The desert stretched endlessly, dunes shimmering like fractured glass under a blood-red sky. Time here was a fickle thing—sandstorms cycled backward, and skeletal trees sprouted only to crumble to dust moments later. Kael's boots sank into the shifting grains, each step aging the ground beneath him. Lyra trudged beside him, her hair now fully white, cobalt veins pulsing to the rhythm of Gideon's laughter echoing on the wind. Lira trailed behind, her violet eyes scanning the horizon, fingers brushing the dagger at her hip.
"He's here," Lyra muttered, her voice layered with Gideon's growl. "He's everywhere."
A sand vortex erupted ahead, coalescing into Gideon's new form—a towering figure woven from the seven girls' stolen essences. Selene's time-warping aura rippled around him, Mira's healing magic twisted into necrotic tendrils, and Nyx's dagger-sharp shadows coiled at his feet. His voice boomed, a dissonant chorus of the women Kael failed to save: "You've only delayed the inevitable."
Kael's shardless hand trembled. "We're ending this."
Gideon's laughter split the air. The desert convulsed, morphing into a battlefield from Kael's past—the pyre where Varyn betrayed him, Lira's corpse still smoldering. Lyra cried out, clutching her head as the illusion drilled into her mind. "Don't… believe it…"
Lira lunged at Gideon, dagger raised. "You don't get to use my face!"
Her blade passed through him, striking Selene's time-shield instead. The backlash hurled her into a dune, sand burying her to the waist. Gideon's Nyx-shadow lashed out, pinning her. "You're a relic," he sneered. "She's the upgrade."
Lyra screamed, her veins erupting in blue fire. She tore through the illusion, but Gideon's Mira-tendrils snared her, leaching her stolen time. "You've always been mine," he crooned.
Kael charged, but Gideon's Selene-aura slowed him to a crawl. He watched, helpless, as Gideon pressed a hand to Lyra's chest—and the coffin from the lab materialized beneath her, lib creaking open.
"Your turn," Gideon said.
Lyra's eyes met Kael's. "Don't let me become him!"
The coffin swallowed her.