Phantom stood in a place that was everywhere and nowhere.
Not the limbo worlds that Atlas had stumbled through—those were merely cracks, fractures in reality's foundation. Temporary spaces. Transitional.
This was different.
This was the Void Between—the absolute emptiness that existed before creation, that would exist after creation ended. The canvas upon which reality had been painted, vast and dark and patient.
And Phantom was its master.
He didn't stand, exactly. Didn't occupy space in the way physical beings did. His form was suggestion more than substance—a silhouette cut from darkness itself, edges constantly shifting like smoke in still air.
Where eyes should have been, there was only deeper black. Absolute absence. Voids within the Void.
But they saw everything.
He watched the world below—or above, or beside, directions having no meaning here—with the patience of something that had existed before time learned to move forward.
The material realm spread out before his perception like a tapestry. Every thread visible. Every pattern clear. Every flaw apparent.
And oh, there were so many flaws.
Cracks spreading. Reality fragmenting. Time stuttering and jumping and folding back on itself. The careful structure his mother had built over eons—
Unraveling.
Phantom's form rippled with something that might have been satisfaction.
"You always were so proud of your creation, Mother," he said to the darkness around him.
His voice didn't echo. It existed in multiple places simultaneously, layered over itself in dissonant harmony.
"So careful. So precise. Building your perfect little world with its perfect little rules."
He gestured, and the fabric of reality before him magnified—focusing on a specific point. A small cabin in a clearing. Two figures inside.
One powerless. One frightened.
"But perfection is stagnation," Phantom continued. "Order is prison. You built a cage and called it paradise."
His form shifted, moving without movement, existing in multiple configurations at once.
"I am simply setting everything free."
The darkness around him pulsed—not with light, but with deeper darkness. Shadows within shadows. Absence folding in on itself until it became something almost tangible.
Power radiated from him in waves that bent reality just by existing near it.
This was the Dark God of Creation.
Not destruction—that was a common misconception. Phantom didn't destroy. He unmade. He returned things to the raw chaos they'd been before order imposed itself.
He was the void that hungered for form but refused to be filled. The creative force turned inward, consuming rather than building.
And he was so much more powerful than anyone understood.
More powerful than Retro had been, even at his peak.
More powerful than Gaia herself, perhaps—though she'd never admit it.
Because Phantom didn't just use power. He was power. The fundamental force underlying all existence, unbound by rules or limitations or the petty concerns of mortality.
He could unmake a soul with a thought. Erase timelines with a gesture. Rewrite the laws of physics by simply disagreeing with them strongly enough.
The fight with Retro had been play. Curiosity. Testing.
He'd wanted to see if the vaunted god-killer was worthy of attention.
The answer had been... interesting.
Retro had surprised him—briefly. Had lasted longer than expected. Had even managed to land a few blows that, while ultimately meaningless, showed admirable determination.
But in the end?
In the end, Retro had been mortal. Limited. Bound by rules that Phantom had stopped following before the current age of the world had begun.
And now—
Now Retro was broken. Sealed. Stripped of his power and rendered irrelevant.
Just as planned.
"You're welcome, Mother," Phantom said to the watching darkness. "I've removed your pet protector. Your carefully cultivated weapon."
He focused on the cabin again, on the powerless figure inside.
"He was never going to work, you know. Too much grief. Too much rage. Too... human."
The word dripped with contempt.
"You cannot forge a weapon from broken pieces and expect it to hold together under pressure. He would have shattered eventually—probably taking half your precious world with him."
Phantom's form contracted, collapsing inward until he was barely more than a point of absolute darkness.
"But I've given you a gift. Broken him cleanly. Removed the variable you couldn't control."
He expanded again, filling the space.
"Now you can start fresh. Find a new champion. Build a new defense."
A pause.
"Not that it will matter."
Because Phantom had already won. He'd been winning since before the game began.
Every move Gaia made, he'd anticipated. Every defense she erected, he'd already found the weakness.
She thought she was playing chess.
He was playing a game she didn't have words for.
"But please," he said, his voice carrying dark amusement. "Keep trying. It's so much more entertaining when you resist."
The darkness pulsed again—and somewhere in the material world, another crack spread through reality's foundation.
Time skipped forward three seconds in a small village, leaving its inhabitants confused and disoriented.
A mountain range shifted slightly to the left, no one noticing because their memories adjusted to match.
A lake that had existed for ten thousand years quietly ceased to have ever been, and the world forgot it had been there.
