The desert wind had changed.
Where ash once drifted endlessly, small streaks of color now threaded through the air—fragments of mana searching for purpose. The land was trying to breathe again.
Lyn stood at the edge of the glass field, his reflection fractured across its surface. The faint shimmer of dawn caught in the cracks, casting light in strange, shifting patterns.
Rhea approached quietly. "The readings are stabilizing. The Eighth's residue is dissolving faster than expected."
He didn't look at her. "Meaning the world's healing?"
"Or forgetting," she said softly. "Depends on how you see it."
Umbra's shadow rose faintly behind him, the edges thinner than before, but the voice steady. —Forgetting is its own kind of mercy. Memory breeds hunger. Hunger breeds gods.
Lyn's jaw tightened. "Then maybe it's time the world starved for a while."
Rhea sighed, brushing a hand over her staff. "You sound like Umbra when you say things like that."
He gave the faintest smirk. "Maybe Umbra's rubbing off on me."
Umbra's tone deepened with mock indignation. —A terrifying thought.
For a moment, there was peace—fragile, rare, but real.
Then Arden's voice cut through it. He was walking from the ridge, a faint limp still in his stride. "We've got company."
Lyn turned. Dust clouds rose on the horizon—several figures cloaked in ash-colored robes, moving with purpose.
Rhea raised her staff. "Creed remnants?"
Arden nodded grimly. "What's left of them, anyway. Small groups are still out there, worshipping the flame like it's waiting for orders."
Umbra whispered, —Echoes of the fallen faith. They will not rest easily.
Lyn's gaze hardened. "Then we give them a choice."
They descended from the ridge as the robed figures approached. Each one bore a faint crest—the same Dawn sigil, but twisted, scarred by exposure to divine light.
Their leader stepped forward, face hidden behind cracked golden glass. "Shadowborn," he greeted, bowing low. "We've come not to fight, but to ask."
"Ask what?" Lyn replied evenly.
"The Flame still breathes," the man said. "We hear it whisper in our dreams. Tell us, Tamer—did we fail the gods, or did they fail us?"
Rhea's hand twitched, but Lyn lifted his own slightly, signaling restraint. "Both," he said after a long pause. "And that's why it's over."
The man's voice trembled. "You killed her. You ended the light."
"No," Lyn said quietly. "I ended the chains pretending to be light."
Silence followed. The wind carried faint whispers between them—the same rhythm as the old Creed chants, now broken and dissonant.
One of the followers lowered his hood. His face was young, scarred only by grief. "If we can't serve, then what do we do?"
Lyn studied him for a long moment, then spoke slowly. "You live. You build something that doesn't need worship to stand."
"And if the world forgets us?"
He turned away. "Then you've finally done something right."
The followers hesitated. Then, one by one, they knelt—not in reverence, but in surrender. Not to a god, but to the truth that no gods remained.
Arden exhaled sharply. "That's a start."
Rhea's voice was soft. "You think it'll last?"
"No," Lyn said. "But it's a start."
Umbra's form rippled beside him. —For now, they are echoes. But echoes grow when the silence deepens. Remember that, Lyn.
He nodded faintly. "Then I'll make sure the silence doesn't last forever."
As the last light of dusk faded, the former Creed members began to scatter—some praying, some weeping, some walking away into the sand. None looked back.
Lyn watched them go until they vanished beyond the horizon.
Rhea glanced at him. "Where to next?"
He looked toward the faint glow in the far east—the shimmer of a city long forgotten, barely visible beyond the dunes.
"East," he said simply. "Where the first bond was forged. If the world's truly healing, that's where we'll feel it."
Umbra's whisper lingered like a promise. —And if it isn't, we'll remind it how to bleed again.
Lyn didn't smile, but his eyes burned faintly in the darkness.
They began walking east, leaving behind the ashes of gods and belief alike.