For a moment, there was only silence.
No stars.
No breath.
No heartbeat.
Knox floated in the void, feeling his body hum with aftershocks. The last punch—the one he and Seraph delivered together—still echoed through the bones of existence. Across what remained of the multiverse, the memory of it rang like a silent bell.
And before them, where Nyxara has stood...
...was only drifting dust.
Falling upward. Falling sideways. Falling nowhere.
Her crown shattered. Her throne undone.
"It's over," Seraph whispered, voice raw, disbelieving.
Knox didn't answer. He couldn't
He felt the multiverse — every broken, bruised piece of it — holding its breath. As if even reality was scared to move.
["It's not over,"] Kaelina muttered dryly into Knox's mind. ["It's never that easy. Look alive, tin can."]
["Kaelina's correct, darling,"] Luminara chimed into Seraph's heart, her voice was warm as ever. ["Victory brings aftermath. Aftermath brings choices."]
Knox flexed his fists, feeling fractures in his knuckles that wouldn't heal easily. "Choices, huh?"
Before them, in the empty space, the cracks in the multiverse still writhed.
Wider.
Deeper.
Hungrier.
The High Watchers remained visible through them, their colossal, shifting forms silent, waiting. Judging.
Then, from the splinters of Nyxara's demise, something new began to emerge.
A seed of possibility.
It hovered where her heart had burst apart— a tiny, brilliant flame.
Seraph's wings trembled as she stared at it. "What is that?"
["Potential,"] Luminara said, awe in her voice. ["The raw, unfocused seed of everything she tried to control"]
["Looks like a bad idea wrapped in a rose idea,"] Kaelina added, dry as ever. ["If it hatches wrong, we're back to apocalypses for breakfast."]
Knox drifted closer, wary.
The seed pulsed—offering nothing and promising everything.
"We could shape it," Seraph said, realization dawning in her burning golden eyes. "Rebuild. Set it right."
Knox stared.
Set it right.
A chance... to fix everything that had been broken.
"Or," he muttered grimly, "it devours us and creates a new Nyxara that's even worse."
"Calculated odds?" Knox asked aloud.
["...Thirty percent success rate,"] Kaelina said, chipper. ["Seventy percent we get turned into existential mush."]
["But, darling,"] Luminara added, her voice wrapping Knox in calm, ["you were never one for odds. You were always for hope."]
Knox glanced sideways at Seraph. She met his gaze, her battered body still burning with divine fire, her soul wide open, unafraid.
She trusted him.
The weight of everything pressed down on his shoulders.
The burned worlds. The broken skies. The fallen friends.
His parents.
Kaelina's voice softened unexpectedly, almost fond. ["Well? Big damn hero. What's it gonna be?"]
He thought of the alternate version of himself—the hero who chose the hard path, the right one, on matter how much it hurt.
Knox clenched his fists, feeling the old stubborn fire rise inside him.
"We fight for it," he said.
He reached toward the seed.
The moment his fingers brushed—a shockwave of pure creation rippled outward.
The cracks across the multiverse widened — not breaking it apart — but opening it.
New realities flooded into existence:
Universes where humanity never fell.
Universes of endless night and fierce stars.
Universes where Knox and Seraph never had to bleed at all.
Universes where they never even met.
Seraph cried out, her wings stretching wide to shield the newborn realms.
Knox gritted his teeth, grounding himself, locking onto what mattered: this world.
Their world.
Their battle.
The seed struggled—wild, angry, beautiful.
"It's too much," Seraph gasped.
"Focus!" Kaelina barked into Knox's mind. "Anchor it! Imagine the future you want, not the past you lost!"
"Together," Luminara encouraged sweetly. "As you have always been strongest—together."
Knox reached out.
Seraph reached out.
Hand in hand, soul to soul, they wrapped themselves around the trembling chaos—and willed it to obey.
A storm of possibilities lashed around them, clawing at their hearts:
Lives they never lived.
Love they never lost.
Powers they never gained.
Knox almost faltered—almost.
He could see his parents, alive, waiting for him.
But Seraph's hand tightened around his.
And he remembered.
Choosing destruction was easy.
Choosing hope was harder.
He roared and crushed the temptation, forcing the storm to settle.
Light exploded.
And from it... a new cosmos was born.
Not perfect.
Not painless.
But real.
The High Watchers stirred. Their silent approval rolled across existence like distant thunder.
The cracks sealed.
The multiverse, though battered, breathed again.
Knox collapsed onto a floating shard of a shattered planet, panting, body broken but spirit ablaze.
Seraph landed beside him, exhausted but smiling. "We did it."
Kaelina whistled. ["Holy hell. You two are terrifying."]
Luminara's voice was soft and full of pride: ["You've earned your crown, my darlings. Not of gold. But of light, and will, and love."]
Knox lay back, staring at the repaired sky.
"...Can I sleep now?" he groaned.
Seraph laughed, a sound sweeter than any victory.
"Five minutes," she said. "Then we rebuild everything."