Kael stood on the silent plain, the weight of the universe on his shoulders. The dread was gone. The oppressive static had vanished. The world felt… clean. And empty.
He looked down at the clear shard at his feet. It was no bigger than his thumb. He knelt, his movements slow and heavy with grief, and picked it up. It was warm. And in its depths, he saw not a powerful, unified consciousness, but a seed. A pure, unformed potential.
The sacrifice had not destroyed the Crystal. It had reset it. It had burned away the complex structures of Truth, Potential, and Will, and the imposed concept of the Ending, leaving behind only the essential core: the possibility of beginning again.
A gentle rain began to fall, the first rain on this plain since the Shattering. It was washing the ashes of the ended battle away.
Kael stood, clutching the seed shard in his hand. He was alone. But he was not. He had the scaffold of a city waiting. He had the stories in the Aethelburg. He had the memory of a friend who had given everything.
He turned his back on the plain and began the long walk home. The world was saved. Not by a great power, but by a great love. And now, it was their turn to build something worthy of that sacrifice. The first Crystal was a gift that had been broken. The next one would be a story they would write together.
The seed in his hand pulsed softly, ready to be planted.