The Battle for the Mana Core

The Fire Plane and the Timestream

Malgor's approach to the Mana Core begins in the Fire Plane, where he promises Tyndarius godhood before stripping Fiamme of her Avatar powers and giving them to him. As Fiamme calls on Galanoth as Fire's Champion, you help her survive as a mortal, and Abel and Jinx rescue you from the Plane. The Avatars finally intervene against the invasion of Lore, and after you free Kyron from Shadowflame, his account suggests that Malgor turns anguish into power. Varga trains you and Galanoth to oppose that power with the Champions' hope, helping Galanoth begin to accept the Fire he has hated since it killed his family. Tyndarius, meanwhile, refuses his Envoy Elius's pleas to stop fighting and comes to Lore himself, endangering the world with an Avatar's presence. After you defeat Elius, he chooses his people's survival over obedience and helps you confront his former leader. Galanoth's attack reaches Malgor through Tyndarius's connection to him, but Malgor severs it and leaves Tyndarius unable to contain the power. Fiamme takes back her place and spares him, acknowledging the Avatars' part in his grievance. He passes leadership to Elius but refuses to join your fight, and the victory comes too late to stop Malgor entering the Core.

As Mana Affliction spreads through Lore, Malgor turns toward Crownsreach and the Queen's Heart, while the secret you kept with Drakath strains an alliance already preparing for conflicts after the war. Cemaros reveals that Drakath considered having you lobotomized rather than risking the universe by killing its Dragon, then abandoned the plan because he would have to keep you alive afterward. You free a controlled Warlic while Dage confronts Malgor, but the Shadowlord escapes with the Heart. Dage hears your voice in him, raising a suspicion that Gravelyn refuses to treat as proof, and Warlic reports something inside the Core resisting Malgor. Warlic warns that Malgor's emotional control has permanently damaged his spellcasting and plans to go into hiding, fearing disaster if he uses magic again. He also suggests that a powerful being's mental strain could manifest as monsters.

At the Shadowlord's Keep, Gar abandons his master and guides you, Gravelyn and Varga toward a Timestream portal, only for his worsening affliction to transform him into a beast and the route to prove a trap. Malgor presents possible futures of your allies destroying one another, trying to turn your fear into surrender, but Gar's intervention disrupts the confrontation. Malgor and Drakath are thrown into the Timestream before the portal is destroyed, leaving you to find a way to pursue them.

To reopen the Timestream, the Avatars channel power through mortal shields: Artix and Aria volunteer, Tyndarius takes Galanoth's place, and Abel offers himself for Kyanos. With Gravelyn, Galanoth and the allied forces, you enter through the opening the volunteers are struggling to hold. The Mumblers inside speak with your voice and memories, and Varga explains that your growing powers gave life to emotions the Timestream expelled. The Second Speaker, a further evolution of the Mumblers, begs for reassurance that your friends will not destroy each other. Gravelyn promises to find a solution, and the beings disappear. Varga explains that hope has removed their need to exist. Gravelyn admits she lied so they could die in peace, though she still has no answer to the conflict awaiting her friends.

Galanoth leads the forces back while you and Gravelyn find Drakath, who has lost Malgor in a maze of scenes from across Lore. Together you enter the Deadlines, remnants of Malgor's abandoned cycles, and learn that he began as one of these beings trying to save his creator. Drakath realizes that Malgor made a one-to-one copy of the Chaos Amulet from the Queen's remains, while still wondering where the original amulet came from. Malgor recalls an earlier cycle in which you killed the Queen as the Eternal Dragon, frightened your allies and retreated into the Timestream. His repeated efforts to restore peace and bring you back met with rejection and failure, turning his purpose toward forced obedience. Eventually he went farther back and killed the Queen in your place, becoming the enemy your allies could unite against. Meanwhile, the portal has left Artix wounded and Aria severely injured. Tyndarius speaks as if dying, while Abel survives. The Avatars say Kyanos's mind is gone and believe he stopped using his Envoy as a shield.

Tara and the Old Worlds' Order

A voice you thought lost to the Infernals brings you, Gravelyn and Drakath into the Mana Core: Tara. The Infernals killed her previous body, but her remains flowed through the leylines and re-formed here as the Champion of Mana. She guides you through the Plane where its wardens have kept her confined, a place still trying to develop, with unfinished elementals and a dormant Avatar, Einsof. Three representatives of the Old Worlds' Order, Infamy, The Law and Tranquility, say your fusion of earlier worlds displaced them and left more mana and unfulfilled fates than Lore can contain. They and other former deities keep the Core stable. Malgor's intrusion disrupted their work, exposing Lore to its dangerous natural state. They now question whether you can safely remain its Creator. Gravelyn challenges Infamy's contempt for her and her people, Drakath confronts The Law's dismissal of his agency, and you and Tara face Tranquility.

