The ascent from Echo Trench was slow and haunting.
Kaien walked at the front of the small group now—Mirra, Gorran, and Lyra following behind. The air grew thinner the closer they got to the Spiral Rift. Around them, echoes still whispered from the walls, but none dared reach for him anymore. With two sparks fused inside him, Kaien radiated a resonance they could not overwrite.
He no longer simply walked through time.
He parted it.
Even Lyra—battle-hardened and half-rewritten by Expansion—watched him now with something close to reverence. Or was it fear?
They emerged from the trench into a broken dawn, where the sun hung split in three across different planes of the sky. Reality was thinner here. Fragile. Waiting.
Kaien turned to Mirra. "How do we get to the Fractured Moon?"
She looked to Lyra.
The once-Knight stepped forward, her voice colder now. "You don't fly to it. You can't walk or jump or phase through. The Fractured Moon is locked beyond physical time. It was sealed during the Expansion Bloom. The only way through is with a Gatekeeper."
Gorran muttered, "And they're extinct."
Lyra looked at Kaien.
"Not all."
They traveled to a ruin known as The Gleam.
What remained of it was barely a shell—half a temple, half a collapsed mind, suspended between the crust of the planet and the rift that led to space. Old time-tech structures jutted from the cliffs like ribs. The winds carried old programming protocols that looped endlessly, glitching.
"The Gatekeeper is buried here," Lyra said. "Or what remains of it."
Kaien stood before the broken threshold.
It didn't look like a tomb.
It looked like a dream left unfinished.
The steps twisted upward into a half-arch—where the sky bent in unnatural colors, revealing not stars, but moments.
A memory screamed across the rift—an echo of a gate long-closed.
Kaien stepped through it.
The inside of the Gleam was colder than the Echo Trench.
Here, time wasn't shattered.
It was silenced.
No echoes. No movement. No resonance. Just walls of steel and script, and a pulse Kaien could feel in his fingertips—steady, dormant, ancient.
They entered a central chamber with an obelisk at its center, wrapped in spiral threads of crystal and vine. The words on the walls were written in languages Kaien didn't know—but somehow understood.
They all said the same thing:
"Only when the Will is strong may the Door be opened."
Mirra frowned. "Where's the Gatekeeper?"
Lyra knelt beside the obelisk.
"In there."
Kaien approached the stone. The closer he came, the louder the pulse grew—until it matched his own heartbeat. He reached out a hand. The moment his skin brushed the cold surface, a rush of memory flooded his mind.
But this wasn't Elion's spark.
This was older.
A consciousness slumbering in chains of forgotten purpose.
And then, from the stone, a voice:
"Identify."
Kaien steadied himself. "I am Kaien. Carrier of the twin sparks."
A pause. Then:
"Verification incomplete. Gate Protocol denied."
Kaien tried again. "Elion sent me. I carry his memory."
The voice responded, flat.
"Elion is expired. The Spiral is stabilized. There is no need for Gates."
Lyra stepped forward. "Override. Lyra of House Seraph. Chrono-Knight rank eleven. Authorization Tesseract Nine."
A pause.
"Rank compromised. Knight Seraph is corrupted. Clearance denied."
Kaien's fists clenched. "I need to reach the Fractured Moon. There's a Seed there."
Silence.
Then, the voice shifted.
Deeper.
Slower.
More... personal.
"To open the path… you must offer memory. A piece of truth.Sacrifice what binds you.Or remain closed forever."
The room darkened.
The obelisk shuddered, and the floor split open beneath Kaien's feet. He fell—not into darkness, but into a memory.
His own.
He stood on a spiral bridge over a sea of stars, barefoot, wearing the coat from his childhood—patched, dusty, familiar. Before him was a version of himself, younger, fearful, holding a silver toy clock.
The clock from his childhood.
The one he buried when the world ended.
Kaien understood.
This was the price.
He had to give up something that still mattered.
He knelt, taking the clock in his hands. It was lighter than he remembered. It didn't tick anymore—but it held all the years he had survived.
He whispered, "Thank you."
Then, he placed it into the sky.
The bridge unraveled.
And the Gatekeeper woke.
Kaien's eyes snapped open.
The obelisk split apart—light pouring from its core like water. The spiral vines unraveled, floating in the air.
And from the center emerged a figure.
Not flesh. Not machine.
But will.
A being of pure memory-logic, shaped like a humanoid made of glass and timeflow. Its voice was no longer hollow—it was full. Gentle. Resonant.
"Kaien of the Twin Sparks.You have passed the Offering.The Gate shall open."
The chamber transformed.
The walls rotated, revealing a vast arch now pulsing with blue and gold fire. Outside it—visible through the arch—was a moon torn in half, its core exposed, spiraling slowly in zero gravity.
The Fractured Moon.
Kaien turned to the others.
"We go now."
Mirra nodded, eyes wide.
Gorran, still stunned, gave a grunt of agreement.
Lyra touched the edge of the Gate.
"I never thought I'd see it again."
Kaien looked at the Gatekeeper. "What are you?"
The being replied with a soft smile.
"I am the memory of the first path.The key once lost.The final truth you will one day remember."
Kaien stepped into the gate.
The light enveloped him.
And he fell—upward—toward the next spark.