The Hollow Bloom was no longer still.
The once eternal silence fractured with the echoes of forgotten wars, and the sky of stardust split apart in gaping wounds. Caelum stood alone at the heart of the Void, robes billowing like shadows torn from time, his eyes still covered by the charm-bandage that now flickered with dim light. His presence was different—emptier, heavier. The gods had fallen, but not without leaving scars.
He stood over the ruins of the last harbinger, the body having turned to petals, floating down as if even the Hollow Bloom grieved. But his expression didn't change. Not joy, not regret—only the stillness of one who has borne too much.
Then came the voice.
Low, ancient, omnipresent.
Caelum... still walking?
He did not move. But something inside him stirred. The voice wasn't from this realm, nor the High Deity Order. It was older. It was the first memory of his childhood—the voice that spoke when no one else did.
The sky above cracked again, revealing an eye made of starlight, opening slowly.
The One Who Watches.
Caelum turned his head slightly toward the sound. Not with fear. But with expectation. A thousand memories flickered in his soul, and one returned fully—an old man beside a burning tree. A whisper given during the days after the massacre.
"When the world stops hearing you, speak to the wind. It always carries truth."
He whispered now. "You again."
The starlit eye narrowed. Below it, an arc of golden fire spiraled downward, coalescing into a form—a vessel of radiant entropy that stood taller than mountains, faceless yet unmistakably aware.
The One Who Watches had come to judge.
Caelum did not bow. Instead, he whispered, "You knew I would end here."
The reply was a tremor, not of sound but of memory.
You chose to remember. Now you must decide to forget.
Reality warped. Time shattered. The Hollow Bloom collapsed inward and remade itself with every heartbeat.
And then, the trials began.
Six forms emerged from the sky, each a Judge of Eternity. Their armor was not metal, but belief—ideas given flesh by worship from dying stars. Each held a weapon bound to law, to order, to permanence.
The first struck, a blade that carried time's full weight.
Caelum dodged—barely. His arm was cut, but it did not bleed. Instead, wisps of memory escaped, falling like ash. He gritted his teeth and retaliated.
His sword—born from his father's lullaby—clashed against the judge's temporal blade, and for a heartbeat, both weapons wept.
Another judge lunged. Caelum stepped into a memory: the day Elienne smiled at the rain. That memory became a shield, absorbing the strike.
He was fighting not to win. But to remember.
To exist here was to risk forgetting who you were. Each clash, each spell, tried to drain his identity. But he fought back with memory, not fury. His sadness was his strength. His silence, his storm.
The One Who Watches did not speak again. It simply watched.
Caelum stumbled as three judges moved together. The Hollow Bloom bent under the weight of their combined force. He dropped to one knee, coughing. A golden spear lodged in his shoulder, searing not flesh but memory.
He screamed—and a wave of stardust exploded outward, ripping two judges apart.
He was unraveling. His voice began to shake. "I didn't want this… I only wanted to remember them."
A final figure stepped forward—a judge unlike the others. No weapon. No armor. Just a face.
His own.
It was him.
The Void's final judge.
It whispered, "You are not Caelum. You are only what Caelum remembers."
Caelum stood, trembling. "Then I'll remember louder."
They clashed.
Sword against self. Light against sorrow. The battle was not for victory, but for identity. Every blow Caelum landed brought a piece of him back: Elienne's voice, his brother's laughter, his mother's embrace.
At the final strike, he screamed—not in rage, but grief—and impaled the mirror-image of himself.
It dissolved into light.
The judges gone. The Bloom now still.
He fell to his knees.
Then the Void Cube trembled.
A quiet pulse. Not hostile. Not divine.
An image flickered inside its black facets: a second cube, crystalline, pulsing with shifting dimensions—something beyond.
The Flux Hypercube.
He tried to touch it. His hand phased through.
Too far. Too unknown. Not yet.
But it left a feeling. A seed.
And a single word etched itself into his mind, not spoken but remembered:
Reversal.
He opened his eyes behind the bandage. And for a moment, he saw—not with sight, but with understanding.
The Void was not just grief. It was choice.
He stood.
The One Who Watches blinked once. Then was gone.
The Hollow Bloom, too, faded.
He had survived the war that should not be remembered.
And now, he walked again.