Liang Zhenyu was running.
His boots pounded against the cracked metal floor, each step echoing along the corridor like an impatient drumbeat. The air was thick, metallic, almost choking — it reeked of ozone and burnt copper, the smell of storms trapped indoors. Blue and red emergency lights strobed along the walls, flashing in erratic intervals, as though the station itself had a pulse… and it was faltering.
Above him, the ceiling peeled away in jagged fractures. Beyond it, there was no sky. Only a mosaic of suspended shards — fragments of worlds hanging in the black void. He caught glimpses as he ran: a gothic city under a downpour of glass needles; a sprawling ocean glowing with a thousand living lights; a mechanical wasteland coughing black smoke into a sunless sky.
The floor shook, forcing him to grab the wall for balance. From the heart of the station — The Convergence — a deep, resonating pulse surged through the structure, rattling bolts, splitting panels, making the air vibrate in his teeth.
"Liang."Feng Xuelian's voice came through his communicator, calm but strained, each word clipped."Don't look back. And don't look at the symbols.""Why?" he panted, pushing forward."Because if you look at them…" —a pause, the sound of her steady breathing— "they will look at you."
The corridor ended abruptly at a round opening, its edges scorched and warped like a melted coin. Liang stepped through into the Central Chamber, and the air shifted. Heavy. Charged. Every hair on his arms stood on end.
Seven symbols burned into the floor in a perfect circle, each one pulsing with light. They were different — not just in color, but in texture and movement.
A slow-turning golden gear floated above the ground, shedding motes of light (Aether).A red flame beat like a living heart, twisting in and out of itself (Ignis).A whirlpool of pure, liquid blue rotated in silence (Aqua).A block of stone floated just inches above its sigil, its surface breathing in slow, deep pulses (Terra).A white spark flashed intermittently, blinding and pure (Lux).A ripple of violet-black shadow slithered along the floor, stretching toward him like an eager animal (Umbra).And at the far end, a black spiral spun in defiance of physics, pulling light into its center (Chaos).
The symbols pulsed again, but this time in sync with his heartbeat. He staggered, clutching his chest. It wasn't pain — it was recognition, like shaking hands with someone you've only met in a dream.
[Resonance Signatures detected.]The voice wasn't human. It came from nowhere and everywhere at once — calm, mechanical, patient.[Observer profile: incomplete. Synchronization pending.]
Liang glanced around, searching for the source, but there was only the chamber and the seven burning sigils. The voice faded, replaced by the deep hum of the Convergence Core buried beneath the floor. It felt alive. Watching him.
At the chamber's center hovered a map of the multiverse, a perfect sphere made of countless points of light. Liang's eyes scanned the lattice — until he saw it.
One of the lights — small, blue-white — began to flicker. It bore the label: Earth – ID: KW-01.
And then… it went out.
Gone. The hollow where it had been seemed to pull at his chest. Images slammed into his mind without warning: the Kawami lantern festival, paper lights swaying in the wind, faces half-illuminated by warm glow, the smell of street food in the night air — and then the sound cut out, replaced by a ringing silence. The faces blurred, warped… gone.
"They're erasing my world…" he whispered. His voice cracked."And I… I'm holding the pen."
A cold wind — impossible in an enclosed space — swept across the chamber. The lights of the symbols dimmed. Behind him, a single footstep echoed, deliberate and slow.
He turned.
The figure was tall, its frame wrapped in a long coat that shifted like smoke. A mask covered its face, black as obsidian, engraved with all seven symbols fused into one unholy mark. The sight made Liang's stomach twist.
When it spoke, its voice was distorted, metallic, layered, like multiple people speaking through water.
"Observer… you were never meant to choose. But now… you will."
The floor trembled violently. Cracks split the sigils; energy surged upward in jagged arcs. Liang stepped back, but the stone beneath him gave way. The entire chamber collapsed, the seven symbols falling with him into the void.
He tumbled through fragments of worlds — cities, mountains, oceans — each screaming in languages he didn't understand. Colors bled together, shadows stretched like claws, and somewhere in the chaos, he heard the mechanical voice again.
[Warning: Multiverse stability compromised.][Initializing Emergency Protocols…][Resonance Echo function unlocked for survival.]
Light exploded in his vision. Then, darkness.
Only a single, cold line of text remained in his mind:
[Resonance Log: 000]Date: UnknownStatus: Multiverse collapse in progress.Primary anomaly: Earth [ID-KW-01] — erased from register.