The corridor beneath the Time Nexus was quieter than a grave.
Jae-Won stepped cautiously, his dagger still warm with glitching energy. The air buzzed faintly, disturbed by chronal residues from the failed ambush. Blood trailed behind him from one of the fallen enforcers—people Serin had sent, or so he assumed. But the deeper he ventured, the more uncertain that became.
He reached a locked blast door, marked LEVEL 0 – CORE ARCHIVE, sealed behind a biometric grid long decommissioned. His eyes twitched with recognition.
He had been here before.
In the old timeline.
> "This is where she told me everything," he whispered.
A distorted memory flickered—Serin standing at this exact doorway, hands trembling as she warned him not to go further. That was before the betrayal. Before she disappeared. Before the world turned on him.
"Access override," he said into the panel, allowing his glitch to spike.
The system resisted at first—then cracked like fragile glass. The door whooshed open, revealing a cathedral-like chamber full of time servers—towers of pulsing data interlaced with neural pathways and chronal threads. Like a nervous system for reality itself.
As Jae-Won stepped in, the hum changed. The room recognized him.
Lights rippled along the walls. Then, a voice echoed—feminine, mechanical, and too familiar.
> "Welcome, Subject JW-001. Do you wish to resume Chrono-Thread Observation?"
He clenched his fists. "No. I want to know everything—about the experiment. About Serin. About me."
> "Acknowledged. Retrieving sequence: Project Mirrorlight."
The center of the chamber unfolded like blooming metal petals. A holographic display pulsed to life, showing fragmented memories stitched together—video logs, audio files, neural scans.
And then—Serin.
Younger. Unscarred. Wearing the same lab coat from the day he met her. She was standing in front of a cryo-pod.
> "If this fails, Jae-Won will become the last variable," she said. "Not because he's the strongest… but because his mind isn't bound by linear cause and effect. He's the only one who glitches when the system stabilizes."
Jae-Won's breath hitched.
> "That's why I chose him," the recording Serin whispered.
The pod beside her opened—and he saw himself inside, unconscious, floating in stasis.
"She was the one who activated my ability… the first time."
Suddenly, the chamber shook.
A tremor surged through the base. Sirens flared.
"Unauthorized access detected," the system boomed. "Contingency Override—initiated."
The door behind him slammed shut. The lighting dimmed to red.
Then—footsteps.
He turned, dagger raised.
But it wasn't an enforcer.
It was her.
Serin.
Older. Worn. But unmistakably her.
She stepped out from the shadow of a time node, her expression unreadable, one hand behind her back. "I wondered how long it would take you to find this place."
Jae-Won's dagger glitched.
"Serin."
She nodded once, eyes locked on his. "You've come far… too far."
"You betrayed me," he said through clenched teeth. "You killed me."
Her gaze faltered.
"No," she whispered. "I saved you."
He advanced slowly. "Lies."
"You don't remember everything, Jae-Won. And I'm sorry for what I had to do. But you were never supposed to wake up."
"What do you mean?"
She finally showed what was behind her back—a time crystal, glowing faintly purple. Exactly like the ones from the lab. The kind used to splice timelines.
"I gave you your glitch. I did it to break the loop. But now that you're here… you've triggered the collapse."
A silence stretched between them.
The next words would change everything.