The stranger's voice hung in the air, familiar yet alien. Kael's grip tightened on the bell as he studied the man—his own sharp jawline softened by Selene's gentle curve of the lips, silver hair streaked with violet. The soldiers behind him stood motionless, their prismatic armor reflecting Elysion's fractured skies like living kaleidoscopes.
"Who are you?" Kael demanded, the Ascendant Tier's storm churning in his veins.
The man smiled, a mirror of Selene's warmth. "We are the Balance. The corrected echoes." He gestured to the ruins. "You've met our kin—the Original. She was the first to reject the Architect's lies."
Lira stepped forward, her lute humming a warning. "And you're here to finish what she started?"
"No." His gaze lingered on the bell. "We're here to offer salvation. For her."
The Balance's leader—Kael refused to call him brother—led them to a rift pulsing with starlight. Inside, a void stretched endlessly, its center a cage of shimmering threads. Suspended within was Selene, her body translucent, her essence siphoned into the glowing strands.
"The Architect's final anchor," the man said. "Her soul sustains its rebirth. Break the cage, and you break the cycle."
"Lies," Aria snarled, though her voice wavered. "He wants the Core."
Kael's hand trembled. The bell pulsed in sync with Selene's heartbeat. "Why help us?"
The man's smile faded. "Because I am what you fear becoming—a Prime Core who merged with his alternate. My Selene… is gone. Yours doesn't have to be."
The path to the cage was a gauntlet. Each step through the void summoned reflections of Kael's choices: Aria's blade piercing Lyra's killer, Veyron's Dominions dragging him into the rift, Selene's claw plunging into her own chest. The Balance soldiers watched, their weapons ready.
"Trials of regret," the leader said. "The Architect's last defense."
Kael walked on.
The final trial erupted—a figure cloaked in shadow, the Architect's voice dripping from its lips. "You will fail. You will fall. You will be me."
Kael raised the bell. It chimed, not with sound, but with memory: Selene's laughter, Lyra's courage, Lira's resolve. The shadow dissolved, and the cage shuddered.
The threads resisted. Kael's blade shattered against them, the Ascendant Tier's storm raging as alternates rebelled.
"Let me in," the Balance leader urged. "Merge with me. It's the only way."
Lira seized Kael's arm. "Don't! You'll lose yourself!"
But Selene's eyes opened, her voice threading through the bell. "Trust him."
The merger was agony. The leader's essence fused with Kael's—memories of a world where he and Selene had ruled as gods, where the Architect's fall had birthed something worse. Together, they struck.
The cage exploded.
Selene fell into Kael's arms, her form flickering. Around them, the void collapsed.
"Thank you," she whispered, her fingers brushing the bell. A crack split its surface.
The Balance leader dissipated, his final words echoing: "The Architect lives… in you."
Back in Elysion, Selene slept. The bell, now silent, bore a spiderweb of fractures. Lira stared at the horizon, where new rifts bloomed like poisonous flowers.
"What did he mean?" she asked. "The Architect lives in you?"
Kael clasped the broken bell. Somewhere in the storm of alternates, a new voice whispered—cold, calculative, hungry.
"It means this isn't over."