Small changes. Subtle erosions.
Death by a thousand cuts.
And Phantom had infinite patience.
He'd been doing this for longer than most gods had existed. Would continue doing it long after they'd all faded.
Because entropy was inevitable.
Chaos was fundamental.
And order—beautiful, fragile, desperate order—
Was always temporary.
Gaia stood in her garden at the heart of everything.
Not a physical place—or not only a physical place. This was where concept became real, where thought solidified into being. Where the World-Mother could shape reality with the same ease mortals shaped clay.
Trees grew here that had never existed in the material realm. Flowers bloomed with colors that had no names. Rivers flowed in directions that defied geometry, feeding pools that reflected not the sky above but the possibilities of futures yet unwritten.
It was beautiful.
It was perfect.
It was a lie.
Gaia walked among her creation—tall and regal, her form shifting subtly with each step. Sometimes she appeared as a woman with skin like bark and hair like leaves. Sometimes as pure light given vaguely humanoid shape. Sometimes as something older and stranger, a presence that suggested form without quite committing to it.
She was ancient. Older than the world she'd birthed. Older than most concepts of time.
And she was afraid.
Not of Phantom—not directly. She'd known what he was from the moment of his creation. Had watched him grow and twist and become something she'd never intended.
Her greatest success and her most terrible failure, bound together in one being.
No—what frightened her was the possibility of losing.
Of watching her beautiful, carefully crafted world dissolve back into chaos. Of seeing eons of work undone. Of failing in the one task that gave her existence meaning.
Protection. Preservation. The endless fight against entropy.
She'd thought Retro would be the answer.
A mortal elevated to near-godhood through suffering and determination. Someone who'd fought impossible odds and won. Someone with the power to stand against Phantom and the motivation to never back down.
The perfect weapon.
She'd guided him, subtly. Nudged events in directions that would strengthen him. Arranged trials that would forge him into something useful.
And he'd exceeded expectations—for a time.
But mortals were so... fragile.
Even the powerful ones. Even the ones who thought they'd transcended their origins.
They broke in ways gods didn't. Carried wounds that never healed. Let emotions compromise their judgment.
Retro had been breaking for a long time. The fracture in his soul from Rose's death had never properly mended—just scabbed over, infected beneath the surface.
And when Phantom had struck him—had thrust him into that moment of temporal instability—
The wound had torn open completely.
Gaia had felt it. Had sensed the exact moment Retro's grief overwhelmed his control. Had watched his power spike wildly as rage consumed reason.
He would have destroyed everything.
Not intentionally. Not maliciously.
But the result would have been the same—reality shattered beyond repair, making Phantom's job pathetically easy.
So she'd intervened.
Sealed him. Stripped his magic. Locked him away from his own power.
Not to help him.
To neutralize him.
Because a broken weapon was worse than no weapon at all.
Gaia stopped beside one of her impossible pools, staring at the reflection that showed not her face but the world as it currently existed.
Cracking. Fragmenting. Dying slowly.
"You forced my hand," she said quietly.
Not apologizing. Not really. Just acknowledging the necessity of her actions.
"You were never supposed to break. That wasn't part of the design."
She knelt, trailing fingers through water that felt like liquid time.
The reflection rippled, showing different possibilities. Different futures.
In one, Retro recovered. Regained his power. Became useful again.
In another, he remained broken. Useless. Eventually forgotten.
In a third, he died—quietly, anticlimactically, without ever understanding what had truly been at stake.
Gaia dismissed that last vision with a wave.
No. She'd invested too much in him to let him simply fade away.
He would recover. She'd make certain of it.
But he would recover controlled. Managed. Without the dangerous instability that had nearly ruined everything.
She would break him down completely, then rebuild him—not as the man he'd been, but as the tool she needed.
And this time, she would make sure there were no flaws.
No weaknesses.
No remnants of humanity to compromise his function.
"I am not cruel," she said to her reflection.
A lie, but a necessary one.
"I am practical. The world must be protected. Phantom must be stopped."
She stood, turning away from the pool.
"And if that requires sacrificing a few pieces..."
Her form solidified, becoming more real. More present.
"Then that is simply the cost of winning."
She raised one hand, and the garden around her responded—trees bending, flowers blooming, reality itself reshaping to her will.
Because this was her domain. Her creation. Her absolute authority.
Here, she was God in the truest sense.
And she would do whatever was necessary to protect it.
