Jorah woke to the sound of ticking. Not from a clock — from the sky.

The world around him wasn't really a world. It was a mosaic of fragments — a thousand shattered timelines floating in a storm of gold and black. Bits of landscapes drifted by: a castle hallway turning into a forest, a desert melting into a city street. Above it all hung the shattered hourglass, suspended in the void, its black sand bleeding into the air like smoke.

"Okay," Jorah muttered, pushing himself up from what looked like a floor made of broken mirror shards. "This isn't a dream. This is worse."

He looked down — his reflection stared back, splintered into dozens of versions. Each reflection moved slightly out of sync, whispering something he couldn't quite hear.

Then a voice — smooth, calm, deliberate.

"You survived the collapse. Impressive."

Jorah turned sharply. A figure stood a few feet away, wearing a long coat of shimmering glass-thread fabric that rippled like water. His face was human, but too perfect — symmetrical to the point of unease. And his eyes weren't eyes at all; they were revolving gears of silver light.

"Let me guess," Jorah said. "Another Architect?"

The man inclined his head. "The last one. The others perished when you destroyed the City That Shouldn't Be. My name is Solen."

Jorah's grip tightened around the Chrono Blade. "Yeah, sorry about your friends. They were trying to delete my friend from existence."

Solen's gaze flickered to the blade. "Kael Vorrion. The God-Wound. The recursive anomaly."

"I call him Kael. Easier to pronounce."

"You should not protect him," Solen said simply. "He is the wound that's killing reality."

"Yeah, I've heard that one before," Jorah said dryly. "Usually from people who try to kill me afterward."

Solen's lips curved — not quite a smile. "If I wanted you dead, Jorah Venn, you would not be standing. You are useful."

"Useful how?"

"To reach him."

The space between them warped. In the distance, Jorah saw Kael's reflection again — drifting like a ghost inside a whirlpool of fractured time. His face was calm, but faint cracks of light spread across his skin like fractures in glass.

"He's… trapped?" Jorah asked quietly.

Solen nodded. "Between iterations. Neither alive nor erased. The paradox sustains him, but his consciousness is dissolving."

Jorah felt his throat tighten. "Then let's pull him out."

"You misunderstand." Solen raised a hand, and a map of spinning gears and constellations appeared between them. "If he awakens fully, the collapse will begin again. Time will consume itself. Everything — every version, every life — will burn out."

Jorah frowned. "So you don't want him dead, you just want him… asleep forever?"

Solen's tone was almost kind. "Yes. A perfect stillness. No more loops. No more pain. A clean ending."

"Except for him."

"Especially for him."

Jorah ran a hand through his hair. "You know, for someone built out of math and hubris, you're real bad at mercy."

"Mercy," Solen said softly, "is just cruelty postponed."

The shards around them shifted suddenly — flashes of other worlds bleeding through. Jorah saw himself in one: older, scarred, wearing Kael's armor. Another showed him kneeling beside the Witch's corpse. Another — a flash of Kael standing over a burning throne.

Jorah swallowed. "Are those futures?"

Solen tilted his head. "Possible outcomes. All leading to entropy."

Jorah raised the sword. "Then we make a new one."

The Architect's gears spun faster in his eyes. "You would create another paradox?"

"Call it hope."

Solen's expression didn't change, but his voice lowered. "Hope is the first lie of mortals."

Jorah grinned. "And defiance is the second. Lucky for you, I'm fluent in both."

He stepped forward, the Chrono Blade humming. The fragments around them trembled — time responding to its wielder. But before Jorah could act, Solen raised a single finger.

"Stop."

The world froze. Every shard, every flicker of light, every pulse of air. Only Jorah could still move — barely.

Solen's tone was quiet, almost weary. "You cannot win by brute force. I've watched Kael make the same mistake countless times. He thought he could rewrite fate. He thought he could save everyone."

Jorah spat, "Maybe he still can."

"He saved no one," Solen said sharply. "Every rewrite cost another world. Every victory birthed another collapse. Tell me, mortal — how many versions of you have already died for his stubbornness?"

Jorah faltered.

Solen stepped closer. "You think this is your first life? You think this is the first Jorah to stand here, holding that sword? You've done this a hundred times. You failed each time. And every loop left a scar."

The ticking grew louder — deafening. Visions slammed into Jorah's mind: countless versions of himself dying, fighting, burning, falling into the same void. The same final words echoing through each collapse—

Find me before they do.

Jorah gasped, gripping his head. "Stop—"

Solen reached out and touched the blade. The visions ceased.

"You see now," the Architect said softly. "You were never meant to find him. You were meant to end him."

Jorah staggered back, shaking. "No… I don't believe that."

Solen's eyes dimmed. "Then believe this — if Kael wakes, your world ends. But if you help me seal him, I can give you one last gift."

"What kind of gift?"

"A stable reality. A timeline where you live. Where your memories are real. Where everything stops breaking."

Jorah hesitated. The thought burned — a world without chaos, without rewinds, without Kael's laugh echoing through the cracks.

"Think carefully," Solen murmured. "Peace, or paradox."

For a long moment, the only sound was ticking.

Then Jorah grinned faintly. "You know what the funny part is?"

Solen raised a brow.

"I've been in Kael's head long enough to know what he'd say to that."

He lifted the sword — its light blazing. "Why not both?"

The Chrono Blade screamed. The frozen world shattered into motion. Solen's perfect calm cracked, his gears spinning wildly as time surged backward and forward at once.

Jorah lunged through the storm toward Kael's reflection, shouting over the roar of collapsing timelines. "Hang on, you smug bastard!"

Kael's eyes flicked open — burning gold.

And the world detonated into light.

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