Azael felt it immediately.
Divinity unraveling.
Not destruction—
Liberation.
The system that made him a god collapsed inside itself.
He looked at Gideon.
Then Lyra.
Then the High Null.
"…So this is what I was preventing," he murmured.
Silence.
Then he smiled faintly.
"I understand now."
He raised his hand.
And instead of authority—
He released it.
All divine laws collapsed from him at once.
His form shattered—
Not into death.
But into something unranked.
"No god," he whispered.
"Just choice."
And he fell upward into existence itself.