Grant stumbled to his knees on the black stone, breath ragged, the aftertaste of ozone sharp at the back of his throat.
Red lightning chased itself across the Luxium threaded through his bones, each flicker casting shards of color into the infinite dark.
There was no wind, no up or down, only the crushing silence of existence folding inward.
A vibration began, so deep it felt inside his chest rather than in his ears.
One low tone, steady as a heartbeat, swelling until it filled the emptiness.
From that sound, light gathered—threads of silver and gold knitting themselves from starlight.
They wove into the shape of a figure, taller than any mortal, edges shifting like constellations in motion.
Eyes—if they were eyes—burned with the color of newborn galaxies.
When it spoke, the voice did not echo. It was already everywhere.
Ancient, patient, inevitable.
"Child of the Core," it said, each word a chord that thrummed through the void. "Inheritor."
Grant staggered to his feet, every nerve alive with the resonance.
The being was neither fully man nor fully god, as if the cosmos itself had chosen a shape only his mind could bear.
The platform quaked as the void bent inward.
Grant steadied himself.
Celestius lifted a hand of living stars.
The darkness around them thickened, swallowing even the faint glimmer of distant light.
"Before sound," the voice intoned, each word a slow toll of distant bells, "before thought, there was only a single black infinitude."
The universe obeyed.
Every flicker died.
Grant floated in pure absence, weightless, his pulse the only proof he existed.
"I drew in that nothing," Celestius continued, "and exhaled creation."
A breath rolled through the void—silent, endless.
Light erupted in its wake.
Galaxies flared like sparks from a forge, spiraling outward until Grant's eyes ached.
Worlds swirled into being: rivers of molten glass, emerald jungles beneath twin suns, oceans glittering under skies of violet flame.
"From that breath came the Spheres—each a multiverse without end."
The stars multiplied faster than thought.
Grant caught glimpses of Earths not his own:
one where Gifteds ruled and humanity knelt beneath them.
one where a lone hero in white and blue swung between towers.
one where four stood against a devourer of worlds.
"All Spheres drift upon the endless sea of possibility," Celestius said. "Countless Earths blossom and wither, forever multiplying."
The panorama shifted.
Civilizations climbed from dust and vanished back into it.
Great towers cracked. Seas boiled.
For every world that fell, another bloomed in silent succession.
"But creation without balance devours itself."
Across the galaxy-swarm, figures emerged—vast and radiant, each unique:
a serpent of aurora light coiled around a newborn sun,
a woman of obsidian flame shielding a planet with her own body,
a man consumed in fire, shifting into a wolf that never perished.
"Each Sphere births a guardian when its last has fallen," Celestius said, "Inevitable as dawn."
Grant watched those giants rise and fade, an endless relay of vigilance.
The vision folded back into darkness until only the constellations that made up Celestius remained, pulsing like the heartbeat of everything.
"Such is the loom of existence," the being said, "and the charge that keeps it from unraveling."
The stars drew inward until only a single sphere of light remained. It swelled, shaping itself into a familiar world of oceans and continents, every curve and coastline clear as if he were seeing it from orbit.
Grant's breath caught. He knew that outline. Earth—his Earth.
"This is your world—Earth 61724," Celestius said, the voice carrying through the void like a deep current. "Its heartbeat. Its memory."
The image wavered. Clouds unraveled, storms roared across continents, and a faint shimmer pulsed above it all, flickering like a candle in the wind.
"The Protector who once guarded this Sphere fell unseen," Celestius continued. "No witness. No song. Only absence. And the Core was left unbound."
Grant felt the emptiness of it, a hollow echo that seemed to reach inside his chest.
"You do not exist in any other Earths," the voice went on. "Across infinite possibilities, you alone are singular."
The words struck hard. Singular. Only one.
Celestius stepped closer, the starlight around the figure brightening like the first touch of dawn. "Your birth filled the void their death left behind. You are not an accident, Grant Howell. You are the Core's answer."
Grant stiffened. Howell. The name hit like a sudden chord, strange and certain all at once.
A low tremor ran through his body. The red lightning that had been snapping uncontrolled across his bones began to steady, forming a soft corona around him. The Luxium in his veins dimmed, its violent glow fading to a quiet ember. It would not shine again.
"To protect is not to rule," Celestius said, every word deliberate. "You will face chaos that even gods cannot cage. Your choices will bind or unmake the Core."
There was no comfort in the statement, no guidance—only the weight of inevitability. Behind Celestius, Earth-61724 turned slowly in the dark, fragile and alone, as Grant stood beneath a destiny older than stars.
"Go back, Protector," Celestius's voice echoed, calm but absolute. "The multiverse watches."
Grant's chest rose and fell, red lightning flickering faintly beneath his skin as he nodded. Every word, every pulse of the void, burned into him—etched into muscle, bone, and mind.
Then he ran.
Superspeed carried him across space, across broken air and shattered ground, until the black nothing of the void gave way to the familiar fracture of Westvale's skyline. The city spread below him, quiet now, still trembling from his earlier escape. Cracks of storm-lit clouds streaked the sky where Taskforce had searched, remnants of alarms and chaos lingering like smoke.
His thoughts were sharp, focused. Celestius's warnings echoed in the edges of his mind, but beneath it all, there was one certainty: he needed to return. To the Ampers.
He angled toward the forested outskirts, moving faster than sound, faster than fear. Now, more than ever, he owed his friends his presence. Anna, Nullis, Xylo. They had risked everything for him.
And then, finally, the treeline rose before him, familiar shadows against a fractured skyline. The Ampers' base lay hidden beyond, battered but alive. He slowed just enough to land silently among the trees, the storm around him settling, leaving only the distant hum of the city and the steady heartbeat in his chest.
He had returned. And nothing—not Taskforce, not Veynar, not even the infinite void—would stop him from walking back into the fight.