The roar of the underground arena was deafening, but Jae-Won's mind filtered it out. His eyes remained fixed on the monitor overhead, displaying the aftermath of the skirmish that had just occurred in Sub-Level 5. Smoke, rubble, and blood. Serin's digital trail had vanished again, but it left behind more than silence—it left a question burning in his mind.
Why was she heading deeper into the system?
"Commander," a voice buzzed in his comms. "We've detected a Temporal Rift anomaly forming just ahead of her last known position. It's unstable."
"Of course it is," Jae-Won muttered, holstering his glowing dagger. "She's not just running. She's baiting me."
He turned to the remaining squad members. "Initiate lockdown protocols across Sub-Level 6 and 7. If she slips through again, we're done."
The squad dispersed, their boots echoing in synchronized precision. Jae-Won moved alone through the corridor, the glitch effect flickering faintly across his left arm. It had grown more intense the closer he got to Serin. Was it her proximity? Or was his ability evolving again?
When he finally reached the rift, it was still stabilizing. Sparks of violet and cerulean shimmered like threads of broken time, and the air vibrated like a tense string ready to snap. He could almost feel her presence.
"Come out, Serin," he said aloud. "You dragged me through enough broken timelines. At least give me the truth."
A moment passed. Then she stepped out from behind the control hub. Her face, unchanged by time, was unreadable. Her black combat uniform clung like it had been grown, not worn, and in her hand was not a weapon, but a cracked temporal beacon.
"You finally caught up," she said softly. "But you already knew this would happen."
"Tell me why. Why the betrayal? Why let them kill me and reboot time like a broken machine?"
She lowered the beacon. "Because they needed a villain. And you were too good at being the hero."
The room stilled.
Serin took a slow step forward. "You glitched because you were never meant to exist the way you did. Every time you saved someone, the system faltered. Every time you resisted the timeline, it cracked. The Overseers couldn't allow that. So they chose me."
His grip on the dagger tightened, but his hand shook.
"I trusted you."
"I know," she whispered. "That's what made it work."
The rift behind her flared suddenly, warping their reflections in fractured glass. Serin's eyes glowed faintly now, not purple like his, but an eerie white. Something else was happening to her.
"This is the last stable moment before the Collapse Event begins," she said. "If you cross through this rift, everything changes. You won't be able to come back."
"So you're warning me now? After all this?"
"I'm giving you a choice. You can keep chasing revenge, or you can break the cycle. If you go through, your power will evolve. But you'll lose pieces of who you are."
Jae-Won stared at her.
And then at the rift.
Broken timelines. Betrayal. The weight of a fractured future.
He stepped forward.
"I never asked to be the hero. But if I have to fall again, it won't be for nothing."
And with that, he st
epped into the rift.
The world shattered into light.