Aria floated beside him, arms crossed, her golden eyes narrowed with sothing between annoyance and concern.
"Because the multiverse needs you."
Adam’s gaze didn’t shift. He just stared out into the clean, dead void where the Endlands used to breathe. Where gods had wept. Where tilines had bled.
Where sothing had hidden.
Aria’s voice softened. "Aurora’s vision didn’t just stop with you vanishing. She saw past that."
Adam’s jaw tensed slightly. "What did she see?"
Aria hesitated.
"...The end."
He turned now, slowly. His eyes locked onto hers.
"No," she said before he could speak again. "Not a world. Not a realm. Everything. All of it. Every realm, every fold, every root-thread of reality. Burned. Collapsed. Rewritten into sothing else."
Adam didn’t blink. "A singularity event?"
"No. Worse."
Aria swallowed, lowering her voice like the words themselves carried weight. "Sothing... replacing us."
Adam looked away again.
She continued. "Aurora’s seen destruction before. Ends. Resets. But this—this wasn’t natural. It wasn’t war or gods or an overload of systems. It was deliberate. Built. Set in motion and left to bloom."
She floated in front of him now, stepping into his line of sight. "And the only person who stood in its way?"
Adam raised his eyes.
"You."
He said nothing.
"You broke the vision, Adam," Aria said. "Your presence glitched it out. Not even ti wanted to record it when you stepped in. That’s never happened before."
He finally spoke. Quiet. Certain.
"I know."
Aria’s brows furrowed. "You... what?"
"I know," Adam repeated, voice still low. "That’s why I ca here."
Aria blinked, confused. "You ca to the Endlands because of the vision?"
"No," Adam replied. "I ca because this is where it starts."
He turned back to the vast nothing.
"This place was a wound. The kind that festered. It wasn’t just broken—it was fed. Warped. Saturated with rules that didn’t belong to this multiverse."
"You’re saying..." Aria trailed off.
"I felt it when Nullbreed showed up. He was powerful, yeah. Fast. Smart. But he didn’t fit—you could sll it on him. He wasn’t grown here. He wasn’t even born. He was engineered."
"Engineered?" she repeated. "By who?"
Adam’s voice went cold.
"I don’t know."
Aria floated beside him again, tone cautious. "You traced the anchor, didn’t you? Nullbreed’s last echo?"
"I did," he said. "And it led here. To soone who didn’t want to be found. Who doesn’t have a na."
"But... you think they’re responsible?"
"I know they are," Adam said. "Because when I touched the thread, it didn’t just trace back to Nullbreed."
He raised a hand.
Golden light sparked from his fingers, tiny filants pulsing out like veins. One strand, darker than the others, glowed with a faint hum.
"This trail goes further," Adam said. "Deeper than just Nullbreed. Deeper than anything Aurora saw. But it hides itself every ti I push forward."
"You think it’s masking itself from you?" Aria asked.
"No. It’s not hiding from ," Adam said.
"It’s hiding because of ."
Aria stared at the black thread of energy, watching it twitch like a living nerve. "And nobody knows who it is?"
"No one," Adam said. "Not you. Not Aurora. Not even ."
"Then how do we stop it?"
Adam looked at her, eyes sharp.
"By pulling it into the light."
He clenched his fist, and the dark thread coiled into his palm like smoke.
"This thing, whatever it is... it wants control. It doesn’t want to erase the multiverse. It wants to remake it. From the inside out. Piece by piece."
Aria went silent.
She knew what that ant.
"That’s why I burned the Endlands," Adam said, turning fully toward her now. "It was the lab. The factory. The shelter. It’s where they ran their simulations. Where they tested Nullbreed. Where they let tilines rot, just to learn how to rewrite them."
"And now it’s gone," Aria said.
He nodded. "Gone. No place left to hide."
"But if you destroyed their base..." she started.
"They’re still ahead," Adam interrupted. "This wasn’t their last move. It was their first."
Aria stared at him, trying to keep up. "Then what’s next?"
Adam floated down slightly, toward the deepest fold of the void where the singularity had collapsed the Endlands.
He placed a single hand on empty space.
And space responded.
A ripple. A whimper.
A new trail erged—barely visible. A fragnt of a thread, almost lost. But Adam caught it.
"There," he said. "That’s the next cut."
"You sure?"
"I never guess."
He turned back to her.
"Go to Aurora. Tell her I’m on the path."
Aria didn’t move. "She’ll want to speak to you."