Even if that meant destroying the very champions she'd raised up.
Even if that meant using people as tools and discarding them when they broke.
Even if that meant proving Phantom right about the cruelty of order.
"Forgive me, Retro," she whispered.
Another lie.
She wasn't asking forgiveness. Wasn't sorry.
Was simply acknowledging that what she was about to do would hurt him.
And doing it anyway.
Because in the end, individual suffering meant nothing compared to the survival of everything.
The garden pulsed with power—
And in the material world, forces began to move.
Pieces sliding into position.
Plans within plans unfolding.
All of it orchestrated by a goddess who'd learned long ago that sometimes salvation required damnation.
And Gaia had never hesitated to pay that price.
Nexus sat alone in their rented room at the inn, long after Maris had gone to sleep.
His wife. Still strange to think of her that way, even after two years of marriage. The merfolk woman who'd saved him from drowning in more ways than one—who'd looked at a broken shadow fox and seen something worth keeping.
She slept curled on her side, blue-green scales catching what little moonlight filtered through the window. Even in rest, her gills fluttered slightly—a habit she'd never quite broken, even after all these years on land.
Nexus watched her breathe for a moment.
Then his attention drifted back to the table. To the blade that lay there like an accusation.
The Night Slayer.
Retro's sword. The weapon Nexus had taken eleven years ago, when everything fell apart.
He hadn't meant to keep it. Had grabbed it in the chaos of those first terrible days, when Retro collapsed and wouldn't wake and the world seemed to be ending. Had told himself he was just holding it safe. Just keeping it until his uncle recovered.
But Retro hadn't recovered.
Three months stretched into six. Six into a year. A year into three.
And one by one, everyone left.
The friends. The allies. The people who'd sworn they'd stay until the end.
They made excuses. Had responsibilities elsewhere. Couldn't put their lives on hold indefinitely for a man who might never wake.
Nexus understood. He did.
But understanding didn't make it hurt less.
Atlas had been the last to go.
His father—adoptive father, though Nexus had stopped making that distinction years ago. The redwood hellhound who'd raised him, trained him, given him a name and a purpose when he'd had neither.
Atlas had stayed longer than anyone. Five years of watching. Waiting. Hoping.
Then one morning, Nexus had woken to find a note and an empty room.
I'm sorry. I can't watch him die slowly anymore. I have to find answers. Don't follow me.
That was it.
Eleven years of silence. Eleven years of wondering. Eleven years of carrying a sword that didn't belong to him and a rage that had nowhere to go.
Nexus's hand curled into a fist on the table.
"Where are you, old man?" he muttered to the darkness. "What was so important that you couldn't even say goodbye?"
No answer came. Of course not.
The Night Slayer lay before him, beautiful and terrible in equal measure. Dark metal that swallowed light. Crossguard curved like skeletal fingers. Grip wrapped in leather gone black with age and old blood.
And the gems.
Three of them, embedded in the blade itself. Each the size of a thumbnail. Each pulsing with faint red light that had no rhythm to it.
Nexus had noticed them before, obviously. Hard to miss three glowing stones in a weapon you'd carried for over a decade. But he'd never thought much about them—assumed they were decorative, or some kind of magical enhancement.
Tonight, though...
Tonight they seemed different.
More active. More aware.
Like they were watching him back.
"What are you?" he asked quietly.
The gems pulsed—once, twice, three times.
Cold crept into the room despite the season. Frost began to crawl across the window glass. Nexus's breath fogged in the sudden chill.
Behind him, Maris stirred but didn't wake.
He should put the sword down. Should leave it alone. Should go to bed beside his wife and forget whatever weirdness was happening.
Instead, he reached for the grip.
Pain lanced up his arm the moment his fingers made contact—sharp and immediate, like gripping live wire wrapped in broken glass. He gasped, tried to pull back—
But something held him.
Not physical force. The sword wasn't gripping him.
But something inside it wanted to be held. Needed it. Was desperate for connection in a way that felt disturbingly alive.
Images slammed into his mind—
Retro, younger, pressing his palm against something glowing—
Blood, too much blood, pooling on stone—
Light tearing away from—
NO.
The word erupted directly into his consciousness, shattering the vision into static and pain.
Nexus jerked backward, breaking contact with the blade.
The cold receded immediately. The frost began to melt. His hand throbbed where he'd touched the weapon—faint red marks across his palm that pulsed in time with his heartbeat.
