CHAPTER 26: The Twenty-Sixth Fracture

Our lips met for a long, breathless moment.

Five seconds—maybe more.

When it ended, I could only stare at her.

I looked down at my chest. The wound that had once torn through me was gone—sealed completely, as if death itself had been denied.

Then my gaze shifted.

Set.

Still on one knee, snarling in pain, struggling to move as the reversal of chaos rippled through him. His body twitched, divine energy cracking around him like lightning desperate to escape.

Saaya stepped forward beside me, her hand raised—not trembling, not hesitant.

Set growled low, lifting his head. His eyes burned. Fury—pure and ancient—boiled behind them. And yet, beneath the rage, there was something deeper.

Fear.

I stood upright.

Side by side with Saaya.

No words passed between us.

Only purpose.

And as Set began to rise, dragging the weight of chaos with him, we braced ourselves for what would come next.

The final battle had begun.

The power of chaos surged again—and Set rose to his feet.

His body hissed with divine energy, smoke curling from his skin like vapor rising from scorched stone. The sky behind him cracked open, spilling void-light into the realm.

His glare carved through the air like a blade.

“Enough sentiment,” he growled. Black lightning danced around his arms. “I gave you a chance. Now I’ll erase everything you’ve ever touched.”

He lifted both arms—and the fracture shook violently.

A storm of black spears descended from the heavens—obsidian-tipped, reality-warping, humming with divine law meant to annihilate anything they pierced.

Saaya stepped forward.

Her aura flared—light blooming in reverse, like a sun collapsing inward. Her eyes glowed with quiet fury.

“No.”

She extended her hand—and the world obeyed.

The sky blinked.

The spears vanished, never born.

Set recoiled. “You dare rewrite my cause?”

He slammed his hand to the ground.

An abyss opened beneath us—an infinite sinkhole that devoured stability, meaning, gravity.

Saaya’s glyph spun again.

The ground reformed.

Stability returned.

Set’s face twisted in rage.

But then—he paused.

His next move wasn’t impulsive. It was cold. Calculated.

He launched a wave of corrupted time—an infinite loop designed to trap us in stasis, looping endlessly inside a fractured second.

Saaya snapped her fingers.

The loop unraveled before it could begin.

I stood still, watching her. Awe built like a storm in my chest.

She wasn’t just surviving—she was commanding reality.

But when Set etched a divine algorithm into the sky—a lattice of silver flame twisting forward to unweave our memories—her glyph faltered.

Only for a moment.

But I saw it.

She froze.

Her breathing hitched.

“I can’t reverse that again,” she muttered.

“What do you mean?” I asked, stepping to her side.

“Causal Lock,” she said tightly. “If I undo the same core law too many times, the universe begins to resist. The cost rises. It starts… fighting back.”

Set’s lips curled into a grin.

“Ah… you’re learning. Your gift defies me. But even paradox has limits. You’ll fracture long before I fall.”

He conjured twin serpents of radiant void—snakes of pure distortion meant to devour our timelines, our memories, our presence.

Saaya raised her hand once more—and reversed the cause.

But this time, she stumbled.

Blood slid from her nose.

Her hand trembled.

“I can only do this a few more times,” she whispered. “After that… I don’t know what happens.”

I nodded.

It was time.

I stepped forward.

Set turned toward me, expecting glyphs. Expecting light. Divine recursion.

But instead—

I clenched my fists.

The fracture pulsed.

A deep hum rolled through the air like a gravitational prelude. The glyph on my back reignited—brighter than ever. Rings of violet and white spun like collapsing galaxies. Each pulse echoed with mass. With memory. With momentum.

My aura erupted—fractals of raw scalar energy peeling off my body like shards of broken law.

Then—gravity shifted.

The very air twisted inward.

The laws of mass folded around my hands. The weight of mountains condensed into each fist. The sand beneath me sank, pulled by the singularity I had become.

My arms trembled. My chest strained.

But I grinned.

No equations. No light shows.

Just force.

Raw. Relentless. Unstoppable.

I launched forward.

Each step a quake.

Each motion a rupture.

Set flinched—just slightly—as I closed the distance.

I struck.

The first punch landed—and sent him flying.

He crashed through one of his own black pyramids. The entire structure collapsed behind him, bleeding light.

Before he could rise—I was there again.

Another blow, timed perfectly at the peak of compression.

CRACK.

His divine ribs broke like brittle glass.

He screamed.

“You want to erase everything?” I shouted, voice layered with scalar distortion. “Then let me show you the weight of what you’ve done!”

Set snarled and tried to conjure a wall of inverted time—forcing history to collapse in on itself.

Saaya raised her hand. Her glyph spun.

“Denied.”

The spiral collapsed.

Set lashed out, warping space into cutting ribbons—claws of entropy meant to shear the soul.

I bent around them—compressing gravity under my feet and launching again.

I folded space like a page—teleporting with pressure shifts.

Fist to jaw.

Knee to chest.

Elbow to neck.

Every hit landed like a falling star.

He roared—screaming chaos, summoning corruption to his fists, trying to invert the outcome before it arrived.

I twisted space around my glyph and rewrote his attack.

The attempt unraveled.

Reality snapped back.

He staggered.

Bleeding now.

Slower.

Desperate.

He raised both hands and tried one final gambit—redefining the fracture itself. The sky folded inward. The horizon bent. Time and memory warped into chaos as he attempted to rewrite the entire realm in his own image.

But I raised my hand—and the glyph behind me spun.

Once.

Twice.

Three times.

Rewrite.

The law buckled.

My glyph burned brighter.

Reality stabilized.

Set dropped to both knees, coughing divine ichor, gasping for air that no longer listened to him.

Saaya stood behind me—still glowing. Dimmer, yes. But unbroken.

I stepped forward.

No clever words.

No declarations.

Just one final punch.

A fist heavy with gravity.

Glowing. Trembling.

I drove it into his chest.

And Set shattered.

His divine core cracked.

Light burst from every wound. His scream tore through the sky—then vanished.

The fracture itself split like a cracked tomb under the noonday sun.

Silence fell.

Only the sound of breathing.

Mine.

And Saaya’s.

Her hand found mine. Warm. Solid. Steady.

We didn’t speak.

We didn’t need to.

The god of chaos was gone.

And the fracture… had finally been healed.

The fracture lay silent beneath the fading light of a shattered sky.

Set’s broken form dissolved into shards of divine energy, his final scream still echoing in the void.

I stood over the ruins, chest heaving, every breath heavy with the weight of what had passed.

Then, from the darkness, a raspy voice—the last thread of Set’s fading power.

“You got your revenge… for your brother,” he spat, eyes burning with bitter defeat.

I clenched my fists, feeling the years of pain and loss surge through me.

“Yes,” I said, voice steady, cold. “For Arkai. For everything you took from us.”

Set’s form flickered, dissolving into nothingness.

The fracture trembled, the oppressive darkness beginning to lift.

Saaya stepped beside me, her gaze fierce but calm.

“This is just the beginning,” she said softly. “The four gods still stand. And they’ll answer for their sins.”

I nodded, a new fire burning within me.

The battle was far from over.

But now, I had the strength.

The power.

And the will.

To face them.

To finish what was started.

Together, Saaya and I turned toward the horizon.

The next war awaited.

We went though the portal back to the academy