"Power is not a weapon. It's a mirror — and sometimes, it reflects what we've been too afraid to see."
The world was gone.
No sound. No heat. No pain.
Only the stillness between everything that ever was.
Kaen floated in the void — no sky, no ground, just a horizon of endless white.
He looked down and saw no shadow beneath him, no reflection. For the first time in his life, there was nothing to fight against.
And then he heard it — that voice. Calm, deep, and patient.
"You always saw your silence as weakness."
Kaen turned. Erevos stood there — tall, composed, eyes like twin nebulae. His presence didn't dominate the void; it defined it.
Kaen's chest ached. "I couldn't stop him. I wasn't strong enough."
"You were never meant to stop him."
"You were meant to understand yourself."
Kaen shook his head. "I didn't ask for this power. I didn't want—"
"You didn't want to be different," Erevos interrupted softly.
"You wanted to belong. But power doesn't answer want, Kaen. It answers truth."
Kaen clenched his fists. "Then what truth am I?"
Erevos took a slow step forward. The void shimmered — and for a moment, Kaen saw his own reflection forming in midair: his eyes blue, hair white, his aura calm instead of raging.
"You are not the shadow."
"You are the balance that holds both."
Kaen stared at the image — himself, but not broken. Not cursed. Whole.
"Stop running from what you are," Erevos said, his tone now like thunder and whisper all at once.
"You are my echo — the resonance of silence made flesh. The world will call you curse, but you are proof that even light and dark can live as one."
Kaen looked down, then back up, voice shaking. "Then what do I do?"
Erevos smiled — faint, proud.
"You stop fearing what you've already become."
Light burst around him.
Warm, heavy, infinite — and Kaen didn't resist. He let it in.
He accepted.
And for the first time, the silence didn't feel empty.
It felt like home.
"Kaen! Hey— Kaen, please!"
A voice cracked through the haze, trembling. He blinked — colors bleeding back into the world.
Lana knelt over him, her hands shaking as she pressed them against his shoulders, tears streaking through the dust on her cheeks.
Her voice was raw, desperate.
"Come on, idiot, don't you dare die now!"
Kaen groaned softly, eyes fluttering open. The world spun. "…Lana?"
She gasped, then hugged him tight before her brain caught up to what her body was doing.
After a heartbeat, she froze, went red in the face, and shoved him away.
"Don't— don't get the wrong idea! I just didn't wanna have to tell Elyra I lost you, okay?!"
Jet's voice chimed in from nearby. "Yeah sure, keep telling yourself that!"
"Shut up, Jet!" she barked, face still crimson.
Kaen sat up slowly, blinking. "What… happened?"
Jet dropped down beside him, grinning through exhaustion. "Oh, you know — the usual. Light exploded, the world almost ended, and you became a walking solar eclipse. But hey, you should probably check a mirror before you panic."
Kaen frowned, leaning over a fractured sheet of glass half-buried in the sand.
He froze.
His reflection stared back: white hair, gleaming faintly under the fractured dawn light, and eyes glowing like polished ocean crystal. The air around him shimmered with a faint, bending pulse — gravity humming softly to his heartbeat.
He exhaled, half in awe, half disbelief. "…I look like a ghost."
Rayon stepped forward, expression a mix of shock and wonder. "You should be dead. The Warden's attack— it hit harder than anything I've ever felt. But right before impact… everything changed."
Kaen turned to him. "Changed?"
Rayon nodded. "The light — it bent. Just before it hit us, it split and started curving around you. Around us. It was like… it was dodging us. Like you were bending it away."
Po crossed his arms, voice low. "The beam didn't destroy us because he redirected it — subconsciously."
Jet whistled. "So basically, you went full divine deflector mode while asleep? Bro, remind me never to piss you off."
Before Kaen could answer, a faint grinding sound echoed through the canyon.
They turned.
Through the rolling dust and rising heat, a figure stumbled forward. The Warden of Glass — but not the untouchable deity they had fought before.
His armor was shattered, white plates cracked and hanging from him. His helmet was gone, revealing blood-matted blond hair and furious golden eyes. His spear was broken in half, fragments glowing weakly in his hands.
He staggered closer, voice shaking with equal parts rage and disbelief.
"You… creature…" he rasped. "You dare twist the Source's light…"
Kaen said nothing, just stared back — calm, silent, unreadable.
The Warden coughed, blood spilling down his chin. "You mock divinity… you stain perfection…"
He dropped to one knee, clutching at his shattered armor.
"For this… curse…" — he spat the word like venom — "you will burn."
Then his strength finally gave out. He fell forward into the sand, the glow of his armor fading into cold gray.
A long silence followed. Only the desert wind answered.
Jet broke it first. "…Well, I think it's safe to say we're so screwed."
He kicked a half-buried Dominion crate — it split open, revealing the supposed Source Fragment inside. Only it wasn't glowing. It was crumbling — disintegrating into dust that fell through his fingers.
Lana's voice was quiet, shocked. "That's… not possible."
Jet blinked. "Uh. So… this isn't dust in my hand?"
Po smacked him in the back of the head. "Idiot."
Rayon crouched beside the remnants, frowning deeply. "No… she's right. A real Source Fragment would've absorbed the blast and glowed brighter. This one's just glass. A decoy."
Jet tilted his head. "So what does that mean?"
Lana's voice came out small, trembling. "It means… we weren't supposed to win."
She looked up at Kaen, her expression falling into grim realization.
"They sent us here to die."
Kaen's jaw tightened, his glowing eyes dimming as his fists clenched in silence.
Miles away, beneath the Dominion skyline, a single candle flickered in a dark room.
Ronin stood at the center — aged, weathered, his purple flame resonance dimly lighting the space. Before him knelt a figure in a tattered Ashes uniform, face hidden by a hood.
"The Warden failed," the figure reported quietly. "The fragment was a decoy. Unit 3 lives."
Ronin said nothing for a long time. Only the sound of the candle's flicker filled the air.
Finally, he whispered — calm, certain, and cold.
"This world needs to be purified of curses…"
He turned toward the light — his shadow stretching across the wall like wings.
"…starting with that one."
"The gods call it sin when mortals survive their judgment."