The battlefield dissolved into pure abstraction.
No ground.
No sky.
Just competing definitions of reality.
The High Null raised its presence.
"FINAL CORRECTION INITIATED."
Everything began disappearing again.
But this time—
Gideon didn't resist.
Lyra turned sharply.
"What are you doing?!"
Gideon's voice was quieter than everything around them.
"If I fight it… I prove it right."
Azael stepped closer.
"…Then what?"
Gideon looked at both of them.
For the first time—
He looked tired.
Not human tired.
Existence tired.
"I was the thing that ended the first universe," he said.
A pause.
"But maybe…"
His form began collapsing inward.
"…I don't have to be the reason the next one ends."
Lyra's eyes widened.
"No—don't you dare make this noble—"
But she stopped.
Because she understood.
This wasn't nobility.
It was correction.
Gideon turned toward the High Null.
And stepped forward.
Into deletion.