Arin had barely caught his breath before the spiral beneath his feet shimmered into smoke, and the Codex crumbled around him. The once-quiet glyphs now screamed in twisted voices. Pages fluttered upward like ghost birds, breaking into data fragments. He looked to where Astra had stood.
Gone.
Not dead. Not erased. Dispersed.
And then the temperature dropped.
Kairos blinked red.
"Chrono Barrier compromised. Incoming dimensional agents."
> "They found you," a voice muttered from inside his mind, possibly Astra's echo.
---
The Arrival of the Council
Six beams of multifaceted light erupted across the Codex ruins. Figures formed inside: tall, robed entities cloaked in crystalline fabric, their faces veiled in distortion. Arin's breath froze. Each of them exuded the weight of entire realities.
Kairos whispered:
"Chrono Council Detected. Council of Refraction. Prime regulators of Spiral Law."
One of them stepped forward. Their cloak reflected infinite versions of Arin—young, old, monstrous, divine.
> "Chrono Diver Arin Reus. You have committed illegal overwrite of Record #001."
> "Violation of Prime Spiral Act. Interference with Variant Evolution. Temporal Treason."
Another voice chimed in: female, glassy and sharp.
> "You tampered with the Seed of Astra Ny."
Arin stood his ground. "She would've died. I didn't have a choice."
> "There are always choices," the glassy voice snapped. "We just limit them."
The tallest stepped forward. The reflection on their chest turned into a burning glyph.
> "By law, your Core shall be disassembled. Your Kairos confiscated. Your divergence erased."
Kairos pulsed dangerously.
"Combat override pending."
Arin clenched his fists. "Try it."
The Council fell silent. Then, the air shattered.
---
Duel in the Spiral Rift
Kairos erupted. A cyclone of glyphs swirled around Arin as he activated every function unlocked so far. Spiral Override. Time Dilation. Echo Memory.
A member of the Council countered, bending a local second into a blade.
Arin dodged, barely.
Another hurled a Prism Collapse—time compressed into a missile. Arin reversed his own heartbeat, phasing a few frames behind reality.
The tallest member summoned a Chrono Hammer forged from a collapsed black hole and struck—
Arin deflected using an Inversion Shield born from the Codex's leftover fragments.
He felt himself fracturing. His body blurred across three timelines.
Then: a scream. A real one.
A girl's voice.
"Astr—?"
No.
It was someone else.
---
The Shattered Variant
From beyond the conflict, another version of Arin emerged. This one was older, covered in sigils. His Kairos was cracked. His eyes glowed with decay.
> "Stop fighting him," this Broken Arin croaked. "He's the one who survives."
The Council hesitated.
> "He becomes the Spiral Warden, whether you destroy him or not."
> "You delay the inevitable."
The crystalline figures vibrated. Discordance filled the Rift.
The head Councilor finally spoke.
> "Very well. We delay judgment. But the Spiral watches. And it does not forget."
With a pulse, they vanished, leaving behind fragments of prophecy and a glyph burned into Arin's chest.
[Mark of Delay – You are under watch. Any future rewrite increases instability.]
Arin turned to the Broken Variant.
"What are you?"
> "The price of choices."
He vanished too.
---
Flight to the Fragment Archives
Kairos pulsed.
"Codex access suspended. Spiral Instability rising. New coordinates required."
Arin breathed, broken but not defeated. "Where next?"
"Fragment Archives. Timeline 001-Omega. Origin Library of the Spiral."
The portal shimmered open.
Behind him, the Codex ruins collapsed fully.
Ahead—answers.
And maybe… Astra.
He stepped through.