The Vault was silent.
Not the silence of still air—but the silence of forgotten things. Of timelines that screamed and died and were swallowed whole.
Kale stepped forward. The chamber beneath the world opened around him like the core of an hourglass.
Walls made of raw time twisted like glass, filled with shadow-versions of himself. Some were crowned in gold. Some wore chains. One knelt beside a girl's corpse—his own hands soaked in blood.
Scarlet stood beside him, pale and steady.
"These… are you?"
He nodded.
"No. They were me."
He stepped closer to one vision: a version of himself with six wings made of rune-fire, eyes alight with stars.
"This one made it," Kale whispered. "He became a Concept Creator. He wrote his own language into existence."
"He almost broke the loop."
Scarlet reached for him, but the visions began to react.
They turned. Looked at him.
And bowed.
Suddenly the Vault groaned—reality fracturing. The air shimmered. A black thread pulled across the chamber like a needle through flesh.
And she appeared.
Virelsa.
A woman with no face—only shifting light where her features should be. Her voice broke the world each time she spoke:
"This ends now, Kale Silva."
She raised her hand.
Time cracked.
She cast erasure.
Not death.
Not destruction.
Unmaking.