The silence was worse than the screams.
Vemy hovered in the void, shards orbiting in a storm of fractured light. His chest heaved, each breath ragged, every vein burning with Prismarine fire. Across from him, the First Ring-Bearer's form pulsed with distorted radiance, a living wound in existence.
But the silence didn't belong to either of them.
It belonged to something deeper.
The fracture in the abyss widened, not from their blows, but from within—as though the void itself had cracked open to reveal a second skin beneath.
A whisper bled through.
Not sound. Not thought. Something older. Something that pressed into the marrow, into the soul.
"…still burning… even now…"
Vemy staggered. His shards trembled, flickering out of sync. That voice wasn't the Warden's—it was heavier, colder. It carried no intent, only inevitability.
The First Ring-Bearer faltered too, its spirals slowing. For the first time, its fractured eyes did not rest on Vemy, but on the rift itself.
"Impossible…" the god rasped, tones colliding out of rhythm. "That voice was sealed. Erased."
The abyss groaned. The fracture split wider, vomiting streams of colorless flame. Reality bent, folding inward like paper, as though something vast was trying to crawl through a space too small.
Akiar's lightning sputtered. He braced against the pull, shouting hoarsely, "Vemy! That isn't just abyss energy—it's something buried beneath it!"
Vemy's jaw tightened, sweat dripping through blood on his face. His spear quaked in his grip, shards vibrating louder as if in warning.
"…ring… defied… cycle…"
The voice dragged, endless and cold, yet unmistakably directed at him.
Vemy's teeth clenched. "The hell are you?!"
The abyss answered not with words, but with movement.
From the fracture, a hand emerged.
Not flesh. Not light. A construct of shifting shards and burned halos, endless pieces trying to fit together into something human and failing. Fingers made of broken rings clawed their way free, scraping sparks from the void itself.
The First Ring-Bearer recoiled, its halo-blade faltering. "No… not here. Not now."
The voice deepened, splitting into a chorus, a thousand layers speaking as one.
"I am what comes after the end.
The one you buried.
The one who breaks the Warden."
The hand clenched. The fracture widened.
And something vast began to rise.
Vemy's eyes burned, his grip steady even as the shards around him shivered on the edge of collapse.
This wasn't just a fight against a god anymore.
This was something beyond gods.
The silence cracked—
and the abyss roared again.