The air down in the Abyssal Stratum tasted sharp, metallic—like ozone mixed with old blood and that stubborn dust you really could believe had never been disturbed. Vance Kensington slumped against a splintered wedge of obsidian, struggling to slow his jagged breaths. His custom armor—crafted from Tier-4 Obsidian Drake scales—was shot. A huge crack split it open, and his blood seeped out onto the gray ash beneath him.
He stayed perfectly still. Even breathing too loud down here felt like begging for death.
About fifty yards off, the cavern widened into an enormous amphitheater, lit by a swirling, eerie aurora. Dead center, his target: the Aethelgard Watcher. It sure wasn't any normal beast—not flesh and bone, anyway. It was more legend than reality: a massive, angelic owl built out of brilliant streaks of hard-light and interlocking golden gears. Whenever its wings moved, the sound was a flood of ticking clocks. Time shifted around it too; a pebble dropped nearby would freeze mid-fall, then suddenly zip into the ground like a bullet.
Six months he'd wasted hunting this thing—sacrificed sleep, credits, even some of his humanity just to reach the bottom of the Fracture. He shut his eyes and turned inward. His Inner Stratum, that mental armory stocked with absorbed cores and tamed beasts, was nothing but a dead void now. Reserves: empty. His Panthera—the huge shadow-cat he'd raised since Initiation—was gone, its spirit statue smashed by the Watcher's warped attacks only an hour ago.
He clung to his focus. Just the Core. Kill the Watcher. Take the Core. Ascend to Tier-5. Make the Syndicate notice.
He watched the beast, waiting. Its glowing eyes burned dim while it repaired wounds he'd managed to carve. He'd get one chance, and three seconds tops, before it reacted.
Vance shoved off the obsidian, didn't bother to sprint. He jacked the acceleration runes in his boots and blasted forward, blurring through metal and ash. Fifty yards. Thirty. Ten. He leaped, swinging his blade in a lethal arc at the trembling core in the Watcher's chest.
CLANG.
Steel smashed steel, the ring echoing everywhere. His blade hadn't landed. Instead, some tremendous force slammed into him and threw him back hard into the cavern wall. Bones rattled. Hot blood filled his mouth. He spat it into the ash, squinting through dust.
Now a tall man stood between him and the Watcher. The guy wore blinding white-and-gold armor that somehow stayed perfectly clean, not a speck of dirt. On his shoulder, a hulking, static-charged Ursine glared, its eyes burning.
"A brilliant hunt, Vance," the stranger said—slick voice, zero warmth. "Really. The Vanguard Syndicate owes you big."
Vance's head spun, but he knew that voice. Fear twisted inside him—cold, furious, and nothing to do with the blood pouring from his chest.
"Sterling…" His throat scraped raw, but he dragged himself upright against what was left of the wall. "What are you doing here?"
Sterling Prescott—golden boy of the Vanguard Syndicate—stood there with one of his showy, blade-sharp grins. In the shadows behind him, six masked figures peeled away from the cavern wall, faces hidden behind executioner hoods.
Sterling stepped carefully around the blood. "You were always our best tracker," he said, voice smooth as glass. "But you never saw the big picture. Did you honestly think the Board would let a grunt grab a Mythic Temporal Core? Something powerful enough to rewrite reality?"
Vance just stared at the execution squad, then at Sterling—his old friend, the one he'd nearly died next to during Initiation in the Crimson Woods. The betrayal burned deep, cold and sharp.
"We made a deal," Vance growled, anger twisting his words. "I bring you the routes. I get the Watcher. The Syndicate agreed."
Sterling shook his head, like he was talking to a stubborn kid. "The Syndicate let you dream, Vance. You got too strong, too independent. Worst of all, you cared about loyalty, and loyalty's poison here. Only power matters. I'm taking the Core for myself. Guaranteeing my ascension. You get to die a hero—slaughtered by the beast. Tragic, really."
Sterling signaled with a raised hand. The masked squad aimed their Arc-Rifles, and the low hum of charging plasma tangled with the ticking of the Watcher, just as relentless.
Vance took it all in. He was completely outmatched, out of energy, and out of options. Years he'd spent fighting tooth and nail up the ranks, and now, right at the finish line, the very people he'd swore to destroy had pulled the rug out from under him. He looked at Sterling, then past him, straight into the Watcher's pulsing golden core.
If I don't get a future, Vance thought, the misery inside him hardening into something ice-cold and sharp.
"You think you've won?" he said, barely above a whisper.
Sterling didn't even bother hiding his annoyance. He just said, "Kill him."
Vance didn't flinch when the plasma charged toward him—he just gathered what little strength he had left and dove straight past Sterling, hurling himself at the Watcher. The machine shrieked, metal screeching as Vance smashed his bloody hand right into the glowing crack across its chest. His fingers slipped past armor and went deep, straight for the unstable core.
"Vance, don't!" Sterling yelled, his cool mask breaking into panic. "Someone, pull him off!"
Vance didn't listen. He didn't try to match his DNA or extract the core safely. He just gripped it and shoved his raw, sputtering life force right into the heart of the machine—pushing it way past its breaking point.
He wanted it to blow.
"Neither do you," Vance spat, eyes locking with Sterling's wild, terrified stare.
The world didn't catch fire—it just broke apart. Colors shrieked as plasma bolts froze, suspended in the air like someone hit pause on madness. Sterling's face twisted, his scream got sucked backwards and turned hollow, monstrous. The cavern caved in as reality folded, smashing everything nearby all the way down to molecules. Vance felt something deep inside him—the soul, maybe—rip up, torn by this wild storm of gears and starlight.
He fell straight into nothing. Just blank, empty.
Then—slam—he hit the floor, hard.
GASP.
Vance shot upright, gulping for air. He scrambled backward, searching for his vibro-blade—gone, of course—and pressed against a wall, heart pounding so loud he almost couldn't hear himself think. Eyes wide, restless.
He braced himself for smoke, for ticking, for another explosion.
Nothing.
He blinked. No copper taste. No Watcher lurking nearby. Instead, he got hit with the cheap sting of industrial pine cleaner. Above him, an old fluorescent light flickered, struggling to stay alive.
Vance lowered his trembling hands, stared at them for a moment. No scars. The ugly wyvern burn he'd lived with for years was gone. He glanced around, piecing it together—a crappy mattress under him, peeling walls, city traffic humming faintly through a dirty window.
He swung off the bed, realized his body felt feather-light but fragile. No mutant muscle, no Tier-4 armor—just the skinny skin he'd had as a teenager. He stumbled to the cracked mirror above the sink.
The face looking back? Young. Sharp lines, untouched. No shadows under his eyes, nothing left from Syndicate beatings. He looked nineteen—exactly.
He gripped the sink, mind racing to make sense of all this. Then, he spotted the battered desk calendar.
September 14th. Five years back. Right to the day.
His breath caught. Every Siphon knew what today meant: Global Initiation. The day the Fracture opened, swarming with new recruits. It was when his old life ended, the Vanguard Syndicate got its claws in him.
He let go of the sink and stepped back. Slowly, a dangerous smile crept onto his young face. He wasn't dead. The Watcher didn't erase him—it kicked him backward in time and hit reset.
Sterling Prescott, the betrayals, the Syndicate wars—all still ahead.
Vance looked at his fresh, soft hands. Weak body, yeah. But he carried something better than armor: five years of future burned deep in his head. He knew every resource cache, every hidden power, every dirty trick the elites would use to climb.
"You wanted to play god, Sterling," Vance whispered, letting the quiet sw
allow his words. "Let's see how you handle a devil who already knows exactly how you die."