The sky above them cracked with silent lightning—veins of energy flickering across the blood-red clouds. Nam took a deep breath, adjusting to the strange air of this future world. It smelled of metal, ash, and faint ozone.
"Let's move," Nam ordered. "We need cover, and we need intel."
They advanced carefully through the ruined city. Every step echoed in the ghostly silence. The structures—tall, angular, overgrown—looked alien yet familiar, as if built by humans who had long forgotten what humanity meant.
Lan tapped on a shard of glass embedded in a wall. It blinked to life, displaying fragmented data streams in a language none of them recognized.
"I can try to interface," she said, already deploying her portable decryptor.
Meanwhile, Bao and Minh secured the perimeter. But something felt… wrong.
Nam turned toward an alleyway—and saw them.
Tall, cloaked figures. No faces. Just glowing eyes beneath hoods. At least seven of them, motionless, watching.
"Contact, left side!" Bao shouted.
But the figures didn't move. Instead, a voice echoed—not from their mouths, but directly into their minds.
"You have crossed the timeline uninvited. You carry the Echo. You are anomaly—yet necessary."
Nam narrowed his eyes. "Who are you?"
The nearest figure stepped forward. The shadows seemed to bend around it.
"We are the Watchers. Keepers of time's integrity. And you... are both threat and salvation."
Lan gasped. "They're not attacking. They're communicating through quantum frequency."
Minh muttered, "Then let's hope we say the right things."
Nam stepped forward, calm but alert. "You say I'm an anomaly. But if I'm here, there must be a reason. What do you want from us?"
The lead Watcher raised a hand. A beam of light shot from his palm into the sky—and suddenly, a map of timelines unraveled above them, spiraling like a galaxy. Fractures ran through it—cracks in time. One of them glowed brighter than the rest.
"That fracture... is you. Your choices have split the core stream. If left unchecked, time will collapse."
Nam stared at the glowing rift. It pulsed with the same energy he'd seen in the glyph earlier.
"Then help us fix it," Nam said.
The Watchers were silent. Then the lead figure spoke once more:
"You seek answers. The truth lies in the Citadel of Origins—buried in the Abyss. But beware, Echo Bearer. In every version of your future… you betray yourself."
A gust of wind tore through the ruins—and the Watchers vanished.
For a long moment, no one spoke.
Finally, Bao whispered, "Did… they just say you betray yourself?"
Nam's face was unreadable.
"Yes," he replied. "Which means we need to find out why."
He turned toward the distant horizon, where a mountain floated above the earth, cloaked in storms.
"The Citadel of Origins. That's our next stop."