"She’ll have to wait."
Aria frowned. "You sure you want to do this alone?"
He paused.
Then—quietly—said, "No."
But still turned away.
"I’ll call if it gets bad."
"Define ’bad,’" Aria said.
Adam smiled faintly.
"When I stop holding back."
She sighed, backing up through a fold in space that opened behind her like silver cloth.
Before she stepped through, she looked back one more ti.
"I’ll tell her you’re alive."
"Tell her," he said, "I’m awake."
The fold closed.
Adam faced the last floating thread.
He didn’t follow it right away.
He just stood there for a mont. Letting the silence settle.
Then—
"Whoever you are," he muttered, "you picked the wrong ga."
And stepped into the trail of darkness.
The hunt had officially begun.
Elsewhere
The ring of light twisted—not in flare or surge.
It twisted like sothing ancient inhaling, like silence holding its breath too long.
Joshua stepped back.
Aurora’s fingers hovered over the console. Her jaw clenched as the harmonic pulse wavered. Still stable—but no longer calm.
Sothing was pressing through.
Then—
It stepped out.
No sound.
No movent of air.
Just presence.
A shape of blackness. Matte. Weightless. Sharp around the edges, yet impossible to define. Like a man, but not really. Like shadow had grown tired of hiding.
Not the absence of light.
The reason light was afraid.
Joshua froze.
Aurora’s hands slowly rose.
The figure didn’t speak. Didn’t move.
It watched.
Then—one step.
The lights dimd.
The temperature dropped.
The being tilted its head like it was learning what gravity ant for the first ti. When it spoke, the voice didn’t echo. It settled—quiet, hollow, and final.
"Joshua."
Joshua flinched. "Y-you know ?"
"I built you... a path."
Aurora narrowed her eyes. "You ca through our machine."
"Yes."
"You used us."
"Yes."
Joshua’s fists curled. "Why?"
The figure’s face shifted—if you could call it that. Shadows tightened. A rough shape ford. Black hair. Oil-dark eyes.
A face.
Adam’s face.
But off.
Too clean. Too smooth.
Like a mannequin trying to be human.
"My na is Veylor."
Joshua’s throat tightened. "What are you?"
Veylor didn’t blink.
"I am the unmaking. The correction. The silence."
He stepped further in. The portal behind him shimred and dimd—now dormant, now rembering him.
"I was born the mont Adam Dhark was born. He cracked sothing that should never break. I am what bled through."
"Who?" Joshua asked, confused.
Aurora’s eyes narrowed. "Adam... that na feels..."
"Unwritten," Veylor said. "Because in your world, he was erased. Sealed. Forgotten. You were born in peace—but only because soone buried the storm."
He looked at both of them.
"You two... are fragnts. Leftovers of a war you can’t rember."
Joshua shook his head. "We made this machine to prove the multiverse. You hijacked that. You led us here."
"I guided you."
"Why?" Aurora asked. "Why the dreams? The visions? Why us?"
"Because I needed a door. I couldn’t break the veil myself—not without Adam sensing . If he saw , I’d lose. But through you... I could enter unnoticed."
"So we were bait," Joshua said.
"You were keys."
Aurora stepped in front of Joshua now. Her voice low. Calm.
"What do you want?"
Veylor turned to Joshua.
"Completion."
"Completion?" Joshua repeated.
"I am not here to destroy. I am here to restore what was broken."
His gaze passed to Aurora.
"You are echoes. The mory of gods sealed in flesh. You were never ant to exist like this."
Joshua’s voice cracked. "So what—you want to erase us?"
"No," Veylor said. "I want to reintegrate you."
He stepped forward again. Slow. asured.
"You. Alice. Aria. Alfred. Alexandria. Aurora. You are shadows of what ca before. You were born into a world with no cost. No mory of the pain that made you."
Aurora’s energy flared. Just a flicker. "You want to unmake us."
Veylor didn’t answer.
But he didn’t deny it either.
Joshua took a shaky breath. "Then why now?"
"Because the gate opened. The seal weakened. The mont you chose truth... I followed."
Aurora’s aura expanded again, lines of energy bending around her. She placed herself fully between Veylor and Joshua.
"You’re not taking him."
"I will," Veylor said. "When he understands."
Joshua grabbed her arm. "Aurora—"
"Shut up," she whispered.
Veylor’s body shifted again. Back to shapeless dark.
"You were ant to fade," he said, voice like ice. "But you dread too loud."
Reviews
All reviews (0)