just a carved rune of blue light. The Erna Isles was quiet.
The two girls stood in that silence, utterly alone. Shimmer let her arms fall to her sides. Runner rubbed her face with the back of her sleeve and sighed.
"Everyone's gone."
"Again," Shimmer added.
There was a pause. Then Shimmer looked up at the stars and asked softly,
"…Did we do good?"
Runner swallowed hard, her voice trembling. "I don't know."
"I'd say… you did more than good."
Both girls froze. They turned around.
There, kneeling beside them like he'd always been there, one hand on his knee, the other ruffling his long white hair, was a man. He was handsome. His armor was gone. He wore a plain cloak now, his face younger somehow, and his glaive wasn't on his back but his smile was the same.
And now, there were only three... no, four people on the damaged moon.
Two little girls, a man who should have been dead and a woman waiting for them inside the Spire.
Vastarael sat cross-legged on the cold stone ground, looking more tired than he ever had in his life. His long hair had come loose from its braid and now swayed gently with the breeze. He wore simple black robes now, not his armor, and Calimostria was nowhere in sight. His face was calm but his sigh? That came from the core of his soul.
"…Faking my death wasn't easy, you know," he muttered, brushing strands away from his eyes. "Do you have any idea how much Divine Energy it takes to simulate the soul-shatter of an Aeterium?"
The silence was broken by a giggle. Then another.
And then the two girls who had stood solemn and noble through an entire funeral burst into laughter like they'd just pulled the greatest prank in the history of Spheraphase.
"You really got them!" Runner said, dropping her act entirely, her face lighting up with impish pride. "Especially Phaenora. Did you see her face? I thought she was going to glitch out of existence."
Shimmer grinned as she folded her arms. "Told you the delayed reaction timing would make it more believable. You owe me cookies for that."
Vastarael blinked, lips twitching into a dry smirk. "You were acting? The whole time?"
"Obviously," Shimmer said with a proud shrug. "Dad, we've lived with you long enough to know how to fake emotional trauma. Not hard when you raised us to outwit Divines."
He groaned and leaned back on his palms, looking up at the starless sky.
"This was the condition I made with EPOCH. One final use of the [Rule Shattering Wish] reward everyone in an Epoch Cycle gets. I had to die publicly, vanish completely and vanish all traces of my Divine Path. It was the only way to prevent what my future self warned me about on the Submerged Island."
His voice darkened slightly, the memories still etched deep into his soul. He changed his destiny again by doing something his future self never did. He faked his death and he did not kill the Frozen God.
And he cheated fate. Now he did not have to worry about it anymore since it was completed.
He looked at the girls, his eyes narrowed.
"And I agreed to it… so the world could stop needing me. So you could stop needing me."
There was a beat of silence. Then Runner knelt down beside him and poked his shoulder.
"Yeah? So why're you still here?"
He raised an eyebrow. "Excuse me?"
Shimmer stepped in next to her sister and folded her arms. "If the plan was for everyone to stop needing you… why did you stay behind?"
He didn't answer. So Shimmer pressed on.
"And we didn't leave because… well, what's the point of going somewhere you're not? You're our dad. If you're not in the future, then the future isn't where we belong."
Runner nodded, smile fading slightly but staying sincere. "You raised us to think for ourselves. We thought. We chose."
Vastarael rubbed his temples. "We are going to be asleep for 7,700 years."
Shimmer shrugged. "Naps are good for the skin."
"And you will be in a modern world."
Runner grinned. "Erna will handle it."
"…Erna?" he asked, brow arching.
Shimmer smirked. "Mom's alive now, remember? Thanks to, well… you know. The whole massive energy sacrifice via bloodpath massacre ritual thing?"
Vastarael sighed. "I told you, 800,000 lives is not a light cost. I literally turned Erna Moon to a cracked egg just to separate her from the Spire and to ascend Narisva."
The girls exchanged a glance. Shimmer shrugged.
"Worth it."
Runner grinned. "We're not heroes."
Vastarael leaned back and chuckled that echoed gently through the stones around them.
"No. No, you're not."
He looked at his strange, brilliant, terrifying daughters and smiled.
"I raised villains."
They smiled back.
"Necessary villains," Shimmer added. "You promised you'd come back to us. And you never break your promises."
Vastarael stared at them for a long moment. Then, without a word, he stood.
A pulse of energy shimmered around him, and his form began to glow. Soul Energy moved through his veins, spiraling upward like wind catching a flag. His body began to shift, his bones stretching, eyes glowing brighter than the moons above.
He grew to four meters tall, his Divine Transformation once again fully active. The girls stood below him, hands outstretched.
"Come on, Dad," Shimmer said.
"Carry us one last time before we all sleep," Runner added.
He knelt, smiling faintly, and swept them both into his arms, one on each side, clinging tightly to his chest as if they'd never let go again.
They looked toward the Obsidian Runic Spire, its runes now quietly humming.
Above it, the stars finally began to return one by one.
"Time to go," he murmured.
"Time for a long nap," Shimmer whispered.
"And Mom's waiting," Runner smiled.
He carried them up the steps. Each one glowed with each footfall.
The doors of the spire parted on their own, revealing a chamber of absolute stillness. A father and his daughters stepped into the quiet light together.
Outside, the sky held its breath. The moon Erna was finally silent. The doors of the spire closed. The light dimmed and four souls fell into sleep for 7,700 years.
And when they would wake up, they would start a new life together.
[END OF VOLUME THREE, THE FALLEN BRIDGE ARC.]