echoes of time

Chapter 23: Echoes of Time

The wind in the inner World Space wasn't like normal wind. It carried whispers—fragments of conversations that hadn't yet happened, visions of paths not taken, echoes of futures unlived.

Tory walked silently across the broken stone bridge that curved around a canyon of suspended time bubbles. Each sphere contained a frozen moment—a beast mid-roar, a swordsman mid-slash, a star collapsing in the sky.

It was a graveyard of reality.

Jim followed behind, wary, his spear still crackling with elemental light. "This place feels... wrong."

Tory's eyes glowed faintly with silver as his Time element subtly responded. "It's not wrong. Just unfinished."

A strange hum rippled through the space as a massive figure stepped onto the bridge ahead. Clad in crimson armor etched with demonic runes, one of the Celestial Fang's arrogant geniuses—the third among their hidden ten—stood with arms crossed.

He sneered. "You've gotten far, orphan. But this is where you fall."

Jim stepped forward, but Tory raised a hand. "I'll handle this."

The Fang genius scoffed. "As if you—"

A ripple of gravity bent the bridge. Tory's foot pressed forward slightly, and the pressure increased, causing the arrogant youth to flinch. Still, the boy ignited his flames and charged.

Tory's sword was already drawn. Made of condensed ash energy forged through creative will, it hummed with Reality. He didn't unleash his full strength—he didn't need to.

The two clashed, and for a moment, time itself skipped.

The Fang youth stumbled back, sword scorched and broken.

"You... you suppressed your realm?" he stammered.

Tory didn't answer. He simply walked past him.

Behind, the broken shards of reality stitched themselves back together.

---

Deeper within the inner World Space, more trials awaited.

The duo came upon a floating labyrinth. The map etched into a hovering monolith read: The Vault of Dissonant Fates.

"This wasn't mentioned in the guild records," Jim said.

Tory nodded. "Because no one lived long enough to record it."

They entered.

Inside, time bent and space coiled unnaturally. They faced a series of rooms, each containing unique challenges. In one chamber, Tory had to dismantle an array with space-time inscriptions that reacted violently to his presence. Another room held a sentient illusion designed to erode his mind with false memories.

He overcame each one. Slowly.

[Reality System Notification: Spatial Understanding Increased. Time Affinity Strengthened. Reality Core Evolution: +1%]

---

Meanwhile, elsewhere in the World Space, the other Fang geniuses were not idle.

One of the seven who remained neutral toward Tory stood atop a crystalline tree and watched a distant battle unfold. "They're changing," he muttered. "That boy... he's not from any lineage I know. But the power inside him? It's not dormant anymore."

In another part of the space, alliances were being formed—reluctantly. Top contenders from other factions and great families realized that neither strength nor numbers alone would get them through the inheritance trials.

But the true fear was unspoken.

That white-haired boy was claiming inheritance after inheritance.

And no one could stop him.

---

After exiting the labyrinth, Tory and Jim found themselves before a cracked obsidian wall carved with runes of a forgotten dialect. Tory touched it, and the runes responded with an ancient voice.

"Child of Conflict. Child of Harmony. You carry both."

Jim raised an eyebrow. "You're getting all the poetic messages now."

Tory's necklace pulsed as the wall split apart, revealing a dark chamber with floating chains. In the center was a book suspended in a crystal—its cover shimmering with overlapping patterns of constellations, array glyphs, and void runes.

[System Notification: You have discovered the Forbidden Codex of Dimensional Seals.]

[Warning: Reading this will alter your soul structure. Proceed?]

Tory didn't hesitate.

The moment he laid his hand on the codex, pain unlike anything he'd known shot through him. His Reality System flared to protect him, but the codex wasn't trying to kill—it was rewriting.

Symbols of space twisted into harmonious matrices. Time condensed into sigils. Arrays layered themselves into his mind like memories from a life he hadn't lived.

He collapsed.

[System Notification: Reality Unlocked – 4% Total.] [Gain: Temporal Stasis Array | Dimensional Collapse Glyph | Void Seal Fragment]

Jim caught him as he fell. "You're going to get yourself killed doing this."

Tory laughed weakly. "I'd die anyway... if I stay ordinary."

As they left the chamber, behind them, the codex turned to dust. It could only be claimed once.

And the war in the World Space was just beginning.