The final chain broke with a whisper.
It wasn't the scream of steel or the roar of magic, but something quieter more final. Like breath leaving the lungs of the world. Eren felt it before he heard it, a sudden lightness in the air, as if the gate had exhaled for the first time in centuries.
The Gate of Sundered Flame was open.
Eren stood at its edge, one foot planted in the fractured stone of Serethal, the other hovering just above the threshold. The crack in reality stretched before him like a wound, its center swirling with silver flame tinged in black. Inside, he could see nothing. No stars. No structure. Just motion. Just presence.
Behind him, Elira waited in silence.
He looked back at her. She didn't speak but her hand rested near the hilt of her blade, not from threat, but readiness. If something came through… she would meet it first.
"Don't try to follow," Eren said.
"I won't," she replied. "But I'll be here when you come back."
He gave a faint nod.
And stepped through.
The world unraveled.
Not violently. Not painfully. Just… completely.
Color vanished. Sound became memory. His body lost form, became thought, then flame, then nothing at all. For one heartbeat, Eren floated in a sea of unbeing.
And then he arrived.
The place beyond the gate was not a realm.
It was a truth.
A place shaped by thought, bound by intention, held together only because something remembered it existed.
He stood on a platform of glass that rippled beneath his boots. The sky was a swirl of silver and crimson. Islands of memory drifted in the distance cities undone, people forgotten, lives never lived. The air was still. Too still.
Then came the voice.
"You have come."
Eren turned.
From the swirling mist rose a figure. Human in shape, but formed of light and fracture. Its face bore no features, yet somehow, Eren recognized it.
It was the bearer who had never lived.
The possibility.
The one path he could still become.
"This is not a trial," the voice said. "This is an offer."
Eren stood his ground. "I didn't come here to bargain."
"No," the figure replied. "But every flame makes a choice. Burn with the world, or burn for it."
The platform shifted.
Below, he saw himself cradling Lyria's lifeless form, whispering apologies.
Then another version crowned in fire, standing atop the ruins of the world.
Then another kneeling, the blade buried in his chest, a circle of stone scorched around him.
"You've seen them all," the voice said. "Every path. Every end. So tell me why step through?"
Eren drew Akreth.
The blade shimmered with silver flame, the runes now humming in a language no longer foreign.
He pointed it toward the figure.
"Because this time, I choose."
The figure hesitated.
Then bowed.
"Then claim your flame."
The platform vanished.
Eren fell not down, but inward.
He passed through visions like curtains: Cael's broken promise. The first bearer's scream. Syra watching in silence. Elira's unwavering hand. Lyria's smile.
And then
Fire.
Not painful.
Pure.
When he opened his eyes again, he was kneeling.
Back in the ruins of Serethal.
The gate behind him was closed, sealed not by chains, but by will.
Akreth rested across his knees, its flame quiet.
Elira rushed to him.
"You're back."
Eren looked up at her.
"No," he said.
"I've become."