Tanishk bled from the side, disbelief in his eyes as he looked at the blade piercing through his ribs. The blade was familiar—he had trained with it, sparred against it, trusted the one who wielded it. That trust was now shattered. Rivan stood behind him, eyes devoid of remorse, face bathed in cold fire.
"Why…?" Tanishk whispered as he dropped to his knees.
"Because the multiverse needs to be rewritten," Rivan said flatly. "And you would have stood in my way."
Aditya, arriving seconds too late, roared in horror and fury. He charged, chakra searing through the air like lightning. The ground shook as he clashed with Rivan, but something was wrong. Rivan wasn't just stronger—he was prepared. Every move Aditya made was anticipated, countered, punished. A silent figure stood in the background, cloaked in time distortion. A shadowy ally of Rivan, perhaps? No one knew. But this betrayal had clearly been planned.
Akuzai and Abhishek felt it—the moment the timeline cracked again. The Eternis Edge shimmered violently at Akuzai's hip, reacting to a tear in fate itself. They raced toward the collapsing sector, but by the time they arrived, it was over.
Tanishk lay lifeless. Aditya, though still breathing, was broken in both body and spirit. And Rivan… he was gone, vanished through a rift, leaving behind only the echo of what once was friendship.
Akuzai fell to his knees, not just in grief—but in realization. "He played us," he muttered. "Rivan was never one of us. Not truly."
Anuj, the last remaining temporal guardian, appeared amidst a flicker of collapsing dimensions. "We're out of time," he said. "Rivan's corrupted the Rootstream. If he reaches the Temporal Source, everything—every world—will fall under his design."
Akuzai clenched his fists. "Then we stop him."
But Rivan wasn't finished. His betrayal had layers. As the group regrouped, a trap sprang—a spectral vortex launched at Abhishek. Time slowed. Anuj intercepted it, absorbing the blow, knowing full well it was fatal. With a strained breath, he grabbed Abhishek and opened a dimensional rift.
"You're too important to die here," Anuj whispered to Abhishek. "The Source still needs you."
With one final push, he threw Abhishek into the rift just before his own form dissolved into shards of light, taken by the wound in time.
Akuzai watched it all. Helpless. Furious. Grieving.
The team was broken. The bond they had fought so long to build—shattered. Rivan had done more than betray them. He had fractured their unity, destroyed their foundation, and rewritten the rules of war.
Akuzai rose, eyes burning. The Eternis Edge now pulsed with something deeper than power—it pulsed with purpose.
This was no longer about saving timelines.
It was about confronting a brother turned god.
It was about vengeance.
It was about truth.
And it had just begun.