The sunlight poured like liquid gold across the skyline of New Imperium City as Jason Blake stepped out of the aerial capsule that had descended onto the highest tier of the Skyspire Consortium Building. This wasn't just any building—it was a fortress of influence, and today, it was ground zero for an event that only a handful of the wealthiest in the multiverse could even witness: The Auction of Fates.
Jason was no longer just a rich man. With the System evolving and the Genesis Panel unlocked, his value had surpassed monetary form. He was now the bearer of blueprints for impossible technology, lost knowledge, and most importantly—an artifact called the Mirror Core, still dormant in his possession after the incident at the Vault of Solaris.
He wasn't here to bid.
He was here to bait.
Inside the auction hall, crystalline chandeliers hovered unaided by physics. The ceiling reflected a living sky, one that mirrored the state of the universe—it was storming. A massive, rune-inscribed amphitheater was packed with elites from every corner of Earth and beyond: Void Syndicate overlords, off-world moguls from Orion Prime, old-money aristocrats, AI-conscious investors, and representatives from secret Orders who governed fate from the shadows.
Jason wore a sharp obsidian suit embedded with quantum-weave threads. At his side stood Auri, cloaked in an AI-linked silk robe that shimmered with shifting language codes—an interpreter of all realities.
"You sure this will draw them out?" Auri whispered, eyes scanning the crowd.
Jason didn't answer. Instead, his gaze locked on a man seated at the apex of the arena: Lucien Kael, the head of ChronoBank and the masked financier behind the Lunar Syndicates. His presence confirmed it—Jason's bait had worked.
The opening of the auction was ceremonial, almost theatrical. An ethereal projection floated to the center: a beautiful woman with a digitalized crown—the Auctioneer AI known as Vestra.
"Today," she spoke with a voice tuned to induce compulsion, "we trade not in gold, nor in shares, but in destinies. Prepare your identities. Prepare your souls."
The audience responded with encrypted biometric pulses. One by one, realities were wagered. A temporal fragment of the Roman Empire's timeline. A complete consciousness transfer license from the Immortals of Sector 14. The seed of a phoenix born on a dying sun.
But none of it mattered. Not yet.
Jason activated the encrypted node in his neural System.
[System Prompt: Genesis Auction Triggered]
You have unveiled an artifact of Origin-Level Classification.
Upload Mirror Core Status?
[Y/N]
Jason confirmed.
Vestra paused mid-sentence. A shudder ran through the auditorium.
"...New item detected. Uncatalogued. Origin Source: Forbidden Zone—Vault of Solaris."
The room turned into chaos. Every head snapped to attention. Silent alerts were exchanged. Eyes narrowed.
Then, as if fate held its breath, Vestra announced:
"Behold, Lot #77—The Mirror Core."
A blinding beam of light flooded the center of the amphitheater as the Mirror Core was digitally projected, rotating slowly. Its surface was a shifting mirror, revealing different versions of everyone in the room—alternate selves, twisted reflections, forgotten potentials. It showed Jason as a tyrant, a beggar, a god, a child.
A collective gasp filled the room. Even Lucien Kael leaned forward.
"This item cannot be replicated, forged, or counterfeited," Vestra said. "It is bound to the Genesis Protocol. Ownership of this artifact does not grant mere wealth. It grants… possibility."
Jason stepped forward, his voice clear.
"I'm not selling it."
The room erupted.
"You brought it to an auction!" cried one Syndicate Lord. "You activated Genesis pathways!"
Lucien Kael stood, raising a hand. The room fell silent.
"Jason Blake. We meet at last," Lucien said. "Tell me, then… why parade a divine object if you don't intend to sell it?"
Jason's lips curled into a smile. "Because I'm not here to trade futures. I'm here to reveal the thief of destinies."
Before Lucien could react, Jason's neural command pulsed.
[System Function Activated: Echo Reveal]
Scanning genetic and temporal residues in proximity to the Mirror Core…
Match found. Level 3 Chrono Theft Detected.
Target: Lucien Kael
The ceiling cracked. Reality pulsed. The air vibrated with ancestral energy as time began folding.
Lucien's true identity shimmered: not just a banker, but a Chrono-Leech, a parasite who siphoned probability ranges and restructured the fate of worlds by erasing alternatives.
"You stole the Echo Paths of over seven billion lives to stay at the top," Jason said, voice amplified by the System. "You were behind the collapse of the Solaris Vault. You corrupted the Mirror Core's twin."
Lucien's mask disintegrated, revealing not flesh but a swirling void of discarded timelines. A thousand voices cried from his form.
And then chaos erupted.
Security droids armed with dimensional anchors stormed the amphitheater. The elite guests transformed—some into mechanized gods, others into beasts. Hidden factions revealed themselves. Factions Jason had planned for.
Cassie and Ryker teleported in via teleportation blink nodes, taking cover behind phase shields. Auri spun backward, summoning a sentient blade from her AI-silk. Marek, the rogue timeline engineer, stepped out from a shadow that hadn't existed a second ago.
"Keep Lucien locked," Jason ordered. "I need to reactivate the Genesis Seal."
Lucien rose into the air, his eyes glowing with spirals of probability. "You think this ends here?"
"You ended when you erased your humanity," Jason snapped.
He summoned the Mirror Core back into his palm. It pulsed, synchronizing with his System.
[System Function: Core Harmony Achieved]
Unlocking Branch: Destiny Reclamation
Initializing Seal Protocol…
3… 2… 1…
The Mirror Core exploded into tendrils of energy. They wrapped around Lucien, weaving through time, rewriting his history, reversing every theft he ever committed.
Lucien screamed.
"No… no! You can't return what was stolen! That will collapse the present!"
Jason walked forward through the temporal storm. "Then let the present be worthy of the past."
As the last of the Mirror Core's energy settled, Lucien Kael's form collapsed into a pile of ash and broken fragments of time. The auction guests fled, terrified. Some knelt. Others vanished entirely—false entities undone by the truth.
Vestra flickered and bowed.
"Genesis Rebalance complete," she said.
Auri walked up, bruised and bleeding from the short battle. "That was insane."
Jason didn't smile. "It was necessary."
He turned and looked out at the city from the now-broken glass amphitheater. In the distance, the skyline shimmered—the world trying to realign itself to a future no longer controlled.
Behind him, the Mirror Core floated, smaller now, its energy used but not extinguished.
"Was that the end?" Cassie asked, finally catching her breath.
Jason shook his head. "No. That was only one thief. There are more. The Council's fractures run deeper than we thought."
A soft ping echoed in Jason's mind.
[System Alert: Origin Thread Detected — New Pathway: Ecliptic Protocol]
He sighed. "We just unlocked the next door."