Chapter 105
The city did not celebrate victory.
Smoke lingered over broken districts, drifting like reluctant ghosts between towers. The Labyrinth had returned to dormancy, its corridors sealing, disguising the blood it had consumed. Aboveground, survivors gathered in stunned silence, unsure whether the dawn signaled salvation or merely a pause before annihilation.
Kael stood at the highest balcony of the Obsidian Spire, watching the city breathe. His arm had been bound tightly, dark cloth already soaked through. Pain existed, but it was distant, irrelevant.
"Casualty reports are stabilizing," Lirien said behind him. "The foreign forces are retreating. Without Mereth, their coordination collapsed."
Kael nodded slightly. "They were never meant to win. Only to test."
Darius leaned against a cracked pillar, armor half removed. "Test what?"
"How fast we respond. How far the city bends before it breaks."
Silence stretched. The wind carried the distant sound of rebuilding—hammering, shouted orders, grief disguised as labor.
Lirien's voice softened. "The council is gone. The people will look to you now."
Kael finally turned. "I don't rule."
"You already do," she replied.
Before he could answer, the air shifted.
It was subtle—too subtle for ordinary senses. But Kael felt it immediately. Time itself wavered, like a thread pulled too tight.
His hand went to the scar along his wrist.
"Something's wrong," he said.
The world tilted.
For half a heartbeat, the sky fractured into overlapping moments—sunrise, midnight, blood-red dusk—stacked atop one another. Then reality snapped back into place, leaving a ringing pressure behind the eyes.
Darius swore. "Tell me that wasn't just me."
"No," Kael said slowly. "That was Time."
Lirien's pupils contracted as her runes flared involuntarily. "A temporal echo. Powerful. Uncontrolled."
Kael's jaw tightened. "Someone activated an Erasure Anchor."
The words hung heavy.
"That technique was erased centuries ago," Darius said. "Burned out of existence."
Kael's gaze hardened. "Not erased. Buried."
He moved without another word, descending the Spire at speed, shadows stretching to keep pace. Lirien and Darius followed, urgency biting at their heels.
They reached the lower sanctums—levels untouched by the Labyrinth's recent awakening. Here, stone was old, etched with symbols that resisted interpretation, resisting memory itself.
At the center of the chamber stood a circle of fractured time sigils.
And within it, a boy.
He couldn't have been more than sixteen. Black hair, pale skin, eyes unfocused as if staring at things that no longer existed. Blood trickled from his nose, dripping onto symbols that glowed brighter with every drop.
Kael stopped dead.
The pressure in the air intensified, time bending inward toward the boy like gravity.
"Don't move," Kael said quietly.
Lirien swallowed. "He's alive. Barely."
Darius frowned. "He doesn't look like an enemy."
"That's what scares me," Kael replied.
The boy's lips moved.
Kael stepped closer, every instinct screaming caution. "Can you hear me?"
The boy's eyes snapped into focus.
They were wrong.
Not in color—but in depth. Like endless corridors folding inward, looping infinitely.
"You're late," the boy said.
The chamber trembled.
Kael's breath stilled. "Who are you?"
The boy smiled faintly. "Someone who already watched you fail."
Time screamed.
Visions exploded outward—cities collapsing, the Spire shattered, Lirien impaled by shadow, Darius kneeling in ash. Kael saw himself standing alone in a dead world, blood freezing midair around him.
Then it stopped.
Kael staggered, catching himself against the stone.
Lirien cried out. "Kael!"
He raised a hand. "I'm fine."
The boy coughed weakly, blood staining his chin. "You always say that."
Kael crouched in front of him, eyes burning. "You've seen the future."
"Yes," the boy whispered. "Too many of them."
"Who sent you?"
"No one," he replied. "That's the problem."
Lirien knelt beside them, examining the sigils. "These markings… they're not summoning arrays. They're anchors. He tied himself to fixed moments."
Darius stiffened. "That would tear a normal cultivator apart."
The boy laughed softly. "It did."
Kael's voice dropped to a blade's edge. "Why?"
The boy met his gaze. "Because you won't listen unless you're afraid."
Kael stood slowly. "You just made a powerful enemy."
The boy shook his head. "No. I woke one."
The sigils flared violently.
Cracks spiderwebbed across the chamber floor as time folded inward again. Kael reacted instantly, slamming his palm into the ground, shadows erupting to smother the array.
"Lirien—seal the outer ring!"
She moved, runes blazing, chanting through clenched teeth.
Darius drew his blade, standing over the boy. "If this thing goes critical—"
"I know," Kael said. "I know."
With a final surge, the sigils dimmed, collapsing into inert stone.
Silence returned—thick, fragile.
The boy slumped forward, unconscious.
Lirien exhaled shakily. "We stopped it."
Kael stared at the boy, unease gnawing deeper than any wound. "No," he said. "We delayed it."
Darius frowned. "Delayed what?"
Kael's eyes lifted, distant, calculating.
"The end he came from."