The academy's halls were deceptively quiet after curfew. Sensors pulsed faintly in the walls—tracking movement, monitoring pulse signatures—but Eron moved like a shadow, each step premeditated. He remembered which cameras had blind spots. Which doors responded to phantom credentials.
He'd learned all of this the hard way—once.
Now, he walked it like muscle memory.
The entrance to Sub-Level Nine wasn't marked. Beneath the Archive Tower, through a sealed chamber labeled Maintenance Only, there was a thin vertical seam that looked like a panel. It wasn't. It was a test.
Eron pressed his chrono-core against it.
A flicker. The panel shimmered, then vanished, revealing an elevator shaft that hummed with dormant energy.
A voice echoed from above. "So it really is you."
He turned.
A girl leaned casually on the railing, boot tapping against the metal.
She hadn't changed much.
"Rika," Eron said. His voice was quiet. Careful.
Her short black hair framed a sharp, knowing face. She wore an old Academy jacket—one with its insignia scrubbed off.
"I figured you were dead," she said. "Then again, you always were too stubborn for that."
He didn't smile. "You sent the message?"
Rika shrugged. "Not exactly. The system did. The moment you used temporal drift during the duel, the sub-network flagged it. Only three people ever accessed that weave before. One is dead. One vanished. And one just took down Kasen Drix with a step and a tap."
Eron stepped into the elevator shaft. "You coming?"
She hesitated a beat, then dropped beside him. "You really came back with all your memories?"
"No," he said. "Only the worst ones."
The elevator dropped. No lights. Just the hum of old tech and the occasional groan of twisted metal. As they descended, Rika glanced sideways.
"They'll come for you, you know. Once they confirm it's you."
"I want them to."
Rika let out a bitter chuckle. "Still suicidal."
"No," Eron said. "Strategic."
The shaft stopped with a jolt. The door slid open into darkness—broken lights, shattered consoles, sigil-scars burned into walls. A graveyard of discarded upgrades and forbidden tech.
Sub-Level Nine.
Rika stepped in first, guiding the way through scorched hallways.
"This place was supposed to be purged," she muttered. "After the Prototype Trials collapsed. But I stayed behind. Someone had to."
They reached a vault door with an old-world keypad. Rika keyed in a code, but before it accepted, Eron placed his hand against it.
Time bent.
The metal sighed and shifted as if pulled from another moment. It unlocked.
"You learned that recently?" Rika asked.
Eron stepped inside. "I died for it."
Inside the vault were racks of broken devices, forgotten enhancements, even early chrono-weave stabilizers. But at the center stood a crystalline core, suspended in magnetic lock.
It pulsed softly.
"I thought this was destroyed," Eron whispered.
"It should've been. But you're not the only one who defied orders." Rika looked at him, more serious now. "This core—it syncs with your kind of anomaly. It wasn't meant to be controlled."
"It doesn't need to be," Eron said. "It just needs to listen."
He touched it.
The vault trembled.
His HUD glitched—colors inverted. Data swam across his vision.
> [Chrono-Core Sync: 43%]
[Warning: Reality Distortion Threshold Breached]
Time around his hand slowed, then stilled.
Rika backed up. "Eron, don't push it—"
But he saw more. Visions. Echoes of lives yet to be. Of betrayals yet to come. Of her—Arienne, the one who ended him before.
Eron pulled his hand back. Sweat beaded down his temple.
"She's still alive," he said.
Rika stiffened. "Arienne?"
"She's not who we thought. None of them are."
He turned, eyes sharper now.
"We're running out of time, Rika."