"What the hell," he breathed.
The gems pulsed slowly. Almost apologetically.
Whatever the sword had started to show him, it had changed its mind. Had slammed a wall down so hard and fast that his head still ached from the impact.
Which meant whatever truth those gems held...
It was being protected. Hidden. Locked away.
From him specifically, or from everyone?
He didn't know. Wasn't sure he wanted to.
Nexus stood abruptly, moving away from the table. Away from the blade and its secrets and its screaming red light.
This wasn't why he was here.
He didn't care about Retro's sword. Didn't care about his uncle's mysteries or whatever darkness the man had gotten himself tangled in.
He cared about Atlas.
About finding the father who'd abandoned him. About getting answers. About looking the old man in the eye and demanding to know why.
Why he'd left. Why he'd never come back. Why eleven years of silence had been easier than one honest conversation.
"Nexus?"
Maris's voice, soft and sleep-rough.
He turned. She was sitting up in bed, scales catching the moonlight, eyes bright with concern.
"You're doing it again," she said. "Brooding at that sword."
"I wasn't—"
"You were." She held out one webbed hand. "Come to bed."
He hesitated, glancing back at The Night Slayer.
The gems pulsed once more—and he felt it. That pull. That sense of direction.
Not toward Retro.
Toward Atlas.
Northwest. Far, but traceable.
The sword was pointing him toward his father.
"The blade knows where he is," Nexus said quietly. "Atlas. I can feel it."
Maris's expression shifted—curiosity warring with caution.
"You're sure?"
"No." He ran a hand through his dark hair. "But it's the first lead we've had in months. And I..."
He trailed off.
I need to find him. Need to look him in the eye. Need to know if any of it meant anything—if I meant anything—or if leaving was always that easy for him.
Maris was quiet for a long moment.
Then she rose, crossing to stand beside him. Her hand found his—the one with the marks, the one that still throbbed with residual pain.
"Then we follow it," she said simply. "Tomorrow. We head northwest."
"Just like that?"
"Just like that." Her thumb traced circles on his palm, soothing the ache. "You've been chasing his ghost for eleven years, Nexus. If this sword can actually lead us to him..."
She met his eyes.
"Then we find him. We get your answers. And whatever happens after that—"
"We face it together," he finished.
"Together," she agreed.
He pulled her close, pressing his forehead against hers. Breathing in the salt-smell of her, the familiar comfort of her presence.
He didn't deserve her. Had never deserved her.
But he was grateful, every day, that she'd chosen to stay when everyone else had left.
"I love you," he murmured.
"I know." A hint of smile in her voice. "Now come to bed. We have a long journey ahead, and you're useless when you haven't slept."
He let her lead him away from the table. Away from the sword and its secrets.
But even as he settled beside her, even as her breathing slowed and deepened into sleep—
Nexus stayed awake.
Staring at the ceiling.
Thinking about fathers who left.
About answers that might not be worth finding.
About what he would do if he finally found Atlas and discovered the old man had simply... moved on. Built a new life. Forgotten about the son he'd left behind.
Would that be better? he wondered. Or worse?
He didn't know.
But tomorrow, they would head northwest.
Tomorrow, they would follow the pull.
And eventually—maybe soon, maybe not—he would find his father.
And then...
Then they would have a reckoning.
Outside, something howled in the distance—not a wolf, not anything natural.
Just the world, slowly tearing itself apart.
And Nexus lay in the dark beside his wife, carrying eleven years of silence like stones in his chest, waiting for a dawn that couldn't come fast enough.
In a place that was neither truly physical nor entirely mental, Lilly existed.
Not lived. Not survived.
Existed.
She stood—or floated, or hung suspended, or maybe knelt, space having no consistent meaning here—in a void that pulsed with the same sickly red light as the gems in The Night Slayer.
Because they were connected. All five fragments. All screaming in their own ways.
And Lilly's heart beat with that scream.
Had been beating with it for so long she couldn't remember silence.
The corruption had taken her slowly. Phantom's curse—his "gift," he'd called it with that voice like rotting velvet—had seeped into her marrow over months. Years, maybe. Time was difficult to track when you were dissolving from the inside out.
It had started small. Whispers at the edge of hearing. Shadows that moved wrong. A coldness in her chest that no amount of warmth could touch.
Then her reflection had stopped matching her movements.
Then she'd started forgetting her name for minutes at a time.
