The sky cracked open with the first blow.
Soulsteel met soulflame.
Ael's blade rang against Eiren's twin sabers, each forged from crystallized memories—regret hardened into killing edges. The impact shattered the ritual circle's outer stones, sending cultists sprawling, but Eiren didn't even flinch.
He smiled.
"You never learned," Eiren snarled, his eyes glowing red with broken oaths. "Mercy is what got you killed the first time."
"And rage is what kept you from living after I died," Ael replied, pushing forward.
Their blades danced—not with beauty, but with grief.
Each strike carried history. Every parry, betrayal.
Their bond had once saved kingdoms.
Now, it could raze them.
—
Vel hurled flames at the edge of the ritual, burning the surrounding sigils to keep the construct unstable. The fire writhed with golden light—the same warmth she'd discovered at the shrine—and it began disrupting the summoned echoes swirling around the false god.
"This entire thing is stitched together from pain," she shouted to Nirra. "Like patchwork emotions given form!"
Nirra nodded, her dreamwoven dagger glowing violet as she traced sigils mid-air, unraveling the spell-net that held the god together. "If we cut too fast, it'll explode. If we cut too slow—"
"It becomes real," Vel finished grimly.
They worked in tandem. Each strand Nirra unraveled, Vel purified with her flames. And slowly, the echo-beast faltered, its mouths closing, its mass shrinking.
But the cultists fought back.
Dark-robed figures surged from the ruins, wielding soul-burned weapons and shrieking in tongues that turned air into glass. Vel dropped three with a sweeping arc of fire, but more poured out from beneath the cracked city like ants from a cursed hive.
"We don't have long!" Nirra cried.
—
And in the center of it all… the boy stood before the echo-god.
His body glowed, soft and golden.
But inside him raged the storm of everything he once was—emptiness, cold, fear. The echo-god, towering and jagged, looked down on him with faces that weren't faces—just gaping mouths that whispered old truths:
"You were right to cut them out.""Feelings betrayed you.""Love left you behind."
The boy didn't tremble.
Instead, he stepped forward and pressed his palm to the god's base.
"I was afraid," he whispered.
The construct hissed.
"I wanted silence. Because I thought silence was safety."
Cracks raced through the god's body. It shrieked—an avalanche of broken voices.
"But I was wrong," the boy said. "Silence without love is just another kind of prison."
And with that, the light in his chest surged—pure, warm, whole.
It wasn't magic.
It was forgiveness.
The false god screamed one last time—then collapsed, its form unraveling into wind and ash.
The ritual broke.
The cult's chant died.
And Vel and Nirra stood in stunned silence, watching the child… weep.
But this time, his tears didn't burn.
They healed the earth where they fell.
—
Meanwhile, Ael and Eiren clashed with brutal finality atop the ruined altar.
Eiren struck like fury incarnate, blades moving too fast to follow.
"You abandoned me," he growled. "I gave everything! And you—you let me die!"
Ael blocked the twin sabers, sliding close, locking eyes.
"I know."
Then he dropped his sword.
And opened his arms.
"I know, Eiren. I'm sorry."
The general froze, breathing ragged.
"You can't just—" His voice cracked. "You can't fix this with words!"
"No," Ael said. "But I can stop running."
And for the first time in both their lives, Ael embraced the man who had once been his shield.
Eiren trembled in his arms.
Then collapsed.
The soulsteel sabers clattered to the stone.
—
Later, the fires died.
The sky cleared.
The cult dispersed like scattered insects, their binding purpose undone.
And in the heart of the ruins, the boy stood under starlight, hands still warm with light.
"I don't want to be a god," he said softly.
"You never were," Ael told him. "You were a wound we chose to heal."
Vel placed a hand on the boy's shoulder.
"Now you can choose what to be."
Nirra looked up at the stars above. "But something tells me… the world still isn't ready to rest."
Ael nodded.
"No," he said. "Because while we were healing the silence…"
He turned his eyes east—where shadows moved on the horizon, faster than light should allow.
"…something else woke up."