The sky was still torn when they stopped running.
Above them, the black flame writhed like a wound refusing to heal. Beneath it, the earth cracked open in veins that pulsed with red-gold light—not lava, but something deeper. Something older. The very bones of the world, laid bare.
Jack stood at the edge of a jagged chasm where the Mirror Hall once shimmered. Now, it was gone—folded into itself, devoured by the time-rupture they'd barely escaped. The Blade of Echoes pulsed steadily in his grip, its once-shattered form now forged anew with the Shards of the Sundering. It guided him. Tugged at his arm like a compass with a will of its own.
"There," Lola said, pointing to the dark wound in the earth. "That's the Maw."
Marek whistled low. "Doesn't look like any gate I've seen. Looks like the world's throat got ripped out."
"No gate was ever made to contain what the Devourer was," Lola said, voice taut. "Only to bury what it left behind."
Nyssa stepped forward and knelt, brushing her fingers against the earth. "It's still moving. Breathing."
Jack nodded grimly. "Because it isn't just a place. It's the scar. The very moment reality broke."
Behind them, the air shimmered—then cracked. A silver ripple peeled open, and Kael stepped through.
He had changed.
His armor was no longer charred and dented but forged anew from pale metal streaked with starlight. His eyes glowed faintly, as if they reflected the sky inside him. Time coiled around him differently now—like it recognized him.
"You made it back," Jack said, breath catching. "You mastered it?"
Kael gave a slow nod. "The Blade of the Hollow yields only to those who face themselves. I did. And it showed me what's coming."
He looked toward the Maw.
"And what's already here."
Jack stepped toward him, gripping his shoulder. "We need you now more than ever."
But Kael's face didn't soften. "No. You need to know something first. All of you."
The wind around them dropped into silence.
Kael's voice was low, steady.
"There's a second Devourer."
"What?" Marek said, mouth dry.
"Not just a being. A force. The first we've been fighting is a remnant—what escaped the Sundering. But in the Hollow, I saw the whole truth. The real Devourer never left. It split itself—a shard here, a shard buried in the stars, and one... in us."
"In us?" Jack asked, jaw tight.
Kael's eyes landed on him. "You've felt it, haven't you? The whispering. The pull. The echo that isn't the Blade."
Jack said nothing. He didn't have to.
Lola's eyes narrowed. "The fragment inside Jack... That's how the cycle continues. That's why Thalon's blade chose him."
Nyssa looked between them all. "Then what the hell are we walking into?"
"The Maw," Kael said. "The place where the original bargain was struck."
The air thickened. Cold. Ancient.
Lola raised a trembling hand, and the blade-shaped scar on her palm began to glow. "We're going back to the source. But we're not alone."
And they weren't.
From across the chasm, shapes began to emerge—dozens of them. Not creatures, not demons—people. Hooded. Armored. Eyes gleaming with that same void-born light Jack had seen in Isolde's eyes.
The Hollowed.
"You think they've been waiting for us?" Marek asked, pulling his waraxe free.
"No," Kael said, his own blade gleaming in the lowlight. "I think we're the last piece they need."
The sky groaned above as the black fire split wider.
And from that wound—a voice boomed.
"YOU CARRY MY BREATH."
The Hollowed fell to their knees.
And Jack... staggered.
Because the voice didn't come from the sky. It came from inside him.