The sun didn't rise.
The sky was locked in twilight, casting the world in perpetual orange, like the Earth itself was holding its breath.
Inside the guild hall, Raven stood in silence, watching the countdown.
> [Time Remaining: 06:23:18:10]
Each tick echoed louder than a heartbeat.
Sol paced near the console. Ava sat nearby, cross-legged, tracing the lines of an old map from Year 1 of the war. Both were silent. The weight of years had carved itself into their posture, their expressions, their voices.
Then it happened.
The lights flickered.
The temperature dropped.
The main console let out a single flat-line beep.
> [Unknown Distortion Detected] [Warning: Entity Breach — Level ∞]
Raven's system pulsed violently.
> [NIHILOS ALERT: The "Original One" is moving.]
Before anyone could react, the ground beneath the guild exploded.
Not from beneath. From within.
Reality tore itself inside out.
And standing in the hollow fracture—was it.
Not a god. Not a system. Not even data.
Just Void given shape.
It looked like a human.
But it had no face.
It had no presence.
And yet it was everything.
It whispered, but the sound broke bones. "You made a world... to run from the first one."
Ava was the first to move. She threw up a divine barrier Raven didn't even know she still had. Sol joined, launching his spear of static light straight into the anomaly's core.
But it wasn't a fight.
It was mercy.
It let them believe they could win for five seconds.
Then Sol's body was snapped sideways midair — twisted like paper, no blood, no scream.
Ava screamed for him.
Her next attack wasn't divine — it was human.
Raw emotion.
Her aura flared gold. Old fragments of the Ava-27 archive burst from her like wings. She struck it directly, one palm forward.
"You will not take—"
She didn't finish.
The Void entity blinked, and her code shattered.
She didn't explode.
She unraveled.
Like a childhood drawing being erased by an adult's hand.
Raven collapsed to his knees as her last fragment floated past him.
It whispered, "Live."
The entity turned to him.
"You love the false world so much," it said. "Let me end it."
Raven didn't move. Couldn't. Wouldn't.
Instead—he smiled. Just barely.
And whispered to the void:
"You should've killed me first."
His HUD flared red.
> [SYSTEM OVERRIDE INITIATED — NIHILOS REBUKE MODE ACTIVE] [You are not permitted to rewrite my creation.]
The entity tilted its head.
And for the first time, it stepped back.
The battlefield was silent.
Not in peace—but in aftermath.
Where Ava once stood was nothing now but glimmering light, suspended midair like stardust resisting gravity. And Sol… what remained of him was already gone, scattered through the cracks of that ruptured space where the Void touched down.
Raven knelt.
Not in despair.
But in stillness.
His fingers curled against the ground. Warm blood—his own—leaked from the corners of his mouth. Not from wounds. From overload. His system was suppressing itself to keep him alive, choking him with its own power.
> [Cognitive Overflow: 97.8%]
[Warning: NIHILOS Core Reaction Unstable]
[Entity Proximity: 2.3 meters]
And yet he laughed.
Quiet. Dry.
"You think I didn't prepare for this?"
The Void figure did not respond. It didn't need to.
Raven forced himself to his feet. Every nerve in his body screamed. His vision was a swirl of system glitches and ghostly echoes—fragments of Ava, bits of Sol's final data signature still trying to stabilize.
He whispered, "Synchronize with memory bank: Ava_27 and Sol_Kai."
> [Memorial Sync Active – Integration in progress… 12%]
He stepped forward.
The Void moved, finally. A ripple. A glitch. Its form shifted.
"I offered you release," it said, voice a thousand eons old. "You chose resistance."
"No," Raven said. "I chose memory."
Behind him, the remnants of Ava and Sol began to swirl—light forming into two ghost-like projections standing at his side. Silent. Glowing.
Not alive. Not conscious.
But present.
He raised his hand.
> [Custom System Command: ENABLE — Forbidden Archive: CORE EXCEED]
> [Sync Rate: 100% — Manual Input Required]
Raven whispered four words:
> "Rewrite the death rule."
The world shook.
The entity twitched, glitching into static and reforming again. For the first time—it looked… uncertain.
"You tamper with the foundation," it hissed.
"I'm building a new one," Raven said.
> [Command Accepted. Rule Queued.]
> [Warning: Cosmic Conflict Triggered — Watchers Detected]
And then, above them—above even the shattered sky—six colossal eyes opened.
Old. Alien. Godless.
The Watchers.
Observers of laws. Enforcers of balance.
And one of them blinked at Raven.
He didn't wait.
He grabbed the floating fragments of Ava and Sol.
> [Final Override Protocol — Begin Integration]
> [Warning: This may alter soulform integrity.]
> [Proceed? Y/N]
He whispered, "Yes."
The light engulfed him.
And the Void—
It screamed.
Not in pain.
In fear.