The inside of the wound was not a place. It was the sensation of being unmade, stretched across a billion simultaneous endings. Luka felt his identity dissolving into the screams of dying stars, the last thoughts of forgotten civilizations, the unfulfilled potential of every choice not taken. The Crystal within him was the only constant, a tiny, defiant knot of "is" in the infinite "was."
He pushed deeper, following a strange, inverse pull. The Hammer, a thing of ultimate definition, was a singularity of silence in this storm of noise. He found it not by seeing it, but by finding the place where the screaming stopped.
It was not a hammer.
It was a shard of absolute blackness, so pure it hurt to look at. It was a fragment of the same substance as the Echo, but where the Echo was a hungry, expanding void, this was a focused, concentrated point. It was the original seed of the silence. It hovered in the heart of the temporal wound, and the broken timelines flowed around it like water around a stone.
As Luka approached, he understood. The "Hammer" was not a tool that had been wielded. It was a concept that had been given form. The concept of an End. The first civilization, in their arrogance or their fear, had not merely shattered the Crystal; they had manifested the idea of its opposite and struck the blow.
Now, that concept was dormant, trapped in the damage it had caused.
We cannot destroy it, the Truth fragment communicated, its voice strained. To destroy the concept of an end is a logical impossibility.
We cannot integrate it, the Potential fragment added, its light dimming in the presence of such absolute finality. It would poison the Whole.
The Will fragment, however, did not analyze. It acted. It reached out with Luka's hand, not to grab the shard of blackness, but to understand it.
The moment his fingers brushed its surface, the universe vanished.
He stood in a place of perfect, peaceful nothing. There was no light, no sound, no thought. It was not the hungry nothing of the Echo, but a serene, complete stillness. It was the peace after the last star has winked out, after the last memory has faded. It was… rest.
A voice, calm and ancient, spoke from the stillness. It was the voice of the Hammer.
You see, it said. The Crystal sings of struggle, of growth, of endless, messy becoming. I offer peace. An end to the pain. An end to the wanting. Is that so terrible?
The temptation was immense. After the constant struggle, the weight of a city on his shoulders, the terror of the Echo, this silence felt like a reward. He could just… let go. The Crystal could sleep here, in this perfect ending, and the Echo would have nothing to seek.
NO.
The refusal did not come from Luka, or from the Will fragment. It came from the memory of the Silver Nexus. It came from the sight of Kael standing without his crutch. It came from the taste of clean air in the Under-District. It was the collective, defiant voice of everything that had chosen to go on living.
Luka pulled his hand back. The serene nothingness shattered, and he was back in the screaming wound of time.
"We do not want your peace," Luka said, his voice raw. "We earned our chaos. We will defend it."
The black shard pulsed, not with anger, but with a faint, almost respectful disappointment. Then, it allowed itself to be taken.