The road just stopped.
No gate to mark the end. No mountaintop that stretched open like the world was about to split apart under divine light. Nothing like that. Just... ended. The path gave up and bled out into a flat stretch of cracked dirt, dirt that looked like it had forgotten how to hold life. No trees reaching up. No birds breaking the silence. Not even a hint of wind. Just that kind of heavy quiet that settles after the last honest words have been spoken, and no one's got the guts to say what comes next.
Verek stood at the edge, boots still on the dry ground, his face unreadable. It wasn't fear, or awe. It was that familiar, quiet tension he carried around like armor—scuffed and dented, worn down but never quite off.
Ezreal came up beside him, boots crunching on gravel. He stared at the same stretch of dead land and muttered, "This it?"
From behind, Dax rasped, leaning hard on his axe like it was the only thing holding him upright. "Feels like the end of something. Not sure what."
Caylen crouched down, fingers brushing the brittle soil. "Something's underneath," he said low, almost to himself. "Old. Deep. So old it hates being remembered."
Verek's eyes stayed fixed on the horizon. Flat. Gray. Empty. "It's waiting," he said, voice rough but steady. "Not for a hero. Just someone too tired to lie anymore."
Ezreal loosened the straps on his pack. Inside, the shards shifted—ten of them clinking against each other like dry bones trying to whisper secrets no one could hear. They didn't glow like before. They just sat there. Silent. Watching.
One by one, Ezreal laid the shards in a rough circle on the cracked earth. The moment his fingers left the last shard, the air grew still. Something stirred beneath them—a long, slow groan, like old stone cracking back to life. Then the ground gave way beneath their feet.
No flash of light. No grand display. Just the circle slipping open into a dark pit, stairs spiraling down into the throat of something ancient. Something that remembered what it was like to be buried alive.
Verek went first.
No torch, no hesitation. The cold, slick steps were wet with something slimy, worm-pale roots brushing his shoulder as he descended. The others followed, quiet and steady.
The staircase led into a space that wasn't quite a room. Too wide, too quiet. The kind of silence that didn't just sit there—it listened.
Verek stopped near the center. His gaze caught on the mirror before anyone else even noticed it.
It wasn't hung on a wall, wasn't framed, just stood there. Seven feet tall, dead still, waiting like it knew him.
He moved closer, slow, cautious. The others held their breath behind him.
The mirror didn't show his reflection.
Not exactly.
Instead, it showed a version of Verek that looked hollowed out. Older. Bent under some weight you couldn't see but could feel. His armor was scorched, knuckles raw and bloody. His eyes weren't empty, but they'd forgotten how to hope.
He didn't turn away.
"You gave everything," the reflection said. Its voice sounded like his own, cracked and worn. "Even the pieces no one asked for."
Ezreal took a step forward, but Verek raised a hand. Sharp, still. "Let it speak," he said. "Let it finish."
The mirror didn't blink.
"You called it duty," it said, "but you were just afraid of stopping. Afraid that if you stood still too long, the world would see you for what you are."
Dax stepped forward, jaw clenched tight. "Back off."
The mirror shifted.
Now it showed Dax—arms stained with blood, his axe fused to his hands like regret that never let go. Behind him, the bodies weren't faceless. They were names he couldn't forget.
"You mistook survival for strength," it said.
Dax swore low and rough, swinging hard. The axe passed through the mirror's surface clean, no sound, no shatter. Just emptiness.
Caylen grabbed his arm, steadying him. The mirror turned again.
A throne. Caylen slumped in it. Sword limp across his knees. His crown crooked. The loneliness etched on his face was worse than any wound or guilt.
"You feared becoming a tyrant so much, you abandoned the right to rule."
No one moved. The air felt thicker, or maybe their lungs had shrunk.
Verek looked back down at the shards, still lying quiet in the circle. "This isn't the end," he said, voice heavy. "This is the measure."
A second mirror rose from the floor.
Softer.
This one showed them not broken, not perfect—but real. Ezreal laughing with lines carved deep on his face. Dax carrying a child on his shoulders, face tired but full. Caylen holding a woman's hand, no throne in sight. And Verek, standing behind them all, no armor, no sword—just a man who looked tired, but maybe at peace.
He didn't smile. But his eyes flickered, like he almost remembered how.
Then the third mirror.
It showed the world torn open. Cities burning, sky cracked like broken glass. The land bleeding, raw and ragged. Behind it all, the egg. Smooth and vast, breathing slow in the dark, like it was dreaming of fire.
The shards weren't separate anymore. They were locked inside it, like a lung or a heart waiting for someone to scream it awake.
Ezreal stepped forward, hand reaching into the pack, but Verek caught his arm.
"Not yet."
He moved to the egg himself. The others didn't stop him. He pulled the blue shard—the last one. It pulsed faintly in his hand, a rhythm that felt stubborn, like it didn't want to die.
Verek stared at it, then at the mirrors, then back at the egg.
"You want us to finish it," he said aloud, not to anyone, but to the silence that swallowed them all. "But that's not how this ends."
The chamber didn't answer.
So Verek did.
He pulled the shard back.
"We don't wake what should stay dreaming. We don't fix the world by handing it another god to kneel before."
Ezreal stepped beside him, voice rough with tiredness. "You sure?"
"No," Verek said, jaw tight. "But I've seen what happens when people try to save the world by burning it first. I've been that person."
The mirrors flickered. The broken reflections fractured further, the softer ones fading like smoke caught in a cold draft. And the egg—once blinding—dimmed down to a low, steady thrum.
Not dead. Just... quiet.
A door creaked open at the far side of the room. Real sunlight spilled in. Not warm. Not kind. But real. Hills rolled in the distance, smoke curling on the horizon, stubborn green clinging to the edges of scorched earth.
Dax stared at the light, then said, "So that's it? We just walk away?"
Verek didn't move right away. He looked back once—at the egg, at what it might have been.
"No," he said finally. "We carry the shards. We keep them safe. And we make sure no one ever decides for the world again."
Caylen nodded slowly. "Not a victory."
"But not a loss either," Ezreal added, rubbing his jaw.
Dax snorted dryly. "Which makes it feel just about right."
They stepped through the door.
And the Crucible stayed. It didn't crumble or vanish. It waited.
The world wasn't saved.
Not yet.
But Verek didn't need it all at once. He just needed to keep walking.
So they did.