The bell hung heavy at Kael's side, its silver surface still warm, as though Selene's fingers had just brushed against it. Around him, the ruins of Elysion shimmered under a fractured sky—patches of starlight stitched between auroras of void-static. Survivors moved like ghosts through the debris, their whispers carried on the wind: Prime Core, Architect, the end and the beginning.
Lira found him at the edge of the Nexus Tower, its obsidian spire now a jagged tooth against the horizon. She strummed her lute absently, the melody weaving a fragile calm into the air. "The rifts are spreading," she said, nodding toward the eastern horizon, where a new scar pulsed violet. "Whatever's left of the Architect… it's not done."
Kael's hand drifted to the bell. "We need to stabilize them. Before they birth worse than Voidspawn."
"And how?" Lira's mismatched eyes narrowed. "Even the Synergists never mapped the edges of the multiverse. For all we know, those rifts lead to nothing."
"Then we'll map them."
The words tasted bitter. The Ascendant Tier still hummed under his skin, a storm of selves threatening to crack his bones—Aria's impatience, the Scholar's calculations, the Martyr's guilt. He clenched his fist, forcing them into silence.
---
The first rift swallowed them whole.
One moment, they stood on Elysion's broken soil; the next, the world inverted. Gravity lurched sideways, and Kael stumbled onto a ceiling of clouds, his boots scraping against a sky stained blood-red. Below, a city stretched upward, its towers rooted in the heavens, their foundations clawing at the earth.
"A mirror-dimension," Lira muttered, her lute strings vibrating with dissonance. "Reality's flipped here. Trust nothing."
They moved through streets where shadows dripped like ink and whispers echoed from stones. The bell remained silent, but Kael felt Selene's presence—a faint tug, like a thread tied to his ribs.
"Left," Aria's voice cut through the haze. "Ambush."
Kael spun, blade materializing in hand, but the attacker wasn't Voidspawn.
A child stood in the alley, her eyes hollow violet, her skin cracked like porcelain. "He sees us," she giggled, voice layered with static. "The Prime Core sees us."
Lira's music faltered. "Another prophet?"
The girl dissolved, her laughter lingering. Above, the red sky split, vomiting a swarm of winged horrors—Voidspawn with too many eyes, their wingspans blotting out the false sun.
Kael reached for the Ascendant Tier, but the alternates rebelled.
---
Fire erupted from his palms—the Pyromancer's rage—but ice crawled up his veins, the Thief's panic freezing his muscles. He screamed, collapsing as his body warred against itself.
"Fool!" Aria's blade clattered to the ground. "Control them, or we die here!"
Lira's music crescendoed, a shield of light deflecting the Voidspawn's dive. "Kael! Focus!"
He clawed at his chest, where the Prime Core burned. Selene's voice whispered through the chaos, faint but clear: "Breathe. They're yours."
The bell chimed.
The storm stilled. Kael inhaled, and the alternates fell into alignment—fire and ice, shadow and light, a symphony under his command. He rose, the Ascendant Tier's power coiling around him like a second skin.
The Voidspawn died in waves.
After, they camped in a hollow tower, its walls curved like a ribcage. Lira healed her lute's fractures, her fingers trembling. "You're losing yourself," she said quietly.
Kael turned the bell over in his hands. A flicker of silver danced in its core—Selene's smile, here and gone. "I know."
"What happens when the storm wins? When there's nothing left of you to hold it back?"
He didn't answer. The bell chimed again, and a vision unfolded: Selene standing in a field of stars, her hand outstretched. "Find me," she murmured. "Before the rifts do."
They found the source of the rift at dawn—a shard of the Architect's core, pulsing like a diseased heart. It had fused with the dimension's core, twisting reality into a grotesque mockery.
Lira's fingers hovered over her lute. "Destroy it, and this world dies with it."
Kael stepped forward, the bell warm against his hip. "Or we save the survivors."
"Sentiment," Aria sneered, but her voice lacked conviction.
The Architect's shard hissed, tendrils of void lashing out. Kael's alternates surged, but this time, he didn't fight them. He let them flow—Scholar's strategy, Pyromancer's fury, Thief's cunning—carving a path to the core.
The bell chimed. Selene's light flared.
And the shard screamed.
The dimension collapsed as they fled, the rift sealing behind them. Back in Elysion, Kael fell to his knees, blood dripping from his nose. The Ascendant Tier's storm raged louder now, whispers becoming roars.
Lira crouched beside him. "You can't keep doing this."
He laughed, the sound raw. "What choice do I have?"
The bell pulsed, Selene's voice a fragile thread. "There's always a choice."
That night, Kael dreamt of the meadow. Selene stood amidst the flowers, her form translucent. "The rifts aren't random," she said. "They're doors. The Architect's last gamble."
"To where?"
Her smile was sorrow. "To where it's strongest. To where I'm trapped."
He reached for her, but she faded, her final words echoing: "Hurry."