R E S E T

Time stood still.

For Asimil, the entire universe contracted until it became a single point of unbearable focus: Noelia's body, lying on the cold glass floor of the castle. The ruby on her ring sparkled with an obscene light, a last, mocking ember of hope in a world reduced to ash and static. The air escaped his lungs, replaced by molten lead. He fell to his knees beside her, his hands, trembling over her, not daring to touch the irreparable reality.

—Heh... — Spectro's laughter was a distant, insignificant sound, the chirping of an insect — See? In the end, it all comes down to na... —

He did not finish the sentence. An invisible pressure, dense as a neutron atmosphere, crushed the air around him. The emerald green fire crowning Asimil's head flickered violently, tinged a deep black and died, only to be reborn an instant later as a column of dark flames, jet black and violet like a cosmic bruise.

 Flames rose up, devouring the fading ceiling, licking at the cracks in the sky. His severed arm did not regenerate; it was replaced by an appendage of pure vibrating shadow, a tentacle of corrupted energy that moved with an eager life of its own. His eyes, once flooded with tears, dried instantly, and in their place burned two wells of an empty, starless light, the same that dwelt in the depths of the Void.

He stood up. The movements were no longer those of a frightened boy. They were mechanical, deliberate, driven by a geology of pure rage. He was no longer Asimil. He was the outline of a catastrophe, an avatar of grief and fury made flesh.

At that precise instant, the Herald of the Void, the colossal entity emerging from the broken firmament, stopped its advance. Its central eye, a cyclone of nihilism, narrowed. His attention, which moments before encompassed the annihilation of an entire universe, focused entirely on the small human form that now radiated a power that not only rivaled his own, but smelled of the same. An absolute end.

The Herald, a creature of pure annihilation, did not utter a sound, but its intent echoed like a cosmic, hungry smile in every conscious mind.

 Asimil looked at him. And completely ignored Spectro. The murderer of his friends was no more relevant than a grain of dust. His dark gaze bore into the Herald's eye, and with a scream that was not from the throat, but from the very tearing of reality, he launched himself skyward. 

Not to fight him.

To become him. To overcome it.

And he began to absorb it. 

 Power tore at him, expanding his form beyond the limits of comprehension. Madness, the voices of billions of erased worlds, consumed him. And at the epicenter of his own dark apotheosis, his mind, the last redoubt of humanity, took refuge in a final and final limbo.

It was a white, silent space, made of broken memories and static. He saw Ikel, laughing, his half-worded joke before the lightning erased it. He saw Sacres, steady as a cliff, his look of determination an instant before he was crushed by the monster's indifference. And he saw her. Noelia. Not in her death, but in life, by the lake of Cristalheim, with the setting sun reddening her hair, smiling with a purity that now burned his soul. Pain was a black sun in his chest.

That's when the flashback hit him. But it wasn't from the past.

It was the future. Their future. His "what could have been".

He was on a hill, under a clear blue sky, no cracks, no Heralds. The sunlight was warm on her skin. Beside her, Noelia, in a simple white linen dress billowing in the breeze, laughed with her head thrown back, a melody that eclipsed any symphony. And among them, running with delightful clumsiness, a little boy. He had his mother's coppery red hair and green eyes that, when he laughed, lit up with the same emerald hue of his father's power. His son. He was chasing a golden-winged butterfly, his giggles filling the air with a happiness so tangible, so real, that Asimil could almost feel his little hand in hers. It was a vision of a peace so absolute, of a love so complete, that its perfection was the most exquisite agony.

The vision faded, leaving him alone in the cold nothingness of his limbo. The disconnection was an axe.

— I am a useless... a failure... — he whispered to nothingness, and his voice was the echo of a soul not only broken, but pulverized.

He wailed, the faces of his dead friends projecting in the darkness like ghosts on a screen.

— Ikel... Sacres... I am sorry. You trusted me... I led you to your death. My clumsiness was your grave. — His mind focused on her, his final anchor, his most painful failure. His apology was a silent thought, a bleeding confession to the ghost that would haunt him for eternity.

— Noelia... I failed you. In everything. I gave you a ring and an empty promise. I made you believe in a tomorrow that my hands failed to protect. I wanted to be the hero of your story... and I only became your executioner. Forgive me... for being so weak. For not being enough. —

He lifted his spectral face, now almost unrecognizable, to the chaos of code and shadow that was his new and terrible self, and pleaded. It was not a prayer to a god, but to the game itself, to the architecture of the system, to cold logic or the blind whim of whatever force might be listening in the far reaches of existence.

— IF THERE IS SOMEONE THERE! A CONSCIENCE, A WILL, AN ENGRAVING IN THE MACHINE.... I BEG YOU! — His scream was soundless, but it shook the very foundations of his mental prison. — It's not fair! They didn't deserve this! They were good, they fought with all their strength, they loved with all their heart! It can't end like this, just erased! —

He stretched out his arms, now monstrous limbs of shadow and infinite power, in a final, desperate offering. —  TAKE IT! ALL OF IT! My life, my soul, my sanity, my future, my past! Make me the final monster, the final boss, the antichrist of this world if you will! Tear me apart for all eternity! But give them...give them another chance! A world where they can live! A world where that happiness I only glimpsed in a dream is real! I don't ask for mine! I offer you my existence, my own annihilation, in exchange for a second chance for them! THAT'S THE ONLY THING I ASK FOR! —

His plea, the purest and most desperate final gamble, the equation of "one for all" taken to its absolute extreme, resonated through the layers of reality, piercing the veil of the possible.

And something responded.

The entity of the Threshold did not appear as a figure, but as an instant understanding, a stark truth that implanted itself in his mind. It did not come to judge or offer a deal. It simply showed. He showed him the clearest vision: a version of himself, not this dark god, but the hero he could have been, with his armor intact and emerald fire burning purely in his eyes. That version of him reached out and, with infinite tenderness, touched the Void gem that was now his corrupted heart.

And Asimil, the broken god, the monster made of sacrifice, understood it all. The power was not in the Threshold. The power to rewrite, to rewind, to reset... now belonged to him. It was the price and the gift of his merger. It was the last breath of Altverse channeled through his will.

Back in the final instant of the unraveling world, its colossal form, a titan of shadows and primordial energy, stopped its destructive expansion. The universe held its breath. It slowly turned its head, a moving mountain, and its gaze rested on the exact, infinitesimal spot where Noelia's body had fallen.

From his eye, a monstrous basin of empty light, sprang a single tear. It was not of water, but of pure essence of the Void, black as eternal ink, dense as a dead universe.

But on his lips, which were no longer quite human, there was a smile. It was not one of triumph, nor of madness. It was a warm, genuine smile, filled with a love so vast that it could contain multitudes, worlds and an entire future within itself.

It was the smile of a man who, having lost absolutely everything, had found in the depths of his doom the way to give those he loved the most precious of gifts: a new dawn.

He raised his hand, a claw of energy capable of undoing the foundations of creation, and in a voice that was both a whisper and the big bang itself, he spoke the word that was their eternal doom and their salvation. The word that was their end, and the beginning of all that mattered.

— RESET. —

And the universe dissolved, not into darkness, but into a white, pure, absolute, hopeful light.

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A boy walks down a street in the real world, a worn backpack slung over his shoulder. He looks tired, with a sadness in his eyes that he doesn't understand, as if his soul is crying for ghosts he can't name and a love he doesn't remember losing.

Is Asimil