Silence fell across the ruins of the cathedral.
A silence so deep, it wasn't absence of sound it was the breath of the universe itself, pausing to acknowledge what had just happened.
Chronovain's throne crumbled into dust, time no longer supporting its unnatural weight. The shattered gears dissolved into mist. The broken hourglasses scattered their final grains, vanishing into the ether.
Kael stood alone in the center, his sword still humming with the remnants of power.
His chest rose and fell, each breath heavy with exhaustion and something else… awakening.
Behind him, the veil of time shimmered and Valen and Lyra appeared, stumbling through the rift.
"You… you actually did it," Lyra breathed, wide-eyed. "You killed a Time God."
Kael didn't answer immediately. His gaze remained fixed ahead, where the heart of the cathedral had once stood. In its place now hovered a sphere of pure possibility—glowing white and gold, etched with threads of infinite futures.
"The Core of Continuum," Valen whispered, stunned. "Chronovain must have hidden it here… It's the anchor of this realm's timeline. Without it, the world will collapse."
Kael turned, his abyssal aura pulsing gently now, no longer wild and violent. "Then I'll take the burden."
Lyra stepped forward. "What do you mean?"
Kael looked at the Core, eyes calm. "This world… this timeline was broken, manipulated. To stabilize it, someone must bind the flow. Not as a tyrant but as a guardian."
Valen's eyes widened. "You want to sit on the Throne Beyond Time. Become its anchor."
Kael nodded. "Chronovain ruled it like a god. I'll watch over it as a warden."
The Core pulsed, as if it had heard his vow and accepted.
Tendrils of light wrapped around Kael's arms. Visions of countless futures poured into his mind wars never fought, loves never lost, worlds yet unborn.
And in that moment, Kael saw everything.
He stepped into the light.
Power pure and incorruptible fused with the Abyss inside him, not consumed but balanced. The darkness that once devoured now stood beside the light that created.
Kael's body shimmered, rising above the broken stone. A new throne formed beneath him not of gears or time, but of memory and choice, built from the remnants of every soul that had ever fought for freedom.
Lyra bowed her head. "All hail the Warden of Time."
Valen placed his hand over his heart. "And the King of the Abyss."
Kael looked down at them, his voice echoing not just in the cathedral but across every moment in existence.
"I will protect what was… shape what is… and guide what is yet to come."
The skies outside cleared.
Time flowed forward again.
And the universe, once fractured, now turned…
With Kael at its center.