The explosion of the First Chronomancer's unraveling rippled across the multiverse like a dying star. The throne at the center of all time cracked and dissolved into particles of light. The walls of the Cradle folded inward. The threads that bound reality—tensioned tight for millennia—suddenly snapped free.
And in the center of it all, Akuzai fell to one knee.
Not in weakness—but in release.
The Eternis Edge had survived. Barely. Its glow dimmed, its frame cracked—but it pulsed gently in his hand, like a living thing that had finally completed its purpose. Around him, the echo-spirits began to fade—Tanishk's fire curling into smoke, Kaelra's warmth dimming, Anuj's whisper no longer in the wind.
"You did it," Abhishek said, voice raw.
Aditya sheathed his blade. "It's over."
But Rivan stood apart from them, staring into the void where the throne had once been.
"No," he said softly. "It's not."
They turned to him.
Something within Rivan was changing. His body, his soul—unraveling and rewriting itself. The corrupted essence once forced into him by the Chronomancer had broken loose—but instead of destroying him, it was reforming him.
The throne had left a vacancy.
And time… abhors a vacuum.
Light surged through Rivan. He collapsed, screaming—not in pain, but in evolution. Glyphs from the old code crawled across his skin. His eyes turned white, then gold. The five fragments of the ancient blades—the ones the Chronomancer once used—floated back into the sky and orbited Rivan's body.
"No," Akuzai whispered. "He's ascending."
"I'm not doing this," Rivan gasped. "It's… happening on its own."
The Source recognized the void. And it had chosen the only being who had once touched the heart of every timeline: Rivan.
"You were his vessel," Aditya warned. "Now the Source wants to make you its heir?"
"I didn't ask for this," Rivan said, stepping back. "I don't want to rule time."
But the shards were already fusing into a crown of starlight above his head. The Fifth Blade, once believed to be myth, formed before them—shaped from broken timelines, sharpened by guilt, powered by every second that had ever passed through Rivan's hands.
"No!" Akuzai shouted, stepping forward.
But Rivan stopped him. Calm. Peaceful.
"I'm not becoming the next Chronomancer," he said. "I'm becoming the last."
"What does that mean?" Abhishek asked, gripping his weapon.
"It means," Rivan said, floating higher, "that someone must seal the timeline from interference. No more edits. No more fragments. No more rewritten lives. I will close the loop."
"You'll vanish," Akuzai said, barely able to say the words.
"I was never meant to stay," Rivan replied. "I was built to open a path. But maybe my redemption… is closing it."
The Fifth Blade pulsed once.
A portal opened—not to another realm, but to the End of Time.
Rivan turned back. "Thank you," he said, to all of them. "For showing me choice still matters."
And then he stepped through.
The Fifth Blade followed.
The rift closed.
And with it, the timeline locked.
Forever.
No more gods. No more rewriting. No more crowns.
Only life.
The silence that followed wasn't empty.
It was peace.
Akuzai stood still, blade in hand, heart strangely calm.
"He ended it," Aditya said. "Truly."
Abhishek nodded. "And saved us all."
But Akuzai looked toward the fading stars and whispered, "He saved himself, too."