The sky cracked like porcelain under thunder.
Jack surged forward. The Blade of Echoes burned white-hot in his grip, drawn not just by power—but defiance. Memory, pain, love, and grief fused into a single, blinding strike as he met the Architect's gaze.
The world held its breath.
And then—
Impact.
Light clashed with light, silence collided with sound. The Blade met the Architect's hand—and the collision didn't echo in the air, but across time itself. Mountains rippled into mist. Oceans stilled. The stars blinked out and returned, one by one.
Jack's scream was lost in the cascade.
The Architect recoiled, not from pain—but recognition.
"You wield remembrance," they said. "You carry what was meant to be forgotten."
"Because we lived it!" Jack roared. "And I won't let you erase it!"
Beside him, Aelira raised her hands. Golden light surged from her palms, forming a sphere of tangled sigils—each a story, each a moment. Kael's laughter. Nyssa's blade dancing. Lola's rebellion. Auren's sacrifice.
Every life they'd ever touched.
The sphere expanded, colliding with the Architect's form.
"You gave us a script," Aelira said, voice ringing like bells in a storm. "But we wrote ourselves into it."
The Architect screamed—not in pain, but rage.
"I am the silence between creation!" they bellowed. "I am the breath before the first word!"
"And I am the echo after the last," Jack whispered.
With that—he plunged the Blade of Echoes into the ground.
The world shattered.
Not into ruin.
But into choice.
They stood in a sea of white. No sky. No horizon. Only Jack and the Architect, alone within the echo of everything.
"You would unmake me," the Architect said. "But without me, there is no order. No pattern. Only chaos."
Jack looked at his hands. They no longer held the Blade. It had dissolved—its final purpose fulfilled.
"I'm not trying to destroy you," he said softly. "I'm giving you what you never allowed us."
The Architect blinked. "What?"
"A choice."
Jack reached out.
No weapon. No magic.
Just a hand.
"Be part of this," he said. "Help build it. But with us. Not over us."
The Architect stared.
For one endless moment—nothing moved.
And then—
They took his hand.
The sky returned.
So did the stars.
So did Nyssa.
And Kael.
The world rewrote itself—not by force, but by remembering.
Where once the Maw had torn the land apart, now stood a quiet valley, filled with violet grasses and silver trees. The wind was gentle. The sun was warm.
Aelira stood on a hill, watching.
Kael sat beneath a tree, idly sharpening a blade that no longer needed to kill.
Nyssa threw rocks into a crystal-clear stream, humming under her breath.
Lola—if she was still that—had wandered off alone, whispering to the ruins of her past.
Jack watched them all.
And then looked up at the sky.
"Is it really done?" he asked.
Aelira didn't answer at first.
Then—
"No story ever ends. It just becomes something else."
Jack nodded.
"I think," she continued, "you've earned a beginning."