The bridge hung in silence, a narrow strip of stone floating in the void. Beneath their feet, rivers of light pulsed slowly, like veins carrying blood to so unseen heart.
Kieran stood breathing hard, his clothes torn, his face smudged with what might have been soot or dried code. He looked like a man who'd just finished a long, brutal fight.
Adams stood opposite him, looking exactly as he always did. Clean. Calm. Untouched.
For a long ti, neither of them spoke. The only sound was Kieran's ragged breathing slowly calming.
"You made it," Adams said finally. His voice was flat. Not happy, not angry. Just stating a fact.
Kieran wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. "You knew I would."
"Yeah. I did." Adams's eyes drifted toward the glowing Core between them. "You passed."
"Passed what?" Kieran asked, his voice tired.
"My test. It's all yours now." Adams gestured loosely at the sphere of swirling light. "The power. The control. You can shape the code, rewrite the rules, be a god if you want. Everything you fought for."
Kieran just stared at him. "You don't sound too excited about it."
Adams let out a soft breath that wasn't quite a laugh. "Why would I be? I've seen this part before."
"What's that supposed to an?"
"It ans you'll try to fix things. You'll work hard. You'll make things better, maybe. Or different." Adams t his eyes. "And in a hundred years, or a thousand, it'll all just be another version of broken. The pieces just get rearranged."
Kieran's face hardened. "You're lying."
"I don't need to lie." Adams looked away, back into the endless void. "The truth is boring enough."
A cold knot tightened in Kieran's stomach. "So all of this… the Rifts, the rge, all the people who died… you did it because you were bored?"
Adams shrugged, a small, weary motion. "Destroyed, remade… it's all the sa thing in the end. You build sothing new, you have to break the old one first."
Kieran took a step forward, his hands clenching. "They were people. They had lives."
"And now they have different ones," Adams said, his voice still calm. "So worse. So better. Because of you, too. You fought so hard. You were the best part of the whole show."
The words landed like a physical blow. Kieran felt the air leave his lungs.
"Show?" he whispered.
Adams finally looked back at him, and his expression was… empty. "What did you think this was? A noble quest? You built armies, you gave speeches, you played the hero. I gave you the stage. You just didn't know you were acting."
mories flashed through Kieran's mind—the long nights planning, the friends he'd lost, the weight of every decision. It all curdled in his stomach, suddenly cheap and hollow.
His voice cracked. "You… you did all this for a show?"
"I was bored," Adams repeated, as if it was the most obvious reason in the world. "It's better than feeling nothing at all."
"People died!" Kieran shouted, the sound raw in the silent space.
"People always die," Adams said, and for the first ti, a flicker of sothing—annoyance?—crossed his face. "They also live. They love. They build. It's all just… noise. You learn to tune it out after a few centuries."
Kieran shook his head, a sick feeling rising in his throat. "You're insane."
"Maybe." Adams's lips twitched. "But I'm free."
That was it. The last thread of Kieran's control snapped.
"You're a monster," he breathed, the words trembling.
A faint, tired smile. "You're not the first to say that."
Light flared from Kieran's wrist. The crown symbol burned, and a blade of solid blue energy erupted into his hand. Without a sound, he lunged.
He put everything he had into the strike. All his anger, his grief, his betrayal. It was fast. Perfect.
The blade hit Adams square in the chest.
And shattered.
The pieces dissolved into fading sparks. Adams hadn't moved. He didn't even blink.
Kieran stared, his empty hand still outstretched. His breath froze in his lungs.
Adams slowly looked down at his own chest, then back at Kieran.
"Did you really think that would work?" he asked, sounding almost disappointed.
"Why won't you fight ?" Kieran's voice was a broken thing.
"What would be the point?" Adams asked. He tilted his head. "You know, you keep thinking this is about power. Like if you were just a little stronger, you could win."
He took a single step forward.
"I'm not stronger than you, Kieran. That's not what this is. I am the ground you're standing on. I am the air you're breathing. You can't punch the sky. You can't stab the law of gravity."
Kieran took a step back, his heart hamring against his ribs.
"You're not a god," he said, but it sounded weak, even to him.
"I never said I was," Adams replied. "I'm just… everything. And nothing. It gets very lonely." His eyes, ancient and tired, held Kieran's. "And very, very boring."
The fight drained out of Kieran all at once. His shoulders slumped. The glow on his wrist faded. He was just a tired man on a bridge, realizing he'd been screaming at a mountain.
"So that's it?" he asked, his voice hollow. "I was just… entertainnt?"
"For a while," Adams said. His gaze was distant again, looking through Kieran at sothing else. "I thought you might be different. But you're just like all the others. You think your story matters."
He sounded sad.
Kieran looked at him—really looked. Past the power, past the calm, he saw it. An endless, crushing weight of solitude. A being that had seen everything, done everything, and had nothing left to feel.
And in that mont, he wasn't afraid anymore.
"You're wrong," Kieran said softly.
Adams's eyes focused back on him. "Am I?"
"Yeah." Kieran stood a little straighter. "You say you're everything. But you're stuck here. Talking to . Watching . You need this. You need to feel sothing, even if it's just through soone else's pain."
For a single, fleeting second, the emptiness in Adams's eyes shifted. Sothing flickered there—sothing raw and surprised.
Then it was gone.
"You think you've figured out," Adams said, his voice low.
"I think you're a sad, lonely man who broke the world because he forgot how to be part of it."
The space around them humd, the light of the Core brightening.
Adams studied him for a long, silent mont. A strange, almost respectful smile touched his lips.
"You're still interesting, Kieran," he said quietly. "For now."
He lifted a hand and snapped his fingers.
The world dissolved into pure, blinding light. The bridge, the Core, Adams—everything vanished.
The last thing Kieran heard was Adams's voice, faint and already fading.
"Let's see what you do with it."
Then, there was only the fall.
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