Back in Huraha — present time.

  “Stop right there, Neil!” HIM’s voice tore through Huraha. The wind froze. The water stopped moving.

  The castle walls trembled as if the Moon itself had flinched.

  Neil’s eyes darkened until nothing remained inside them—no reflection, no light. His memories returned all at once.

  He remembered everything. Arwind. Haybail.

  Every universe before this one. He remembered how he tortured his own brother— the brother who had always wished good for him.

  Neil was the culprit. Not fate. Not destiny. Nothing mattered more than the life of an elder brother to a younger one.

  And yet Neil had become the worst kind of brother. “What is life,” HIM whispered, his voice steady but broken, “when your own brother is the villain?” “I wasn’t the one who left you, Neil,” HIM shouted, his voice cracking.

  “You made me leave!” His scream echoed so violently it felt as if his vocal cords would tear apart. “Make me happy, Neil,” HIM cried. “I don’t want to suffer in the dark anymore. Take me back to Mother Earth. I am nothing but a burden to this universe.”

  His tears flowed endlessly—like rivers escaping his eyes. “Then give my body back,” Neil replied coldly, his voice unrecognizable, “and let me return to the Moon. I don’t want to stay here forever.”

  He paused. “And you are not my brother.”

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  “This is the Moon, Neil,” HIM said as he stood up. “This is what you wanted. What you were searching for. You are already inside it.”

  Neil’s eyes turned blue—bright as diamonds. In that moment, he realized he wasn’t standing on Ringworm… nor on Huraha.

  His consciousness was dragged back into his body. His limbs reassembled like scattered pieces snapping into place—like Lego blocks forced together.

  “What do you mean… inside the Moon?” Neil asked quietly.

  The air around him sounded louder than his voice. “Isn’t this Huraha?” HIM laughed—teeth clenched, laughter hollow. “This is Huraha. A civilization built beneath the surface of the Moon.”

  Then his expression hardened. “And I don’t want you here.” “Get out,” HIM screamed. “And never show me your stupid face again!”

  Neil stood frozen, unable to comprehend the truth. Huraha… was inside the Moon. The Ringworm had a will of its own—and HIM carried that will.

  He was its physical incarnation. HIM’s memories of the past two universes began to fade away, while Neil’s returned completely—like spring dying as autumn arrived.

  “You have no right to feel human emotions,” HIM continued, his voice mechanical with rage. “You are a worse brother than any antagonist ever written.”

  “This universe is nothing but the imagination of a god,” HIM said as he rose from his throne of moon dust.

  “And I believe we will all die inside his mind.” Tony, Steve, and AI had been nothing more than tools—paths leading to HIM.

  Neil had planned everything long ago. Across universes. Huraha was a world inside the Moon where HIM and the Quils lived.

  They could breathe because of a plant called Nanosob—a living system that converted carbon dioxide flowing from Earth through the Ringworm into oxygen.

  Huraha’s sky was violet—not because it was a sky, but because it was the Moon’s inner surface. Its water was violet too—purified beyond cleanliness by Nanosob until it became unnaturally pure.

  But do you really believe HIM is the only ruler of Huraha? In a land where houses are built from reflected light, there exists a mountain.

  And within that mountain lives someone unseen. Someone capable of killing even HIM.

  HIM does not know about him. Because the Quils never told him. But in secret— They worship him.