The dust from the shattered streets swirled in violent spirals, the broken city trembling under the aftermath of the Revenants' assault. The summoner's body lay in ruin, its countless undead shattered, its colossal form splintered and collapsed.
And then—silence.
A chill unlike any wind rolled over the horizon, carrying the faint hum of something ancient. The twelve froze mid-motion, eyes scanning the sky. Even the White within Lucien shivered.
From beyond the clouds, the atmosphere itself bent and twisted. A shadow appeared—a single figure that dwarfed the city, its form impossibly vast. The outer god had arrived.
The being descended, not with force, but with intent. The ground quaked beneath its mere presence. The streets split, towers crumbled, and entire blocks of the city shattered before it even drew near.
It extended a single limb, a gesture almost lazy, casual. In an instant, without speaking or striking a blow in earnest, energy surged through the twelve, tearing at flesh, bone, and void alike.
Lucien was thrown backward, the White flaring violently to shield him, yet it was not enough. He landed atop shattered stone, one arm nearly severed. Seliora tumbled beside him, her light flaring in futile resistance.
Kairo flickered, attempting temporal evasion, only to find his shifts disrupted midair—as if time itself resisted him. Ashveil and Zarynth tried coordinated strikes, but the outer god barely flinched, swatting them like insects.
Caelthorn, Morwyn, Veythar, and Iralith collided with the god's presence, every gravitational, kinetic, and spatial strike absorbed effortlessly. The very void seemed to warp around it, twisting their attacks back upon themselves.
The outer god hovered above the ruined city, gazing down. Its voice—if it could be called that—did not speak, yet reality trembled as if the sound existed in every atom.
It could have ended them all. In a blink. A thought. A motion.
And yet, it did not.
The twelve struggled to rise, battered, their powers flickering under the weight of a being that made the summoner seem trivial. Their kinship, their voids, even the White itself—it all strained against a force older than worlds.
Lucien's eyes flared. He tried to focus the White, to anchor himself, but the outer god's gaze alone made him stagger, bending reality in ways he could not predict.
The outer god's massive form shifted, reaching toward them—not to attack, not yet—but merely to touch. Cities crumbled beneath its descent. The twelve Revenants and Mirrored Six braced, midair, mid-step, mid-strike.
And then—the screen of the world split, light and shadow bending violently, as the outer god's finger neared their center.
The narrator whispered over the devastation:
"What survived… or what died… even the void could not say."
Silence followed. The clouds roared. The city quaked. The twelve were poised between existence and oblivion.
Lucien's last thought, before the unknown impact, was clear:
This is not the end… or it is everything.
And the outer god's descent paused, suspended in the void—a moment that could be their annihilation or the prelude to something far worse.