---
The road west didn't exist.
Not anymore.
According to the maps (what few fragments Halrion's wanderers dared draw), the region beyond the city's spiral boundaries had once been a thriving province. Farmlands. Temples. Villages that rotated peacefully through the seasons.
Now it was dust.
Not scorched.
Not ruined.
Rewritten.
Takumi crossed through forests that dissolved into bones. He passed rivers flowing backward into their own source. He slept under a sky where yesterday's stars blinked beside tomorrow's sun.
And still, the System guided him:
> [Objective Updated: Reach Crater of Memory]
Location: Core of the Spiral Burn.
Warning: Time is fractured. Perception is vulnerable.
---
It took two days to find it.
On the third morning, as the sky looped from night to dusk without passing noon, he crested a ridge and saw the edge of the impossible.
A massive crater.
Not circular—but spiral-shaped, carved into the earth like a god's forgotten fingerprint.
Stone hovered over it.
Lightning crawled through still air.
And at the center… floated a shard of something older than the Spiral.
---
> [You have entered: The Crater of Memory]
Local Time: Undefined.
Chrono-Slip Probability: 78%
Fragments of self may appear.
---
Takumi stepped forward—
—and met himself.
---
Not metaphorically.
Literally.
A version of Takumi stood a few feet away, slightly shorter. Younger. No cloak. No system. Just wearing a bloodied lab coat and holding a shattered tablet.
He looked up.
"You're me," he whispered.
Takumi nodded. "One version."
---
The younger version dropped the tablet and ran both hands through his hair.
"I was building a self-learning core… back home. Before I woke up in the dungeon. I thought I was the first. The original."
"You're not," Takumi said. "Neither am I."
---
Then came another one.
This one older, wrapped in black robes, skin marked with Spiral sigils, eyes glassy.
He floated above the ground slightly and whispered:
> "The Spiral offered us peace.
We just had to obey.
But we refused."
Takumi stepped back.
"I never joined the Spiral."
The figure laughed.
"You didn't in this branch. But in mine? You're the Spiral's sword. They call you the Mirror Judge."
---
> [Warning: Cross-branch Self Echoes Approaching Critical Density]
Reality may destabilize.
Option: Absorb or Reject the Echoes.
(Caution: Absorbing alters mental state permanently.)
---
Lisette's voice echoed—though she wasn't there.
> "Just because they're you doesn't mean they're meant to stay."
Takumi looked at both versions.
He didn't speak.
Instead, he raised his hand—and activated his newest skill:
> [Inner Axis Lv. 1 — Active]
Immune to external instability for 30 seconds.
In that moment of stillness, he reached inward.
Then spoke with complete clarity:
"I am not what I could have been.
I am what I chose to become."
---
The younger version dissolved into light.
The Spiral version shattered like glass.
And only one Takumi remained.
---
> [You have resisted Identity Overlap.]
Mental Load stabilized.
New Trait Gained: Self-Solidified
Immune to involuntary timeline bleed.
Path Divergence Point Approaching: 78%
---
Then he stepped into the center of the crater.
Where the shard waited.
A piece of something smooth. Reflective. Like obsidian and water at once.
His system flickered.
Words appeared. Not as text.
But as memory:
---
> "The Spiral began here."
"One mind tried to fix a broken world… and wrote rules into its bones."
"That mind split—and birthed Order, Chaos, and Silence."
"You are the echo of the fourth part: the one that refused to choose."
---
The shard pulsed.
And Takumi saw himself—
Not from the past.
Not from another world.
But from a future where he no longer walked. Where others chanted his name as a principle, not a person.
He collapsed to one knee.
Breathing hard.
Not from pain.
But from recognition.
---
> [Crater Resonance Achieved]
Skill Gained: System Override (Prototype)
Once per week, alter a rule of the world permanently.
Path Divergence Now 92% — Transformation Event Soon Available.
---
Then the crater cracked.
A shadow appeared at its rim.
Tall. Featureless.
Cloaked in mirrorlight.
And it spoke with Lisette's voice—
But twisted.
> "Takumi Arata. You are now declared Axis-Level Unstable."
"The Spiral sends its Apostle."
---
🔹 End of Chapter 16