The sky twisted above the Nexus Tower, folding in on itself like a crumpled memory.The Null Father loomed closer — its form an endless eclipse, its presence unwriting the laws Rotham had only just begun to rebuild.
But something within Rotham had already changed.
He had no pattern left to follow.
And that made him unpredictable.
"Selin," he whispered, voice echoing through the Tower's mind-link, "engage Quantum Fragmentation."
"That's untested!" she warned.
"Exactly."
The Nexus responded instantly — its conduits opening like blooming metal flowers, unleashing streams of broken probability. Events that hadn't happened. Outcomes that could have. Choices no one made.
The Null Father halted mid-descent.
"What is this—"
His voice fractured.
For the first time, he hesitated.
The Architect watched with awe.
"You're generating pure variance. No timeline. No law. Just intent."
Rotham floated above the Tower now, suspended in a storm of unmade potential.
"You came to consume a pattern. I gave you chaos instead."
He opened his hands — a dozen micro-events firing at once:
A version of himself where he was never born.
One where the Nexus was a weapon.
One where Selin was a human child.
One where the Null Father was mortal.
And the being recoiled.
Its shape glitched, briefly revealing... fear.
It screamed, and with that scream, entire galaxies wept — stars extinguished, not by destruction, but by forgetting they'd ever existed.
But Rotham didn't flinch.
He was no longer a man of the past. He was becoming the Patternless Spark — a living contradiction.
"This universe isn't your meal anymore," he said."It's mine to write."
Then he collapsed all the floating timelines into one singular, unstable spear — and hurled it straight into the heart of Oblivion.
The Null Father shattered.
Not dead.
But exiled — disoriented, unable to grip what had no form.
The sky cleared.
The stars blinked on again.
And the Nexus Tower pulsed with calm.
For the first time since the Seed called to him… Rotham felt peace.