They emerged on the Ascension Bridge.
It wasn't a solid structure.
It was a melodic path, floating above nothing—made of pulseplates, harmonized light, and fragments of time. The further they walked, the more the past and future bled into view around them like ghosts watching from the walls.
Each step echoed with a memory.
A Sovereign's collapse.
A Gatework crumbling.
A failed ascension.
A scream of joy from a newly written movement.
A child, laughing with their team, only to see them vanish.
Milim slowed as she watched a memory ripple beside them.
"I see… pieces of everyone. Not just Sovereigns."
Liliana touched a floating echo, and it sang back a lullaby her mother used to hum—one she'd long forgotten.
Leon clenched his fists. "The Tower is stripping away everything false. If we step forward, we do it as we truly are."
Midway across the Bridge, it began.
A gate of resonance pulsed open, and from it stepped a figure.
But not a creature.
It was Leon.
Another him.
