The forest didn't feel like a forest anymore.
It felt like a corridor—a narrowing throat swallowing the trio whole as they tore through branches and roots, lungs burning, legs screaming. None of them looked back. They didn't need to. Something deeper than instinct whispered that turning around would only make death arrive faster.
Ahan clutched the crown against his chest, fingers tightening every time its faint pulse throbbed through his palms.
Once.
Twice.
A third time—subtle, wrong, as if responding to him.
He refused to acknowledge it.
"Not slowing," Abhi rasped. "Not stopping. Just get us out—"
A shadow slid across the ground ahead.
Not behind them.
Ahead.
Before any of them could react, the earth buckled. Leaves spiraled upward as something dropped from the canopy with surgical precision—no explosion, no tremor, just a soft, controlled impact that sent a whisper of dust curling outward.
A single hooded figure rose from the shallow crater.
Tall. Straight. Cloaked in muted grey. A black mask hid his face—smooth, expressionless, with no eyeholes, no features. Only a faint ripple of distortion shimmered across its surface.
Like reality struggled to render him fully.
Aryan skidded to a halt, breath catching.
"…No. No way."
The figure's voice emerged like a broken transmission—multiple tones layered imperfectly, as if several people spoke at once and none were fully synced.
"Running," it murmured.
A beat of static.
"Predictable."
Ahan instinctively stepped back. Abhi and Aryan moved in front of him without thinking—protective, reflexive, futile.
The clone tilted its head a millimeter, as though analyzing insects.
"Hand over the crown," it said.
"Walk away."
The mask flickered.
"I am not here for you."
Ahan hesitated—then slowly lifted the artifact just enough for it to glint between his palms.
"This?" His voice shook, but his gaze held steady. "This is what you want?"
"Yes."
The reply didn't carry any intention.
It was my intention.
Two blurs moved the instant the word left the mask—Aryan and Abhi lunging simultaneously, Aether sparking along fists and forearms. Their timing is perfect. Their aim is lethal.
The clone didn't shift his stance.
He merely placed one foot slightly behind the other.
Aether folded inward.
An invisible force slammed into both of them, flinging Aryan right and Abhi left. Their bodies crashed into separate trees with bone-rattling force before sliding to the ground in choking gasps.
He still hadn't looked at either of them.
His mask remained pointed at Ahan.
"Unwise."
Ahan's pulse roared. His mind ran through equations, angles, Aether densities—none producing a solution.
Teleporting them away? Too unstable.
Aether burst? Too slow.
Direct attack? Laughable.
He was still calculating when the clone vanished.
A fraction of a second later, a hand clamped around his wrist.
The world spun.
Ahan crashed onto his back, dust exploding around him. He sensed Aryan's roar before he saw it—gold light gathering around Aryan's arm as he charged in a blur of molten fury.
The clone stopped him with one hand on his face.
The contact wasn't forceful.
But Aryan's Aether shattered like brittle glass.
His knees gave out, breath spasming.
The clone leaned in slightly.
"Wild. Directionless. A blade without a hilt."
Abhi launched forward with raw blue resonance surging through his fist—everything he had, everything he was.
The clone caught it between two fingers.
Two.
Then pivoted, using Abhi's own momentum to hurl him downward into the dirt with a precision that bordered on artistry. A dull thud escaped Abhi's lungs, followed by blood he couldn't swallow fast enough.
The forest trembled.
Air vibrated.
The clone lifted his hand—not gathering Aether, but bending the field around them. The trio felt their Aether unravel, threads snapping inside their chests until the force that had always answered them fell silent.
Ahan staggered.
"What… are you doing to us…?"
The clone only tilted his masked head.
"You were never a threat."
No mockery.
Just truth.
Ahan forced himself upright, digging into every reserve he could scrape together. He didn't have a plan—only defiance.
White Aether sparked beneath his feet.
A desperate translocation burst.
"MOVE!" he shouted.
Space twisted—
The forest smeared—
And they vanished.
Reappeared thirty meters away—
Collapsed in tangled limbs and dust—
The clone stood in front of them.
As if he had always been standing there.
Ahan felt his stomach drop into an abyss.
The clone raised one hand.
Ahan's Aether snuffed out instantly.
"Do not waste my time with tricks."
Aryan roared again, dragging himself upright, punching with instinct rather than form, golden flames sputtering around his knuckles—
The clone caught the fist gently.
Then drove Aryan's face into the earth so hard the ground cracked around him.
Abhi pushed to his elbows, vision swimming. "Why… us…?"
The clone stepped over him.
"You carry what belongs to him."
Ahan flinched and clutched the crown tighter—
The clone crouched before him.
"Your artifact," it whispered, "reacted when you touched it."
Ahan froze.
"Curious."
A pause.
"But irrelevant."
A subtle ripple distorted the air. Ahan felt his fingers loosen against his will, tendons failing him. The crown rose from his grasp, floating between them, drawn like metal to gravity.
A silver flicker pulsed through Ahan's chest.
Not from him.
From the crown.
The clone closed his hand around it.
The flicker died instantly.
"His claim."
Ahan reached out weakly—more instinct than intent. Aryan groaned, Abhi dragged himself forward, vision blurred and fading.
None of them could stand.
None of them could fight.
The clone slowly straightened, cloak drifting in a breeze that wasn't there.
"You should have walked away."
He paused as if evaluating them.
"If this is your limit…"
The mask angled downward.
"…you will break before the real one even sees you."
His body dissolved into static—
The forest let out a long, shaking exhale—
And he vanished.
Silence swallowed everything.
The trio lay ruined in the dirt, trying to breathe, trying to move, trying to understand what had just dismantled them.
But only one truth remained:
Against him,
they weren't warriors.
They weren't chosen.
They weren't even obstacles.
They were irrelevant.
And the world—
their world—
was already out of time.