The world didn't fall silent—it recoiled. Time itself hesitated after the clash of Grey and Wale. In the valley below, the Forgotten scrambled to regroup, their cries rising like sparks from a dying fire. Smoke licked the sky, curling into the unnatural tear Wale had opened in the heavens.
But Grey wasn't watching the sky anymore.
He was watching himself.
In the moments after Wale's counterstrike, a mirror had begun forming behind Grey—unbidden, crystalline, hovering. A twisted reflection of his own will. The surface didn't show Wale, nor the battle, nor the past. It showed Grey, alone, surrounded by nothing.
Inside the mirror, he stood victorious… but utterly alone.
Chris sprinted toward him. "Grey! You need to move!"
He blinked. The battlefield snapped back. Heralds had returned, now fighting with more focus, as if Wale's arrival had reforged their dying will.
She reached him, slamming a fist into his shoulder. "What happened to you? That wasn't just power—it felt like you were unraveling."
Grey's voice was hollow. "He didn't just build the Mirror to reflect lies. He built it to trap truths. Even mine."
Chris narrowed her eyes. "What do you mean?"
"I saw something. If I keep going—if I win this—there's no one left beside me."
Chris gritted her teeth. "Then change it. Fight that vision. We're not dead yet."
"Wale—"
"Isn't a god. He's a coward in a cloak," she snapped. "And you're still you, aren't you?"
Grey didn't answer.
Because deep down, he wasn't sure anymore.
Meanwhile, Wale hovered above the battlefield, not as a general commanding troops, but as a conductor guiding a symphony of decay. Wherever his gaze turned, Forgotten began to slow, falter, hesitate. They remembered more now—yes—but that was part of the plan.
For some, remembering wasn't salvation.
It was grief.
It was guilt.
"You gave up a world," Wale whispered to a kneeling warrior with a shattered blade. "You swore to protect it, and when it fell, you fled. You do not deserve to be remembered."
The warrior wept.
And was erased.
One by one, Wale's words thinned the army—not with death, but with doubt.
Lucien's echo hurled a bolt of light upward. "Coward!"
Wale's eyes flicked toward him.
"You're not even real," Wale said with mild curiosity. "A ghost wearing nostalgia."
"I'm enough," Lucien hissed—and unleashed a cascade of shimmering thought. It struck Wale's barrier and dissipated instantly.
But it bought them time.
Chris turned to Grey. "I know what you're thinking."
Grey's eyes flicked to her. "You usually do."
"You want to end this your way. Alone. Like always."
He didn't respond.
"But I'm not letting you," she said. "You taught me how to fight. Now let me remind you how to stand."
She pressed a hand to his chest—where the mirrored version of himself still hovered, waiting.
"Let's shatter it together."
Far in the distance, the Mirror Council panicked.
"He is deviating," said the First.
"The Mirror should have consumed him by now," said the Second.
"Why does he still resist?" asked the Third.
Because in the realm of truth, Wale wasn't just fighting memory anymore.
He was fighting belief.
Back on the field, Grey raised both hands. Light surged from his palms—not like before. It was jagged, stuttering, filled with conflict.
Then he thrust them toward the sky—and the mirror above him shattered into seven burning shards, which spun around him like a halo.
"Enough lies," he said.
Each shard held a part of him: joy, rage, sorrow, compassion, guilt, love… and defiance.
Chris looked up in awe. "What… is that?"
"Myself. All of me," Grey said. "No more fragments."
With a wordless roar, he lunged upward, straight toward Wale.
The sky screamed.
The clash was not of flesh, nor blade—it was of essence. Wale met Grey midair, palm to palm, soul to soul. Around them, the battlefield bent sideways, as though the world could no longer hold the weight of their duel.
"You still think you can change the ending?" Wale asked as their powers locked.
Grey bared his teeth. "No."
"I know I can."
Their collision exploded into a maelstrom of white and black energy, swallowing clouds, turning stars red.
Below, the Forgotten and Heralds halted. The sky had become a stage for two deities in conflict.
And then—
Wale staggered back.
A thin line of silver cut across his cheek.
Blood—real blood—dripped.
He touched it with disbelief.
"You're… still you."
Grey's voice was calm now. "I always was."
Wale's smile returned. Not broken. Not fearful.
Delighted.
"Good," he said. "Then the real game begins."
And he vanished.
Grey collapsed onto the battlefield. Chris ran to him, catching his fall.
"He ran," she said.
"No," Grey whispered. "He's moving to the final phase."
Chris frowned. "What phase?"
Grey looked toward the horizon, where cities still slept under illusions, where people still feared truth and craved comfort.
"The world itself. He's going to rewrite it. One belief at a time."