The sky was falling.
Not as rain, nor fire—but as light.
Streaks of burning memory carved through the heavens, unraveling stars, pulling constellations apart thread by thread. The veil between worlds no longer shimmered—it had shattered. Every breath they took came tinged with echoes.
They stood atop the obsidian rise, the completed Blade of Echoes glowing faintly in Jack's grip. Not with rage. Not with hunger.
With remembrance.
"It's begun," Kael said grimly. "The unraveling."
"No," Jack replied. "The reckoning."
The horizon was no longer horizon. A great storm surged from the north—fleshless and vast. The Endless Maw, once a place, now a living force. Shapes writhed within: Hollowed, Watchers, things even older. All drawn toward the same nexus.
The Final Spire.
"That's where it ends," Lola whispered, voice trembling as the sigils on her skin flared again. "Where the Sundering began. Where the Devourer first fell."
Marek shifted his weight. "Then we meet him there."
"No," Jack said. "You meet me there."
They didn't argue.
Not this time.
Perhaps because they understood—something inside Jack had changed. He no longer fought for survival, or victory.
He fought for truth.
They moved swiftly across the dying land. The terrain no longer obeyed rules; mountains melted into rivers, and rivers bled starlight. The world was bleeding itself dry to remember what it had forgotten.
They passed a valley where time moved backward.
A field where ghosts of forgotten gods sang lullabies to no one.
And finally—
The Spire.
It wasn't a tower.
It was a wound.
Rising like a blade through the earth's heart, taller than thought, carved in impossible stone that shimmered with every moment in history at once. And atop it—a throne.
Cracked. Empty.
Waiting.
The climb was merciless.
Not in effort—but in memory.
Every step, Jack remembered more. Every layer peeled away until he no longer walked as himself.
He walked as what he had once been.
The God-Eater.
The Star-Forged.
The First Echo.
And when they reached the summit—
The past met the present.
There, atop the Spire, stood the one Jack had seen in the Forge.
Himself.
Not an echo.
Not a shadow.
But the first self—the one who had wielded the original Blade and shattered the veil.
It turned.
It smiled.
"You've come far."
Jack raised the Blade. "This ends now."
"I know," the first self said. "Because we end together."
The others watched from below as the sky darkened, and two Jacks faced one another.
Nyssa whispered, "He's fighting a version of himself that never broke."
Lola murmured, "Or one that never healed."
Kael gritted his teeth. "Can he win?"
Marek didn't speak.
Because far above, the battle had already begun.
It wasn't a duel.
It was a collapse.
Every strike between them tore open new memories. Realities spilled like blood across the sky.
With every blow, Jack relived the Sundering.
—A promise made to a dying god.
—A world of silence born from mercy.
—The creation of the Blade not to kill, but to forget.
—A child, burning with power, screaming into an empty sky.
His first self lunged.
Jack blocked. Parried.
The Blade vibrated—not with pain, but with recognition.
"I made you," the first self said. "I am you."
"No," Jack replied, panting. "You're what I was when I gave up."
"And what are you now?" the voice sneered.
Jack stood tall.
"I'm what you never dared become."
With one final swing, Jack shattered the illusion.
The sky fractured.
The first self dissolved—not into ash or wind, but into light.
And within that light—a voice.
"You learned."
Jack fell to one knee as the Blade of Echoes dimmed… then pulsed once.
A final note.
A final memory.
And the world… changed.
Below, the others saw it:
A ripple of golden fire across the sky.
The Hollowed stopped advancing.
The Maw ceased pulsing.
The Throne atop the Spire—
Was filled.
Jack rose, no longer fractured.
But whole.
He spoke, and the world listened.
"The Sundering ends now."
But something laughed.
Not from the Maw.
Not from the stars.
From within the Blade.
A crack appeared across its edge—hairline thin.
Jack flinched.
"No..."
A new voice spoke.
Velvet and venom.
"You thought you could rewrite me. But you only reawakened me."
Kael's face paled. "What is that?"
Lola backed away. "It's not the Devourer. It's not even Jack."
Marek raised his weapons. "Then what?"
The crack in the Blade split wider.
Black flame licked from the edges.
Jack dropped the weapon—staring at his own hands.
Something moved beneath his skin.
A shape. A shadow. A name.
"I'm not alone," Jack gasped.
The voice laughed again.
"No, Jack. You never were."
And from the crack in the Blade—
It emerged.
A hand. Pale as bone. Clawed. Wrapped in chains of thought.
The watchers fell to their knees.
Because they remembered this.
They had forgotten its name.
But now, it was awake.
The one even the First Flame had sealed away.
Not the Devourer.
Not the Watcher.
But the One Who Unmade.
And it had returned—
Inside Jack.