Chapter 7 – The Collapse of Reason

The city trembled.

X stood at the center of it all, his hand raised toward the sky, manipulating the very fabric of reality.

The Phantom Division soldiers fought against it, but their weapons faltered, their suits glitched, and the world around them betrayed logic.

Buildings shifted.

Gravity fluctuated.

Time stuttered.

Evelyn could barely comprehend what she was witnessing.

Her mind raced. This wasn't just power.

X was rewriting the rules of existence itself.

A Phantom soldier tried to fire his plasma rifle, but the bullet never left the barrel—it reversed backward, spiraling into the gun's chamber like time had been reversed.

Another soldier tried to advance, but the ground beneath him looped endlessly, trapping him in an infinite corridor of shifting reality.

And yet—

The Phantoms kept coming.

They adapted.

One of the lead agents, designated Omega-1, activated a device on his wrist.

A pulse of anti-reality energy spread outward.

And suddenly—

Everything stopped.

X's power flickered.

Evelyn felt gravity return to normal.

The city settled, its shifting geometries halting.

X's eyes narrowed. "They're using a Reality Anchor."

Omega-1's voice came through his helmet. "You're a powerful anomaly, but even you have limits."

The Phantom Division moved in for the kill.

---

THE COUNTERATTACK

X didn't flinch.

If they thought a Reality Anchor would stop him—they were wrong.

With a simple motion, he reached forward, his hand passing through the air like it was water—

And he ripped the Anchor apart.

The device shattered instantly, collapsing inward into a singularity before disappearing.

Omega-1 barely had time to react before X vanished from sight.

A blur—

A pulse of energy—

And then Omega-1 was gone.

The Phantom Division hesitated.

Their leader had just been erased from existence.

X reappeared behind them, his eyes glowing with an eerie, cosmic radiance. "I don't have limits."

The battle exploded into chaos.

Evelyn ducked for cover as gunfire erupted, energy rounds streaking past her. She could feel the heat, the sheer destructive power behind every shot.

But X—

He was untouchable.

A Phantom lunged at him, but the soldier collapsed into a mirror version of himself, falling into a loop of endless reflections before vanishing entirely.

Another tried to fire a railgun—

But the gun transformed into molten metal in his hands.

One by one, the Phantoms fell, their very existence unraveled.

Evelyn watched, her heart pounding.

She had always studied anomalies.

But X wasn't an anomaly anymore.

He was something far beyond.

---

THE WATCHERS AWAKEN

Then—

A new presence stirred.

From the depths of the city, something ancient awoke.

Evelyn felt it before she saw it.

A pressure in the air.

A shift in the very concept of reality itself.

The robed being that had saved her earlier stepped forward.

Its silver eyes glowed brighter. "You have disrupted the balance."

X turned, his expression unreadable. "And you are?"

The being raised a hand.

And suddenly—

Everything shattered.

---

THE FRACTURE OF WORLDS

Evelyn felt herself being pulled apart.

Not physically.

Existentially.

She saw countless versions of herself—standing in different places, making different choices, living different lives.

The past, the present, and the future folded into one.

And at the center of it all—

X stood, unchanged.

He resisted. Fought back against the pull.

The robed being spoke again. "You do not belong here."

X narrowed his eyes. "I belong anywhere I choose."

He pushed back—

And the world responded.

---

THE END OF THE CITY

The alien city began to collapse.

Buildings imploded into themselves, structures twisting and folding into infinite loops before disappearing into nothingness.

The Phantoms—what remained of them—fled through their portal, retreating.

The robed being watched, unshaken.

It raised a hand one final time—

And the entire city blinked out of existence.

Evelyn hit the ground hard.

She was back.

Not in the alien world.

Not in the city.

She was—

Somewhere new.

And X was right beside her.

His eyes glowed with something new.

Something beyond even his power.

And then—

He smiled.

Because he had just won.