The descent wasn't like falling. It was being pulled through silence. Not soundless silence—aware silence. A living hush that watched, listened, judged. The path under their feet was barely there, threads of time and shadow woven into a thin bridge. Around them: nothing. Not black. Not void. Just absence. Like a world that had forgotten how to exist.
Elior led. The staff in his hand pulsed, reacting with each step. It wasn't just light now—it was weight. Each memory inside it humming like a voice, warning, whispering, waiting. Behind him, Eliano walked steady, hand clutching the back of Elior's cloak. And beside them, Seraphis moved like smoke—his body lean, whole, but flickering now and then as if part of him didn't belong to this place.
They crossed into the Interval.
And the world changed.
No gravity. No sky. Just floating shapes of what might've once been ideas. Cities that never were. Mountains that wanted to become fire. Statues with faces blurred into other faces. It was a place of beginnings that never found endings.
And in the center of it all—
A spire.
Rising from nothing, anchored by nothing.
And at its top: Velora.
She floated above a throne of bone and mirror. Her arms were spread wide. Her body was no longer hers. It was a shell—human skin over something much worse. Her veins glowed black-blue. Her eyes pulsed with static. And around her, threads of the Interval coiled like living code.
She saw them.
And smiled.
"So you came," she said. Her voice echoed in all directions. "Good. I didn't want to finish this without you."
Seraphis growled low. "She's changed. Not possessed. Merged."
"She's the Interval now," Elior said.
Velora lifted her hand.
And the sky bent.
A ring of creatures erupted from the space around them—twisted guardians, malformed protectors. Each one shaped from memory, fractured and wrong. An image of Vera with wings of knives. A burning beast wearing Lioran's face. A serpent that hissed with Eliano's voice.
They weren't real.
But they were dangerous.
"Go!" Elior barked.
Seraphis launched forward—flames bursting from his claws, body blurring between form and light. He struck first, slamming into the Vera-wraith with a blast of searing heat, tearing her in two before she could scream. The pieces didn't fall—they dissolved into ribbons of code.
Elior jumped next, spinning the staff around him. The twelve embedded shards lit up, each forming a blade of their own. He hurled three forward—arcing through the serpent, shattering it in a flash of gold and red.
Then the Lioran-beast leapt.
Elior blocked it midair, the real staff locking against the twisted memory's blade.
The beast snarled. "You failed me, grandson."
"I'm not yours," Elior growled—and unleashed the staff's full memory-force.
The impact tore the beast apart. Not just the body, but the voice. The guilt.
Gone.
Eliano stood behind the ward Elior had thrown up. His hands were shaking. His lips whispered things he didn't understand—but the ground beneath him responded. Symbols rose. Soft light gathered. The ward wasn't just defense.
It was growth.
He was learning.
Becoming.
Velora's eyes narrowed. "Even now… you think the child has a future here?"
She lifted her arms again.
And pulled.
Reality cracked. Not in sound—but in time. She reached through it and dragged something old into the fight.
The floor collapsed.
The battlefield turned.
Now they stood on shifting platforms of memory, floating in an endless cascade. Each platform held a fragment of past battles. The Crucible. The fall of Thal'Nora. The night Elior's mother died.
He saw her—again. Standing. Burning. Screaming for him to run.
Velora stood across the sky now, her voice booming.
"You carry all this pain. Why not just end it? Give it to me. I'll reshape it all. No more fear. No more loss."
Elior didn't answer.
He charged.
The staff pulled free again—twelve shards spinning around him, each one shaped like a life he refused to forget.
He slammed into her with the full weight of the staff—energy blasted in a ripple of fire, water, storm, and bone.
Velora blocked it with her own power. Threads of the Interval rose to shield her, clashing against his memories.
It was time against choice.
And it broke.
Seraphis returned with a roar—leaping across three shattered memories to land behind her. He struck with his jaws, golden light surging through his teeth. She screamed as part of her shell cracked.
"Enough!" Velora roared—and the Interval answered.
She lifted both hands, and all of time broke loose.
Thousands of images rained down. Every choice Elior never made. Every failure. Every death. They fell like blades.
Elior raised the staff—and the memories caught them.
Not blocked. Held.
"I don't run from what I've lived," he said.
Then he turned.
"Eliano!"
The boy raised his hands.
His eyes glowed.
And the ward became a weapon.
A surge of light burst from beneath him, firing into the sky like a beacon. It struck Velora from below—cutting through the stolen threads wrapped around her legs. She screamed, falling from her throne, crashing down onto the lowest platform.
Seraphis leapt again.
But she was faster now.
She exploded outward in raw energy—her arms tearing open, revealing wings of the Interval, bent lines of chaotic math and burning fate.
Elior and Seraphis were thrown back.
Elior hit a memory hard—a collapsing scene of himself, as a boy, sitting alone in a ruined temple.
And he remembered.
Not with sadness.
With clarity.
He stood.
Called the shards back.
Each flew to him.
Now not as blades.
But as forms.
Twelve guardians.
Twelve versions of himself.
His memory army.
They charged with him.
Velora rose, screaming—threads of unshaped reality spiraling around her. She hurled pieces of the past at him—his father dying, Vera bleeding, Eliano vanishing in flame.
He didn't flinch.
Because the staff remembered the truth.
Each image shattered as his guardians cut through them.
And then—
He reached her.
Face to face.
She screamed and brought her hand down.
He caught it.
And didn't burn.
"I forgive you," he said. "But I won't let you win."
Then he pushed.
The staff flared brighter than ever. A sun of memory. The core split open—revealing its final form.
Not a weapon.
Not a shield.
A mirror.
He held it up to Velora.
And showed her herself.
Not the shell.
Not the Interval.
Just her.
The sister. The protector. The woman who once sang lullabies to him when their mother was away.
She looked into it.
And broke.
Her body cracked—not from violence—but from truth. She fell to her knees.
"I wanted to stop the pain…" she whispered.
"You became it," Elior said.
And then—
He let go.
The mirror dissolved.
The staff dimmed.
And the Interval settled.
No longer screaming.
Just quiet.
The platforms began to fall.
Not in collapse.
In peace.
Elior caught Velora as she crumpled. Her body light now. Fragile. Human again.
She looked up at him. "Is it over?"
Elior shook his head.
"It never is."
But the battle was.
Eliano ran to him, eyes wide. Seraphis landed beside them, panting but standing.
And the spire shattered above.
From it—light.
Clean. Soft. True.
Not a door.
A sunrise.
And the three of them stood in its glow.
Together.
Alive.
Ready.
Not to fight.
To build.