Bryce confronts Rigelus and the other three Asteri at the firstlight core, keeping the Godslayer Rifle trained at the hole leading into it. Rigelus claims the core is tied to Midgard’s “soul” and that destroying it will erase the entire planet, revealing the Asteri built the core as a kill switch to prevent rebellion.

Rigelus tries to force Bryce into hesitation by framing her choice as sacrificing millions to kill the Asteri, then offers bargains: freedom for Bryce and her loved ones, knowledge of the language tattooed on her back, open access to other worlds, and even a reshaped Midgard under Bryce’s rule. Bryce rejects the offers, furious at Rigelus’s view of the dead as mere “dessert,” and realizes she cannot win by drawing her blades before the Asteri kill her.

Bryce teleports directly beside the Asteri and fires the Godslayer Rifle into the core. Time seems to slow as the secondlight bullet—marked Memento Mori and powered by the dead—spirals down through the final crystal barrier toward the heart of the core.

As Rigelus lunges and grabs Bryce’s wrist, his power burns into her—but Bryce seizes it, draining him like a battery. She realizes Rigelus’s “starlight” is actually stolen firstlight: power taken from Midgard’s people and stored within him. Bryce pulls that stolen firstlight into herself and channels it through the Horn in her back just as the core ruptures and Midgard’s kill switch begins to collapse the world inward.

Using the Horn, Bryce opens a portal in front of the forming void and shoves the ruptured core—its growing, lifeless darkness—through it. She widens the portal to suck in the Asteri as well, dragging their screaming forms away from Midgard. Bryce has a heartbeat to register the destination as black, airless space dotted with distant stars before she, too, is pulled through the portal into deep space.