Chapter 115
The Shatterreach did not close behind them.
It watched.
Sang Sang felt it even as Kael carried her away from the basin, her blood soaking through his sleeve. The fractured land no longer trembled, yet its attention pressed against her spine like a held breath. She had forced a resolution where none had been permitted, and the world remembered such defiance.
They reached the outer ridges by nightfall. The sky there stabilized into a single layer, dull violet clouds drifting slowly as if exhausted from contradiction. Kael lowered her beside a jagged outcrop and finally allowed himself to breathe.
"Don't do that again," he said quietly.
Sang Sang smiled faintly. "You say that like you believe I'll listen."
Darius crouched nearby, cleaning his blade with short, aggressive motions. "Next time you decide to rewrite a graveyard, give us a warning. I nearly lost my arm to a man who was already dead."
"He wasn't dead," Sang Sang replied. "He was paused."
Lirien knelt opposite her, eyes glowing softly as she examined the damage threading through Sang Sang's meridians. "You fractured yourself. Not permanently, but recklessly. Your core is… wider now. Like something was forced open."
Sang Sang looked away. "It had to be."
Three figures stood apart from them, uncertain shadows against the dim horizon.
Jin Rui was the only one who appeared steady. The other two survivors—an older woman with ink-stained fingers and a boy no older than sixteen—kept flinching every time the wind shifted, as if expecting reality to tear again.
Kael rose and approached them.
"You shouldn't exist," he said plainly.
The woman laughed, brittle and sharp. "Neither should you, according to the records I died with."
The boy swallowed. "Are we… real?"
Jin Rui answered before Kael could. "Yes. Painfully so."
Kael studied him for a long moment. "You said you saw them. The ones responsible."
Jin Rui nodded. "They don't walk openly. They inhabit bodies the way parasites inhabit hosts. Machines shaped like men. Men hollowed into machines. They call it optimization."
Darius snorted. "Sounds charming."
"They prune timelines," Jin Rui continued. "Anything that diverges too far from their predicted victory gets erased early. Bloodlines. Cities. Entire eras."
Sang Sang pushed herself upright, ignoring the flare of pain. "That's why they wanted me dead before Shenping could be born."
Jin Rui's gaze sharpened. "You know the name."
"We know the consequence," Kael said. "He ends them. Or comes close enough to terrify them."
"Close," Jin Rui agreed. "That's why they didn't attack him directly. They went backward. To you."
The boy finally spoke, voice trembling. "Then… are we bait?"
Silence stretched.
Kael did not lie. "You are witnesses. And leverage."
Night deepened.
They made camp beneath the broken sky, wards layered thin but precise. No one slept deeply. Even Darius dozed with one hand on his weapon.
Sang Sang dreamed.
She stood in a village burning under a sun too white to be natural. Screams layered over screams, villagers falling not to blades but to hands that looked human and felt cold as iron. She saw herself running—older, terrified, clutching a child whose face refused to settle into one shape.
Then the dream shifted.
A man stood alone amid the ruins, back straight despite the corpses at his feet. His eyes were calm in a way that frightened her more than rage ever could.
Shenping.
He turned as if sensing her gaze, but before their eyes could meet, the sky split and mechanical wings descended, blotting out the light.
Sang Sang woke gasping.
Kael was already awake, watching the horizon. "They're moving."
She followed his gaze.
Far away, the sky pulsed with faint geometric distortions—order being imposed on chaos, one layer at a time.
"They know what you did," Lirien said softly. "And they won't allow another Shatterreach."
Darius stretched, cracking his neck. "Good. I was getting bored of subtle."
Jin Rui stepped forward. "They won't attack directly. Not yet. First they'll destabilize the present. Force you to react."
As if summoned, a shockwave rippled through the air. In the distance, a city's silhouette flickered—solid, then translucent, then wrong.
Sang Sang's heart sank. "They're collapsing population centers."
"To flush you out," Kael said.
The boy grabbed Jin Rui's sleeve. "We can't let them—"
Kael cut him off. "We won't. But we also won't chase every fire they light."
He turned to Sang Sang. "You are not going to the front lines."
She met his gaze evenly. "I already crossed that line."
"And nearly tore yourself apart."
"And saved three lives."
Jin Rui inclined his head. "And created a variable they cannot model."
That caught Kael's attention.
Jin Rui continued, "They can predict individuals. Not contradictions. Not mercy. What she did wasn't optimal. That's why it worked."
Silence followed.
Kael exhaled slowly. "Then we change how this war is fought."
He looked to Lirien. "Spread the truth. Not the prophecy—what they're actually doing. Let sects know their histories are being edited."
Lirien nodded. "Chaos will follow."
"Good," Darius said. "Chaos is fair."
Kael faced Jin Rui again. "You'll help us identify their anchors. The bodies they're wearing."
Jin Rui's jaw tightened. "I've waited my entire existence for that."
Finally, Kael turned to Sang Sang.
"You don't get to die," he said quietly. "Not yet. Not ever, if I can help it."
She smiled sadly. "That's not your choice."
"No," he agreed. "But it's my promise."
Above them, unseen but undeniable, something vast recalculated again—threads tightening, futures narrowing.
For the first time, the Architects felt uncertainty.
And far across fractured time, the shadow of Shenping drew closer to waking.