Erynd did not fall.
He should have.
The weight of unkept promises, broken vows, desperate prayers—any one of them could have crushed a god.
He carried them all.
Not because he was strong.
Because he refused to put them down on someone else.
The chains melted as they touched him, not disappearing, but losing direction. Oaths no longer pointed outward.
They pointed inward.
The Covenant Devourer screamed.
For the first time, it felt hunger without relief.
"You were made by absence," Erynd said, voice hoarse but steady. "You don't get to define presence."
He stepped forward.
The ground healed beneath his feet, then cracked again—unable to decide what reality he belonged to.
The Devourer struck.
Erynd did not block.
He absorbed.
Each blow stripped a promise from the Devourer and burned it into his scars.
He screamed.
And kept walking.
The Watcher observed.
No intervention followed.
Instead, something changed.
Its geometric form softened.
Lines curved.
Processes delayed.
For the first time, it waited.
Lyra knelt, hands trembling.
"You'll die," she whispered.
Erynd glanced back, eyes gentle.
"Eventually," he said. "Not today."
Caelis watched in silence.
He understood now.
Erynd had become what Caelis could never be.
Not a solution.
A burden.
With a final step, Erynd reached the Devourer.
He did not strike it.
He embraced it.
The Devourer convulsed, form unraveling.
"No—without me, they will beg for chains!"
Erynd whispered, "Then let them beg. And let someone answer—or not."
The Devourer collapsed inward, its essence folding into Erynd's scars.
Not destroyed.
Contained.
The world exhaled.
Cities felt the chains loosen.
People fell to their knees—not in worship, but exhaustion.
Erynd collapsed.
This time, he did not rise.
Lyra ran to him, sobbing.
Caelis stood guard, blade drawn against nothing.
Above them, the Watcher completed its transformation.
Not into a god.
Into a witness.
FINAL UPDATE:
Control — Relinquished
Observation — Continual
Judgment — None
Days passed.
Then weeks.
Erynd did not wake.
He breathed—but faintly.
The scars across his body pulsed, holding the world's unspoken weight.
Lyra sat beside him every day.
"If you don't wake up," she whispered, "I'll choose badly. On purpose."
Her tears fell on his hand.
His fingers twitched.
Far away, Caelis walked into the world again.
Not as hero.
Not as exile.
As someone who would act—without certainty.
The age of Oathfall continued.
And somewhere within the man who carried it—
The weight began to crack.