The cutting cold now felt distant.
The team, trained to hunt and survive, immediately began sweeping the area.
The mission was far from over.
—
Kael gave the order:
— Track and recover.
— We need to understand what they were trying to protect or destroy.
Without losing time, Helena and Claudia searched the nearby containers.
Marie and Patricia secured the perimeter, ensuring no enemy patrols would approach.
Nikita and Camila inspected the remains of the evaporated bodies — despite the risk of residual energy.
Amina and Samantha scanned the area for lingering temporal distortions.
Kael, alert, maintained central coverage.
—
Samantha was the first to find something.
In one of the old warehouses, hidden among shattered barrels, there was a strange device:
Small, portable.
Apparently some kind of generator.
Emitting an almost imperceptible pulse — like a mechanical heartbeat.
Amina quickly analyzed it.
Her face paled.
— This... — she whispered — is a Temporal Disjunction Core.
Kael approached.
He frowned.
He knew what that meant.
—
The Disjunction Core was capable of destabilizing local timelines.
Over time, it could open irreversible fissures.
And if it had been activated there, at the heart of World War II...
All of human history could have been rewritten.
Victories and defeats reversed.
Births and deaths erased.
Civilizations diverted into oblivion.
—
Kael activated the portable energy blocker.
Samantha and Amina, together, disconnected the core with surgical precision.
The device was sealed inside a special League containment container.
By luck — or perhaps by fate — the device had not yet been activated.
They had arrived in time.
—
Helena approached.
— We recovered a fragment of an anomalous codex... — she said, handing over a metallic shard engraved with Abyssal symbols.
Kael took the object.
The symbols glowed in dark hues, pulsing like living poison.
It was a warning.
The Abyss was not merely trying to corrupt the past.
It was trying to rewrite the future.
—
Kael pocketed the fragment.
If there was a silent war underway...
They were now at its very center.
And they could not afford to fail.