Chapter 57 – When the Tower Falls
For a moment, there was only light.
No shape. No sound. No system prompts or war cries.
Just a long, aching stillness.
Erevan stood at the center of it all, heart pounding like a war drum muffled in fog. The Fifth Chain—the final lock—was gone. And with it, the last lie that held the Tower's dominion over all realities.
The silence wasn't peaceful. It was the kind that comes after a scream, after something has torn itself free and doesn't yet know what it's become.
He looked down at the weapon in his hand—no longer Spiralbreaker, the spear of cosmic death. It had transformed. The jagged edges were gone, replaced by a smooth, crystalline form that pulsed faintly, like a heartbeat.
Truthseeker, the system had named it.
Not a weapon.
A key.
Behind him, the others were stirring.
Serah was the first to speak, her voice quiet, as if afraid to break the moment.
"Is it... done?"
Erevan didn't answer right away.
He couldn't.
Because even now, even with the final chain broken, the Tower hadn't collapsed. It trembled, yes. Shuddered. The laws that once held it together began to fracture at the seams. But it still stood—because somewhere, something still anchored it.
"No," he finally said, voice low. "Not yet. It's falling, but something's holding it back. One last thread."
Malrik stepped forward, his heavy boots crunching on the cracked surface beneath them. "You mean the Architect?"
Erevan shook his head. "Not just him. He was never the true master. Just a warden. There's something deeper. Something older."
He turned, staring at the collapsing horizon, where the Tower's inner layers began to unravel into spirals of light and time. Entire universes blinked in and out like dying stars.
And from the cracks...
Came whispers.
Memories.
Familiar ones.
He heard a child crying. Saw a hand reaching out in the dark. A boy kneeling before the Tower, praying not for power—but for someone to tell him he mattered.
It was him.
Not the rebel. Not the Tyrant. Just Erevan.
And then, a voice—one he hadn't heard in what felt like lifetimes.
"You built this to protect us."
He spun, eyes wide.
There—within the unraveling code—stood a reflection of himself.
Not corrupted. Not divine.
Just whole.
The original Erevan. The one who had once believed the Tower could save people from chaos. That control was mercy. That order meant peace.
"I remember now," the reflection said. "Why we made the Tower. Why we bound the worlds."
"To keep them safe," Erevan whispered.
The reflection nodded.
"And in doing so... we took away their freedom."
The realization hit him like a blade to the chest.
The war. The rebellion. The suffering—it had all started from a place of love. A desire to protect. But it had twisted. Hardened. Somewhere along the way, Erevan had become the tyrant he tried to fight.
"I can't fix this," Erevan said. "Not alone."
The reflection smiled softly.
"You never were alone. You just stopped listening."
Behind him, Serah stepped forward, placing a hand on his shoulder.
"We're still here."
Malrik grinned. "And we've all got blood on our hands. Might as well use it to rebuild something better."
One by one, the others joined. The rebels. The broken. Even the half-freed Children of Law.
Not soldiers.
Not tools.
People.
Erevan looked back at the collapsing Tower. Its core now exposed, a swirling singularity of every decision, every rule, every regret.
He stepped forward, raised Truthseeker one last time...
...and let go.
He didn't stab. Didn't force. Just opened the lock.
The Tower groaned.
And then—
It fell.
Not in fire. Not in destruction.
But like an old god finally allowed to rest.
Its pieces scattered across the multiverse like seeds.
The war was over.
But now came the harder part.
Building something new.
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