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Part I – Declaration of the Test
Kay stood before the empty void, their smile too wide, their eyes glittering with colors no spectrum could name.
Until now, they had simply played. Rolled dice, watched the mortals stumble, laughed when patterns repeated or bent.
But now Kay felt the itch of something deeper. The need for rules.
> "Play is fun," Kay mused aloud, "but play with purpose? That is art."
They raised their hands, and in the void hung seven orbs, each glowing faintly with the light of a continent.
Lyra's home in A'Xarch, where medicine and gene-works thrived.
Kael's Tec'Misk, beating with cybernetic armies.
Selene's An'Qlox, where politics shaped power.
Taro's Zash'A, halls of thought and scrolls.
Veyra's Hom'Os, cities of ambition and sky-reaching towers.
Kay twirled them, like marbles on invisible threads.
> "You shall be my petri dishes. I will test not just how you live…" Kay's grin widened,
"…but how you break when time itself rebels."
They etched two sigils into the void:
n-Time, the straight loop.
m-Time, the twisted variant.
The first experiment was about to begin.
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Part II – The Selection
Kay decided they would not test all continents at once. Chaos was about contrast.
So they whispered into the threads:
A'Xarch would live under n-Time: perfect repetition.
Tec'Misk would bear m-Time: distortion of repetition.
The others would watch, unknowingly, from afar.
"Let us see," Kay giggled, "whether stability breeds strength… or whether corruption makes evolution."
And so, the test began.
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Part III – A'Xarch's Endless Day
Lyra felt it first.
Her continent fell into the perfect loop. Every dawn, every conversation, every heartbeat replayed the same.
At first, the people of A'Xarch were unsettled. But when they realized that actions carried over between loops — small changes in themselves, though the world reset — they adapted.
Scientists discovered they could refine medicine infinitely by repeating the same day's research, carrying their memory forward. Engineers built upon designs they should never have had the time to finish. Farmers perfected harvests with unnatural precision.
A'Xarch flourished unnaturally fast.
But cracks appeared. Those who could not handle the monotony went mad, their minds shattering from the weight of repetition. Entire cities became filled with brilliant innovators alongside hollow-eyed shells whispering, "Tomorrow is yesterday."
Lyra, however, kept walking. She began cataloging the memories of each loop, building what she would later call the Codex of Time.
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Part IV – Tec'Misk's Broken March
Kael's world did not loop cleanly.
In Tec'Misk, m-Time bent like molten glass.
Some days repeated partially. Others skipped, half-forgotten. Soldiers who had died one loop might live in the next — or live but without their memories. Battles shifted in outcome despite identical beginnings.
Kael grew paranoid. He ordered his engineers to record reality itself, to prove the inconsistencies were not madness.
The recordings showed the truth:
Two days overlapped. Armies marched twice. Cities burned and yet still stood. Children were born who should never have existed, only to vanish without trace in the next cycle.
Tec'Misk was tearing itself apart, but in its chaos, new technologies bloomed. Weapons designed to "anchor" existence. Machines that could harness paradox energy.
Kael's paranoia grew into obsession. He whispered to his generals:
> "If reality cannot be trusted… then we must command it."
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Part V – Selene, Taro, and Veyra Observe
Though their continents had not been chosen, the ripples of the experiment reached them.
Selene noticed foreign merchants repeating stories differently, their memories conflicting.
Taro saw ancient scrolls rewriting themselves, small words shifting from one loop to another.
Veyra's sky-cities received traders from A'Xarch and Tec'Misk who carried impossible inventions and equally impossible scars.
They did not yet know Kay's hand — but they felt the world strain.
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Part VI – Kay's Delight
In the void, Kay clapped their hands.
> "Perfect. One world learns to thrive in the prison of repetition. Another twists itself into brilliance through corruption. Neither sees the real joke — that both are mine."
They leaned back, eyes alight.
> "This is only the first experiment. The first cut of the blade. Let's see how deep it goes."
The dice rolled again.
And this time, the dice landed with two faces showing at once.
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