Snow fell sideways as Miyako opened the final rift.
Her hand, glowing with faint temporal energy, hovered above a crystal embedded in the soil at the edge of the Duralyn Spires—a place no map remembered and no wind dared name. With a single whisper, the Chrono Bloom shard on her neck pulsed, and space unraveled.
A golden gate flickered into existence.
Beyond it lay the Hidden Timeline.
"Are you sure he's in there?" Aditya asked, gripping his weapon.
Miyako turned, her eyes calm but heavy. "This timeline was buried when the Fifth Blade splintered. It collapsed into itself—trapping everything inside, including Tanishk… and something else."
"Veyrix," Akuzai whispered.
She nodded. "Fragments of him. He moves between vessels. His soul doesn't need a body—it uses possibility itself to walk."
They stepped through the rift.
And the world shifted.
Time in this place didn't move. It bled.
The sky hung like liquid amber, cracked by frozen lightning. Buildings leaned in unnatural angles, suspended mid-collapse. Children's laughter echoed in reverse. It wasn't a world. It was a thought, half-forgotten.
"Is this even real?" Anuj muttered.
"No," Abhishek replied. "But neither are we… not fully."
Suddenly, the silence broke.
A figure stood atop a ruin—limping, coughing, but unmistakable.
Tanishk.
He was older than they remembered. His once-bright armor dulled, his hair longer, eyes hollowed by solitude.
But when he saw them—he collapsed.
Akuzai ran to him, catching him in his arms.
"Tanishk!"
Tanishk looked up, blinking as if the faces before him were dreams. "You… you're not supposed to be here. You'll break it. He'll know."
"Who?" Aditya asked, stepping forward.
Tanishk struggled to speak. "Veyrix. He lives here… not as one man. He moves through them. The villagers. The birds. The silence. He wears them."
A sound cracked from behind—a girl's scream. The group turned as a villager, eyes pitch black, lunged toward them with unnatural speed. Kaien moved first, slamming the attacker to the ground—but another came. Then another.
Each with a different face.
All controlled.
"He's testing us," Abhishek said grimly. "Veyrix knows we're here."
Akuzai stood, shielding Tanishk. "Then let him watch. We're not leaving without him."
Tanishk gripped Akuzai's wrist. "I'm not ready. I haven't held a blade in years. I'm broken."
Akuzai's eyes burned—not with pity, but fire. "Then heal with us. Rest. Breathe. You're not a weapon—we're your brothers. That's enough."
The words struck deeper than any sword.
Tanishk closed his eyes.
And for the first time in years—
He believed.
---
The group escaped through the Bloom Gate as more villagers fell to Veyrix's will.
Tanishk, half-conscious, lay wrapped in a cloak as the wind of the real world touched his skin again.
"Veyrix is watching," Miyako said. "And now he knows we're rebuilding."
Akuzai looked up at the stars.
"Good," he said coldly. "Let him prepare."