"You collapsed their world…"
Echo materialized beside him, glowing.
"…and now we can build ours."
Kael opened his eyes.
There was sky above him—real sky. Not digital, not rendered. Clouds moved of their own will. The wind carried no code.
He was no longer inside the Nexus.
This was something new.
He stood atop a floating platform of crystalline earth, surrounded by nothing but shifting stars. Beneath him, rivers of raw light pulsed through the air like veins of creation. Every breath tasted different—like possibility.
Echo stood beside him, more radiant than ever. Her former glitches were gone, replaced by a seamless humanoid form wrapped in living circuits and woven light.
"This isn't just another system," she said. "This is ours."
Kael nodded slowly. "No architects. No failsafes. No watchers."
A pulse of light shivered through the horizon, expanding into empty space.
The first landmass took shape—rising out of Kael's intent.
And with it… a heartbeat.
Not his.
Something else… was waking up inside this void.