The tunnel twisted into black starlight, each step forward ringing with echoes of forgotten voices. Akuzai, Abhishek, Aditya—and now Rivan—moved as one unit through the veil of eternity, leaving behind the echoes of their battles and heading toward the final battleground: the Throneless Core.
But before they could reach it, they entered a narrow passage where the air grew cold—not from temperature, but from memory.
The walls began to shimmer, revealing faces of the fallen.
Tanishk.Kaelra.Anuj.Seris.Even corrupted versions of themselves.
They weren't illusions. They weren't enemy constructs. These were the specters of consequence, pulled from timelines where the group had failed.
"You let me die," said a ghost of Tanishk, his eyes hollow. "And you still walk forward?"
"You abandoned me," whispered Anuj's echo, cloaked in ash. "I gave everything—and still wasn't enough."
Aditya flinched. "This isn't real."
Rivan touched the wall, his voice strangely soft. "No—it is. These are the timelines where we made the wrong choice."
Akuzai stepped forward, heart pounding. "Then we acknowledge them. We face them."
He walked into the hall.
Each specter approached, demanding reckoning.
But instead of swinging the Eternis Edge, Akuzai dropped to one knee.
"I carry all of you," he said. "Your loss makes me fight harder. I won't forget."
One by one, the specters faded—not in anger, but in peace.
They moved deeper into the corridor, now surrounded by silence.
At the far end, they found a strange anomaly: a mirror broken from the inside.
It showed the past—but no future. It was a wound in time. Rivan knelt beside it.
"This... this is the moment I was chosen," he whispered. "Not by you. By him."
The First Chronomancer had appeared to Rivan through this wound. Not as a god, but as a whisper. A promise.
"You'll never be enough for them. But I can make you more."
Abhishek stepped forward. "He used you."
Rivan nodded. "And I let him."
Akuzai didn't judge. He simply placed his hand over the mirror.
The glass mended.
And with that act of healing, the final door opened—a gate formed of swirling code, sand, and starlight.
On the other side lay a golden bridge leading to a floating spire carved from pure memory.
The Throneless Core.
And on its throne—not empty, but waiting—sat the First Chronomancer.
Eyes closed.
Hands folded.
And a voice that said:
"You brought them all. Good. I've waited long enough."