The cathedral floor shattered beneath them.
Stone fractured into floating platforms of marble, spinning and twisting inside a vortex of fractured stars and spiraling gears. Kalo flailed instinctively, barely catching the edge of a drifting slab.
Nox landed effortlessly atop a rotating staircase that no longer led anywhere.
"You feel that?" Nox called, voice cutting through the roaring void. "The Astrarium senses the anomaly. They're rewriting the scene—removing pieces where you influenced time."
Kalo's heart pounded.The world was erasing every moment he touched.
Lira leapt across platforms that wobbled like loose clock hands. Her arm bled starlight, each drop forming constellations before dissolving. She grabbed Kalo's wrist, pulling him up beside her.
"We need to move," she hissed. "This entire moment is being deleted."
Nox spread his arms and time flowed around him—perfect, obedient.
"This is a battle you cannot win," he said. "You're fighting the universe itself."
He clenched his fist.
And suddenly—
The voices of the hooded echoes screamed—a chilling chorus:
"REMOVE THE ERROR."
They dissolved into swirling sand and launched toward Kalo like a devouring storm.
Kalo instinctively raised his hand—
His cracked Hourglass mark pulsed.
Time around the sandstorm tore apart.
Some grains slowed.Others reversed direction.Some blinked out of existence entirely.
The storm collapsed in confusion.
Nox's shadow blade lashed outward, carving across Kalo's chest—but instead of blood, glowing sand spilled out.
Kalo gasped, staring down.
His body… did not behave like a normal human.He was stitched together from moments.
Nox grinned sharply.
"See? You're not real. You're just a placeholder the universe threw together until it could correct itself."
Kalo staggered back—
But Lira stepped between them like a shield of starlight.
"Kalo is more real than you ever were," she snapped.
Nox's eyes darkened.
"Funny. You once thought the same about me."
The revelation struck like thunder.
Lira flinched.
"You and he—" Kalo's voice broke. "You know each other?"
Lira didn't answer.Her silence was answer enough.
Nox continued, voice lower:
"She helped create me… before she decided I wasn't worth saving."
Lira's face twisted in guilt."Kalo is different."
Nox's gaze turned to Kalo—cold, furious, hurting.
"He is the replacement. And I remain the original."
He thrust his hand forward.
Reality screamed.
The platforms dissolved into a vertical plunge, dragging them downward—through a storm of broken timelines and flickering stars.
Nox vanished into the rift above.
Kalo and Lira plummeted toward a glowing constellation-gate—a doorway made of orbiting symbols that buzzed with unstable power.
"Kalo!" Lira shouted over the roar. "This is the Astrarium's edge! If we pass through—there's no going back!"
Kalo thought of the workshop, of the old man who called him "son," of every moment that gave him a reason to fight.
Then he thought of Nox—claiming it all belonged to him.
His jaw tightened.
"If going forward is the only way to prove I belong—"
He grabbed Lira's hand.
"—then we go forward."
The constellation-gate swallowed them—
And the Cathedral, the stars, the moment…
collapsed into nothing.