The new plan was working beautifully. While Ryan and Emma were keeping Lord Malakor busy with their silent, epic duel of storytelling, the rest of the team was having a very loud, very satisfying time cleaning out his throne room.

The Shades, the ghostly echoes of Malakor's past victims, were not easy to fight. They were half-real, and they whispered things in your mind that made you feel sad and tired. But they were no match for the focused, righteous fury of the Bastion Alliance's finest. Ilsa and her Iron Wolves were a disciplined, efficient machine of destruction, their movements precise and deadly. Scarlett was a chaotic, unpredictable whirlwind of a warrior, phasing through the ghostly ranks and leaving a trail of dissolving, screaming shadows in her wake.

It was a perfect combination of order and chaos. And it was very, very effective.

Malakor, who was still locked in his intense, psychic chess match with Emma, began to feel the strain. He could feel his army of ghosts being systematically, and very noisily, dismantled behind him. The screams of his dying (or re-dying) minions were very distracting.

He was forced to divert more of his concentration, more of the Reality Loom's precious, reality-bending power, away from his duel with Ryan and Emma and toward maintaining control over his crumbling army. It was like a juggler trying to keep a dozen balls in the air, and someone had just started throwing wrenches at him.

His "edits" of the main battle became slower. Sloppier. When he tried to rewind a moment, the rewind would be a little bit shaky, a little bit blurry. When he tried to change a rule of physics, the change wouldn't be as strong, or as absolute, as it had been before.

He was being stretched too thin.

Ryan, who was at the very center of the psychic storm, felt the shift instantly. The immense, crushing pressure of Malakor's will began to lessen. He saw his chance.

He pressed the attack.

The duel between Ryan and Malakor, which had been a tense, strategic battle of wills, now exploded into a raw, spectacular, and very personal fight.

Ryan's avatar, a being of pure, golden-green, creative light, flared with a new, brilliant intensity. He was no longer just a player in Malakor's story. He was a co-author, and he was writing his own, very different, ending.

Malakor's avatar, a being of pure, solidified shadow, fought back with a desperate, cornered fury. The throne room became a swirling, chaotic vortex of pure light and pure darkness, of the power of creation and the power of nothingness, all clashing in a silent, spectacular, and reality-bending storm.

It was a battle between two fundamental ideas. Malakor, with his power of fear and control, was trying to write a story where the hero was alone, and the darkness was absolute. Ryan, with his power of hope and connection, was writing a story where the hero was never alone, and the light, no matter how small, could always find a way to shine.

Back on the "Odyssey," Zara, the brilliant, logical, and often-overlooked hero of this whole crazy adventure, was about to play her own, final, and most important card.

Her "Logic Parasite," the secret, clever virus she had inherited from Valerius, had been quietly working in the background this whole time. It had led them here. It had helped them navigate the shadow dimension. And now, it was ready to activate its final, and most powerful, payload.

The Parasite didn't just make the Reality Loom traceable. It was a weapon. A weapon of pure, cold, and relentless logic. And Zara unleashed it.

A new, invisible force began to spread through Malakor's shadow dimension. It was not a wave of energy or a physical attack. It was a wave of pure, undeniable, and very boring truth.

The Logic Parasite began to fight Malakor's power by stripping it of its meaning. It was fighting his epic, dramatic story with simple, cold, hard facts.

The towering, terrifying Castle of Shadows? The Parasite's logic looked at it and said, "Statement: This is not a castle of fear. It is a large, structurally unsound collection of semi-stable, exotic particles. It is, in fact, just a spooky-looking cloud."

The army of moaning, terrifying Shades? The Parasite's logic looked at them and said, "Statement: These are not the tormented souls of the dead. They are residual, psychic-energy patterns, imprinted on the local spacetime. They are, in fact, just old, sad recordings."

The deep, existential dread that filled the very air of this dimension? The Parasite's logic looked at it and said, "Statement: This is not the feeling of ultimate despair. It is a low-frequency psychic field that is interfering with your brain's normal emotional responses. You are not feeling cosmic dread. You are just having a very, very bad day."

Zara's love, a love that was expressed not in fiery passion, but in the pure, beautiful, and relentless pursuit of the truth, had just become the ultimate weapon against a being who was made of fear, and shadows, and dramatic, spooky stories. She was defeating him by pointing out that his whole, scary, gothic nightmare was, in fact, just a bit silly.

The Logic Parasite's final, and most devastating, payload then activated.

It didn't target the dimension. It didn't target Malakor. It targeted the Reality Loom itself.

The Parasite had been designed by Valerius, a master of systems. And Valerius had known that a system as complex as the Loom would have a fail-safe. A self-destruct mechanism. A big, red, "do not push" button.

And the Logic Parasite just pushed it.

It triggered the very instability that Zara had been so afraid of. The Reality Loom, the universe's most powerful and most delicate machine, began to overload.

The beautiful, shimmering threads of spacetime in its center began to snap and unravel. A wave of raw, untamed, and very, very angry energy began to pour out of it, a chaotic storm of pure, uncontrolled reality. The Loom was turning into a ticking time bomb. A time bomb that could un-make this entire, private universe, and everything in it.

Malakor, who was still locked in his desperate, losing battle with Ryan, screamed in a rage that was part fury and part pure, terrified panic.

He could feel the Loom overloading. He could feel his entire, private, shadow dimension beginning to shake apart at the seams.

He could not control the overloading Loom and fight Ryan at the same time.

He was forced to choose. And he had to choose right now.