Time didn't just feel wrong. It was wrong.
Kael stepped out of the Epoch Serpent onto ground that shimmered with temporal instability. A child ran past him — in reverse. Her laughter echoed before her mouth opened. She jumped out of a puddle, water climbing her legs like gravity had reversed. A broken window resealed as shards of glass leapt from the ground and stitched themselves back together.
> "Welcome to Ravel-4," Ziri whispered in his ear. "A planet inside a collapsing loop. Every second pulls it further into a pre-time state."
Kael adjusted the polarity of his chrono-gloves, watching the flicker of his own movement slow. "Everything's going backward. How do we move forward in a world like this?"
"By not letting it pull you in."
---
The town around him was eerie. Buildings restored themselves in stuttering jerks, birds flew tail-first through the sky, and entire convoys of soldiers seemed to unfire their weapons before marching backward into buildings that had already exploded.
Every second, Ravel-4 reset itself further. In 16 hours, it would collapse into zero time—an unborn world, never to have existed.
Kael moved cautiously through the warped streets. His chrono-suit held him in a fixed stream, but he could feel the drag. His memories pulsed with confusion. Some were already unraveling at the edges.
Then he saw it.
A rift.
Hovering in the air like a bleeding wound in space-time.
---
Inside the rift was an Anchor.
It looked like a stone tablet fused with a mechanical core—ancient, humming, barely holding itself together. Kael's HUD confirmed it.
> Anchor One: Detected. Stabilization required.
But the rift wasn't unguarded.
A figure stood between him and the Anchor.
At first, it looked human. Tall, lean, robed in black. But as Kael stepped closer, it turned—and the face was wrong.
No eyes. No mouth. Just smooth skin, shifting like water trying to become something else.
Kael froze.
> "Ziri…"
> "Confirmed," Ziri said, tone flat. "That's a Nullborn."
---
The creature tilted its head toward Kael.
It spoke—without a mouth—its voice entering Kael's mind like knives wrapped in silk.
> "You are not supposed to be here."
Kael gritted his teeth. "Neither are you."
The Nullborn raised a hand. The air warped. The ground beneath Kael cracked and reversed, unbreaking before it ever broke.
He dove sideways just as the street unraveled beneath his feet. Buildings re-collapsed upward, flickering between rubble and repair.
Kael rolled, drew his plasma revolver, and fired.
The bolt hit the Nullborn's chest—then un-fired midair, reversing back into his barrel.
"What the hell—?!"
> "Your weapons won't work," Ziri said. "The creature is manipulating the stream around it. You'll need to sync your suit to local reversal."
---
Kael flicked his wrist and activated emergency chrono-mode. His body jerked as the polarity reversed. Now, his own motion began to move against time—backward steps taken forward.
His mind spun. Every thought felt out of order.
He remembered dodging the attack before it happened.
The Nullborn moved again—faster this time, warping through folded segments of space.
Kael anticipated it. Somehow.
He ducked. Turned. Fired.
This time the plasma hit.
The creature screamed in a sound that hadn't happened yet. Its form twisted, fractured—then melted into black mist.
Kael stumbled, breath ragged.
> "It's not dead," Ziri warned. "Only displaced."
> "Long enough," Kael gasped, moving toward the Anchor.
---
The rift pulsed wildly as he approached the Anchor. It wasn't just a machine—it was a key, wedged into the spine of a broken timeline.
He reached out and placed both hands on it.
The world around him shuddered.
> Warning: Synchronization initiated.
Timeline stability: 18%... 24%... 37%...
Memories flooded his head.
Scenes not his.
Wars across galaxies. A younger Kael begging his father not to leave. A vision of Earth split in half by a red wave. A version of himself—scarred, broken, commanding a fleet made of light.
> "Ziri... what's happening?!"
> "The Anchor is showing you echoes—possible futures. Possible you."
Kael screamed, holding on as the Anchor burned light through his hands.
> Stability: 58%... 77%... 91%... 100%
The Anchor pulsed once, twice—then shot upward into the sky like a comet, sealing the rift behind it.
---
Silence.
The world around Kael stilled.
Birds chirped.
Time flowed normally again.
People moved forward.
Ziri let out a soft sigh. "Anchor One restored. You did it."
Kael dropped to one knee. "That thing… the Nullborn…"
"They will follow the Anchors," Ziri said. "They want the Spiral to collapse. Every Anchor you restore brings us one step closer to understanding how to stop them."
Kael stood up, chest heaving.
> "Then we find the next one."
---
He turned toward the Epoch Serpent—but paused.
Someone was watching him from a nearby rooftop.
A hooded figure.
Kael raised his weapon. "Hey!"
But the figure turned—and vanished in a blink of light.
> "Ziri… did you see that?"
> "Yes. Chrono-signature unknown. Whatever that was… it wasn't Nullborn."
Kael's face hardened. "Then we're not just being hunted. We're being watched."
He stepped back into the ship.
The Spiral wasn't done with him yet.