The light had not yet faded when Kael opened his eyes. The void, once a chaos of broken timelines, had softened into something else — a horizon of shimmering glass and liquid starlight, folding endlessly. He stood in the heart of a newborn reality. His reality.

And yet, something was wrong.

The air trembled. Beneath the luminous surface of his creation, Kael sensed the faint pulse of resistance — a heartbeat that wasn't his.

"Do you feel that?" Jorah asked, lowering the Chrono Blade. The weapon still hummed with unstable power, its edge vibrating in rhythm with Kael's own pulse. "It's like the world's… arguing with you."

Kael closed his eyes, letting his perception stretch beyond sight. He reached into the weave of existence, tracing the threads of time like veins beneath translucent skin. The structure was perfect — almost. Every strand obeyed his design, except one. A single fracture, deep and invisible, echoing with foreign intent.

"They left something behind," Kael murmured.

"'They' as in the Architects?" Jorah asked.

Kael nodded slowly. "Their will still lingers. They buried an anchor inside time itself — a failsafe. I can feel it clawing at my work, trying to reverse it."

Jorah's brow furrowed. "So what, they booby-trapped reality?"

Kael smiled thinly. "They never did know how to lose gracefully."

He raised his hand. The glassy horizon responded, rippling outward as though he had touched a pond. In the distance, the waves took shape — massive structures emerging from the ether. Pillars of obsidian glass. Floating monoliths. Temples of impossible geometry that stretched into infinity. The remnants of the Architects' dominion.

Jorah whistled. "You weren't kidding. They built a failsafe city."

"More like a memory," Kael said darkly. "An echo of their perfection. Look closely."

Jorah squinted. Within the transparent walls of the nearest structure, shadowy figures moved — tall, robed, faceless. They glided like phantoms, their motions repetitive, endless, looping.

"They're… trapped?"

"Preserved," Kael corrected. "They're not alive. They're instructions — fragments of will coded into the heart of creation. If I erase them, I risk collapsing the structure entirely."

"Then don't erase them," Jorah said cautiously. "We find another way."

Kael's gaze softened, almost amused. "You always think there's another way."

"There has to be," Jorah replied. "Otherwise, why fight at all?"

Kael didn't answer. He was staring at his hands again — glowing, fractured, marked with golden cracks that ran up to his elbows. The signs of the God-Wound awakening fully. He could feel the weight of infinite timelines pressing against his skin, reality begging to be rewritten, to be freed.

"I can feel every life," Kael said quietly. "Every version of me that existed — the tyrant, the savior, the fool. They're all screaming, clawing for control."

Jorah stepped closer. "And who's winning?"

Kael's lips curved faintly. "The one with the loudest laugh."

The glass beneath them shattered.

For an instant, the new world bent sideways. The pillars trembled, their perfect lines distorting into jagged spirals. Kael raised his hand, stabilizing the collapse with sheer will — but even his control faltered.

A voice boomed across the infinite space, cold and resonant. "You should not have returned."

Jorah froze. "Please tell me that's not—"

"It is," Kael said grimly. "An Architect."

From the broken light, a figure emerged — humanoid, draped in threads of shadow and light, its face a mask of shifting clockwork. Every word it spoke rippled through existence.

"You were meant to be erased, Kael Vorrion. The wound must close."

Kael's golden eyes narrowed. "Funny. I was just thinking the same thing — about you."

The Architect raised its arm. Space itself recoiled. Time splintered into countless shards, each one showing a different Kael — dying, fighting, laughing, kneeling. All at once.

Jorah swung the Chrono Blade, cutting through the temporal wave. "We're not doing this again!" he shouted.

The impact rang like thunder. The Architect staggered back, light fracturing from its body. Kael seized the moment, hurling a blast of temporal energy that tore open the void.

But even as it fell, the Architect smiled — a hollow, mechanical grin. "You cannot destroy what was written by eternity itself."

Kael stepped forward, aura flaring. "Then I'll rewrite eternity."

He struck. The Chrono energy surged through his veins, erupting in golden fire. The Architect screamed — a sound that shook galaxies. Its body disintegrated into shards of time that scattered across the endless expanse.

When the light faded, Kael was on one knee, breathing hard. His power still thrummed violently, but now there was silence again — too much silence.

Jorah approached carefully. "You okay?"

Kael looked up. The cracks on his arms glowed brighter now, threads of molten gold pulsing beneath his skin. "It's not over. That wasn't all of them. That was a sentinel. A memory guard."

"Then where's the real Architect?"

Kael turned toward the fractured horizon. "At the core. The Origin Point — where time itself was first forged." He smiled faintly, a dangerous glint in his eyes. "And I intend to burn it."

Jorah groaned. "You mean… like literally?"

Kael's grin widened. "I mean entirely."

He rose, lifting the Chrono Blade. The air around him shimmered, and the broken glass solidified into a bridge of light leading toward the distant spire where the Origin Point pulsed like a heart.

"Come on," Kael said, stepping forward. "Let's go remind the gods what it means to bleed."

Jorah sighed, tightening his grip on the sword. "You know, for someone who's supposed to be rewriting reality, you sure love starting fights."

Kael laughed, bright and dangerous. "Some habits survive even godhood."

And with that, they walked across the endless bridge — two figures against the infinite storm — toward the heart of eternity itself.

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