The stars bled faint light across the fractured void, and Je felt time itself coil strangely around him. This place… it wasn't just another scar of the cosmos.
It was where stories began.
And where they were meant to end.
The System flickered, not with quests, not with errors — but with a single line:
> [Anniversary Recorded. The Devourer walks further.]
Je looked around. Whispers trailed the air like forgotten ink. Faces unseen, voices unheard, yet still present. Something watched not with hunger, but with patience — as if it had been waiting for this exact moment.
He felt it. The veil between reader and character thinning, the line between creator and creation cracking. The galaxy itself whispered:
"You were never walking alone."
And for the first time since the Awakening, Je did not fear the silence.
He embraced it.
Because behind the silence, something eternal remained — the mystery itself.
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