A hush fell.Dense.Crushing.Even the flames stopped their roar, suspended in the burning air.
Mimas's words still rang, heavy as a verdict:Parasite. Echo from another time.
Then—the images slid past.Brutal.Unstoppable.
Thana saw herself again, seated in the shadow of the rest hall.Kael coming toward her, too calm.Those golden eyes, shining… without fever.His steps, regular, mechanical.
Then the Furnace.The moment he'd opened Whispered Truth without a trace of hesitation, without that habitual furrow that accompanied every revelation.That brief, icy smile when the hidden objective appeared.Too smooth.Too perfect.
The insults thrown at Mimas.A dry, cutting voice—without anger.Like recitation.
The dodges, again.Fluid, unreal.Not a hint of tension.No clench, no sweat, no rage.
Everything.Everything clicked back into place.
She felt her halo vibrate, hairline fractures spreading.The weight of memory crushed her; each detail flipped against her.All the oddities she'd repressed, the dissonances she'd ignored from weariness, from hope…
Truth burst up in one block.
He was not himself.Since the rest hall.Kael had been possessed.
Thana tensed.Her halo flared with painful cracks.
The truth settled in:if an Echo had forced its way in like that, it could only be through a breach.A spiritual weakness.
But Kael…Kael was not weak.His mind was forged, tempered in pain, hardened by trial.
So why?
She pressed a trembling hand to her mouth.Her eyes widened.
— "Oh no…"
Her breath failed.Vertigo swept through her.
Was it… my fault?
The argument.His words.Hers.The heavy silence that split them apart.
What if, in that very moment, he had cracked?Enough for a temporal parasite to find its way in?
Thana felt hot tears rise.A bitter taste filled her throat.
Did I… hand Kael over to this Echo myself?
Mimas's words cracked through the blazing air, heavy as chains:Parasite. Echo from another time.
The mask fractured.One beat.One breath.
Then… a fissure.Minute.Fleeting.
Through that gap, an inner roar tore free.Not the colossus's.Not the Echo's.Kael's.
His golden eyes flared, incandescent, consumed by the effort to retake control.His throat scraped a ragged cry:
— "…Enough!"
His fingers locked; his arm shook as if lifting a mountain.The Echo thrashed, features twisting, smile splitting.But Kael forced himself through—for one heartbeat.One heartbeat… that was enough.
He raised his hand, his aura tearing into strips.His voice cracked like thunder:
— "Memory… fragment… activation!"
And the world exploded.
The floor caved in blackened slabs.The pillars of fire snuffed out at once, sucked into a white gulf.The Furnace roared, twisted, buckled like a canvas ripped from its frame.
A vortex opened—violent, incandescent, devouring.Kael and Mimas were swept up, swallowed by the light, their silhouettes dissolving in a whirl of echoes and screams.
Then—silence.A glacial silence.
The Echo stood alone.His body blurred, turned translucent, then vanished.His hands clenched on emptiness.He had nothing left.No flesh.No breath.No mask.
Only himself.Naked.
And before him…
Thana.Knees still marked by tears.Halo cracked, trembling.But her eyes…Her eyes held something else.
A cosmic shadow.A weight not of this world.The Authority of Death.
The Echo stepped back.Then back again.With every fading throb of his halo, his existence seemed to shrink.
He opened his mouth, and no words came.Only a dry breath.A strangled laugh, quickly smothered.
Not even an enemy would wish for this.To be torn from one's host.Bare.Without refuge.Face to face with the Absolute.
But he had sought it out.And the hour to pay had struck.
Thana rose.The tiny body of a moment before began to grow, to stretch, to unfold.Each step she took rang like a sentence.As she resumed her true stature, the air froze; the light burned itself away.
The Furnace's sky went black, swallowed by shadow.Flames guttered one by one, as if refusing to shine in her presence.And soon, nothing remained but night.Total night.
Then black water split the scorched ground.A river surged where magma and embers had been.Its flow was unearthly: viscous, heavy, saturated with stifled murmurs.
The Styx.The river of the dead.
It imposed itself, implacable, crossing the floor as if it had always been there.
A craft with planks gnawed by ages slid from the mist shrouding the bank.A long black cloak, a stooped silhouette, a face hidden beneath a hood.The Ferryman.
He dropped to one knee, his voice shaking, crushed beneath the weight of what he dared ask.— "My Absolute… I beg you. Permit me… to take charge of this vermin. I would not offend you by soiling your gaze."
Thana regarded him.Her colossal shadow still drowned the sky; her eyes poured a glacial light.
She inclined her head.— "Very well. But he will not die."
The Ferryman raised his head a fraction, startled.She went on, inexorable:— "Each day, he will plunge into the Styx.Each day, he will swim its flow.And each day, he will taste the torment of a thousand agonies.But he will not die."
The Ferryman trembled, ashamed to risk a question.— "Are you… certain, my Absolute?"
— "Yes.Go now. You should not linger here."
She paused.Her eyes narrowed; a shard of icy irony crossed her gaze.— "By the way… is Hel still a goddess of the underworld?"
The Ferryman bowed lower.— "Yes, always. She awaited your return, Absolute."
Silence fell.Then Thana continued, her voice rumbling like muffled thunder.— "Tell her—though she surely knows already—that I am back.But for now… I must train my host."
A darker breath gathered around her.— "And tell her to contact Hypnos as well.But warn them both: if they dare quarrel before me… there will be consequences."
The Ferryman bent his head, crushed.— "I will obey, Absolute."
— "Good. Thank you. You may go."
The Styx growled.The skiff vanished into its black mist, swallowed by the river's eternal hush.
The Styx thundered; its dark waters folded shut with a crash of muffled whispers.The boat sank into the fog, fading away… with its passenger.The Ferryman.And the vermin he bore.
Soon, nothing remained.No river.No boat.No Echo.
Only night.Absolute.
At last Thana lowered that towering shadow.Her silhouette shrank, contracted, until she had resumed her diminished form.She drew a long breath, as if every fiber of her being still rumbled with the Authority she had summoned back.
Her eyes closed.A single word—almost a whisper—passed her lips:
— "Kael…"
Then silence fell again, heavy, cold.
The Styx withdrew, its black waters sucked out of the world like a wound closing.The boat melted into mist.The Ferryman was gone.And with him… the Echo.
Soon, nothing remained.No river.No boat.No voice.
Only silence.
But just before the darkness lifted, a murmur rose from the Styx.Faint.Minute.Yet clear enough to freeze the air:
— "…We… know…"
Then all went out.