The stars were quieter now.
Not dead. Not still. Just… watching.
A thousand worlds had whispered his name. Darian Vex. Evolution Architect. Sovereign Beastmaster. Some had called him Voidborne King. Others had simply called him the end.
He stood alone on the edge of the final rift—no longer Earth's broken wound, but the Celestial Gate, birthed through the convergence of every awakened path, every collapsed dimension, and every soul he had ever crossed. Behind him, a galaxy teetered on balance. Empires at peace. Gods long buried. Wars stilled by memory, not force.
In his shadow, echoes of every form his beast had become flickered like smoke. Astral Wyrm. Duskcoil Leviathan. Oblivion Seraph. All of them. None of them.
Now, it pulsed with no shape.
Just void.
Not absence.
Origin.
His final scan unfolded one last time. Not from the system. Not from the Federation. Not from the Evolution Archive or any galactic core.
From within.
Beast: Void Dragon
Stage: Eclipse (11th Evolution)
Path: Undefined
Synchronization: Complete
Host Status: Transcendence Threshold Reached
He turned, looking once more toward the people he'd saved—his wife and children watching from the bridge of the ship he'd built from the bones of dying stars. Old rivals, now commanders. Old enemies, now guardians of peace.
Kael Sarros stood beside them, silent, older, the last of the old Sovereigns.
"Are you afraid?" Kael asked.
"No," Darian said. "I just wonder if they'll remember what came before evolution."
Kael nodded. "That's why you have to go. You've become the part no system could ever see."
Darian stepped forward, barefoot now, clothes stripped of rank. No weapons. No armor.
He passed through the Gate.
No scream. No flash.
Just light… folding inward.
And silence.
The rift closed.
A moment later, space shimmered where he'd stood—just a heartbeat of energy, like a dragon breathing.
And then, the stars resumed watching.
Waiting for the next one.