The pathway shattered beneath Damon’s feet.
Lira lunged and grabbed his wrist, but the stone crumbled too fast. Damon slipped through the widening crack—only for Shadow to clamp his teeth into Damon’s jacket, hauling him sideways with impossible force. Ember braced her body, skidding across the fracturing path as she helped pull him up.
Damon scrambled onto what remained of the corridor just as another portion snapped off and spiraled into the spinning void below.
Lira gasped, “We can’t stay on this path!”
She was right. The entire corridor was coming apart like a thread unraveling in fast-motion.
Perfect Damon stood unmoving amid the chaos, observing the destruction with chilling calm. Cracks crawled up his corrupted body, but he didn’t flinch.
“You cannot outrun collapse,” he said softly. “You were born in it. I am simply returning you to your origin.”
Damon wiped blood from his lip. “You talk too much.”
The double raised a hand.
The mory storm surged upward, slamming into the path and exploding into phantom figures—echoes of Damon from different lives. One version of him limped on a shattered leg. Another carried a blood-stained axe. Another had empty, hollow eyes.
All of them rushed him.
Ember intercepted the first illusion, scattering it like dust. Shadow spun, tearing through two more. Lira hurled a blazing arc of light, severing a dozen phantoms in a single sweep—but there were too many.
“Damon!” she shouted. “They’re infinite!”
“Then we don’t fight them,” he said, eyes narrowing. “We cut off the source.”
He charged toward his double again.
Perfect Damon watched him co with an eerie stillness. “You still don’t understand,” he murmured. “You cannot defeat what you are.”
“Good,” Damon snapped. “Because I’m not here to defeat you.”
He grabbed the double and slamd both of them off the collapsing path.
Lira scread, “DAMON!”
The two versions plumted through the void—past swirling future echoes, past broken mories and dissolving worlds—until they collided with a floating slab of stone below with bone-jarring force.
Damon rolled away, groaning. His double rose instantly, body glitching with violent flickers.
“You cannot destroy ,” the double hissed. “I am the sum of every path you failed to take.”
Damon pushed himself to his feet. “Then you’re nothing but regret with a face.”
He rushed forward.
The double caught his punch—but Damon twisted, ramming his knee into the double’s ribs. Cracks spread again. The double retaliated with a blast of shimring energy that hurled Damon across the stone.
Damon crashed hard, skidding to the edge. His fingers clung to crumbling rock.
Above, the corridor continued collapsing. Lira, Shadow, and Ember scrambled along what remained, desperately trying to reach him.
But Damon saw sothing behind his double.
A towering vortex at the center of the void—where all erased futures converged. A gravitational heart pulling everything inward.
Damon’s breath caught.
That vortex wasn’t part of the Hall.
It was alive.
The double noticed Damon’s gaze and smiled faintly.
“Yes,” he murmured. “The Origin consus the paths that do not belong. And you... do not belong.”
The slab beneath Damon’s hands shook violently.
Lira scread from above, “DAMON! HOLD ON!”
The stone split down the middle.
Damon fell.
Again.
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