Elira dug her heels into the stone, anchoring herself as the Gate's pull intensified. The sky tore open above them, black veins crawling across the heavens like a dying god's last breath. Around her, Dominion forces were dragged screaming into the vortex—men, machines, monsters—unmade by raw, cosmic judgment.
"I'll kill you, Russ!" Elira shrieked, her voice cracking beneath the weight of unraveling reality. "I don't care what you've become. You're still just a man!"
Russ didn't answer.
Because he wasn't a man anymore.
He hovered, wrapped in a mantle of voidlight. The Codex had rewritten him down to his essence. He was memory and possibility, bound together by pain and will. Not a god—gods ruled. Russ unwrote.
Beside the Gate, Layla dropped to one knee, shielding her eyes. "We have to help him… or stop him. I don't know which."
Minx, bloodied and barely standing, smirked. "I'm leaning toward not dying."
Geo's eyes glowed faintly—his link to the earth weakening as the laws of nature buckled. "If we don't pull him back soon, there won't be a world left to save."
But how do you reach someone who no longer walks the same timeline?
Elira lunged one last time, wielding her broken blade like a fang. "You were always beneath me, little brother! I forged empires while you sulked in shadows!"
Russ turned his gaze on her—and she saw everything.
The boy she betrayed.
The Veilbearer she hunted.
The exile who returned.
The Archon she feared.
He lifted a single hand.
A pulse rippled outward—not force, but truth. The kind that strips away illusions, pretenses, lies. Elira staggered mid-strike, blinking rapidly. Her blood-armor cracked further, revealing pale flesh beneath.
"No… no, this isn't real—!"
But it was.
She looked down and saw herself as she truly was: a child in crimson robes, caked in ash, trembling in front of the Dominion High Tribunal. She had begged for power. She had sold her soul for influence. The Crimson Matron was just a mask.
Russ spoke softly.
"Your power came from taking. Mine comes from remembering."
Elira screamed—and charged again.
This time, she didn't make it.
The Gate answered in Russ's place.
From its core, a spear of condensed oblivion shot forth and impaled her midair. She hung suspended, her scream silenced. The blood-armor shattered completely, raining like crimson glass.
For a moment, everything paused.
Then the Gate began to consume her.
Memories first.
Then name.
Then body.
She reached out, desperate to hold onto something—anything—but the last face she saw was her brother's. Calm. Forgiving.
"I remember you," Russ whispered.
And then—she was gone.
No explosion. No blaze of glory. Just a silent unweaving.
Russ lowered his hand.
The Gate pulsed once, then began to shrink, the wings of void folding inward. Its hunger subsided. The sky began to mend. The stars returned.
Layla stumbled to Russ's side. "It's over…"
Russ collapsed into her arms.
The Codex markings across his body dimmed. His eyes returned—haunted, human.
Minx knelt beside them, exhausted. "That was the scariest thing I've ever seen."
Geo exhaled deeply, looking out at the battlefield. "The Dominion is broken. Elira's gone. We did it."
Russ didn't speak for a while.
Then he looked at the Gate one last time.
"It's not over," he said. "Not yet. The Codex didn't destroy itself."
Layla followed his gaze.
The Gate stood silent… watching.
And somewhere beyond its surface, something else watched back.