The echo-Oroth moved like a shadow stretched across time. Every strike bent reality, every footstep echoed with the weight of futures that never should've been. His blade didn't clash—it erased.
Kazen barely dodged a sweep that turned half a boulder into fragmented light. "This thing is a paradox. Fighting it is like punching a memory."
"It is a memory," the real Oroth growled. "A version of me who failed to seal the breach."
Rael circled wide. "How do we beat something that already lived its death?"
"We show it another path," Oroth said.
Kazen smirked. "You thinking what I'm thinking?"
"Patchling," Oroth called, "extract timeline signatures from his echo field."
"On it—warning: future contamination rising."
She projected a sphere of layered time between them. Inside it, dozens of broken timelines flickered. In one, Oroth knelt before a god-entity. In another, he fought Kazen. In most, he died alone.
"Show him this one," Kazen said, pointing to the only timeline where they fought the void together and survived.
The echo paused mid-swing. Its corrupted eyes locked on the sphere.
"You're not me," it said slowly, like someone hearing their own voice for the first time.
"No," Oroth answered. "I'm the one who didn't give in."
He plunged his sword into the time-sphere. The timeline merged into the echo like a virus in reverse. It shimmered, glitched—then dropped the blade.
The echo-Oroth stepped back, bowing his head.
"Close it," he whispered. "Seal the breach. Before I become me again."
Rael activated a glyph: the Voidlock Sigil.
Kazen and Oroth joined in.
Patchling initiated final sync.
> Protocol: Temporal Seal — Confirmed
> Timeline Anchor Established
> Breach Lock: 91%
> Error: Incoming anomaly
A new shadow emerged from the breach—not humanoid, not a future, but a concept with form. It howled like broken dreams and moved like deleted files trying to scream.
Patchling's voice cracked. "This isn't a memory. It's raw void. No past, no future."
Kazen stepped forward. "Then we stop it in the present."