The skies above the ruined city trembled with the resonance of power that no mortal could endure. Far across the continent, the Champions—those who had long held dominion over their lands—felt it first.
Veyrion, the Champion of Storms, clenched his fists, thunder echoing across mountains. "That energy… impossible. That's not just Lucien. That's—" His voice faltered.
"I've never felt anything like it," murmured Sylaris, the Flame Champion. Flames licked her armor, but they did not warm her. They burned with warning. "It's not a mere being. It's… rewriting reality itself."
From the high cliffs, Korthal, the Earth Champion, gritted his teeth, sending tremors through the mountains beneath. "If he's involved… or it, then the cities won't survive a single blow. Not even together."
Every Champion's mind turned toward the same impossible truth: this was beyond planetary threat. They were watching history fracture in real time. And at the center of it… was Lucien. Or someone wearing his face.
Cutback to the Revenants
Lucien screamed, though the sound was swallowed by reality itself. The Outer God's fingers gripped him, yet he felt no bones broken, no blood spilled—the White surged, repelling and resisting. But the sensation was horrifying. Every instinct told him: he was being copied, rewritten, and weaponized.
Seliora lunged, threads of light wrapping around his form, but the god's power shimmered like a mirror, reflecting her attacks harmlessly. "Lucien!" she shouted, voice cracking. "Fight it!"
Kairo's temporal shifts splintered around him, afterimages screaming warnings, yet even time struggled under the god's will. Ashveil and Zarynth moved together, shadows and chaos slicing through the air—but their strikes phased harmlessly through the Outer God's grip.
Veythar slammed a fist against the colossal hand, feeling the force of a planet push back against him. Morwyn and Caelthorn tried to crush the god's wrist with gravity and kinetic bursts, and for an instant, they saw their blows leave dents—but the figure simply absorbed them, as if reality itself had become armor.
Lucien's body convulsed, the White within him flaring wildly. He glimpsed countless versions of himself within the Outer God's grasp, each an echo of mistakes, of cycles erased, of eras reset. The air vibrated with their screams, faint whispers of all that he had been in other timelines.
He locked eyes with Seliora, then the mirrored six. "Don't… look at me like I'm already gone," he choked out. "I—I'm still here… somehow…"
The Impossible Pressure
The Outer God's gaze bored into him, and the world around them warped with every blink. The twelve Revenants and Mirrors could do nothing but brace themselves, fighting against forces that made their entire existence tremble.
The ground split further, shadows swallowing streets, and the once-destroyed summoner's minions began reforming, drawn to the Outer God's power.
Lucien's voice rang out, hoarse but determined: "Everyone… hold on. We don't fall here. Not today. Not ever!"
But before anyone could react, the Outer God's hand clamped over the space around Lucien, reality folding violently. Everything—air, ground, void—bent toward that point, and the city seemed to vanish beneath a spiral of impossibility.
And in that instant, the narrator's voice whispered over the devastation:
"And now… you see what it means to face eternity. Who will survive? Who will be erased? And who will awaken to fight again?"
A scream—not Lucien's, yet familiar—echoed as everything went black.