Full Chapter – The Realm of Irix
Location: The Irix zone – far edge of the Field of Requital. Once a kingdom, now a broken scar of fractured time and corrupted code. Reality stutters here. Time slips. Memories echo.
The Ashenkindled stepped over the threshold into the Irix zone.
The moment Grim's boot hit the cracked ground, he felt the shift — not in gravity or heat, but in the pulse of time itself. His vision flickered for half a breath. A forest… then stone… then nothing.
Behind him, Sparks let out a low whistle.
"This place is seriously broken. I like it."
The terrain around them shimmered like shattered glass held together by spite. Ghosts of buildings phased in and out — remnants of a kingdom that tried to digitize flame and ended up collapsing its own soul.
Max's eyes narrowed.
"This zone is unstable. Time anomalies everywhere. We'll need to stay close."
"Or what?" Hadi asked.
"Or we get separated in time."
As if on cue, one of the other student teams screamed from the far ridge — then disappeared in a flash of white static. No echo. No trace.
Sparks backed up closer to Grim without saying a word. Her flames were low. Alert. Feral.
They moved.
Attack of the Glitchborn
The first strike came from the shadows.
A creature made of shattered metal and bone — flickering in and out of phase — lunged toward them with a howl that warped in pitch halfway through.
Grim moved instantly. His sword met it mid-lunge, dragging red light through its fragmented body. But as it split… it didn't fall.
It glitched.
Suddenly, there were three of them. All moving in different timelines.
Max flared his aura, shadows anchoring the group in the "present."
"They're not duplicating," he said. "They're refracting through time. One entity. Three possibilities."
"So we kill all of them," Ayesha said.
"Now you're thinking like me," Sparks grinned.
The battle was chaos — but the siblings were worse.
Ayesha and Max moved as one — silence and precision, closing gaps.
Hadi unleashed wide arcs of energy that collapsed temporal walls, briefly making the creature fully visible.
Sparks flared, her fire twisting blue at the tips, tearing into the unstable zones between timelines.
Grim took the moment — eyes burning, blade flashing — and struck.
The creature screamed.
And time caught up with it.
It shattered, the glitch collapsing into a spiral of code, metal, and dust.
Tristan and the Royals
Further up the ridge, Tristan stood at the edge of a crumbling time gate, Princess Seris just behind him, her hands glowing with frost. Beside her, Rael looked pale, one of his sabers sparking with faulty light.
"Stay close," Tristan said, not looking back.
"I'm fine," Seris said, breath steady.
"Sure," he smirked, "but I'm still here. Call it my curse — I like pretty royalty not dying on my watch."
Seris rolled her eyes — but she didn't move away.
Rael, meanwhile, grit his teeth.
"You flirt in the middle of battle?"
"I multitask."
"You're a fool."
"And yet, I'm the one keeping her alive."
Before Rael could respond, another glitchborn creature burst from the frozen rock — aiming directly for Seris.
Tristan was already there.
He caught the blow on a frozen shield, spun, and drove his elbow into the thing's head — shattering it.
Then, with one graceful motion, he turned the shards into spears of frost and sent them into the time rift behind it — sealing the breach.
"Told you," he said, brushing invisible dust off his coat. "Charming and effective."
Seris gave him a look.
Rael said nothing.
But his knuckles were white.
The Mark on Grim
Back near the center of the zone, Grim slowed.
His breath caught in his throat.
The runes beneath his feet were glowing again — not the trial's markings, but something else.
Older.
A symbol of a crown made of ash and glass.
Sparks stepped beside him, brow furrowed.
"Grim… your arm."
He looked down.
A mark was spreading up his right forearm — glowing faint red with flickers of black veins.
The Ashen Crown.
"Someone's watching," Max said.
"No," Grim whispered. "They're calling."
The ground shook.
Every glitchborn creature in the zone froze… and turned to look directly at Grim.
Then they charged.
The Final Push
The siblings formed up around him without needing to speak.
Ayesha took the high ground — three arrows fired in a heartbeat, each exploding midair and blinding their path.
Hadi shouted and split the earth in a glowing pulse, halving the field and redirecting half the wave.
Max cloaked Grim in shadow and silence — buying seconds.
Tristan and the twins dropped from the ridge, ice locking down the sides.
Sparks? She launched herself directly into the largest glitchborn, flame dancing with laughter and chaos.
"COME ON THEN, YOU STUTTERING SCRAP PILE!"
It all happened in seconds.
And when the dust cleared…
The field was silent.
All glitchborn reduced to steam and rust.
The Irix zone went dark.
The mark on Grim faded — for now.
And far above, the Headmaster, now in his seventy-year-old form, nodded once.
"He's waking up."