Then the hunger had begun—not for food, but for something else. Something she didn't have words for but that made her want to tear and rend and unmake.
Now?
Now she barely remembered what it meant to be Lilly.
The corruption had eaten through her memories like acid through cloth, leaving holes and tatters. She knew she'd been someone once. Someone good, maybe. Someone who'd cared about things.
But the specifics were gone.
All except one thing.
One memory that refused to dissolve, no matter how much the darkness consumed.
Retro.
His face. His voice. The way he'd looked at her with something like hope, like she mattered, like she was worth saving.
And Lea. Their daughter. The child they'd built something like a family around.
She clung to those fragments—Retro and Lea—like a drowning woman clinging to wreckage.
They were all she had left.
Everything else had been devoured.
Her heart pulsed in her chest—the gem embedded there, the fragment of Retro's soul that had somehow bonded with her in ways she didn't understand.
It hurt.
God, it hurts.
Like having molten glass pumping through your veins. Like being burned from the inside out with every heartbeat.
But it also kept her her. Just barely. Just enough.
The corruption wanted to erase her completely. Wanted to turn her into nothing but appetite and malice. Another of Phantom's hollow puppets, dancing on strings of darkness.
But the gem—the fragment—resisted.
It remembered being human. Remembered love and grief and stubborn determination.
And it refused to let her go entirely.
So she existed in stalemate—half-corrupted, half-herself, unable to move forward or back. Trapped in this void that might have been her own mind or might have been something external.
Phantom visited sometimes.
Not physically. He didn't need to be physical.
He'd appear as a presence—that suffocating darkness, that sense of being watched by something vast and hungry and amused.
"Still fighting?" his voice would whisper. "Still clinging to those scraps of identity?"
She never answered. Couldn't answer. Had no voice in this place.
"It's admirable, really," he'd continue, conversational, like discussing weather. "Most succumb completely within weeks. But you—you've lasted years."
A pause that felt like knives dragging across skin.
"I wonder if it's the gem keeping you alive. That little piece of soul that doesn't belong to you."
His presence would press closer, suffocating.
"I could take it, you know. Tear it out. Let you finally dissolve into what you're becoming."
But he never did.
Because Phantom liked his toys. Liked watching them struggle. Liked the slow corruption more than the quick death.
And Lilly—what remained of Lilly—hated him with an intensity that was the only pure thing left in her.
Hated him for what he'd done.
Hated him for what she was becoming.
Hated him for making her forget everyone except Retro and Lea—for stealing every other memory, every other connection, every other piece of her life.
Most of all, she hated him for making her dangerous.
Because she knew—in whatever fragments of consciousness remained—that if she ever escaped this prison, if she ever manifested in the physical world again—
She would hurt people.
Would hurt them. Retro. Lea. Everyone she'd once cared about.
The corruption wouldn't give her a choice.
So she stayed here. In this void. In this prison of her own increasingly fractured mind.
Holding on to two names and a gem that screamed with every heartbeat.
Waiting for an end that never came.
The fragment in her chest pulsed—
And somewhere far away, three other fragments pulsed in response.
And somewhere even farther, the fifth fragment—the one she couldn't sense, couldn't locate—remained silent.
Five pieces of a broken soul, scattered across a breaking world.
And none of them whole enough to save themselves.
Let alone each other.
Atlas walked through corridors that twisted in ways architecture shouldn't allow.
Hell—or what mortals called Hell. Really it was just another layer of reality. Deeper. Darker. Where the rules were different and the residents were less concerned with concepts like "mercy" or "redemption."
The walls wept here. Actually wept—moisture seeping from stone that had never been alive, forming puddles that reflected faces of the damned. Atlas had learned to stop looking at them years ago.
Some reflections looked back.
His frost relic pulsed against his palm, even more damaged now. The crack had spread, branching like lightning across the artifact's surface, and something dark had begun to seep from the fissures.
Not blood. Something worse.
But that wasn't what concerned him most.
The containment vessel tucked inside his jacket—the one he'd retrieved weeks ago—pulsed against his chest in rhythm with his heartbeat.
Pulse. Pulse. Pulse.
The fourth fragment. Retro's grief made manifest. The piece of his brother's soul that carried every loss, every death witnessed, every failure internalized.
Atlas had been carrying it for years now.
years of feeling his brother's accumulated sorrow seeping into him like poison through a wound. years of memories that weren't his flooding his consciousness. years of grief so vast and deep it threatened to drown him every time he closed his eyes.
