The stairway had no end.
Each step Joe took echoed across the stars. The light beneath his feet pulsed in rhythm with his heartbeat, the air thin but heavy, like climbing through someone else's dream. The higher he climbed, the further the world beneath him drifted away—until even memory felt like fog.
Above, a vortex churned. Not of clouds or storm, but of thought—blazing ideas, broken realities, truths unspoken. This was the Spiral: the culmination of every path, every eye, every name.
Joe was close.
The seventh eye remained open, but it no longer looked outward. It looked within.
When he reached the summit, there was no throne. No final adversary. Just a circle of mirrors, floating midair. Seven in total. Each one showed a version of himself—some proud, some monstrous, some afraid. Some victorious.
In the center, a single mirror stood dark.
A voice—not the Warden, not the Archivist—echoed all around.
"This is where you choose."
Joe stepped into the circle.
Each mirror whispered in turn:
—"Choose wrath."
—"Choose knowledge."
—"Choose surrender."
—"Choose power."
—"Choose forgiveness."
—"Choose exile."
He stood before the seventh mirror. It was blank. Waiting.
"I choose me," Joe said.
The spiral roared.
Each mirror shattered. Light poured inward. His body lifted from the ground, the fire in his chest igniting into something vast and unknowable. Threads of fate twisted around his limbs, through his veins, across his thoughts.
He didn't scream. He became.
When Joe opened his eyes, he stood in a new world.
The sky above was still fractured. But it was healing.
He looked down at his palm. All seven eyes were closed.
He didn't need them now.
Behind him, the spiral hung in the air like a fading crown.
Ahead, cities called out. People who hadn't seen what he'd seen. Who didn't know what had come—and what still waited.
He walked forward.
Not as a weapon.
Not as a remnant.
But as the one who endured the Shatterwake.
End of Chapter 10.