The air of the Plane of Dried Tears thickened like old blood as the Great Eclipse began its descent. Kael looked up, feeling the weight of the darkness that spread like a blanket of dead stars across the sky. The mercury in his veins sang a song of warning, the living runes on his right arm glowing with a feverish brilliance. Beside him, the Silent Executioner adjusted what remained of his armor, the remains of his Neversword stuck in the ground like a broken will.
"There is no retreat now," the Executioner murmured, his voice a harsh whisper beneath his helm. "They came for you. They came for the Eclipse."
Kael did not respond. His eyes were fixed on the figures emerging from the vocalcord trees, their impossible shapes tearing at reality with every step. The Original Eleven, in all their distorted glory.
The first to speak was the Weaver of Horizons, his cloak of frozen big bangs billowing in a wind that didn't exist. "Twelfth," he said, the name echoing like a judgment. "The cycle demands an end. Will you choose to be the executioner... or the victim?"
Kael felt a crooked smile touch his lips. "Always with the false dichotomies," he replied, the quicksilver in his arm flowing like an impatient river. "How about a third option?"
The Bone Singer laughed, a sound like vertebrae snapping in a chain. "There is no third option. Only the Eclipse... and what comes after."
The attack wasn't physical. It was something worse. The Judge of Last Words opened his mouth where his eyes should have been and spoke a single word: "Forget."
Kael fell to his knees, a sharp pain piercing his mind like a red-hot nail. Something fundamental was breaking away from him, not a memory, not a name, but something deeper. The very concept of hope.
"That was low," he spat, drops of quicksilver staining the thirsty ground. "Do you so little believe in your cause that you must rob me of even the will to fight?"
The Breathing Eye blinked slowly in its vial of stagnant time. "It's not theft, Twelfth. It's mercy."
The Executioner stepped between them, the remains of his armor creaking under an invisible weight. "Run, cowards," he snarled. "He has already vanquished his Devourer. What makes you think you are any different?"
The Horizon Weaver smiled, an expression that didn't reach his dying galaxy eyes. "Because this time... he won't come alone."
The ground opened beneath their feet, and from the depths emerged himself.
It was Kael. But no.
His double wore the Executioner's shattered armor, his right arm was smoking obsidian, and his eyes... his eyes were complete eclipses.
"All iterations end here," the Other Kael said, his voice a thousand echoes. "I am what you will be when you accept the truth."
The Executioner stepped back, a guttural sound escaping his helm. "No... it's impossible. The Twelfth would never..."
"Always," the Other corrected, his smile a bleeding cut in reality.
Kael felt the weight of countless past defeats crushing him, but then he remembered Lirya's words in the Black Archive: "Mirrors lie, Kael. Especially those that show you what you fear to see."
He raised his quicksilver arm, the runes dancing on his skin like hungry snakes. "If you are me... then you know what's coming."
The Other Kael laughed, a sound that made the ears bleed. "Of course."
And then the world erupted into chaos.
The Eleven fell back, forming a circle around the combatants as mercury and obsidian clashed in a deadly dance. Every blow was a stolen memory, every dodge a future denied.
"You fight as if victory were possible," the Breathing Eye whispered, its words dripping like poison. "How charmingly human."
Kael didn't respond. He couldn't. Every cell in his body burned with the effort of staying intact against the entity that was and wasn't him.
The Other Kael punched him in the chest, and suddenly Kael remembered:
A small boy, kneeling before a dying man. "Give me your name and I will live in you," the man whispered. And the boy... accepted.
"No!" The scream tore at Kael's throat, the pain splitting his soul in two.
The Other moved closer, his voice a compassionate whisper. "Yes. The first echo you stole... was your own."
It was the Executioner who broke the stalemate. With a scream that split the air like paper, he drove the remains of his sword into the ground. "Never!"
The word exploded in a circle of silver fire, staggering the Other Kael.
"Now, Twelfth!"
Kael didn't think twice. He leaped toward the Eclipse that hung above them like a sword of Damocles...
And bit into it.
The taste was indescribable. It was the first scream of the universe. It was the last gasp of a dying god. It was the truth that lay beneath all the Paths.
The Eleven cried out in unison as the Eclipse twisted and began to flow into Kael.
"He's doing the impossible!"
"He's remembering what must be forgotten!"
The Other Kael began to fade like smoke, but his last smile was almost... proud.
"See you on the other side," he murmured before disappearing.
When Kael fell to his knees, the world was different.
He could see the Paths like never before: golden threads connecting everything, the wounds where reality had shattered, the face at the end of everything.
And it was...
"Lirya?"
The figure in the doorway didn't respond. It just held out a hand.
Behind her, something larger moved.
The Executioner gasped. "Oh, gosh... it's the..."
Then the world exploded into white.