He'd known what it was when Mystic's voice had guided him to it. Had understood the moment he'd touched it and felt the weight of Rose's death crash into him like a physical blow.
Had chosen to take it anyway.
Because his brother shouldn't have to carry this alone anymore.
Atlas stopped in a junction of corridors, leaning against the weeping wall to catch his breath.
The fragment pulsed stronger now—recognizing something. Responding to proximity or resonance or whatever force governed scattered pieces of soul.
He pulled the containment vessel from his jacket, holding it up to examine.
The crystal container was designed to dampen magical effects, to shield the bearer from direct contact with dangerous artifacts. It worked—mostly.
But even through the shielding, he could feel it.
Anguish.
Not his own. Retro's. Compressed and concentrated and carefully cut away from the man who'd experienced it.
Eleven years ago, when Retro had fallen into that coma—the one that had lasted three months and left him hollow afterward—
He'd made a choice.
Split himself. Carved away the pieces that hurt too much. Tried to function by removing the parts of his humanity that made him vulnerable.
Atlas had suspected something was wrong. Had watched his brother move through the world like a ghost wearing familiar skin. Had seen the distance in his eyes, the absence of feeling that used to burn so bright.
But he'd never known why.
Not until three days ago, when Mystic's fragmented soul had whispered the truth and led him here.
"Your brother tried to cut away his pain. But grief isn't a tumor—you can't remove it cleanly. Removing it leaves holes. Makes you less."
Atlas stared at the vessel, at the red light pulsing inside.
"You stupid bastard," he muttered. "You thought this would help. Thought you could just... set aside the parts that hurt and keep going."
The fragment pulsed—and for a moment, Atlas felt it all.
Rose dying. The monster's claws. Blood on grass. Retro's scream that had torn reality itself.
The wars after. The friends lost. The choices that left scars deeper than any physical wound.
Centuries of accumulated grief that no single person should have carried.
And Retro had tried to bear it all. Had tried to keep going. Had tried to be strong for everyone who depended on him.
Until he couldn't anymore.
Until the weight became too much and he'd made the choice to fragment himself rather than break completely.
Atlas's hands tightened on the vessel.
"I won't let Gaia put you back together wrong," he said quietly. "Won't let her remake you into a weapon with no heart left."
Because that's what she wanted. He knew now. Mystic had made it clear.
Gaia wanted a champion. A tool. Someone powerful enough to fight Phantom and obedient enough to follow orders.
She didn't want Retro whole. She wanted him controlled.
And if she gathered all five fragments, she could do it. Could reshape his brother's soul from the foundation up. Could erase the parts she found inconvenient and amplify the parts she found useful.
Could turn him into exactly what she needed and destroy everything that made him him.
"Not happening," Atlas growled.
He tucked the vessel back into his jacket, feeling its weight settle against his heart.
The grief leaked through even the shielding. Would continue leeching into him day by day, hour by hour. Would slowly fill him with sorrows that weren't his own until he couldn't tell where his brother's pain ended and his own began.
It would break most people.
But Atlas was an archivist. He'd spent his life cataloging horrors. Reading accounts of atrocities. Bearing witness to humanity's darkest moments so that knowledge wouldn't be lost.
If bearing witness to his brother's grief was what it took to keep him safe—
Then he'd carry that burden until it killed him.
Or until he was strong enough to give it back without fear of what Gaia might do with it.
The fragment pulsed again—
And in the distance, so faint he missed it, three other fragments pulsed in response.
The Night Slayer, carried by Nexus. Still far away but moving closer.
And somewhere else—somewhere he couldn't pinpoint—a fifth fragment responded. Faint. Weak. Corrupted.
Lilly.
Atlas closed his eyes, reaching out with senses beyond the physical. Trying to map where the pieces were. Trying to understand the pull between them.
They wanted to reunite. Desperately. Were calling to each other across impossible distances with need that bordered on pain.
But bringing them together might be catastrophic.
Five pieces of a shattered soul, each carrying different aspects of who Retro had been. Each changed by separation. Each adapted to existing alone.
What happened when you forced them back into one vessel?
Would Retro become whole again?
Or would the pieces reject each other? Would they fight for dominance? Would the reintegration tear him apart more completely than the original fracturing?
Atlas didn't know.
And that terrified him more than any monster he'd ever faced.
"I need answers," he said to the empty corridor. "Mystic. If you're still listening. I need to know what happens if we—"
"The fragments will try to reunite regardless of intervention."
