Chapter 31: Fractured Time

Darkness swallowed Caius whole. It was not the absence of light but the absence of existence itself. A void where time had no hold, where reality unraveled at the seams. He could not breathe. He could not move. He could not be.

Then, as suddenly as he had been pulled into oblivion, he was thrown out of it.

Pain lanced through his body as he hit solid ground. The air was thick with dust and the scent of something ancient. He coughed, pushing himself onto his hands and knees, his head spinning. Around him, the remnants of the Nexus lay in ruin, golden fragments of time still flickering like dying embers. The once-pristine walls of the celestial domain were now broken, revealing endless voids where moments of history twisted and folded upon themselves. It was as if time had shattered into infinite reflections, each showing a different possibility of reality.

Selene groaned beside him, clutching her ribs. Her normally fluid movements were sluggish, affected by the warped nature of time around them. Elias staggered to his feet, his sword still clutched in his shaking hands, its blade humming with unstable energy.

"Is it over?" Selene rasped, her voice hoarse.

Caius forced himself upright, scanning the desolate landscape. The Hollow King was nowhere to be seen. The throne—once an eternal fixture of the Nexus—was shattered, its remnants floating in the air like suspended glass, reflecting distorted visions of past and future. One shard showed the capital in flames, another depicted an era of peace that had never been. The visions threatened to pull his mind apart, forcing him to see countless possibilities at once.

But something was wrong.

The world around them pulsed, shifting like an unfinished painting. Time was still unraveling. The Nexus had collapsed, but instead of restoring balance, it had thrown everything into disarray. The sky above them rippled like water, streaks of golden energy cutting through the vast darkness, illuminating fractured pieces of time colliding like broken gears.

Elias turned, his expression grim. "We broke the Hollow King's grip on time, but we also broke time itself."

Caius clenched his fists. This wasn't victory. This was a catastrophe.

Selene sheathed her daggers, her expression dark. "So what now? If time itself is falling apart, does that mean…?"

"We're trapped in the void between past and future," Caius said. "A fractured existence. If we don't find a way to mend the timeline, everything will collapse."

Elias exhaled sharply. "Then we need to fix it. Fast."

A tremor rippled through the air, and suddenly, the sky split open.

From the rift above, figures emerged—echoes of warriors from different ages, their forms flickering between past and future. Some bore weapons of ancient design, their armor cracked and battle-worn, while others carried weapons of intricate craftsmanship, forged in an age yet to come. Their eyes glowed with golden light, and they moved with an unnatural fluidity, as though unstuck from time itself.

They were not alive.

They were remnants of time itself.

Selene pulled her daggers free again, her stance shifting. "This just keeps getting worse."

One of the figures, a knight clad in half-rusted armor, stepped forward, his voice distorted as if layered over centuries. "Time does not forgive trespassers. You have severed the balance. You must be erased."

Elias raised his sword, his grip tightening. "Caius, tell me you have a plan."

Caius swallowed hard. He had thought the battle against the Hollow King would be the end of their struggle, but now it seemed it was only the beginning. The world was in flux, and unless they found a way to restore it, they would be lost to time itself.

"We fight our way through," he said, determination settling in his chest. "And then—we find the core of time. If we don't, history itself will collapse."

The echoes charged, their weapons glowing with the energy of countless forgotten eras. The battlefield distorted around them, the ground shifting unpredictably beneath their feet. One moment, they were standing on what remained of the Nexus, the next, they were in the ruins of an ancient battlefield, corpses littering the ground, only to be thrown into a future metropolis, its towering structures gleaming under an artificial sun.

Caius dodged a spear thrust from a warrior clad in bronze, only to find himself immediately parrying the strike of a futuristic knight wielding a blade of pure energy. His own sword crackled with instability, as if struggling to exist in a realm where time had lost meaning. Elias moved beside him, his swings precise, yet slowed by the erratic shifting of their environment. Selene danced between the figures, using their temporal instability against them, slipping between their moments and striking at their weakest points.

A warlord with a golden crown raised a massive halberd, his voice reverberating across timelines. "You do not belong here!" He swung, and reality itself cracked beneath the force of his blow. Caius barely managed to roll aside as the very air shattered like glass, revealing glimpses of infinite pasts colliding with uncertain futures.

Elias slammed his shield into one of the echoes, forcing it back. "Caius! How do we stop this?!"

Caius grit his teeth. The echoes weren't just mindless attackers—they were manifestations of time's attempt to correct itself. But it was failing. The only way to set things right was to find the heart of the fracture.

Then he saw it.

Beyond the chaos, past the swirling distortions, there was a singular point of stability. A pulsating core of golden light, untouched by the destruction around it. The heart of time itself.

"There!" Caius shouted. "That's our way out!"

Selene carved a path through the echoes, clearing the way. "Then let's move!"

The three of them sprinted toward the core, dodging collapsing fragments of time itself. The echoes tried to stop them, but their forms flickered, weakening as they drew closer to the center of the disturbance. The energy around the core was overwhelming, vibrating with the force of countless possibilities trying to reassert themselves.

As Caius reached out toward it, a voice echoed through the void, layered with countless lives and countless endings.

You seek to mend what is broken? Then prove that you are worthy to reshape fate.

A final figure emerged from the core. A figure that made Caius freeze in his tracks.

It was himself.

Not an echo, not a distorted fragment—but him.

The other Caius stood there, his expression unreadable, golden energy coursing through his veins. He was clad in regal armor, the mark of the Hollow King emblazoned upon his chest. But unlike the Hollow King they had just fought, this one looked whole. Complete.

"This is your final test," the alternate Caius said. "Can you change fate? Or will you succumb to it?"

The world pulsed. Time itself held its breath.

And Caius raised his sword.