The sun that hovered above Origin Null was no longer the brilliant shard of golden fire it once was. It looked distant now, more like a faint echo of itself — a pale halo surrounded by an ethereal haze. It barely warmed the wind that swept through the remnants of the collapsed pylon field, scattering Riftglass shards like dust.
The world had been saved.
But only technically.
Aiden stood at the edge of the floating ridge, one boot perched on the cracked foundation of what had once been the Keystone Pylon. He stared into the yawning abyss where the Nexus Reactor had once pulsed — the void now stretched with scarred magic, fractured threads of unbound energy dancing like veins of lightning against the horizon.
They had stopped the Chronophage.
Barely.
But the price had been… uncountable.
Behind him, the rest of the team lay in various states of rest and pain. Kaela was unconscious but stable. Her vitals flickered green and gold on the System HUD he'd configured for her—faint, but returning. She was strong. He knew she'd pull through.
Brant sat nearby, half-slumped against a broken rune pillar. His armor had melted in patches, his knuckles were raw, and his jaw was swollen where he'd taken a hit from a Riftwave. Still, he refused to rest completely.
"Go lie down," Aiden said without looking back.
"I'm good," Brant muttered, holding an ice pack to his temple with one hand, the other resting on the hilt of his blade. "We're still breathing. That counts."
Aiden didn't respond. He was too focused on the System warning blinking in the corner of his vision — its presence a splinter he couldn't ignore.
[WARNING: Temporal Fragment Detected]Source: Unknown Divergence LayerTrace Signature: "Aiden Serevyn" – Class: Echo-Born
He squinted. That name again — Echo-Born — had first appeared when they severed the Chronophage from the temporal stream. Since then, Elsira had flagged at least three anomalies all carrying the same name. His name.
His fractured name.
He summoned Elsira's avatar, and the AI shimmered into form beside him. She flickered slightly — her code still recovering from the overload of coordinating the Nexus defense.
"You look like hell," she said.
"I feel worse," he replied. "You said earlier that the temporal fracture wasn't just a glitch."
Elsira's expression hardened. "It wasn't. The Chronophage consumed timelines. The fragments it left behind… some of them bled into stable realities. Including this one."
He turned to face her fully. "And now they're leaking through?"
She nodded. "Yes. And there's something worse. The fragments aren't just echoes of the world. They're echoes of you."
He fell silent.
Behind them, Kaela stirred with a groan, slowly sitting up. Her golden hair shimmered with a faint trail of arc-light, her eyes opening slowly as she scanned the area.
"I had a dream," she murmured.
Brant looked over. "You're lucky. I had a concussion."
"No," Kaela said more urgently. "It wasn't a dream. It was… a voice. It was calling Aiden something."
She turned her gaze to him. "It called you Echo-Born. It said you weren't supposed to exist in this stream."
Elsira snapped her head around. "Say that again."
Kaela repeated it, slower this time. "Echo-Born. A ghost born from a collapsed timeline."
Elsira's form glitched for a second before stabilizing. "That's… a forbidden designation. Not even the Nexus codices mention it anymore. It predates the mainframe by eons. If it's true—"
"It means I'm not from here," Aiden finished.
"No," Elsira corrected, "you are from here. But this version of you isn't the original. You're the result of a failed convergence. The original you… died."
Brant stood. "Wait. What do you mean, 'died'? I've been with him this whole time."
Kaela's voice dropped. "He's a fragment. A splinter of a soul from a world that no longer exists. The System tried to patch it by giving him form again… but not origin."
The realization hit Aiden like a punch to the gut. He stepped back, his hands curling into fists. "So I'm not even real?"
"You are real," Elsira said gently. "But you're anomalous. You're not from the protected temporal stream. You're a survivor of a dead world… patched into this one."
[System Alert: Divergent Mirror Identified]Designation: Aiden Serevyn-042Status: Convergence Event ImminentIntent: Terminate Primary Thread Identity
The ground shook.
Kaela's eyes widened. "Something's coming."
Above them, the sky ripped.
Not like a normal Rift.
This one was structured — made of glass-like hexagons, folding outward in cascading spirals. It crackled with raw timeline energy, and from it stepped a man in black Riftsteel armor etched with obsidian glyphs. His presence was wrong. Too perfect. Too cold.
But it was Aiden. His face. His build. His voice — just twisted enough to sound like it came from a mirror.
"Found you," the other Aiden said.
The words were quiet, but they carried across the distance like thunder. His eyes were silver — not human silver, but polished glass that reflected too many realities.
"You're not supposed to exist anymore," the other Aiden continued. "You're a bug in the flowchart. A glitch the System was too late to remove."
Brant stepped forward. "You want him, you'll go through me."
"Brant," Aiden said, "Don't. He's… me. And I think I need to hear him out."
The other Aiden smirked. "Smart. You always were smarter in this thread."
Aiden's hand hovered near his blade. "Why are you here?"
"To finish what I started. My world collapsed. My choices — my failure. But I found a way through. The System told me the only way to stabilize my timeline was to purge every variant that corrupted the original line."
"And that's me," Aiden said grimly.
"You are one of them," the other said. "There are dozens. But you? You're the anchor. The final echo. If I erase you, I get to reset. Fix everything."
Kaela stood. "You'll kill him to save a dead world?"
The mirror-Aiden looked at her with mild amusement. "You don't understand what we've lost. I had her too, once. She died screaming because I hesitated."
Aiden narrowed his eyes. "So you became a monster."
"No," the echo said. "I became efficient."
The sword on his back glowed. It was like Aiden's Arcblade — but where Aiden's gleamed with blue energy, this one seethed with dark fire and fractured time. Every swing would tear history apart.
Elsira's voice boomed in his HUD.
[Emergency Directive: ECHO COLLISION IMMINENT]Timeline convergence within 60 seconds. Prepare for Paradox Stabilization.
Kaela looked at him. "Aiden… if you kill him—if you kill yourself—"
He nodded slowly. "I know. I don't think we'll survive it clean."
Brant growled. "Then we better hit first."
But Aiden held up a hand.
"I'll face him," he said. "Alone."
Kaela and Brant stepped back reluctantly. The two Aidens approached each other, circling slowly atop the floating ridge. Above them, the Rift sky churned, timelines folding in on themselves.
"I know how you fight," the mirror said.
"I know how I learn," Aiden answered.
Their blades came free with a shattering hum, arcs of energy trailing behind. One blue. One black.
And then—
They struck.
The sky exploded.
The war for identity, for time, for self—began.