One wants to be reborn. One came to stop him. Only one leaves this world.
---
5:01 P.M.
Queen Maud Land — The Ritual Site, Torn Between Worlds
The crack in reality pulses.
Magic seeps through like liquid light.
The Choir burns alive in place, bodies fusing into the summoning circle.
Naomi stands between Silas and the breach.
Her rifle smolders from the last shot.
Blood trickles from her temple.
Silas… is still alive.
But wounded.
The bullet tore through his shoulder.
And still—he smiles.
> Silas: "You made it personal."
Naomi: "It was always personal."
He tosses aside the ritual blade.
> "No gods today."
"Let's end this like animals."
---
5:03 P.M.
The Battle Begins
Naomi rushes forward—
Silas meets her, barehanded but inhumanly fast.
Their first clash sends shockwaves through the half-broken veil.
The ground beneath them cracks—
ice and stone split as the world watches two titans tear each other apart.
Naomi ducks a slash and counters with a combat knife—
slashes his face.
Blood sprays.
Silas laughs.
> Silas: "Good. Hurt me.
Make it real."
---
5:05 P.M.
Weapon to Weapon — Heart to Hate
Silas grabs a Choir's broken staff—reinforced steel.
Naomi dual-wields her pistol and blade.
He swings.
She dives.
The edge of the staff carves a crater into the snow.
Naomi fires point-blank into his chest—
Silas grabs the barrel mid-shot and redirects it.
The gun explodes in her hand. She stumbles—
Silas kicks her across the altar platform.
She lands—coughing blood.
> "You can't win," he says.
"I already exist there. I feel the pull."
> "I've already been written into the next world."
---
5:07 P.M.
Naomi's Flashback (Brief)
Her brother's body.
The first bombing.
Her home.
The Hollow graffiti painted across her bedroom wall.
All of it.
Leading here.
Her hand tightens on the blade.
> "I don't care if they're writing gods."
> "I'll be the one who erases them."
---
5:08 P.M.
Final Phase — Naomi vs. Silas, Ritual Core
The breach is shrinking now.
It demands blood to stay open.
Silas rushes her with godspeed—
But Naomi turns the momentum with a feint—
slams her blade through his abdomen.
He gasps.
> "You—"
> "Shut up," she spits.
"This story ends here."
He lifts his hand to grab her neck—
She pulls the detonator.
---
5:09 P.M.
She rigged the altar.
Charges go off.
The Choir's corpses are vaporized.
The blood circle—broken.
The ritual collapses in a scream of light.
The breach flickers, shrinks, folds inward.
Naomi dives back as Silas screams, caught in the half-world.
---
Final Scene
Silas, burning, half his body in the new world, half still here.
> "NO—NO—YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND—"
> "I wasn't escaping."
> "I WAS EVOLVING."
The veil slams shut.
Silas is gone.
The portal is gone.
Silence.
Naomi lies on the shattered altar.
Bleeding.
Breathing.
Alive.
---
Final Line:
> "No gods," Naomi whispers,
"Not here. Not ever again."
---