The mirrors pulsed again—shuddering with light and memory.
From them emerged versions of Rotham, each formed from a splintered decision point:
One who chose power over people.
One who ran from the Seed.
One who handed Adra-9 to the Null Father to save himself.
One… who never became anything at all.
They circled him like specters, reflections made flesh, their eyes filled with bitterness, regret, or smug certainty.
"You call yourself the Patternless," said the first. "But every path still began with fear."
"You freed the world," hissed another, "but only after sacrificing ours."
Rotham backed toward the mirrored wall, heart pounding.
"You're not me."
"We are exactly you," said the third. "Everything you left buried in the name of becoming a hero."
The Labyrinth's air thickened. The walls bent inward. The chamber itself rejected unity.
He had to choose.
Or be torn apart by the paradox of his own creation.
"What do you want from me?" he shouted.
One version—the silent one, dressed in gray and cracked with light—stepped forward.
"To remember. To admit that you are not whole. That you only became Rotham… by walking over the bones of your other selves."
The Architect's voice suddenly echoed faintly in the distance, breaking through like a signal behind a thick veil.
"This is a test, Rotham. Not of strength. Of acceptance. The Labyrinth can only be crossed by one who embraces their own echoes."
Rotham dropped to his knees, breathing hard.
He looked at the fractured versions of himself, eyes filled with pain and reflection.
Then, slowly, he whispered:
"I'm sorry."
One by one, the fractured Rothams began to fade, their light merging into his own. Not erased—reintegrated.
And when the last one dissolved, the mirrors around him cracked, then vanished into stardust.
A single path appeared ahead—narrow, pulsing with unstable light.
At its end was a figure.
Not him.
Not the Architect.
But someone impossible.
"Rotham," the voice called gently. "Do you remember me?"
His heart froze.
It was the voice of his mother—long thought lost in the cycle collapse.