Ember (Final Chapter)

The New Era Star Sea welcomed its first morning without alarms in one hundred and sixty years.

The Chromaglass Civilization's river of color spread across the heart of the Star Sea. Sixty-nine thousand, nine hundred and ninety-seven colors had been restored, and the final color was condensing—a profound, almost transparent blue that had once appeared in Lin Ye's pupils when he accepted the Gatekeeper. The Chromaglass weavers named it "Ember Blue."

Harmonic Leaptone stood at the end of the river of color as fifty layers of harmonics slowly played an unnamed melody. It was neither a battle prelude nor an alarm, but a lullaby. The Iron Curtain Universe's first batch of passage Guardians had rotated back only yesterday. A hundred warriors had been stationed in the Definition Sea for a hundred years, and by the time they returned to their home universe, their silver-white outlines had become covered in variegated colors—not chaos, but experience. They brought back a message from the Gatekeeper deep within the Definition Sea: "The gate is well guarded. Don't worry about it."

Iron Curtain himself stood behind Harmonic Leaptone. The variegated colors in his silver-white outline had nearly obscured its original shade. He stared at that streak of Ember Blue in the river of color for a long while before suddenly saying, "I kind of want to cry."

Harmonic Leaptone's song did not stop. "Then cry. No one's stopping you."

"Warriors of the Iron Tomb Universe do not cry."

"You're Iron Curtain of the Ember Era now. People of the Ember Era cry when they want to." Harmonic Leaptone paused. "Lin Ye said so."

Iron Curtain fell silent for three seconds, then began to cry. There was no sound. Tears merely seeped from his silver-white outline, turning into tiny fragments of definition that drifted toward the