Chapter Next: "The Shattered Depths"
The air thickened as they descended into the earth.
Gone were the violet skies and the haunted winds of the ruined city. Here, beneath layers of shattered stone and collapsed memory, the world felt older—ancient beyond time, heavy with forgotten truths. Each step Lina and Kai took echoed off unseen walls, swallowed by the dark like secrets left unspoken.
"This place isn't just underground," Kai muttered, his voice hushed. "It's underneath everything. Like a wound beneath the skin of the world."
Lina held the crystal shard in her hand. It pulsed faintly, guiding them deeper. "The girl said the next fragment forgot himself. If that's true, then this place… it's probably shaped by that forgetting."
As if summoned by her words, the corridor opened into a vast cavern.
Black stone stretched out in every direction, broken only by the occasional floating island of jagged rock, suspended in midair by invisible force. Between them, rivers of light and shadow twisted through the void—neither solid nor liquid, but something in between.
At the center of it all was a figure.
Chained to a throne of obsidian, a man sat slumped forward—his arms bound by spectral links that hummed with power. His hair was white as bone, cascading around him like a frozen waterfall, and his skin glowed faintly with runic scars. One eye was closed. The other—empty and cracked like a shattered moon.
Kai's hand went instinctively to his blade. "Is that…?"
"The fragment," Lina confirmed. "But something's wrong."
The moment her foot touched the floor of the cavern, the man's eye opened.
The chains shuddered.
A whisper ran through the chamber—not a voice, but a memory.
"You left me here."
Lina gasped as her knees buckled. Her mind flooded with images not her own: battles lost in collapsing timelines, choices made in desperation, allies turned enemies. In each vision, she saw herself—and saw him—on opposite sides of war.
The man stood, the chains breaking with a sound like thunder.
"I remember you," he growled, his voice filled with betrayal and pain. "You promised you'd never forget me."
Lina took a step back. "I—That wasn't me. Not this version of me."
His face twisted. "They all say that."
With a roar, he raised his hand—and the cavern shattered.
Reality buckled as they were hurled into a storm of glass and stars. Lina and Kai landed hard on a floating platform spinning through the void, the fragment standing above them, cloak billowing like wings of night.
"I am Eryon, once guardian of the last gate," he declared. "Now, I am the blade that severs false timelines."
He conjured a weapon from the air—twin blades forged from memory and regret—and charged.
Kai met him first, steel against light, the clash releasing bursts of forgotten pain.
Lina circled wide, her breath steady. "He's lost, but not broken," she whispered. "He still remembers something."
She reached into her cloak, pulling the crystal shard from earlier. As it glowed brighter, it began to sing—a soft, resonant tone that cut through the fury like a bell through mist.
Eryon froze mid-swing.
The song wrapped around him.
Lina stepped forward, voice trembling but clear. "You called me a liar. But I never forgot you. I just haven't met you yet."
The storm slowed. The glass stopped falling.
Eryon's hands shook as the blades dissipated. "You… you still have the shard?"
She nodded.
He collapsed to his knees, the rage draining from his face, leaving only exhaustion. "Then it's not too late."
Kai helped him up cautiously. "We need you. The Watcher said—"
"I know," Eryon interrupted. "The Architects move. The Collapse begins."
Lina looked around the floating fragments of space. "Is there a way out of here?"
Eryon smiled faintly, raising a hand. A portal of woven light opened before them.
"There's always a path," he said. "The question is—are you ready to walk it?"
Lina looked at Kai. He nodded.
Together, they stepped through.
Into the next piece of the end.
To be continued…