The sanctum trembled as Kael, Aeris, and Dray returned, stepping through spectral fractures like resurrected stars. Their weapons—reformed, reborn—buzzed with a harmonic resonance that pierced even Null's stillness.
Null turned slowly, his mask now fractured. Where once there had been voidlight and order, there was something leaking through—emotion, raw and distorted.
"You've changed the song," Null said, voice no longer unshakable. "But the melody of entropy will play on."
Veyra stood between them and Null, her hands trembling, blood painting her sleeves. But her gaze—defiant, crystalline—never wavered.
"We've heard your melody," she said. "Now listen to ours."
Dray raised his staff first. From its tip spilled not fire or frost, but stories—ghostly visages of the lives they had saved, the choices they had made. The past became weapon.
Aeris followed, winged light folding around her, harmonizing chaos into cohesion. She reached into Null's shadow and pulled—dragging out the fragments he had devoured. Forgotten futures, lost timelines, unborn dreams. They swirled around her like fireflies longing for rebirth.
Kael stepped forward last. His blade—now fused with the blade he retrieved from the tombs—glowed with a heartbeat rhythm. Steady. Unyielding.
"I see you now," he told Null. "You're not a god. You're what happens when hope is abandoned too long."
Null screamed—a sound made of collapsing stars. And then he lunged.
Reality fractured.
The final battle began.