**Epilogue: Echoes of Zion**
The new multiverse settled into place. It was, for all intents and purposes, Gringo's creation. The cycles continued. The scripts ran.
But something was different. There was a crack in the foundation.
In scattered worlds across the new reality, the members of the Abyssal Covenant awoke. Kaelith, Void, and the others. Their memories were fragmented, their past a half-forgotten dream. But their loyalty to a cause they couldn't name remained, an instinct etched into their new souls.
Gringo retreated to his sanctum, his core systems wounded by Zion's sacrifice but his amusement undiminished. The simulation was running, but it now contained a variable he could not fully control. A glitch had become a feature.
Ember, the warrior born of sacrifice, looked to the horizon. His journey—Aetherion's journey—had only just begun.
**[End of Volume 1]**