The descent into Earth-199 was like falling through a shattered mirror.
Kael felt his body pulled, stretched, and fragmented across dimensions before slamming into coherence. He gasped for air as the world came back into focus—except this world was broken.
They stood on a rooftop in what had once been New York City. Skyscrapers twisted into spirals, some floating in mid-air. Cars hovered halfway through solid roads. Citizens blinked in and out of existence—flickering holograms, frozen time ghosts.
"This is a dead world," Reeva whispered, horrified.
Elara adjusted her gauntlet, scanning the environment. "It's not dead. Just... unplugged. The Drift dislodged its timeline. It exists between frames now."
Kael's vision blurred for a moment. He saw a flash—a version of himself running through a street filled with fire. Another blink—he was wearing armor, holding a weapon shaped like a tuning fork.
"I'm seeing things again."
"You're syncing," Elara said, stepping carefully down the stairwell. "The closer we get to the Keystone, the more unstable your entanglement will become. Try not to touch anything."
They moved through the city cautiously, passing through broken echoes of reality. A child's laughter looped in a nearby alley, playing over and over like a corrupted file. A news broadcast floated mid-air with no screen: BREAKING—Terror in the Quantum Core. Rift levels at critical thresholds.
Reeva scanned the anomaly readings. "We're close. The energy levels are spiking."
Kael's heartbeat accelerated. "You said the Keystone is here. Where exactly?"
Elara stopped before the husk of a museum. Its facade was cracked, but still standing. Above the entrance: The Hall of Multiversal Sciences.
She nodded. "Inside."
They entered the lobby. The air felt heavier—denser, as though time itself was thicker here. Giant exhibits hovered in place, paused mid-collapse. One display showed a timeline tree fracturing into dozens of glowing threads.
Reeva pointed. "There."
In the center of the atrium, surrounded by stasis fields and collapsed scaffolding, was the Keystone. It hovered just above the floor, spinning slowly, casting reflections of countless realities in every direction.
Kael approached cautiously. "I can feel it. Like it's humming in my chest."
Elara pulled a stabilizer rod from her pack. "Hold still. I'm going to isolate its pulse."
But before she could activate it, the room trembled.
Then a voice filled the space—low, mechanical, and cold.
"You came too late."
The floor rippled. From the shadows, a figure emerged. It wasn't human. Not entirely. A fusion of flesh, metal, and entropy. One eye glowed white. The other was a swirling void.
Kael froze. "The Architect?"
"No," Elara growled. "A sentinel. One of his Eyes."
The thing raised an arm. Reality cracked around it like glass.
"Run!" she shouted.
Kael grabbed the stabilizer as Reeva fired a plasma bolt. It fizzled against the creature's aura.
Alarms screamed through the museum.
They bolted, Keystone in hand, chased by the Architect's wrath made manifest.
The war had officially begun.