The air split like a tearing fabric.
From the seam stepped a second Rourke—
a perfect reflection,
but wrong in every way.
His skin was marked with cracks of black light.
His eyes glowed with swirling void.
Gravity bent around him in sharp distortions, like invisible blades curving through the air.
Seren stumbled back.
"W–What the hell IS that?!"
The Memory Core dimmed ominously.
"Your Collapse Form.
Everything the Heart fears you may become."
Rourke's pulse hammered in his ears.
His dark counterpart tilted its head, examining him with detached curiosity—
like a predator studying a weaker version of itself.
The guide whispered urgently:
"Rourke… be careful.
A Collapse Form is not a reflection.
It is the path you could take—
if the Heart overwhelms your humanity."
Seren swallowed hard.
"So it's like…
a parallel version of him?"
"No," the guide said.
"It is worse.
It is the version created if the Obsidian Engine and the Heart merge."
Seren froze.
"Oh gods.
So that thing is what the Engine wants him to become."
The Collapse Form spoke at last—
voice low, distant, layered in echoes.
"…You are incomplete."
Rourke stiffened.
His own voice—
twisted into something ancient and cold.
"I'm not afraid of you."
The Collapse Form's lips curved into a faint smile.
"You should be."
The First Clash
The Collapse Form blurred—
vanishing—
Rourke barely reacted in time.
A gravitational blade slashed across the space he'd been standing in.
The ground exploded.
Shards of glowing terrain spun upward like shrapnel caught in a tornado.
Rourke leaped back, bending gravity beneath his feet, gliding across the air.
Seren shouted, "ROURKE! Behind you!"
He twisted—
just as his dark double materialized with a fist crackling with collapse energy.
Rourke raised a shield—
a barrier of bent space—
The impact shattered it instantly.
The blow sent him flying through three floating monoliths before he skidded across the fractured ground.
Seren screamed, "ENOUGH! STOP IT!"
The Memory Core's glow sharpened.
"He cannot stop.
Neither can the Collapse Form.
Only one of them can remain."
Seren whipped toward it.
"Then HELP HIM!"
"This is a lesson only he can face."
Rourke wiped blood from his mouth and pushed himself upright.
His Collapse Form watched him with cold amusement.
"You cling to weakness."
Rourke cracked his knuckles.
"You cling to destruction."
The Collapse Form stepped forward.
"Destruction is clarity."
The Battle of Gravity and Collapse
They collided in midair.
Gravity spiraled around them—
Rourke's silver webs against the Collapse Form's black threads.
Every clash sent shockwaves exploding outward.
Rourke bent gravity into spirals—
redirecting forces,
folding momentum,
compressing trajectories.
His dark duplicate did not redirect.
It erased.
It unmade.
A single swipe of its hand dissolved a section of the realm—
leaving only empty void.
Seren stumbled backward, horrified.
"That thing can ERASE space?!"
The guide nodded gravely.
"Collapse is not manipulation.
It is annihilation.
If Rourke falls into its rhythm,
he will become like it."
Rourke ducked under a collapsing shockwave—
landed on a fragment of floating ground—
and countered with a gravity burst strong enough to crack his double's chest.
A rare moment of silence.
The Collapse Form looked down at the damaged spot—
curious.
For the first time, it bled white light.
It looked at Rourke.
"…Interesting."
Then it vanished again.
Rourke spun—
too slow.
A gravitational spike pierced his shoulder.
Pain exploded.
Seren screamed his name.
He fell to one knee, gasping.
The Collapse Form materialized behind him, hand outstretched.
"You cannot win.
You fight to protect.
I fight to end."
Rourke closed his eyes.
And exhaled.
The Obsidian Engine would say the same thing.
The Turning Point
Rourke rose slowly.
Pain pulsed through his arm, but Gravity Sight sharpened—
He saw the Collapse Form's forces clearly now.
Saw the patterns of its void threads.
They were not powerful.
They were predictable.
Rourke whispered:
"…You're not chaos.
You're fear."
The Collapse Form hesitated.
Rourke stepped toward it.
"You're what happens if I let fear control the Heart.
If I let the Engine decide my fate."
He clenched his fists.
"But I choose who I am."
The Collapse Form's eyes darkened—
shadows swirling violently.
"Choice…
is a human weakness."
Rourke's voice hardened.
"Maybe.
But it's MY weakness."
He pulled gravity tight—
condensing force around his body like armor.
The Collapse Form attacked—
a spear of pure void aimed at Rourke's heart.
Rourke caught it.
He caught it.
Seren gasped.
The guide whispered:
"…He's matching collapse with resonance."
Rourke pushed forward—
step by step—
until he was face-to-face with the Collapse Form.
Their energies clashed, screaming against each other.
Rourke growled:
"You are not me—
you're the version I refuse to become."
He pulled—
And forced collapse and resonance into alignment.
A blinding flash exploded outward.
Seren shielded her face.
The guide flickered.
The Memory Core dimmed.
Silence.
When the light faded—
The Collapse Form staggered backward, cracks spreading across its body like shattered obsidian.
It whispered:
"…Impossible…"
Rourke stepped closer.
"I don't need to destroy you."
He lifted a hand.
"You're PART of me."
The Collapse Form looked stunned.
Rourke finished:
"And I accept you."
The Collapse Form's body fractured—
the cracks pulsing brighter—
until it burst into a swirl of black and silver energy.
The fragments spiraled around Rourke, merging into his gravitational crown.
The crown darkened slightly—
a silver ring with a faint black edge.
Seren stared, trembling.
"Rourke… your crown…"
The guide floated closer.
"He has done it.
He has integrated his collapse potential
without surrendering to it."
The Memory Core pulsed, impressed.
"Lesson Seven: completed."
Rourke exhaled, exhausted but standing.
"What's next?"
The relic's glow turned cold.
"Now that you have conquered collapse…
you must face something far more dangerous."
Seren held her breath.
The relic finished:
"A living Hunter Prime."
Rourke's blood ran cold.
The ground cracked beneath them.
The sky split.
And a silhouette of armored perfection stepped out of the void.