There was no air.
No sound.
Only the slow heartbeat of the universe.
Riven drifted in darkness. He wasn't falling-not exactly. He was unmade, scattered across light and shadow, his thoughts fragments of something ancient.
The last thing he remembered was Lyra's voice her scream breaking through the collapsing world.
"I didn't save the world for it, I saved it for you."
That voice lingered, pulling at what little remained of him.
He opened his eyes.
Above, there was no sky whatsoever, but rather an expanse of black glass, billowing with constellations that blinked in and out of existence. Beneath him, the ground was ash-cracked, trembling with faint veins of red and silver light.
He was standing in the Underrealm of the Gods, the place where fallen divinities go once their faith fades.
And yet, the place seemed to breathe with his own pulse.
Riven looked down. His hands were streaked with shifting veins of light one red, one silver. The two halves of the god still fought within him.
The balance was breaking
"Finally awake.
The voice came from behind him-smooth, deep, and cruelly familiar.
Riven turned.
Before him stood Serath or what was left of him. His once-perfect armor was cracked and aglow from within, molten light seeping from every fracture. His eyes were no longer human, no longer divine only empty.
"Still playing the mortal?" Serath sneered. "You were never meant to feel. Or love. That's what doomed us both."
Riven's chest tightened. "You shouldn't exist. You were the rage I left behind."
Serath smiled. "And yet, here I am. You can't destroy me because I am you."
He stepped closer, his tone almost tender.
"Tell me, Light-Bearer… do you even remember her name?"
Riven flinched, flashes bursting in his mind: Lyra's face, her tears, her hand reaching for him through fire; her voice whispering his name across time.
He whispered, "Lyra."
Serath's smirk was wiped away. "Ah. So the mortal still burns in you."
Riven's eyes glowed faintly. "She's the reason I'm still standing."
"Then she's your weakness."
Serath raised his hand, and the sky screamed. Black lightning split the horizon, from whose cracks poured shadows: the remnants of lost gods, crawling towards Riven with claws of despair.
"You'll forget her soon," Serath said, voice echoing. "Once the Underrealm consumes you."
Riven closed his eyes. The darkness surged around him but within it, something answered.
A whisper, soft as the dawn:
Remember my name when the sky splits.
Lyra's voice.
And in that moment, the silver in his veins ignited.
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Riven's power exploded outward, tearing through the Underrealm. The shadows screamed and disintegrated into starlight.
Serath stumbled backward, his hand up to shield his eyes from the spreading silver light.
"No! You can't"
Riven's voice thundered through the void.
"I am not your shadow. I am not your rage. I am what came after."
The world juddered violently. Fractured black glass rained, shards falling like burning snow.
Serath lunged, but Riven caught his blade mid-strike. The impact cracked the earth beneath them.
For the first time, Serath's voice shook. "If you destroy me- you destroy yourself!"
Riven's expression softened, not with hatred, but with sorrow.
"I know."
He pulled Serath close, their forms merging into one burst of radiant light red and silver colliding, screaming, dissolving into something new.
When the light faded, only Riven was left kneeling, trembling, her eyes glowing with both colors.
The god of dusk had returned.
But as the last echo of Serath faded, Riven looked upward and froze.
The cracks in the glass sky widened. Through them, he saw her.
Lyra-on her knees in the land of mirrors, hand pressed against the surface, face smeared by tears.
"Lyra." he whispered.
Her voice, barely audible but clear, reached across dimensions.
"I found you."
And with those words, the glass between worlds shattered.
Light poured through, silver and crimson, binding them once more across time, reality, and eternity.
Between them, the world shook.
Lyra pressed her palm against the cracked barrier of glass and light, her heartbeat synchronizing with the pulse of the man beyond it-Riven, whole yet different. The Underrealm burned behind him, streaks of silver and red spiralling like twin galaxies.
His eyes - the same storm-lit ones she had seen through fire and ruin - locked on hers.
For the first time since the Vein had shattered, she felt real.
"Riven." she whispered.
The sound of her voice cracked across the void like a flare, burning the air between worlds. Riven took a step closer, each movement echoing with celestial weight, his every breath bending the fragments of space around him.
"You shouldn't have come here," he said quietly. "This place will consume you."
She smiled faintly through the tears. "You think I care about that?
Her fingers traced the invisible line between them-the barrier that had kept them apart.
"I told you once I'd burn for you," she whispered. "I meant it."
The glass rippled under her touch.
Riven's chest tightened. He could feel her presence bleeding into his realm mortal light touching divine essence. Dangerous. Unstable.
If she crossed over, she wouldn't survive.
And yet, as her palm pressed harder against the barrier, he felt something stir deep within him, a pulse not godly, not cosmic, but human.
The part of him that was still hers.
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"Riven."
Her voice cut through his thoughts like a blade. "Tell me the truth-is this world dying?"
He hesitated. "Not yet."
"But it will, won't it?"
He nodded slowly. "With me rising, every reality that's tied to the Vein will collapse. The gods' return demands balance-creation through destruction.
"Then we will make a new balance," she said fiercely. "You and I."
His jaw tightened. "It's not that simple, Lyra."
She stepped closer. "It never is."
Between them, the glass shimmered with silver fire and for a moment, Riven's reflection overlapped hers two souls caught on opposite sides of eternity.
"You can't rewrite creation," he whispered.
"Then I'll unwrite it," she said. "For you."
That is,
A sudden tremor tore through the mirrored landscape, and the ground cracked beneath Lyra's feet. The rift opened into swirling black water. The air was filled with whispering voices fragments of ancient gods drawn by the Vein's awakening.
