The Continuum Fracture dominated the viewscreen, a rip in reality that pulsed with colors human eyes weren't designed to see. It wasn't just space tearing apart; it was as if time, probability, and physics themselves were fraying at the edges.
The Eidolon Spire drifted closer, shields humming softly.
Seris stood beside Kaelen, arms crossed. "Every time I look at it, it feels wrong. Like… reality itself is bleeding."
Kaelen nodded. "That's not far from the truth. Think of our universe as a woven cloth. Every thread is a timeline, a sequence of events. The Fracture…" He gestured at the swirling anomaly. "…is where the cloth has ripped, and the threads are tangling together."
Seris frowned. "So when we travel through it…"
"We're not just moving through space," Kaelen explained. "We're moving through all possible versions of space and time overlapping at once. Dangerous, but useful, if you know how to navigate it."
As the ship inched forward, Kaelen activated the Probability Disruptor.
Seris glanced at the console. "Still not sure I get how that thing works."
Kaelen smiled faintly. "Imagine the future as a set of branching roads. Normally, reality follows one path. The Disruptor doesn't create new roads, it just shakes the map so hard that your opponent takes the wrong turn while you stay on course."
Seris blinked. "So it doesn't break the rules. It just… bends the odds?"
"Exactly," Kaelen said. "It doesn't give us control over everything. It just tilts probability in our favor, temporarily."
As the Spire crossed the fracture's threshold, Kaelen felt his alternate selves linking again, versions of him in different timelines, each solving problems slightly differently.
Seris watched him tense. "What does it feel like? All those… other versions of you?"
Kaelen paused before answering. "Imagine playing chess against the same opponent a hundred times at once. Each version of you tries a different opening. At the end, you keep the memories of every game, every mistake, every win. That's what it's like."
"Sounds overwhelming."
"It is," Kaelen admitted. "That's why I only merge the ones that help. Too many, and my mind would collapse under the weight of possibilities."
The Eidolon Spire drifted through the anomaly.
Time felt… wrong here. Stars in the distance flickered between birth and death. Fragments of alternate realities drifted like broken glass: a planet frozen in ice, then the same planet burning, then gone entirely.
"Multiple timelines bleeding together," Kaelen explained softly. "Normally, they stay separate. But the Fracture forces them to overlap. The Star Titans… seem to use this place as both a battlefield and a laboratory."
Seris shivered. "Laboratory?"
"They test things here," Kaelen said. "Ships. Weapons. Maybe even us."
Then they saw them.
Three Star Titans loomed in the distance, orbiting the fracture's center. Their colossal structures of crystal, metal, and energy pulsed like the hearts of dying suns.
Seris whispered, "Why do they just… watch?"
Kaelen's eyes narrowed. "They're not passive. They're studying every engagement, adapting. Think of them as… chess players who never lose the same way twice."
Seris exhaled slowly. "And you plan to beat them?"
Kaelen's gaze was fixed on the Titans. "Not beat. Outsmart. There's a difference."
Kaelen turned back to the console. "Deploy probes. We'll map every distortion, every reaction the Titans have to our presence. The Fracture itself is dangerous enough, if they attack here, we'll need every advantage possible."
Seris hesitated. "And if they don't attack?"
Kaelen's voice was calm, almost cold. "Then it means they're planning something worse."
The Eidolon Spire drifted deeper into the Continuum Fracture. The void around them pulsed like a living thing. The farther they traveled, the more reality itself seemed to hesitate, as if unsure which version of events was supposed to be real.
Kaelen stood at the command console, eyes scanning the data streaming in from the probes. The readings made no sense, timelines folding into each other, energy patterns vanishing mid-measurement, distant stars flickering between collapse and rebirth in seconds.
Seris stepped beside him. "It feels like… the deeper we go, the less real everything becomes."
Kaelen didn't answer at first. His mind was already assembling models of the Fracture's structure, predicting threats before they appeared. Or so he thought.
The three Star Titans still hovered near the center of the Fracture, vast constructs of crystalized energy and orbiting star-masses. They hadn't moved nor did they attacked. They just watched.
And that bothered Kaelen.
"They're waiting," he said finally. "Every time before this, they reacted. But now? Nothing."
Seris frowned. "Maybe they're letting us in too easily."
"Or maybe," Kaelen said softly, "they're studying us so closely they already know how this ends."
The first shock came without warning.
One of Kaelen's forward probes, a drone mapping probability distortions, transmitted a single image before vanishing completely from every timeline.
The image was… impossible.
Not a Star Titan. Not a Fractal Armada ship. Something else. A shape made of shifting geometry, a structure that seemed alive yet mechanical, predating even the Titans themselves.
Kaelen froze. "Run that image again."
Seris tried. "I can't. It's gone. Like it never existed."
Kaelen's eyes narrowed. "No. It existed. Which means the Titans are not the oldest thing in this fracture."
Before Kaelen could analyze further, the fracture pulsed violently.
But this time, it wasn't the Titans.
A wave of energy erupted from deep inside the anomaly, nothing like the Titans' controlled attacks or the Armada's weaponry. This was raw, chaotic, unmapped.
Reality around the Eidolon Spire split like shattered glass. Space folded in on itself, tearing open impossible geometries. Ships from the Fractal Armada, entire fleets, were suddenly ripped apart, erased from existence without warning.
Seris clutched the console. "What was that? The Titans didn't fire!"
Kaelen's jaw tightened. "No. Something else just entered the game."
For the first time, Kaelen felt behind. His models, his predictions, everything collapsed under this new data. Whatever had struck didn't follow the patterns he'd spent battles decoding.
The Titans finally moved, their colossal structures pulling back from the blast radius, as though even they wanted nothing to do with what had just happened.
Seris's voice shook. "If the Titans are retreating… what could scare them?"
Kaelen stared at the fracture's depths. For the first time since this war began, his brilliant mind had no answers.
"We've been assuming the Titans were the ultimate threat," he said quietly. "We were wrong."
The Eidolon Spire floated in silence. In the distance, the unknown shape flickered again before disappearing into the anomaly's core.
Kaelen didn't look away. "There's something deeper in the Fracture. Older than the Titans. Strong enough to make them retreat."
Seris whispered, "And we just walked into its territory."
Kaelen finally turned, eyes sharp. "No. We were invited."