Location: Yxtrielle – Rift Stabilization Site
Time: [Unanchored – No External Drift]
Ren blinked at the strange reunion unfolding around him.
Kaelreth stood like a myth made flesh.
Blaze still hadn't stopped clinging to his coat sleeve.
Frost was silently losing her shit somewhere in the background.
But Ren had one very reasonable question first:
"Alright. What the fuck are you two doing here?"
He pointed at Arix and the Old Man.
"Last I saw you," Ren said to Arix, "you were training me by throwing knives at my throat for fun."
"And you—" He looked at the Old Man. "You just vanish after giving me some mystical iPhone from a crack dimension."
ARIX smirked, spinning her dagger on her finger.
"Can't let you bumble into planetary collapse without supervision.
And let's be honest—" she winked, "you make great bait."
OLD MAN (calmly):
"You call it bait. I call it inevitability."
Kaelreth finally stepped forward.
"They were stationed here. As fail-safes. I sent them."
"This planet—Yxtrielle—isn't just hidden, Ren."
He extended his arm. A wave of light pulsed outward.
For a moment, the stars bent.
The clouds shifted into impossible patterns.
And the land hummed with coiled resonance.
"I locked this planet out of the Verge Ring using my own fragment of the Dimensional Core."
"The only way to truly control the Drift wasn't to conquer planets—"
"It was to control the world that rejects them."
Ren's mouth twitched.
"Yxtrielle."
Kaelreth nodded.
"A null-point. A silence inside the cycle."
He turned, hand raised — projecting a glowing map between them.
The Dimensional Core appeared — not whole, but fragmented, scattered across the ring.
"You've already found pieces. Time. Space. Gravity."
"But the heart of the core — the Synthesis Node — lies here."
He pointed to a flickering point near the root of the 6th and 7th planet drift split.
"Hidden beneath the Rift Scar of Velkrith's Spiral."
REN:
"And the Watcher?"
Kaelreth's jaw tightened.
"It's not what you think. It's not just watching."
"It's anchored to the core itself."
"The Watcher is a sentient fail-safe — created when the original architects of the Drift realized they couldn't control sentient life."
"So they made something that could."
"It doesn't want peace. It wants obedience. Through Lira."
Ren blinked.
"Wait. You're saying Lira's being used by the Watcher?"
"Not used," Kaelreth said.
"Merged. She's part of it now."
Ren's stomach dropped.
The memory of her voice — her desperation, her certainty that she was right — twisted.
"So what happens if you get the full core?" he asked.
Kaelreth looked directly into his eyes.
"Then we rewrite everything. Properly. No resets. No Drift collapses. No Verge instability."
"Everyone lives."
"Everyone remembers."
"Everyone chooses."
But then...
"But…"
Kaelreth's eyes darkened.
"The moment we activate the full core… the Watcher will know."
"And it will come for you, Ren. Not just through Lira. Not just with Guardians."
"With all the rewritten timelines it's consumed."
"It'll bring everything it ever erased."
Kael's projection map flickered as he stepped back, the lines of light unraveling into sparks.
His breath was shallow.
His skin shimmered with faint, failing driftlight.
The weight of time was pressing down on him — a man stitched into too many timelines, now fraying.
REN:
"Hey… Kael—? What's wrong?"
Kael smiled softly, the kind of smile that said I've already known this moment for years.
"I don't have much energy left. I've kept Yxtrielle hidden, stable, protected... for too long."
"This planet isn't silent. It's asleep. And I'm the blanket."
He chuckled once — dry, tired.
Then coughed.
Fell to one knee.
Blaze stepped forward instinctively — reaching for him.
He waved her off gently.
"Don't worry, Flame. I'm not dying again."
"I'm just… tired."
"I need to rest. Deep."
"The weight of the core… the protection field... I can't hold both anymore."
He looked at Ren with warmth, pride — and something else.
Hope.
"You have the fragments. You have the strength.
But most importantly... you have something I lost."
"The will to decide. Without the past chaining your hands."
He slowly lowered himself against the black-silver obelisk behind him, breathing softer.
REN (whispers):
"Why me?"
Kael looked up, eyes glinting.
"Because you're not just after me..."
"You're from the same blood. But from another world"
"Me. Lira. You. We were born from the same core line.
One path split three ways. And you, you are me and I'm you technically but not physically at least for now."
Ren froze.
FROST (softly):
"He's not lying."
BLAZE (voice shaky):
"Lira's… technically his sister?"
KAEL (nods):
"Lira and I are Twins. Technically.
Lira... she took the Watcher's offer before I could stop her.
Thought she could fix things alone."
"Now? She thinks she is the fix."
Kael's breathing slowed.
He closed his eyes.
"She'll come for you, Ren."
"Not out of hatred."
"But to stop herself."
And then—
He fell still.
Not dead.
Just… gone to sleep.
His aura flickered — drifting into planetary sync, as if becoming one with the soil beneath him.
Ren stood. Speechless.
The silence of Yxtrielle deepened.
But then—
A final whisper crawled through his mind, so heavy it cracked the air behind his eyes.
KAEL (mind-whisper):
"Use the Aetherium…"
"Nullify the Dimensional Core."
And just like that—
Ren knew.
This wasn't about harnessing it.
It was about ending it.