He made something that he had never made before. Not a weapon, not a tool, but a thing made by people.

A frame of golden light that wrapped around his body like armor but was lighter and more flexible. Wings grew out of his back, not real ones but ones made of pure kinetic energy that his will shaped.

He had seen birds fly and knew how to use force to get them to rise. So he did.

Greg jumped into the air, and it felt wonderful. As he sped toward the main Calamity, Agatha, the wind rushed past him. The Brotherhood and living weapons kept attacking the smaller constructs behind him, which gave him the chance he needed.

Agatha anticipated his approach and unleashed a barrage of deadly blade-like arms. Greg moved between them with the kind of precision that came from his new understanding.

Every move was planned and carried out perfectly. When he couldn't get away, he made barriers that pushed him just enough to let him through, saving energy and time.

"You can't win!" Agatha screamed, and her voice was full of desperation. "Even if you've mastered the First Hammer and become what you said you weren't, you're still just one person!"

"I am three calamities! I am vengeance in the flesh! And I am the truth you won't see!"

"You're pain," Greg said, getting close enough to see the human parts of her body that were still there. "Your grief, anger, and loss became a weapon against the world."

"I know how you feel because I've been there too, but Agatha, this isn't the right answer."

He crashed into her body, not to hurt her but to make something. When he put his prosthetic arm against her broken metal surface, it glowed brightly, and the material began to change where he touched it.

He was not destroying it; instead, he was changing it by using the Thoughtforged method in reverse. Instead of making or unmaking, it was breaking the ties that held the structure together.

A hole opened in the Calamity's chest, and Greg jumped through it before Agatha could close it. There was only purple light from the core and screaming inside. Thousands of souls, absorbed and transformed into parts of this nightmare, cried out in pain.

Greg went down through the twisting passages of flesh and metal, following the pull toward the center, where Agatha's mind was. He could see them better the deeper he went.

People. Or what was left of the people. Their bodies were slowly turning into weapons as they were trapped in the walls. Their minds were still aware and screaming.

He saw a guard from Meridian who was halfway transformed, with his arm already a sword blade. A merchant whose body became a shield.

A kid who turns into an arrow. Everyone knew. Each one was in pain.

Agatha didn't just kill them. She had made them part of her revenge and forced them to be the tools of destruction, whether they wanted to or not.

"I'm so sorry," Greg said quietly, but he didn't stop.

He could not stop. He had to get to the core and stop this before more people had to go through the same thing.

At last, he emerged into the main room. It was vast and empty, with the walls bathed in a sickly purple light. In the center stood Agatha.

Not her twisted, monstrous form, but an image of her human self—or perhaps a reflection of her mind. She appeared weary, aged. Gone was the self-assured master craftsman who had orchestrated it all.

"So you made it," she said in a low voice. "I guess I shouldn't be surprised."

"Those who know what it really costs to create always get the First Hammer."

Greg was standing across from her, and his fake arm was still glowing. "This has to stop, Agatha."

"You already know that... the world isn't fair, and this isn't the truth."

"It's just more pain on top of the pain that is already there!"

"What do you know about pain?" Agatha's voice cracked. "What do you know about the price of standing up for the truth in a world full of lies?"

Greg said, "More than you think."

He reached out with his prosthetic arm to her, not to threaten her but to offer it. "But we don't have to do this by ourselves. We never had to do this by ourselves."

His arm glowed with golden light, and something happened that Greg didn't see coming. The light came together and took shape, making a figure that stood between them.

It was the same shape as the one in the cave. The master craftsman. The person who came up with the Thoughtforged method.

Greg knew everything he needed from Agatha's reaction.

She gasped and stepped back. Her face went from angry to shocked to something that looked like hope before breaking down into pure grief.

"Fa... ther...?" The word came out as a very soft whisper. "Father, no. Not you! Anyone but you!"

The figure didn't say anything, but it filled the room, and in that presence, Greg finally got it.

The pieces fit together in a horrible way. Agatha's obsession with showing that peace was a lie. Her desire to reveal the Royal Knights' secrets. Her years of planning and her last act of revenge.

It wasn't just about truth, philosophy, or exposing corruption. This was about a daughter whose father had died because of the same system she was now trying to destroy.

Her father had been a knight in the royal family and had owned the First Hammer. They likely uncovered the same truths she had, tried to share them with others, and ultimately paid the price with their lives.

Greg couldn't stop thinking about what Veldway had said. "I knew the truth and didn't say anything." But Agatha's dad had said something.

He had tried to say something. But the Royal Knights made sure he never spoke again. After that, he hid the truth, made it go away, and let his daughter find out what really happened.

"You kept it," Agatha said, looking at the golden figure with tears in her eyes. "All these years..."

"The hammer... his hammer...! You kept it safe and hidden from me!"

Greg said softly, "Not me."

"This little guy. He put it somewhere where someone who needed it would find it."

"Someone who would get what it was for. Hammy was watching over it all this time."

"The slime body made the hammer look rusted, but when I grabbed it... it showed its true nature."

"Your father left it there for anyone who could prove they were worthy of carrying on his legacy."

"His legacy," Agatha said again with anger. "His legacy was dying alone, killed by the people he served, while his child could do nothing but watch the world forget he ever existed."

"Is that what you mean by 'legacy'?"

Greg said, "No. I'm making this choice because of his legacy."

"The choice to not go through the same thing again. To not become what hurt us. To improve something even when the world makes it almost impossible to do so!" He moved closer, still holding out his prosthetic arm. "Your dad tried to fix the system from the inside, but it killed him!"

"You tried to fix it by completely destroying it, but now it's destroying you! There might be another way..."

"It could be that the third path isn't about systems at all, but about people choosing to be better than they have to be every day."

The golden figure flickered, and Greg knew right away that it meant "yes." Not his approval, but his father's.

The man who had given everything to make the world a better place, whose hammer had found its way into the hands of someone who might be able to do what he couldn't. Agatha looked at the figure, then at Greg, then at the core that was pulsing around them with the power of her revenge.

"It's too late," she said softly. "I've gone too far..."

"Too much has been done... I can't go back to who I was."

Greg said, "There's always a choice."

"Until the moment there isn't. You can still choose to end this."

"To let these people go! Don't let your father's death result in nothing but more death."

"How?" Agatha's voice broke all the way. "How do I deal with what I've done?"

"How do I deal with a world that took everything from me and acted like it didn't matter?"

Greg said, "The same way I do."

"The same way we all do, with one day at a time and one choice at a time! Knowing that we'll fail, that we'll break, and that we'll want to give up, but they still choose to keep trying."

The golden figure started to fade, having done what it was supposed to do, but before it completely disappeared, it did something that Greg didn't expect. It reached out and touched Agatha's face with a hand made of light.

His gesture was the last thing a father could do to show his daughter how much he loved her. Greg felt all the things he had been hiding in that touch. The "I'm sorrys." The act of letting go. The realization that certain conflicts are unwinnable yet must be confronted nonetheless.

Agatha fell to her knees and cried, and the core around them started to pulse in a different way. The core pulsed not with anger anymore, but with sadness and the pain of thirty years finally being recognized.

Greg knelt next to her, his prosthetic arm still glowing, and waited to see what she would do. Thousands of souls were stuck in the walls around them, waiting for the same answer.

The fight outside went on, but right now, in here, everything was up in the air. The Calamity shook, its fate resting on the choice of a broken daughter and the man with the hammer that her father had left behind.

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