Silence suffocated the room as Alastor’s words hung in the air. Every flickering torch, every whisper of ancient glyphs on the walls seemed to pause, waiting to see if he would falter. But he didn’t.

  He stood tall, the Eye of Ra glowing in his hand, the Codex thrumming quietly in his mind. He had seen countless futures, suffered through endless deaths, learned the cost of power. And now, standing at the threshold of godhood, he made his choice.

  "I won’t join you," Alastor said, his voice steady and cold. "This cycle ends here."

  The Council’s murmurs ceased, replaced by a deep, oppressive silence. Twelve pairs of eyes—ancient, cold, and filled with fury—turned toward him as if they could tear his soul apart by will alone. The air grew heavy, crackling with barely contained power.

  The leader of the Council leaned forward from his throne, his shadow stretching long across the chamber. His gaze was darker than the void between stars, ancient as the first death. "Do you understand what you’re doing?" he whispered, his voice low and venomous. "You stand before gods and choose destruction. We are the guardians of life and death. Without us, there is only chaos."

  Alastor’s jaw tightened. "Without you, there’s freedom."

  Aurora scoffed from the edge of the room, her voice dripping with amusement and disappointment. "You really are an idiot, Creed." She shook her head, her neural interface flickering like embers in the dark. "You had everything in your hands—immortality, power, control—and you threw it away for some dumb fantasy about freedom?"

  Selene stepped to Alastor’s side, her blade already drawn. Her gaze was locked on the Council, unflinching. "He’s right. This ends now. No more loops, no more gods."

  The council’s collective fury erupted, low murmurs turning into snarls of ancient rage. The leader’s voice boomed through the chamber, thick with hatred and disbelief. "We offered you eternity, and you dare spit on our gift?"

  "The loop has consumed too many lives," Alastor said, stepping forward. "It ends here—even if it costs me everything."

  The Council stirred from their thrones, standing for the first time in centuries. They no longer looked like rulers—they looked like beasts, gods of death who had crawled from the abyss, their robes twisting into black smoke. The glyphs that had glowed faintly on their bodies burned bright with ancient magic, each symbol etched with the power of lifetimes stolen, of souls trapped forever in the cycle.

  The leader of the Council took one step closer, his eyes filled with murderous intent. "Then you will die, Alastor Creed," he hissed, his voice like the last breath of a dying man. "And when you die, you will be erased. We will burn your soul from the threads of time itself. You will never have existed."

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  Alastor gripped the Eye of Ra tighter, its golden light burning in his palm. "I’d rather be erased than become one of you."

  The chamber trembled as the Council unleashed their full power, ancient magic spilling into the air like a flood. The walls twisted and warped, reality shifting in jagged bursts—every moment of the past, present, and future bleeding together into one chaotic storm.

  "Destroy him!" the leader roared, and the twelve immortals charged, their forms blurring as they moved faster than time itself. The torches burned brighter, filling the room with violent light, and the glyphs along the walls twisted into jagged symbols of death. Every crack in the loop began to unravel, spiraling toward chaos.

  Alastor barely had time to react before one of the Council members appeared in front of him, a dagger of pure shadow aimed for his heart. The Codex whispered possibilities, and Alastor twisted through the loop, dodging the attack by milliseconds.

  Selene leaped forward, her blade clashing against another council member’s scythe, sparks flying as the two assassins danced through the storm of collapsing timelines. "Stay on your feet, Creed!" she shouted, her voice sharp over the din. "They won’t give us a second chance!"

  Another immortal lunged at Alastor, his form flickering between different versions of himself—young, old, dead, alive. But Alastor was already moving, slipping between moments with the precision only the loop could give him. Every death he had suffered, every loss, had prepared him for this.

  He twisted the Eye of Ra in his hand, summoning the relic’s power to bend the flow of time. For an instant, the entire chamber slowed—the Council members frozen mid-attack, the glyphs flickering like dying stars.

  But it wasn’t enough. The Council was too powerful, their connection to the loop too strong. As soon as Alastor tried to seize control of the timeline, they pushed back—warping time around him, twisting reality like a weapon.

  One of the immortals sneered as he appeared at Alastor’s side, a wicked blade aimed for his neck. "You thought you could defy us? Fool."

  But Alastor wasn’t fighting to win. He was fighting to end the fight entirely.

  With a surge of energy, he channeled the Eye’s power directly into the chamber, flooding the space with golden light. The relic pulsed with raw energy, destabilizing the timelines even further, pushing everything toward the edge of collapse.

  "The loop can’t hold both of us," Alastor whispered, locking eyes with the council leader. "So I’m going to break it."

  The council leader snarled, raising his hands to cast a spell that could erase Alastor from existence. But before he could speak the incantation, Alastor activated the Eye—sending a burst of energy through the heart of the Pyramid.

  The room exploded into chaos.

  Reality fractured, timelines splintering as the Pyramid’s power began to unravel from within. Alastor felt the storm of broken moments swirl around him—every version of himself flickering through the cracks, every death he had suffered flashing before his eyes.

  The council leader’s voice echoed through the collapsing chamber, filled with fury and desperation. "You cannot win! The loop will consume you!"

  But Alastor grinned, even as the world around him began to collapse. "Then let it."