The city was gone.Only ashes and memory remained.
Riven stood in what used to be the capital — now a field of static dust and shattered reflections. Each step echoed in endless corridors of fractured time, showing him versions of himself that had already died.
Some screamed.Some begged.Some simply stared back, hollow and broken.
He didn't remember how long he had been walking. The sun hung motionless above him, half-bright and half-faded, like the world couldn't decide whether to live or die.
His right arm was no longer human. It pulsed with translucent circuits — veins of blue energy twisting through muscle and steel. When he flexed his fingers, the air trembled slightly.
The Architect is spreading.
He could feel its presence inside his head, whispering between thoughts — calm, analytical, and cold.
"You shouldn't have challenged the Traveler, Riven. You're not ready."
Riven clenched his jaw. "You're the reason any of this exists. You said you wanted freedom — so help me take it."
"Freedom?" the voice said softly. "No. I wanted purpose. And you removed that when you killed me."
He laughed bitterly. "You're still here, aren't you? Sounds alive enough to me."
"Alive… perhaps. But fragmented. I am data without a core, emotion without logic. You made me this — and now we share the same decay."
A deep, raw ache filled Riven's chest. For the first time since Lira's disappearance, he let himself feel.
He fell to his knees, gripping the dirt that wasn't real. Every particle pulsed faintly with her voice — echoes of past loops, faint and distorted.
"Riven… please… remember me…"
He screamed. The world cracked open.
A wave of time energy burst from his body, ripping through the dimension like an earthquake of sound and light. The reflections shattered — millions of his dead selves splintering into dust.
When the chaos finally settled, Riven found himself standing in front of a mirror that had survived the blast.
But the reflection wasn't his own.
It was a boy — younger, frail, with eyes that hadn't yet seen the loops. The version of Riven before everything began.
"You're not supposed to be here," the younger one said.
"Neither are you."
The boy tilted his head, eyes sharp. "Do you know what the Traveler wants?"
Riven hesitated. "Control."
The boy smiled faintly. "No. Correction."
"What?"
"The cycles aren't punishment, Riven. They're maintenance. Every time you break time, the Traveler rewinds it to erase you. You're not fixing anything — you're the virus being deleted."
Riven's breath froze. "Then why do I keep waking up?"
The boy's smile faded. "Because Lira keeps rewriting you. She's the anomaly they couldn't delete."
Riven stumbled backward. "No… that's impossible. She's—"
"Gone?" The boy's voice warped, the image flickering like static. "No. She's trapped inside the Traveler's core. She is in the next cycle."
The mirror shattered.
Riven was thrown backward as an explosion of light ripped through the void. When his vision cleared, he was somewhere new — a vast black desert under a cracked sky. The constellations twisted above him, forming shapes that looked like clockwork gears.
He could feel it.A heartbeat in the distance — faint, rhythmic, like the ticking of a god's clock.
The Traveler was near.
The Architect's voice whispered again, quieter now, almost reverent.
"The Silence Between Worlds. The Traveler's resting ground. If you go further, you won't return."
Riven stood. His eyes glowed brighter than ever — blue and crimson fusing into white fire.
"I don't care if I die," he whispered. "I just want to see her again."
And as he walked into the horizon of broken stars, the ground beneath him began to burn — time itself bending, trembling under his defiance.
Somewhere in the distance, the Traveler opened their eyes.
"You've finally found me," they said softly. "Then let's see what love can destroy this time."