At the very center of the battlefield, beneath a sky of cracked light and trembling stars, Lucky met Umbrael.
He was less monster now, more shadow-memory. A broken god who still remembered how to cry—but had forgotten how to hope.
"End me," he said. "Like they ended everything else."
Lucky looked down at the seed in her hand.
"I won't destroy you," she whispered. "I'll plant you."
And she placed the seed—not in the earth, but into the chest of her greatest enemy.
Light burst.
And the world began to tremble.