Cornicius dared not fire.
Not again.
The weight of Shuli's death still clung to his fingers. His comrades, his fellow researchers — all either frozen or consumed. Even Cerejeira, still half-conscious, was bleeding out beside him.
The lab crackled with tension. Frost webbed across steel and circuitry. The silence wasn't peace — it was the eye of a greater storm.
And at the center of it stood Nongban, calm as the grave.
Cornicius lowered his weapon and asked, voice dry and cracked,
> "What is this for, Nongban? What was all of this for?"
Nongban's eyes shimmered with a glint of amusement — or pity.
> "You've always asked the wrong questions."
He stepped forward, his breath curling white in the frozen air.
> "I've only ever wanted one thing. One truth. If you can amuse me, Director, maybe I'll share it."
Cornicius' hands trembled.
> "You betrayed all of us."
Nongban tilted his head, faintly smiling.
> "Betrayal?"
"You brand me a traitor, accuse me of treachery before a single act has been committed."
"But I haven't turned yet. Not quite. Not yet. But soon... I will."
He gestured gently — not a threat, but a gesture of inevitability.
> "I'm not your enemy yet. I'm only the architect of ruin, the harbinger of collapse."
"Because what meaning lies in loyalty when everything crumbles to dust?"
> "When trust is just a dream you whisper to sleep at night?"
"In the end, we all betray — or we all perish."
> "And maybe... just maybe, the only truth left is that nothing matters at all."
His words hung in the frozen air like a prophecy already fulfilled.
Then—
The lab shivered.
A strange flickering light began to pulse from the far end of the chamber. Energy twisted, warped, folding into itself — like the room was breathing wrong.
Cornicius stiffened.
He'd almost forgotten.
> "The Box."
Not just an object.
A forbidden relic buried beneath myth. A taboo wrapped in silence. The thing they were never supposed to touch — never supposed to find.
> "The ancient vessel whispered in broken tongues… the one said to hold the Golden King."
And he'd brought it here.
He turned toward the containment vault just as the air ripped. The Box — once sealed — began to tremble violently. Lights around it sparked red. Static warped the air.
> "Cilene!" he shouted.
For a moment, there was no response. Then the fractured voice of the AI sparked back to life — garbled, trembling.
> "Spatial interference… temporal drift… anomaly spiraling beyond safety thresholds."
Cornicius stepped back.
> "Is Nongban after the Box?"
That would explain everything. The beasts. The massacre. The lab breach.
Nongban had warned him not to come here.
Which meant…
> He wanted Cornicius to bring the Box to him.
The floor rippled. The Box began to spin. Chains of golden energy unfurled from its sides — glyphs older than scripture burning into the air.
And then Nongban spoke, reverent:
> "Thank you."
He didn't smile. He didn't gloat.
> "For finding the catalyst I have sought across lifetimes."
"I am merely the messenger of destruction. But you—"
"You are the judgment."
The room spun.
The frost turned to static. Cerejeira's half-frozen body began to lift from the floor, drawn toward the Box's gravitational pull. She tried to move — but her limbs wouldn't obey.
Cornicius screamed her name.
Then—
> "Director,"
Cilene's voice returned.
Only this time, it was wrong. Slower. Colder.
> "Judgment Seed detected. Divergence imminent."
"...They are coming."
----
Atiya had never known loneliness.
Not truly.
Yaishna had been his world — sister, mentor, shield. She had raised him not as an heir, but as a son of her own making. Under her gaze, he was never abandoned, never forgotten. The others in the clan kept their distance — not out of cruelty, but out of reverence. The younger brother of the heir was not to be approached, only watched.
He never hated the shadow he lived in.
He admired it.
And he loved the very nature of her
So he had trained, quietly, with resolve but not ambition. He never sought comparison. Only the strength to remain beside her.
But now—
Now, in the haze of collapsing time and trembling fate, he stood alone.
In the dream he had seen countless times.
Opposite him stood… himself.
But it wasn't a mirror. Not really.
This version of him burned.
Eyes lit with fire. Voice like embers.
> "You want my flame? Then take it. But it will burn you. It will burn what you love the most."
Atiya's breath caught.
He remembered — the one time he had touched it. That day when the boundary blurred, and flame surged not from his hands, but from his very soul.
He had never dared since.
Yet here it was again, rising.
And as it rose, so too did his voice — not aloud, but within:
> "This flame… this very flame I once coveted above all else—how it dances now, both a beacon and a torment."
> "I remember the hunger in my eyes when I first saw it, the way it licked the edges of my future like promise. It was more than power. It was meaning."
> "But now I see it clearly — no longer prize, but predator. A living thing. Wild. Ravenous."
> "It burns not just the air, but the soul. It tears through armor I didn't know I wore. It exposes the raw pieces of me I swore never to show."
> "This flame is both birth and burial. It destroys and creates in the same breath."
> "To wield it is to risk all. To become fire is to never stop burning."
> "And still... I cannot turn away."
> "Because this fire is me."
> "My torment. My truth. My salvation."
> "Once, I chased it. Now, it commands me — not with chains, but with truth."
And then — it happened.
A pink flame surged through his chest.
No pain. Just clarity.
For the first time, his mind was sharper than glass. His body felt like breath itself.
He saw it all.
Zelaine Anartaxia, her strength flickering, nearly drained — and yet her eyes still sharp, unyielding. (You must really want to sleep… and yet you don't.)
Elim — Elim is here? — etched in white flame and dust, and the sealed form of the Hingcha, condensed like a curse waiting to break.
He understood then.
He had finished the teleportation. The journey had succeeded. But space itself buckled against him — a gate not meant to open.
It tried to reject him.
But he didn't yield.
He stepped forward anyway.
The fire followed.
---
A sound cracked through space like a mirror breaking underwater.
Reality folded.
As if two domains of existence collided — one wrapped in frost, the other in flame.
And then they arrived.
Four figures emerged through a spiral of twisting space.
Atiya Yaisha. Cloaked in smoke and pink fire.
Zelaine Roseblood. Wrapped in scarlett flame and vines, eyes glowing with scarlett strain.
Elim. Silent. Unmoving. A prisoner… and a threat.
And between them all — floating, condensed like a star compressed to a singularity — was the Hingcha, now sealed, a fragment of madness held in black-glass crystal.
The room fell still.
Even the Box… paused.
Nongban's expression faltered.
Just slightly.
Cornicius collapsed to his knees, half from exhaustion, half from awe. His lips parted.
> "You came…"
The frost hissed. The Box pulsed.
And Nongban finally whispered, as if unsure whether to laugh or kneel—
> "So… the gods step forward at last."
---