Riven's head snapped up. "They know."
"Who?"
"The other gods," he said grimly. "They've felt my pulse. They'll come to claim what's left of me and you."
Lyra's heartbeat spiked. "Then let them come."
He gave her a sad, almost human smile. "You don't understand. They don't want me restored. They want me gone."
The barrier pulsed violently, shards of light falling between them like broken starlight. Through the fractures, Riven saw something behind Lyra a shadow moving, tall and silent.
"Lyra!" he shouted. "Behind you!"
She spun too late.
A figure clothed in gold and shadow stepped out of the very air itself his eyes burning with cruel amusement.
"The mortal who binds the god," the stranger said. "How delicate."
Lyra stumbled back, her mark flaring to defend her, but the stranger raised a hand, halting her midmotion.
Riven's fury shook the Underrealm. "Touch her, and I swear"
The stranger smiled, voice soft and ancient. "You'll do what, half-born god? You're still chained by the Vein."
He reached toward Lyra and the glass barrier exploded.
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Light and darkness merged in a maelstrom of energy.
In an instant, Riven crossed the shattered veil, divine power flooding the mirrored realm. His wings, so vast, made of fire and fragments of the night, unfurled with a thunderous sound.
The stranger stepped backward, shielding himself as Riven's aura flared.
Reality twisted around them, and Lyra fell to her knees, unable to breathe in the sudden surge of power.
"Stay behind me," Riven said, his voice full of both rage and tenderness.
The stranger laughed sardonically. "You have torn the veil asunder. You have sealed her doom, and you know it not.
In his hand appeared Riven's blade of light, born from both halves of his power combined. "Then I'll doom myself beside her."
The laughter of the gods died away into stillness.
And in that silence, the war for creation began anew.
The mirrored realm screamed.
Every reflection showed a fractured shard of reality that shook under the weight of divine power.
The gold-cloaked god stood at the centre of the storm, his eyes gleaming with cruel serenity. "So it's true," he said softly. "The Dusk God lives."
Riven stepped forward, his blade alight with red-silver fire, wings half-spread, aura rippling with raw, unstable energy.
"You speak as if you ever understood life."
The god cocked his head. "And you speak as if you've earned it.
With a flick of his hand, spears of light erupted from the ground: golden chains snaking towards Riven. Riven slashed through them; every strike loosed a peal of thunder that shattered the mirror sky.
"Stay down," Riven murmured to Lyra without looking back.
She struggled to rise, her mark pulsating wildly as it absorbed the shockwaves from their powers. "Don't you dare tell me to stay down."
The golden god's voice was smooth as poison: "Ah, the mortal who cages the divine. Tell me, girl do you even know what you are?"
Lyra froze.
Riven's grip on his blade tightened. "Don't.
The god smiled and ignored him. "She carries the key the last spark of the Creator herself. Without her, your power dies. She isn't your savior, Riven." He stepped closer, eyes gleaming. "She's your leash."
Riven's light faltered for half a breath. "You're lying."
But Lyra… couldn't breathe.
Suddenly, a massive surge of memory began to flow within her: flashes of temples, celestial scripts, and ancient hands forging her from starlight. Her veins glowed, pulsing not just silver, but white, radiant, endless.
Riven turned to her, eyes widening. "Lyra"
The golden god's laughter filled the realm. "She was never meant to love you, Dusk-born. She was meant to end you."
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The ground split.
The mirrors shattered into oceans of blinding light.
Riven lunged, fury and heartbreak entwined. His blade met the god's staff mid-swing, the impact sending ripples across the dimensions, the air itself fracturing into shards of eternity.
The marks in Lyra's hand burst forth in a tumble of spinning symbols, like living constellations. She saw Riven, his face carved with pain, his light faltering, and something inside of her broke.
"No," she whispered. "You're wrong. I was made to find him."
She thrust her glowing palm forward. Celestial sigils swarmed from her hand, coiling around Riven's body like streams of white flame.
The golden god's eyes widened. "What am I?"
Lyra's voice was shaking, but her words unyielding. "If I was made to destroy him, then I'll rewrite my purpose."
The sigils merged with the light of Riven, not consuming it, but balancing it. The silver and red steadied into a calm white glow that silenced the realm.
Riven regarded her, wonder breaking through the storm in his eyes. "Lyra…"
A soft, tired, divine smile. "You're not the end, Riven. You're the beginning."
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The golden god roared. His form unraveled into threads of light. "You can't rewrite the laws of creation!"
Riven lifted his sword; power blazed through him like a second dawn. "Watch me." He brought the blade down. The world exploded. The god's body shattered into golden dust, sprinkling across the mirrored realm. His last words were heard as he faded, "You've unbound the Vein… the others will come… And then there was silence.
Lyra collapsed. Riven caught her before she hit the ground. Her mark was fading, her light flickering like a dying star. "Lyra!" He shook her gently. "Stay with me!" Her eyes fluttered open. She reached up, touching his cheek, smiling faintly. "You found me." He pressed her hand against his heart. "Always." The light around them dimmed, and the mirrored realm began to dissolve to reveal a new sky neither night nor day, but something in between. The Dusk Realm reborn. Riven looked up; the horizon was painted in hues of red and silver. "What now?" Lyra's voice was barely a whisper, "Now we wake the stars." Her hand shone bright once more, and the sky started to bleed light-tiny bursts of brilliance, one by one, until the void was filled with constellations for the first time in eons. Under their light, Riven held her close and whispered a promise into the reborn dusk: "Even if the gods rise again… I will never let the light we made fade."