The golden bridge stretched like a thread of fate, suspended over a void that pulsed with untold futures. Every step Akuzai and his companions took sent ripples across it—echoes of decisions that had yet to be made. And at the far end, seated upon a throne made of spiraling timelines, sat the one they came for:
The First Chronomancer.
He looked nothing like a god. No radiant armor. No glowing runes. Just a tall man in layered robes, with eyes that held too many centuries. When he spoke, his voice layered past and present into a single sound.
"You've come to defy me. To prevent the final convergence."
Abhishek drew his blade. "You twisted Rivan. You nearly destroyed the multiverse."
The Chronomancer raised a hand—not in threat, but in calm. "I offered clarity. This world was broken long before Rivan. I only gave him focus."
Rivan, standing behind Akuzai now, trembled.
"I thought you were salvation," he muttered. "But you were just… using me."
The Chronomancer stood slowly, and time itself bowed. The stars bent. The bridge wavered.
"I am not your enemy," he said. "I am your evolution. You resist perfection because you fear it."
Akuzai stepped forward, the Eternis Edge glowing with all five shards. "We resist it because it costs everything. Choice. Chaos. Pain. Love. You would sacrifice all that for silence."
"Silence is peace," the Chronomancer said.
"Silence is death," Aditya countered.
The winds began to rise. Clouds of timelines swirled above them. The bridge rumbled. The Chronomancer lifted one finger—and reality cracked.
Fragments of broken laws descended from the sky. Paradox storms formed at the horizon. And from beneath the void rose Sentinels of the Final Code—constructs made from abandoned futures, forged to destroy all who resisted convergence.
"This is the storm before rebirth," the Chronomancer said. "The world must fall so it may be written cleanly."
Akuzai turned to his friends—Abhishek, Aditya, and Rivan.
"You with me?"
They nodded. No speeches. No hesitation.
He raised the Eternis Edge.
And the storm met them head-on.
The battle began in full force. Each Sentinel wielded abilities stolen from discarded timelines—fire from unlit suns, gravity from dead worlds, entropy made physical.
Aditya held the front, fury in motion. Abhishek bent the flow of attacks, redirecting force like a tidal master. Rivan fought beside them, fully aware of the irony—defending the reality he once tried to rewrite.
And Akuzai?
He moved with clarity.
No longer torn by grief. No longer weighed down by betrayal.
Just purpose.
The bridge cracked further.
The storm intensified.
And the First Chronomancer watched, unmoved.
He didn't fear their strength.
Because he hadn't yet stood up.
But he would.
And when he did—
The real war would begin.