---
The Void's cries tore through the Sanctum, its tears dissolving the walls into shimmering dust. Lila shielded her eyes as the entity hovered before them—a small, writhing shadow with galaxies swirling in its hollow eyes.
"It's just… a kid," Wren whispered, her drones flickering helplessly.
"A kid that's eating the city," Kieran rasped, clutching the Hollow Star shard embedded in his chest. His veins pulsed with void-black energy, tendrils snaking toward the entity. "It's hungry. And it doesn't know how to stop."
Zara stepped forward, the Compass humming in her grip. "Then we teach it."
---
The Void reached out, its form shifting into Elias's silhouette. "You abandoned me," it whispered with his voice. "Left me to die in the loop."
Zara froze, the Compass searing her palm. "You're not him."
"Aren't I?" The Void's mimicry sharpened—Elias's scar, his weary smile. "You could join me. Fix everything."
The Compass flared, and for a heartbeat, Zara saw it—Neo-Pandora restored, Jax alive, the Chrono Core silent. She recoiled. "Illusions. The Void only knows how to take."
"Zara!" Lila yanked her back as a tear splashed where she'd stood, erasing the floor into nothingness.
They ran into the Snactum's archives.
In the Sanctum's archives, Lila unearthed a hologram of the Architect, their voice trembling with regret.
"The Bright Maw was our second creation—a force of absolute order. But light without shadow breeds tyranny. We sealed it away, but the Void's awakening will inevitably…"
The recording dissolved. Behind her, a vault hissed open, revealing a chamber bathed in blinding light. At its center floated a crystalline orb—The Bright Maw, its rays solidifying air into rigid, unbreakable patterns.
"Oh, hell," Lila muttered. "They made a god of control, too."
Kieran collapsed, blood trickling from his nose as the Hollow Star shard fused deeper. "It's showing me memories," he gasped. "The Void… it was alone. Scared. The Architect abandoned it."
"We're not abandoning anyone," Lila said, hauling him upright. "But we need to stop it before—"
A tremor cut her off. The Bright Maw's light speared through the Sanctum, freezing rebels mid-scream, their bodies locked in time.
"Correction initiated," boomed a mechanized voice. "Chaos… eliminated."
The Void shrieked as the Bright Maw's light clashed with its darkness. Chrono-storms erupted—time accelerating in patches, reversing in others. A rebel aged to dust, then reverted to a toddler.
"They're opposites," Wren realized, dodging a stasis beam. "The Maw enforces order, the Void craves entropy. Together, they'll rip the city apart!"
Zara aimed the Compass at the Bright Maw. "Then we break the cycle. Kieran—link me to the Void!"
"You'll burn out!" he protested.
"Do it!"
Kieran's tendrils lashed out, tethering Zara to the Void. Elias's memories surged through her—sacrifices, regrets, love—as she channeled them into the Compass.
"You're not alone," she whispered to the Void. "But this ends. Now."
The Compass detonated, its shockwave merging Void and Maw in a burst of gray static. The entities screamed, their forms unraveling…
Then silence.
The Sanctum lay in ruins, the sky a lifeless monochrome. The Void and Maw were gone, but so was the Compass—and Zara.
Kieran crawled to a shimmering fissure in the floor. Below, a new realm pulsed: a gray wasteland where the fused entities thrashed, their prison fracturing.
"It's not over," Lila said, staring at the Hollow Star shard in Kieran's chest—now glowing dull gray. "They're trapped, but not dead."
A shadow stirred in the fissure. A hand gripped the edge—Zara's, her eyes void-black and Maw-bright.
"They're calling," she said. "And I… can't stop listening."*
To Be Continued...