The Multiverse Nexus trembled.
Not from war. Not from a cosmic calamity. But from a silent ripple—one born from the awakening of a forgotten force hidden deep within Arkan's evolving consciousness.
As he stood before the shimmering mirror of realities in the hidden vault beneath Nexus Academy, the smart interface system flickered. [Status Syncing… Identity Match: 76%]
"Incomplete?" Arkan muttered, his fingers brushing the cold, transparent interface. The interface glitched, distorted fragments of another identity momentarily flashing—shadows of a masked warrior clad in silver threads of fate, wielding powers beyond comprehension.
His alternate persona—codenamed Phantom Warden—was becoming harder to suppress.
---
"Arkan!" a voice snapped him out of his trance. It was Kiera, her eyes frantic. "The Nexus Authority is coming. They know about the temporal breach. They think it was you."
"It was me," he said calmly, stepping away from the mirror. "But they're not ready to hear the truth. Not yet."
"You need to disappear. Again. Use the… the Phantom ID," she whispered.
Arkan nodded. The system shimmered around his body, data strands wrapping him in a completely new digital skin. As his facial structure shifted and his aura altered, he became unrecognizable.
---
[Activating Phantom Warden Protocol… Identity Masked.]
Inside the control tower of Nexus Academy, alarms blared. Elite enforcers marched through the halls, scanning for dimensional fluctuations.
But they were too late.
Arkan—or rather, Phantom—slipped past them like a ghost. Not a camera caught his presence. Not a sensor beeped.
Outside, the night sky above the academy warped. Stars twinkled unnaturally. Someone… something… was reaching through the veil.
---
Arkan stood at the edge of the Dimensional Lake, a place where portals randomly connected realms like neural pathways of the universe. There, a stranger awaited him.
Clad in gold-accented robes, face covered in glowing runes, the stranger bowed. "The Council of Primes has noticed your awakening."
"Council of who?" Arkan asked, his eyes narrowing.
"They govern the fates of ascended multiversal beings. You, child of the Veiled Flame, are next in line."
Arkan didn't flinch. "I don't take orders from unknown councils."
The stranger smirked. "You will. Or the realms you've sworn to protect will be turned to dust."
Suddenly, a projection appeared behind the stranger—images of Earth, Draxilon, Mevarra—every realm Arkan had ties with—burning.
"You dare threaten what I protect?"
[Warning: Elevated NeuroSync Detected. Quantum Surge Active.]
The system inside him crackled, multiversal energy coursing through his veins. In a blink, Arkan was in front of the stranger. His hand pressed against the man's chest.
"Leave before I show you what a Nexus-born Ascendant can truly do."
The stranger staggered. Then laughed.
"Good. The fire burns in you. The Council will be watching."
He vanished in sparks.
---
Arkan turned back, only to find the lake glowing again. But this time, a figure walked out from it. Not an enemy. A child.
A boy, no older than ten, with eyes eerily like Arkan's.
"Father?" the boy asked.
Arkan froze.
Before he could react, the sys
tem inside him buzzed wildly.
[Chrono-Paradox Detected. Anomaly Level: 9.5]
A silent breeze stirred the dust in the ruins, the light from the broken sky casting kaleidoscopic colors on the jagged stone. Xal's eyes didn't move from the child, who still clutched the glowing orb. Something about the energy radiating from it felt ancient... and familiar.
"System, analyze that orb," Xal commanded mentally.
[System Window: Processing...] [Item Identified: Temporal Core. Origin: Prime Chrono Vault. Status: Unstable. Potential: Catastrophic.]
Xal's thoughts raced. The Prime Chrono Vault was a mythical location even within multiverse legends. Said to hold lost fragments of time, it was believed to be sealed eons ago by beings far more advanced than anything known. How could this child—this anomaly—hold such power?
"You… where did you get that?" Xal asked gently.
The boy didn't answer but took a step back, eyes wide, scared. The orb pulsed harder now, responding to the child's emotions.
[Warning: Emotional fluctuations detected in Subject Zero. Temporal Core's synchronization increasing. Potential rift breach: 73%.]
"I'm not going to hurt you," Xal said as he crouched down, one hand slowly raised. "But that thing is dangerous. If you're not careful, it could destroy this entire zone."
A ripple in the air behind the boy surged. Reality bent like liquid, and the echo of overlapping voices filled the ruins.
"Xal of No-Origin… do not interfere."
Figures emerged from the rift—six in total. Clad in armor made of glowing threads of time, their faces hidden by masks displaying spinning hourglasses.
[System Window: Identity Match - The Chrono Judges. Threat Level: Unknown. Combat Viability: 21% (Recommend retreat).]
Xal narrowed his eyes. "No-Origin, huh? So, you know who I really am."
"You are a paradox. A thread that was never supposed to exist," one of the judges intoned. "This anomaly is ours to contain."
"No," Xal said coldly. "You won't touch him."
The ground trembled.
The orb burst with light, enveloping the child and freezing the entire space around them. Time itself had paused—birds mid-flight, falling stones frozen in air, even the Chrono Judges stilled. Only Xal and the child moved freely.
[System Update: Synchronization with Temporal Core enabled. Access granted to Timewalk Protocol.]
"What…?"
Xal glanced at his hand. A glowing sigil of a broken clock had appeared.
"You're syncing with me?" he asked the boy, who now stared at him, no longer afraid.
"I don't know who I am… but I know you're the only one who can help," the boy said.
BOOM!
The rift exploded outward. The Chrono Judges broke free from the temporal pause with tremendous resistance.
"You will not escape, Paradox!" one shouted.
Xal grabbed the boy's hand and activated the Timewalk Protocol.
[System: Activating Timewalk in 3... 2... 1...]
The world inverted.
Colors dissolved, replaced by streams of equations and timelines cascading around them. Xal and the child were now running through threads of the multiverse—memories, moments, probabilities.
"Where are we?" the boy shouted over the storm of data.
"Not where. When," Xal said. "We're inside the multiverse stream. This is the only place we can hide from them."
Far behind, one of the timelines tore open. The Judges were following.
[System Alert: Temporal Pursuit Engaged. Suggest Destination: Safepoint Delta Prime – Abandoned Sanctuary of Time.]
"Do it!" Xal commanded.
A whirl of pressure sucked them into a tunnel of blue light, and they fell.
—
They landed hard.
Stone beneath them. Silence around them. The sky above was an endless starfield with no sun, moon, or atmosphere. Just a void of cosmic shimmer.
[Location Confirmed: Safepoint Delta Prime. Status: Stable. Timeflow Normalized.]
Xal looked at the boy. "You okay?"
The boy nodded.
"Who are you really?" Xal asked.
The boy hesitated, then raised the orb again. "My name… it's Zerith."
And the orb responded by projecting holographic records: a war in a distant universe, a scientist creating the Temporal Core, a betrayal, and a hidden protocol designed to merge with a host born of paradox.
Xal's breath caught.
"You're not an anomaly," he said. "You're the last hope of stabilizing the Chrono Threads."
"But I need a guide," Zerith whispered. "And I chose you."
Suddenly, the ground beneath the sanctuary shook. A fragment of a shattered timeline landed nearby, bleeding hours and days into the void.
[System Alert: Timeline Fracture Detected. The Multiverse Nexus is weakening.]
"What's causing this?"
A portal opened.
A figure stepped out.
Not a Judge. Not a guardian.
But… another Xal.
"We need to talk," the second Xal said.
Xal stood frozen. The boy clutched his arm.