Time cracked.
Knox and Seraph hurtled through its broken edges, chasing Nyxara across an ever-shifting plane of unreality. The void around them pulsed in iridescent colors—epochs collapsed into one another, and each breath they took was a war against timelessness itself. One moment, they stood on the scorched earth of a dead universe, its stars whimpering into entropy. Next, they found themselves within the cradle of a newly born one, galaxies forming like pearls strung through a golden loom.
Seraph's wings shimmered with radiant force, each feather a beacon of divine destruction. With every beat, the air fractured, rupturing celestial bodies in the distance. Behind her blindfold of holy flame, her molten eyes locked on Nyxara.
Knox flew beside her, his aura humming with terrifying strength. Kaelina's voice echoed in his mind, steady and calm.
["She's infinitely faster than light, than cause, than consequence. Be careful."]
"I don't need be careful," Knox muttered. "I need her to fall."
Nyxara hovered before them, no longer humanoid. Her form was a tapestry of everything and nothing—a swirling expanse of divine energy shaped like a woman but stretching infinitely in all directions. Her presence was music and silence, light and abyss, a contradiction made flesh.
"Do you understand now?" she asked, her voice echoing across dimensions. "I am not a being. I am the boundary between all that is and all that must never be."
Seraph didn't answer with words. She launched.
The heavens screamed.
Her wings, vast enough to eclipse entire nebulae, flared with devastating brilliance. Light exploded from her form, turning space into a sea of radiant fire. She spun mid-flight, six wings circling her like the arms of a god, and fired a torrent of burning radiance toward Nyxara.
Nyxara lifted a hand. Her fingers traced a symbol in the void, and reality folded. The beam twisted, splitting into infinite shards before collapsing into a single, pinpoint strike—directed back at Seraph.
Knox intercepted.
His body flared gold as he tanked the blast, screaming as energy ripped at him from every angle. But he didn't stop. Heat vision ignited from his eyes, burning through Nyxara's veil of magic. She blinked—an action that sent ripples through time.
They clashed.
Knox's fist met Nyxara's palm. The resulting shockwave disintegrated timelines. Empires that never existed crumbled. Civilizations that might one day rise were obliterated before conception. Planets flickered like faulty stars, glitching between states of existence.
Knox roared and slammed both fists into her chest, sending her crashing through ten different versions of the same Earth. One was frozen solid. One burned in green fire. One had no sun. Another was ruled by machines. Each world shattered in his wake.
Nyxara stopped mid-crash and reversed gravity. Knox was yanked back into her orbit like a comet caught in a black hole. She whispered a word—one that no language could contain—and Knox's body fragmented into past and future selves. A thousand versions of him, each from a different point in his life, screamed in tandem.
Kaelina's voice surged.
["Stabilizing. Reintegration complete."]
Knox howled, golden fire erupting from him, forging all versions into one once more.
Meanwhile, Seraph fought in the folds of existence.
Iskander was gone, Slain by her divine wrath. But Nyxara was more than a foe—she was an era of godhood, a cosmic riddle with no answer. Seraph's wings clashed against Nyxara's tendrils of nothingness, and each collision spawned galaxies, only for them to be devoured seconds later.
They passed through a time where dragons ruled the stars. Through a realm of endless waterfalls suspended in space. Through a timeline where Seraph herself had died, and Knox stood alone. Seraph glimpsed that version of him, staring hollowly at the stars. It broke her heart.
"This ends now!" Seraph screamed, her voice splitting suns.
She summoned every ounce of her celestial fury, wings bursting with a cataclysmic pulse of light. She dove at Nyxara, who spread her arms and embraced the storm.
For a moment, all was light.
Then—
Nothing.
The three of them—Knox, Seraph, and Nyxara—stood still.
Nyxara raised a hand. The Infinite Sovereign—her form already reshaped into the impossible: a fractal of starless infinity wrapped in cosmic grace, a silhouette of infinite layers and timelines, crowned with veils of pure causality—moved, and everything bent to her will.
Reality cracked.
The strike didn't feel like a blow—it was like being pulled through the seams of existence.
Light vanished.
Seraph and Knox were torn in their place in the battle and hurled across time.
They landed—not on a battlefield, bit on soft grass under a twilight sky.
For a moment, they both stood still. The world was warm, gentle. Trees swayed nearby, and golden sunlight spilled across the fields in lazy hues. Birds chirped softly. It wasn't just a peaceful world—it was their world.
Ahead, they saw something that made Seraph freeze.
There they were—Knox and Seraph—sitting together on a wooden porch, laughing.
Children played nearby. A boy with Knox's eyes chased a girl with Seraph's golden hair. A third child, sat in Seraph's lap as she braided her hair. The Knox of this timeline had his arm around her waist, holding her close.
Seraph clutched her chest, eyes wide behind the veil of her divine fire.
Knox stepped forward slowly, his hand trembling.
It was them. A version of them unburdened by war. By death. By duty.
A version that knew peace.
Knox clenched his fists. "No," he muttered. "We can't..."
He turned, forcing himself to look away.
"We need to go back," he said, "Nyxara—she's still fighting. We can't let her win."
But Seraph grabbed his hand.
Her grip was gentle. Pleading.
"Wait," she whispered. "Look at them."
He looked again. His jaw clenched. The laughter of his other self echoed in his ears like a ghost.
"This... this could be us," Seraph said, her voice raw with longing. "This could be real."
Knox's helmet hissed and vanished in golden light.
He turned to her, his blank eyes reflecting her divine glow. He reached up and softly touched her cheek. For a moment, the fire around her dimmed beneath his fingers.
"It could be," he said, voice barely above a whisper. "But only if we survive."
She closed her eyes, leaning into his touch.
Knox continued, "If we don't stop her... this'll never happen. Not here. Not in any timeline. It'll be ash. Just more destruction."
Seraph's heart ached.
Knox took a breath, then stepped back. "Maybe, just maybe, we'll earn this. But we have to protect what we have first."
She opened her eyes and nodded.
Knox extended his hand and opened his palm. Light coalesced into a sphere of collapsing timelines, then burst—ripping open a passage back to their battlefield.
Before stepping through, Seraph took one last look at their family.
She saw herself smiling. She saw Knox kiss her forehead while the children laughed. A memory that never was. A future that might be.
She turned, her face solemn but resolute, and followed Knox back into the storm of war.
Behind them, that gentle world faded.
Ahead, the Infinite Sovereign awaited.
And the final battle resumed.