Tranquility explains Silencing: erasing your thoughts, emotions and ambitions while keeping your body alive so time continues. Kyanos's fate showed them it could be done. Tara protests, telling you she wants a creator who understands her and tries to repair mistakes. You decide to keep your powers and try. Gravelyn and Drakath also fight back against the Masks. When Shadowflame infects Infamy, Gravelyn realizes Malgor's forces must have tainted her blade. Later, you recognize that Malgor moved it to save you. His intervention gives him a chance to escape. Gravelyn and Drakath remain to hold the Masks while you take Tara deeper into the Core. Tranquility lets Malgor pass toward Einsof, treating what follows as your final test.

The Mana Cradle and Einsof

You and Tara descend toward Einsof through unfinished Elemental Attempts and crystallized thoughts, finding empty leylines and ordinary Darkness that reveal another presence predating Malgor. The Darkness creatures seem to be protecting the Avatar, and Tara makes a path across the mana lake despite never having been allowed this far before. You tell her what you learned in the Deadlines: changing Malgor's past could cut off your own cycle, so he would have to repeat the actions that brought you here. Tranquility's suggestion of turning back an internal clock gives you an idea, though you warn Tara that she may not like it.

Malgor has swallowed the Queen's Heart, whose power he says let him block your access to the Timestream and attempt another cycle after losing the Chaos Amulet. Now convinced that the gods in the Core made his dream impossible, he uses Shadowflame and the Heart's Chaos to poison Einsof, intending to end life and suffering together rather than keep trying to force peace upon the living. Recognizing his persistence as something inherited from you, you refuse to give up in turn and confront him while Tara tries to keep Einsof alive.

Malgor and Mainyu

Even after you defeat Malgor, Einsof is dying, and beneath the Shadowlord's anger the Mumbler still begs its creator to rise and not give up. Einsof wakes in response to that anguish and offers help, and despite Tara's alarm, you let the Avatar make Malgor complete. A possibility unfolds in which you raise the First Speaker and learn to understand him as he asks to be tall, red and black, and to become your hero and protector. Einsof grants pure mana, transforming Malgor into Mainyu, the demigod he might have become with your guidance.

The glimpse of that impossible life deepens Malgor's anguish, and when he argues that only silence can bring lasting peace, you answer that imperfect lives are worth living. After defeating Mainyu, you admit that you could not bear loss and regret before, but will keep trying, forgive yourself when you fail, and accept help. When he asks about the mistakes he caused, you answer that you must both make things right and pay for what you have done.

Malgor's Time Loop

Destroying Malgor would undo the Queen's death in this cycle and collapse the timeline. You choose to accept him and propose a gamble: return him to the moment before he killed her, resetting his mind and body so he is more likely to make the same decisions.

Tara calls the repeated war a curse worse than death, and Malgor objects that everyone else will move forward at the cost of his eternal torment. Before locking the loop, you ask for his agreement, and he consents, asking to return to the Shadowlord's form and his first purpose. For a brief moment, he says, he has been your Salvation. With Einsof's help, you send him back and seal the loop against tampering, and when Tara senses mana slowing through the leylines, the Avatar says they helped repair them.

After the Mana Crisis

The Old Worlds' Order returns and forces Einsof back into confinement, despite Tara's protest that the Avatar is a child who helped you. Tranquility says the Order will not Silence you for now. The Law reserves that threat if you misuse your power. They also warn of the Voice Throbbing Deep in the Sea, the Rumbling of Cold Thunder and the Flame of the Beyond. Unable to leave the Core unattended for long, they assign you to confront these threats rather than become entangled again in the great conflicts of Good and Evil. You suspect they are still withholding the truth.

On the surface, Tara renounces her royal title to help as Champion of Mana, while Brentan relinquishes his claim and acknowledges the bitterness the affliction exposed. Victoria will rule Greenguard as the alliance dissolves, and you, Gravelyn and Drakath negotiate a period of non-aggression while the factions recover. The revelations remain private, and Tara still wants time with her family as you prepare to leave together and seek the threats named by the Order.