The sky above Stonefall had become a wound.
A vast circle of empty darkness spread slowly across the stars as the Nullifier descended. The world beneath it felt thinner, as if reality itself were being peeled away layer by layer.
People in the streets had begun to notice.
First the soldiers on the walls.
Then the workers in the plazas.
Then the civilians.
Lanterns flickered as people pointed upward, whispering in fear.
No one truly understood what they were seeing.
But instinct told them one thing.
Something had come to end them.
The Countdown
The System text still burned across Eren's vision.
REGION PURGE COMMENCING
ERASURE COUNTDOWN
08:12
Every second the number dropped.
Every second the Nullifier moved closer.
Below the tower, panic was beginning to spread.
Guards shouted orders.
Bells began ringing across the city.
Ruby watched it all unfold, jaw tight.
"Eight minutes," she said quietly.
"Seven now," Eren corrected.
She looked at him.
"You're oddly calm about the apocalypse."
"I'm not calm."
He stared at the descending void.
"I'm thinking."
The Devourer Speaks
Inside his mind, something finally changed.
The Devourer had always been instinct.
Hunger.
Predation.
But the approaching Nullifier had forced something new.
Communication.
Not words exactly.
More like impulses shaped into meaning.
Danger.
Predator.
Fight.
Eren felt the entity stirring inside him, vast and ancient.
It did not want to die.
And the Nullifier existed for one purpose.
To kill things like it.
The Devourer pushed harder.
Unseal.
Devour.
Survive.
Eren understood immediately what it was offering.
Power.
Enough power to fight the Nullifier.
But that power came with a price.
If he released too much of the Devourer—
He might become the very future he feared.
The one where Stonefall vanished inside his shadow.
Ruby's Question
Ruby leaned against the battlement beside him.
"So."
"So?"
"You have that look."
"What look?"
"The one you get right before doing something incredibly stupid."
Eren exhaled slowly.
"There's a way to stop it."
Her eyes sharpened instantly.
"What's the catch?"
"I let the Devourer off the leash."
Ruby was silent for a moment.
Then she nodded slowly.
"That tracks."
"You're not going to argue?"
"Oh I'm absolutely going to argue."
She crossed her arms.
"But I need to know something first."
Eren glanced at her.
"If you do this… can you still come back?"
That question hurt more than the Nullifier itself.
He didn't answer immediately.
Because the truth was complicated.
The Devourer could defeat the Nullifier.
Maybe.
But if Eren lost control—
Stonefall would still be destroyed.
Just in a different way.
Finally he said quietly:
"I don't know."
The City Watches
More citizens had gathered in the streets now.
Some praying.
Some crying.
Some simply staring at the sky in stunned silence.
The enormous geometric structure of the Nullifier was now clearly visible.
Its rotating plates formed a shifting halo around a hollow center of pure absence.
Where its light touched the clouds—
The clouds vanished.
Gone without sound.
Gone without debris.
Just gone.
The first edges of the city walls began to flicker.
Reality thinning.
The purge had started early.
Ruby's Decision
Ruby grabbed his shoulder.
"Then we do it my way."
"What way?"
"You fight it."
"That was already the plan."
She shook her head.
"No. You fight it and come back."
"That's not exactly something I can promise."
Ruby stepped closer.
Her voice dropped lower.
"You remember when we met?"
Eren nodded.
"You were barely holding yourself together."
"Still true."
"And yet you kept choosing people over power."
She looked out over the frightened city.
"That's why I trust you."
Her hand tightened slightly on his shoulder.
"So if the monster inside you comes out…"
She smiled faintly.
"…I'll just drag you back again."
The First Erasure
A section of the outer wall vanished.
No explosion.
No collapse.
One moment stone stood there.
The next moment—
Nothing.
Just a perfectly clean gap in the world.
Screams erupted from the nearby watchtowers.
The Nullifier had begun deleting reality.
ERASURE COUNTDOWN
04:31
Four minutes.
Eren looked at the city.
At the people.
At Ruby.
Then inward.
At the Devourer.
The entity stirred eagerly.
Ready.
Hungry.
Waiting.
The Final Choice
Eren closed his eyes.
Every vision of the future flooded back at once.
Ruby dying.
Stonefall burning.
The city swallowed by his own shadow.
The Nullifier erasing everything.
But among those futures—
One remained.
A thin fragile path.
A path where Stonefall survived.
Where the Nullifier fell.
Where Eren did not lose himself completely.
It was the narrowest possibility.
But it existed.
That was enough.
He opened his eyes.
"Ruby."
"Yeah?"
"If I start losing control…"
She drew her sword.
"I know."
The Unsealing
Eren stepped forward onto the tower edge.
Above him the Nullifier descended like a silent executioner.
The Devourer surged inside him.
Black veins crawled across his skin.
The air around him warped as reality reacted to the ancient predator waking inside a human body.
Neural Pattern Stability: 12%
Foreign Residue: 41%
Eren exhaled slowly.
Then he spoke to the thing inside him.
"Alright."
The Devourer stirred eagerly.
"You want to survive."
HUNGER
"Fine."
He looked up at the cosmic machine descending from the sky.
"Let's see which monster the universe regrets creating more."
And he broke the seal.