Neo stood before an older version of himself. Same face, same scar under the left eye, but heavier. The older Neo's movements carried weight, like he'd been pulled through a thousand storms and somehow crawled back out.
"You're probably wondering why or how I'm here," the older Neo said. His voice wasn't harsh, but tired, like every word had been tested before. "I'm you, from the future, here to keep us from repeating mistakes. I've given my life to do time travel for you. You see—we change events, but I'm here to make sure we don't make the wrong ones."
Neo's mouth was dry. "This… doesn't make sense."
"Time doesn't care about sense," the older version said. "Only cycles. Only pressure. And you've been thrown into the current whether you like it or not."
The younger Neo clenched his fists. "What am I supposed to do?"
"Complete the mission. Inject Sovereign into the Nynx Plane." His eyes narrowed. "But when you return… there will be resistance."
"Resistance?"
"A devil. The Devil of Time." The older one's voice sharpened. "Do not fight him. If you fight, you'll be caught in a time loop you can't escape. Two hundred years will pass before you breathe free air again, and we don't age like normal humans. You'll survive it, but you won't survive yourself."
The younger Neo swallowed, his throat tight. "And you know this how?"
"Because I already did it." The older version's grin was bitter. "And I don't want you to."
Then he stepped back, fading like an image being burned out of film, and Neo was alone again—except he wasn't.
The mission waited.
---
The rift in front of him didn't glow like the others. It shimmered thin, a crack in reality stretched until it looked like glass ready to break. Neo steadied his breathing, pulled his resonance in tight, and stepped through.
The world shifted.
Pressure closed around him, folding every angle of his body until it felt like his bones had been filed down. Time wasn't a road—it was water. He was sinking, floating, dragged sideways. Seconds stretched into miles, minutes crumbled into dust.
And then—light.
Neo stumbled onto the marble ground of the Future Realm's Nynx Plane. Not just a realm, but a system that felt new, raw, unfinished. The air crackled with quantum echoes, Sovereign's pulse beating faint but steady across the horizon.
He pulled the injector from his coat. His hand didn't shake, though the air did. He pressed it into the marble ground. The liquid shimmered bright, threads running outward like veins, sinking into the core of the plane.
It was done. Sovereign was seeded.
For a moment, everything was silent.
Then the world bent.
-
Neo landed hard, breath torn out of him. This wasn't the Future Realm anymore. It wasn't the Human Realm either. The air was sharp, ringing with ticks and tolls, as if every second of history was being measured at once.
He was in the Time Realm.
It stretched endless—gears spun in the air, chains pinned stars to the ground, rivers of sand flowed upward instead of down. Every step echoed like he was walking inside someone else's memory.
And waiting for him was the Devil of Time.
Grotesque. Horns twisted into spirals that dripped molten light, teeth stretched into fangs that bled seconds instead of saliva. His skin was a mosaic of cracked clock faces, each showing a different, impossible hour. Time itself bent around him, a river breaking against stone.
Neo froze. His instincts screamed to fight.
The devil tilted his head. "Ahh… untouched child." His voice stacked itself, one sound over another, like clocks chiming out of sync. "Heed the warning. Time is not your friend."
Neo's jaw locked. "Move aside."
The devil's grin spread like a fracture. "You burn too fast. The fanged one will abandon you. Yet it is needed for my master. You may pass."
Neo's chest tightened. His older self's words hissed back into his head: Don't fight him.
"What if I don't move?" Neo asked, voice harsh.
"Then you loop. Two hundred years of seconds chewing your mind into nothing." The devil leaned close, and Neo smelled rust and sand. "You won't die. But you'll wish you had."
Neo's throat bobbed. Slowly, he stepped back, then forward, then through.
The devil didn't lift a hand to stop him. He only watched with cracked-clock eyes, grinning wide.
And then the world snapped.
---
Neo stumbled through a final rift and collapsed onto the wooden floor of the apartment. The air smelled of cigarettes, ramen broth, burnt coffee. Home.
"Kai—" he rasped.
"Kai!"
Kai rushed him like a spark catching gasoline. His eyes shone too bright, his voice tumbling out fast. "You won't believe this! Neo, the Future Realm—it's real! People are saying they tapped Sovereign's quantum entanglement and actually talked to it. Communicated through time! Actual data came back!"
Neo blinked, lungs still raw. "It… it wasn't there before."
Kai froze mid-stride. "What?"
"The Future Realm," Neo whispered, staring at the floor. "It didn't exist until I did this."
Kai's laugh came too loud, too sharp. "Don't say creepy shit like that. It's been there, man—it's just now we can see it." He paced, arms carving through the air. "Concord's scrambling like headless chickens, scientists are losing their damn minds, and on top of it all—Zoma. The God of Sloth. Just walked into the realm like he owned it. Do you get what that means?"
Neo's lips parted, but no words came. The tick of the Time Realm still rang in his skull.
"They've got proof, Neo! Real, hard proof. Data packets jumping through time, stamped with dates we haven't even reached yet. This isn't rumor. This is the whole world cracking open."
Neo leaned back against the wall, chest heaving. "And you're excited."
"Of course I'm excited!" Kai almost shouted. His grin was wild, uneven. "This changes everything. Classes, clans, the Concord—they're all gonna rewrite the rules overnight. We're living through history. Don't you feel it?"
Neo let out a ragged breath. "What I feel is… heavy."
Kai crouched in front of him, eyes burning. "You're too calm about this. Why aren't you losing it with me?"
Neo stared at him for a long moment, then placed a hand on Kai's shoulder. "Because someone needs to be calm."
For a beat, Kai softened. Then he was pacing again, spinning words too fast to catch. Neo let them blur together, humming like static. He watched, half-smiling, half-sick, and thought of the Devil's grin.
Time wasn't a tool. It was a cage.
But Kai's joy was wildfire. And for one fragile moment, Neo let himself believe too.
---
Week Skip
The next week, the world tilted further.
Scientists screamed across every channel, hurling theories like confetti. Concord pushed out rushed statements, more politics than sense. Manga appeared serialized "straight from the Future Realm," like ink had been mailed from tomorrow. Every day felt like standing on cracking ice.
Then came the announcement.
A new game: Fable. Not a normal MMO. A system rooted in the Future Realm's Nynx Plane. Soul transport tech. Real resonance. Real injury.
The disclaimer spread faster than the trailers: Four deaths only. After that, your soul suffers permanent damage.
Kai read it once, twice, then grinned so wide Neo thought his face might split.
Neo said nothing. He watched Kai's excitement boil over, watched the whole world tumble toward it like moths to a flame.
And in the back of his mind, he still heard the Devil's voice: Carry the burden of your own clock.
Rift Leaper wasn't just rifts.
It wasn't just space.
It was time.
And that truth scared him more than any devil.