The victory celebration in the bio-swamps didn't last ten minutes. It died the moment the sky didn't turn blue, but bruised. The "Red Star" that Zayn had spotted wasn't a ship, and it wasn't a planet. It was an aperture—a tear in the fabric of the dimension that the Architects had spent eons trying to keep sealed.
Zayn stood on a calcified root of a Great Mangrove, leaning heavily on Ren's shoulder. His body felt hollow, like a burnt-out lantern. But the violet pulse in his veins—and in the veins of the thousands of survivors behind him—wasn't just humming; it was screaming. It was a resonance, a biological tuning fork vibrating in sympathy with the horror opening above them.
"The pulse," Lyra gasped, clutching her wrist where the violet vein glowed with a frantic, jagged light. "It's not just energy, Zayn. It's a signal. We aren't just 'leveled'... we're anchored."
Sariel looked up, her keen Skymantle eyes widening. "Zayn, the ships... the bone-white ships of the Architects... they weren't retreating. They were fleeing."
As she spoke, the first of the "Void-Leathers" began to slip through the red tear. They didn't fall; they dripped. They were creatures made of non-matter, jagged silhouettes that looked like holes cut out of reality. Where they touched the air, the atmosphere hissed and vanished.
You fool, the Black Wolf's voice returned, but it wasn't mocking anymore. It sounded ancient and weary. You thought the Architects were the villains. They were the farmers, yes... but they were also the fence. By using the 'Great Leveler' to empower everyone with my blood, you didn't free the world. You turned Metamorphia into a beacon for the Great Hunger.
Zayn's heart skipped. "The True Abyss," he whispered.
"Everyone into the Cradle! Now!" Zayn roared, the command tearing through his throat.
But it was too late. The first "Drip" hit the edge of the Shunned Army. There was no blood, no scream. The soldiers it touched simply ceased to exist, replaced by a static-filled vacuum. The Void-Leathers began to multiply, weaving a web of nothingness across the swamp.
"Ren! Lyra! Form a perimeter!" Zayn yelled, trying to summon the Rage. But the Abyssal energy wouldn't answer him. It felt suppressed, as if it recognized its masters.
"We can't fight 'nothing,' Zayn!" Ren yelled, his iron fists passing harmlessly through a Void-Leather that was closing in on a group of children.
From the red tear in the sky, a figure descended. It wasn't an Architect, and it wasn't a monster. It was a man, dressed in rags that looked like they were woven from the hair of stars. He looked exactly like Zayn, but older—centuries older. His eyes weren't red or black; they were clear, holding the reflection of a billion dead suns.
The Void-Leathers stopped their slaughter instantly, bowing their jagged heads.
"The experiment was a failure, 742-Z," the man said, his voice echoing not in their ears, but in their very DNA. "But your 'glitch' has provided a fascinating result. You gave the Abyss to the cattle. You turned a localized harvest into a universal feast."
Zayn stepped forward, his legs shaking. "Who are you?"
"I am the First Wolf," the man said, a sad smile touching his lips. "I am the original 'Swiftfang' that the Architects captured to create your lineage. I have spent ten thousand years in the True Abyss, waiting for someone to be stupid enough, or brave enough, to break the seal from the inside. You didn't save them, Zayn. You seasoned them."
The violet marks on the survivors' wrists weren't keys to freedom; they were "flavor profiles" for the entities of the Void. By leveling the world and sharing his power, Zayn had accidentally turned the entire population of Metamorphia into the perfect meal for the True Abyss.
"I won't let you take them," Zayn growled, his black eyes flickering with a desperate, dying light.
"Take them?" the First Wolf laughed, and the sound caused the Great Mangroves to turn to ash. "I don't need to take them. They are already part of me. Look at your friend, the Crownstar defector."
Zayn turned to Lyra. She was standing perfectly still, her eyes turning into clear glass. The violet vein in her wrist expanded, crawling up her arm like a parasite. She didn't look afraid. She looked... empty.
"Lyra?" Sariel reached out, but her hand passed through Lyra's shoulder. Lyra was becoming "non-matter."
"The Great Collection was a lie the Architects told themselves to feel like they were in control," the First Wolf explained, descending until his feet touched the water. "There is no harvest. There is only the Return. The Void is claiming its stolen property."
Zayn felt a coldness he had never known. Every person he had saved, every life he had fought for, was literally fading out of existence as the Void-Leathers began to "inhale" the reality of Metamorphia.
There is one way to stop it, the Black Wolf whispered in Zayn's mind. But it is the Ultimate Betrayal. You must take it back. All of it. All the power you gave them, all the life force you shared... you must rip it out of them and internalize it. You must become the Singularity. To save the world from the Void, you must be the one who consumes the world first.
Zayn looked at Sariel, who was still solid, but the edges of her violet silks were beginning to fray into static. He looked at Ren, whose iron plates were melting into nothingness.
"I have to kill them to save them?" Zayn whispered, tears of violet ichor finally falling.
"You have to be the King they thought you were," the First Wolf tempted, holding out a hand. "Join me, Zayn. Let the cattle vanish. Let us two remain as the only real things in a universe of shadows."
Zayn didn't take the hand. Instead, he grabbed the red cloth on his arm—the only thing that felt real—and screamed. It wasn't a roar of rage; it was a scream of absolute, human defiance. He didn't draw the power back into himself to become a God. He did the opposite.
He forced his own consciousness—his very soul—out into the violet network he had created. He used his life force as a "glue" to anchor the people of Metamorphia to the physical plane. He was literally stitching the world back together with his own spirit.
"Sariel! Ren! Run!" Zayn choked out, his body starting to turn translucent.
"We aren't leaving you!" Ren roared, trying to grab Zayn, but his hands kept slipping through Zayn's fading chest.
"I'm not leaving," Zayn smiled, a final, beautiful, and tragic expression. "I'm... everywhere now."
Zayn's body exploded—not in fire, but in a massive, shimmering web of violet threads that wrapped around every person, every tree, and every stone in Metamorphia. It created a "Physical Shell" that the Void-Leathers couldn't penetrate.
The First Wolf's expression shifted from amusement to genuine shock. "You would dissolve yourself? You would become a literal wall for these insects?"
"I'm a Swiftfang," Zayn's voice echoed from the wind, the water, and the dirt. "We don't just hunt in the dark. We protect the pack."
The red tear in the sky slammed shut, forced closed by the sheer pressure of Zayn's self-sacrifice. The First Wolf was snapped back into the Abyss, his scream of frustration echoing through the stars.
The world was saved. The Void was gone. But Zayn was gone, too.
Sariel, Ren, and Lyra stood in the silent swamp. The violet veins on their wrists were gone, replaced by a faint, white scar in the shape of a wolf's tooth.
"He's gone," Lyra whispered, falling to her knees.
"No," Sariel said, placing her hand on a Mangrove root. She could feel a faint, warm vibration. A heartbeat. Not a human heartbeat, but the rhythmic throb of the world itself. "He's not gone. He is Metamorphia now."