Morning did not arrive gently.It crawled over the compound like a wounded thing, pale light leaking through broken clouds and shattered skyline, touching the embers of last night's fires as if afraid they might bite back. The air still tasted of ash and old god-blood, and the city beyond the walls remained unnaturally quiet—Lagos holding its breath the way prey does when it senses something large moving in the dark. Kael had not slept. He sat where he always did when sleep refused him: on the roof's edge, coat wrapped around him like a funeral shroud, crimson-silver veins faint beneath skin, hunger-voice coiled deep inside his ribs like a beast pretending to be calm.
Below, the compound began to stir.
Uzo's laughter returned first, forced and loud, as though noise could keep fear from settling into the cracks. Ifeoma moved between beds with steady hands. Zara sharpened her blade with wings tucked tight. Jide's golden orbs floated lazily, dim in the daylight. Amara watched shadows the way others watched the sky, as if expecting them to whisper secrets back. Enoch prayed harder than usual, pendant-eye closed so tightly it looked stitched shut.
And then Lina Voss returned.
She appeared at the gate just after dawn, alone, hood pulled back, silver chain pulsing against her throat with irregular rhythm. She didn't look like someone coming to ask for help.
She looked like someone coming to confess to a crime that hadn't happened yet.
Kael descended without a word.
Veyra followed, galaxies spinning slowly beneath her skin, her presence bending the air around her in a way that made the world feel less real.
Lina's gaze locked onto Kael immediately.
"No delays," she said.
Kael's voice was rough. "Where?"
Lina turned without waiting for agreement. "Carter Bridge."
The name made something in the compound shift—an old wound in the city's memory. Even Uzo stopped talking.
"The bridge is dead," Amara murmured. "Collapsed during the first Rift Surge."
"It's still standing," Lina replied, "in the wrong way. Half of it is here. Half of it is… somewhere else."
Kael's claws flexed once.
Time.
That word sat heavy.
They left within minutes.
No grand farewell. No speeches. Only the quiet understanding that the city did not forgive hesitation.The streets were worse in daylight.
At night, darkness hid ruin.In morning, ruin became honest.
Buildings leaned like exhausted giants. Rift-scorched asphalt cracked beneath their boots. The air shimmered in places where reality had been stitched back together too quickly, like a wound closed without cleaning. They passed a market frozen mid-collapse, fruit still rotting on abandoned stalls, flies moving in slow spirals that didn't match the wind.
And beneath it all… the hum.
Kael heard it first.
Not sound.
Not voice.
A vibration in the bones of existence.
Veyra's galaxies spun faster.
Lina's chain pulsed violently.
"We're close," she whispered.
Carter Bridge emerged from the fog like a broken spine.
It should not have been there.
The bridge had fallen months ago.
Kael remembered watching it crumble into the river during the first bleed-wave, the Rift chewing through steel like paper.
But now…It stood.
Half of it.
The far end did not connect to land.
It connected to nothing.To emptiness.
To a curtain of warped air that flickered like heat above fire.
The Rift was small—only three meters wide.
But it was wrong.
It wasn't bleeding blood.
It wasn't bleeding monsters.
It was bleeding moments.
A child stepped out.
Then vanished.
An old man followed, walking backward, mouth moving in silent screams.
Then rewound into the Rift like film pulled too fast.
Kael's stomach twisted.
The hunger-voice stirred.
Not food.
Not prey.
This is… origin.
Lina swallowed hard. "It started last night. At first it was echoes. Memories. Then… people."
Kael took a step closer.The air tasted like rusted clocks.
And then—Something stepped through properly.
A figure in armor that did not belong to this era, plates engraved with symbols Kael had never seen, a sword in hand that hummed with ancient authority.
Its helm turned.
And Kael froze.
Because beneath the visor…
The eyes were his.
Older.
Colder.
And crowned.
The figure spoke with a voice like a future collapsing.
"Shadow Sovereign."
Kael's breath caught.
"You shouldn't be here yet."
The hunger inside him screamed—not in fear, but recognition.Veyra whispered, galaxies trembling.
"That's not an echo…"
Lina's chain burned against her throat.
Kael's claws bled silver-red.
The Rift behind the armored version of himself widened—And something vast moved inside.
A staircase shape.
A root.
The beginning of all rifts.
The voice spoke again, softer now, almost mournful.
"If you walk forward… you will break the realm."
Kael stared into his own future eyes.
"And if I don't?"
The armored Kael's mouth curved into something that wasn't quite a smile.
"Then the realm breaks you first."
The Rift pulsed.
Time bled harder.
And the bridge groaned, as though reality itself was about to snap.