The crack that split the monolith didn't echo—it resonated. It pulsed through the canyon like a heartbeat, stirring layers of time that had long gone dormant. Each tremor unraveled old destinies and invited new ones into being. Ethan's refusal had sent ripples through the temporal plane.
The Architect of Masks withdrew into the monolith's shadow, which had now grown into a spinning helix of fractured timelines—threads of futures that Ethan had not lived, now unraveling and intertwining in real time.
"You've made a choice outside the pattern," the Architect intoned, its many forms shimmering in chaos. "We must see what it yields."
Suddenly, a gust of wind that wasn't wind swept through the group. Cael's chrono-compass spun wildly. Lily gripped her scanner, her expression hardening. "We've triggered a divergence. A major one."
Marcus stood quietly, hand resting on the hilt of his disruptor. "Then we're not on the original path anymore. We're walking a story that's never been told."
Ethan's fingers tightened around the Axis shard. "Good. That means Kalnor won't see it coming."
As they moved beyond the canyon, the landscape shifted—not by geography, but by era. The desert of fractal sands became a garden of stone sculptures, each depicting a scene from alternate realities: wars that never happened, alliances that should have failed but didn't, and versions of Ethan embracing fates he couldn't imagine.
One sculpture showed Ethan in robes of obsidian, standing on the ruins of the Accord. Another showed him kneeling before a younger version of himself. A third depicted him holding a child, his eyes filled with tears.
"These are the costs of your refusal," the Architect's voice echoed faintly. "Paths collapsed, consequences unleashed."
"We already knew this journey wouldn't come free," Lily said. "We just didn't know the currency."
At the edge of the garden stood a doorway carved into nothingness. Not space. Not time. A concept. Through it, lay what the Architect called The Drift—a realm where time's memory floated untethered. It was where Ethan would find the first convergence node—the place where all his timelines briefly met before diverging again.
They entered The Drift.
It was blinding.
Reality splintered. Ethan walked through ten versions of himself at once. In one, he was laughing beside Lily under a canopy of solar flares. In another, he lay in a cell forged of causality, alone and forgotten. Another had no mouth but screamed through the fabric of thought itself.
Lily staggered beside him. "I see too much. I feel too much."
Cael was on his knees, his body flickering like a malfunctioning signal.
"Focus!" Ethan shouted. "Use the shard!"
He drove the Axis shard into the ground.
Instant clarity.
The realm stabilized. The versions faded like fog. And before them stood a pulsing nexus—a glowing lattice of Ethan's lives, rotating in chaotic symmetry.
From its center emerged a projection. It was him, but older. Grayer. Eyes heavy with years Ethan hadn't yet lived.
"You shouldn't be here yet," the older Ethan said.
"Too bad," Ethan replied. "I'm here. And I need to know how to stop Kalnor."
The elder sighed. "Kalnor isn't what you think. It's not just a being—it's a response. A reaction to your becoming."
"Then how do I un-become?"
"You don't," the elder said. "You become something else."
Before Ethan could speak again, the nexus shook violently. A black fissure opened beside them, and through it poured a host of shadow-forms—Kalnor's sentinels. Their bodies weren't matter, but regret made manifest.
"Protect the node!" Cael shouted, firing into the breach.
Lily activated the harmonic dome. Quoros launched into the air, wings wide, sending sonic disruptions through the battlefield.
Ethan faced his older self. "Tell me!"
The elder gritted his teeth. "There's a code inside the Axis. Buried beneath its temporal frequencies. You can only access it by resonating with your truest self."
"How?"
"Die. But not here. Not yet."
The fissure widened. The elder was pulled back, his image shredded by the darkness.
"Remember the word: Originus."
Then he was gone.
The battle raged. Ethan held the shard to his chest. He wasn't ready to die. Not yet. But he was ready to evolve.
He raised the shard high.
It pulsed once.
And everything exploded into white.