Kael knelt at the forming world's edge as mountains rose in the distance—etched in curves he didn't design.
"I didn't shape that," he muttered.
Echo frowned. "I didn't either."
Suddenly, a low hum vibrated the atmosphere.
The light fractured, and above them, a shadow spun into being. Not a full form—just a whisper, a sliver of something once divine.
It was a residue.
The ghost of Ioh—the Thought Engine.
"You defied law, rewrote pattern, and ended code," it whispered. "But all data persists in the dark."
Kael reached for his blade, but it no longer responded. This wasn't the Nexus. The rules had changed.
Ioh's echo leaned in closer, twisting around him like smoke.
"You built a world on void. But the void remembers."
Kael clenched his fists. "I didn't survive your hell just to carry your shadow."
He pulled the Earthroot Shard from his chest and slammed it into the ground.
Light surged—truth-bound, memory-forged. The ghost screamed and scattered.
But as it fled, it left behind one final line:
"Not all of us were bound to the system…"
"…Some were bound to you."