The Shattered Steppe was a graveyard of moments.
Kael stepped onto the broken earth, where time spiraled like wind. The ground shimmered—cracked stone floated above the soil, frozen mid-explosion, while trees pulsed with both budding leaves and brittle rot. One wrong move, and a person could be flung centuries forward... or backward.
Ryssa whispered, "No map can guide us here. The terrain shifts with every heartbeat."
"Then we'll follow instinct," Kael replied, eyeing the Gauntlet, which now pulsed with a red rune—the mark left behind after defeating the Sovereign's Echo. Since then, his connection to time itself had grown volatile. He often glimpsed fragments of the future—or the past—in his dreams.
Veyr stepped forward, his staff wrapped in protective glyphs. "We need to cross the Steppe before dusk. Temporal anomalies grow stronger after nightfall."
Seris glanced to the horizon. "Then let's move."
---
They crossed landscapes frozen mid-cataclysm: a battlefield suspended in eternal mid-charge; a crumbled tower rebuilding itself in reverse; a storm swirling above, thunder rolling backward.
Kael kept his team close. More than once, they heard echoes of their own voices—words they hadn't said yet. Once, they even saw a version of themselves, shimmering like reflections in broken glass, walking in the opposite direction.
"Don't look at them," Veyr warned. "That's your could-have-been. It'll tempt you."
But Kael couldn't help it. One echo version of himself walked with his mother. Alive. Smiling. Laughing.
It took everything in him to turn away.
---
Midway through the Steppe, they encountered the first guardian.
A beast of fractured time—its body splintered between phases. One half burned like fire, the other gleamed like frost. It moved in stuttering pulses, blinking in and out of the timeline.
"Temporal Titan," Ryssa hissed. "Rare. Deadly."
Kael stepped forward. "It bleeds, it dies."
But the battle was unlike anything they'd faced. The Titan struck from before it moved. Its claws tore at events, not bodies. Kael was thrown across a memory of stone, slamming into a wall that hadn't been built yet.
Seris loosed arrows wrapped in delay spells. Veyr countered with time anchors, locking pieces of the battlefield in place. Ryssa charged with a shard-blade, slicing through gaps in space.
Kael, his Gauntlet glowing, felt the right moment—and struck.
The red rune on the Gauntlet pulsed, and for a heartbeat, time listened.
He moved through a crack in the world, slicing the Titan's core across three timelines.
The beast shrieked in fractured voices, collapsing into itself, leaving behind a crater that vibrated with leftover echoes.
Veyr was panting. "You just used a Chrono-Surge. That's not something you learn... that's something you inherit."
Kael stared at his hand. "Then I need to learn to control it."
---
They made camp in the shadow of a dead colossus—a massive stone figure half-consumed by Riftroot. Around them, time pulsed.
Ryssa joined Kael as he sat near a flickering fire. "You saw her again, didn't you? Your mother."
Kael didn't answer.
"This place tests more than our power," she continued. "It wants to break who we are."
He looked at her. "Then I'll let it try."
She nodded. "I'll be beside you when it does."
---
The next day, they found a monument.
A circle of ancient stones hovered above the Steppe, each inscribed with symbols older than the Sovereign. The Gauntlet reacted instantly, glowing violet.
"This is a Timefracture Nexus," Veyr explained. "It's a place where timelines converge. If we can stabilize it, we might be able to track the Sovereign's next move."
Kael stepped forward. The air thickened.
Suddenly, a voice rang out.
"You should not be here."
A woman materialized—her body wrapped in flowing robes of shifting stars. Her eyes glowed like distant moons.
"I am Elariah, Keeper of the Fractures. And you, Kael of the Gauntlet, are far too dangerous to walk this path."
Ryssa drew her blade. "We don't want a fight."
"You'll get one if he touches that stone," Elariah warned.
Kael looked her in the eye. "Why?"
"Because you are more than a weapon. You are a key. The Sovereign seeks to rewrite the ending of the war. If he finds you first, he'll win."
"Then I'll find him first."
Elariah sighed. "So be it."
With a wave of her hand, the Nexus activated.
Time fractured.
Kael was thrown into a void of memories—flashes of battles he hadn't fought, friends he hadn't met, futures he'd yet to choose. He stood face-to-face with himself—older, scarred, powerful beyond belief.
Future Kael spoke: "Don't rush. Power without purpose is destruction. Seek the Heart of the Rift. That's where your answers lie."
Kael nodded.
The vision faded. He was back.
Elariah knelt. "You saw it. Good. Then maybe there's hope."
"Where is the Heart?" he asked.
She pointed west.
"Beyond the Void Peaks. Guarded by a Rift Wyrm. Ancient. Corrupted. If you survive... you may yet become the one who ends this war."
Kael turned to his team.
"We go west. To the Peaks."
Seris grinned. "Let's hunt a dragon."
Veyr groaned. "Of course it's a wyrm."
Ryssa just smiled. "One step closer."
Kael looked to the sky.
The war was far from over.
But he was no longer lost.
He was chosen.
And time itself had begun to recognize him.