The Riftcloaks—the elite seers of the hidden realm of Umbrael—had lived in the shadows for centuries, watching over the balance of time. It was here that Akuzai and Abhishek journeyed next, following whispers of a forgotten ally: Seris, the Riftcloak Elder who once helped Anuj seal the timelines during the great collapse.
But now, Umbrael was empty.
No guards. No torches. Only silence.
They moved cautiously through the obsidian halls, their footsteps echoing louder than expected. And then came the voice.
"You should not have returned."
Seris emerged from the void behind the throne of echoes. Her long silver hair fell across her shoulders like rivers of moonlight, but her eyes—those once filled with clarity—were clouded.
"Seris," Akuzai said carefully, "Anuj is gone. Rivan is binding the elemental spirits. We need you."
She smiled bitterly. "I know. Because I showed him how."
Abhishek's heart sank. "You helped Rivan?"
"I guided him," she corrected. "Because he asked the one question none of you dared to: Why preserve a cycle of pain? Why protect a loop that only births more suffering?"
Akuzai took a step forward. "And your answer was betrayal?"
"No," she said calmly, raising her hand. "My answer was clarity."
A surge of shadow magic erupted from her fingers, forming ethereal daggers. Abhishek deflected them just in time, but barely. The air around them warped as Seris unleashed the full strength of the Riftcloak arts—manipulating reality in slices and echoes. Each strike came from a different version of herself. A past self. A future one. A moment that never happened. They were fighting time incarnate.
Akuzai struggled to keep up. His Eternis Edge reacted wildly, unsure how to strike an enemy existing in multiple timelines at once. But then he focused—not on where she was, but on where her heart remained anchored.
Seris. The real Seris.
He drove the blade not into her body, but into her shadow—her original tether.
The duplicates vanished. Seris collapsed.
Coughing blood, she looked up. "He promised... freedom."
"You gave him a weapon," Akuzai said, kneeling. "And he'll use it to enslave time itself."
Seris reached into her cloak and handed him a fading relic—a Riftcloak Codex. "Then use this... to stop him. Before he becomes what we all feared."
She faded into the mist, lost to the time-winds.
The betrayal stung. But what Seris gave them could change everything.
The Codex wasn't just a record—it was a map. A blueprint of hidden rifts, lost fragments of history, and the location of the Chrono Beacon, the one place where Rivan's rewritten fate could be undone.
Akuzai closed the book and looked to the cracked skies.
The betrayals were no longer just personal.
They were strategic.
And Rivan's grip on the timeline was growing tighter.