The voice came from everywhere and nowhere, gentle but weighted with sorrow.
"They are drawn to each other by forces beyond conscious control. When they come close enough—when proximity triggers recognition—"
A pause that felt like mourning.
"Reality may not survive the resonance."
"Then what do we do?" Atlas demanded. "Just keep them apart forever? Let him stay fractured?"
"I don't know."
The admission carried such profound sadness it made Atlas's chest ache.
"No soul has been divided this way before. The consequences are... uncertain."
"Uncertain," Atlas repeated flatly. "That's not helpful."
"I know. I'm sorry."
The voice began to fade.
"But this I can tell you: whatever happens, he will need you. All of you. Family not bound by blood or divine will, but by choice."
"We're coming," Atlas said. "Nexus. Maris. Me. We're all moving toward him."
A thought struck him—sharp and unwelcome.
Nexus.
His son. The boy he'd left behind eleven years ago with nothing but a note and silence.
Atlas's chest tightened with something that had nothing to do with the fragment's grief.
He'd told himself it was necessary. That he couldn't stay and watch Retro die slowly. That finding answers mattered more than being present.
But the truth was simpler and uglier: he'd been a coward. Unable to face the slow decay of his brother. Unable to be the father Nexus needed while drowning in his own helplessness.
So he'd run.
And he'd kept running for eleven years.
What will I say to him? Atlas wondered. When we finally meet again? What words could possibly be enough?
None. There were none.
He'd abandoned his son. Left him to grieve alone. Let silence stretch into years because facing Nexus heart was harder than facing monsters.
"I know," Mystic's fading voice whispered, as if reading his thoughts. "I can feel it. The convergence is inevitable now."
A final whisper, barely audible:
"Just pray it happens before Gaia realizes where all the pieces are."
Then—silence.
Atlas stood alone in Hell's corridors, one hand pressed against the vessel over his heart.
The fragment pulsed—Retro's grief, seeking its missing pieces.
And Atlas, carrying burdens that weren't his but had become his anyway, started walking.
Northwest. Toward his son. Toward his brother. Toward a confrontation that might save everything or destroy it all.
The weight pressed down on him with every step—not just physical, but emotional. Psychological. The accumulated sorrow of a man who'd tried to be stronger than anyone should have to be.
And beneath that, his own guilt. His own failures. The eleven years of absence that no explanation could justify.
But Atlas kept walking.
Because that's what family did.
You carried each other's burdens.
Even when they threatened to break you.
Even when the weight became almost too much to bear.
You carried them anyway.
And you didn't let go.
Not ever.
In the cabin, Retro slept fitfully, dreaming of Rose and power and things he'd lost.
In the inn, Nexus lay awake beside his wife, thinking of answers he might not want.
In Hell, Atlas walked with grief pressed against his heart and guilt heavy on his shoulders.
And in the spaces between—
Phantom watched, amused.
Gaia planned, calculating.
Both of them moving pieces. Both of them certain of victory.
Neither understanding that the game had more players than they'd accounted for.
That weapons, once forged, could turn on their makers.
That broken things were sometimes more dangerous than whole ones.
That family—real family, chosen family, the kind that transcended blood and reason—
Was a force neither gods nor demons could fully control.
Time ticked forward.
Reality continued its slow collapse.
And scattered across the world, those who loved Retro—and those who had unfinished business with each other—began to move.
Toward him.
Toward answers.
Toward reunions that would heal or shatter.
Toward a confrontation that would determine not just Retro's fate—
But the fate of everything.
Because sometimes the weight of time wasn't just about how long things had lasted.
It was about how much they'd endured.
How much they'd carried.
How much they were willing to sacrifice.
And in the end, when all the plans had been made and all the powers had been unleashed—
When gods played their games and villains made their moves—
What mattered most was simple:
Who would be left standing.
Who would refuse to break.
And with all of this going on—
All the plans and counter-plans, all the manipulations and revelations, all the struggles of mortals and gods alike—
It truly had been the weight of time.
Time that had worn them down.
Time that had shaped them.
Time that was running out.
Who would say "no more" and mean it.
The world held its breath.
The pieces moved into position.
And somewhere in the darkness, something ancient stirred and smiled.
Because chaos was patient.
And the question that remained—the only question that truly mattered—
Was whether they would survive what came next.
Or whether time would finally, inevitably, crush them all.