Anchor 0-0-0 – "The Originless"
There were myths, even among the ChronoKnots, that whispered of an Anchor older than Time itself—an origin point where all timelines converged before splintering apart.
Anchor Zero.
It wasn't listed.
It wasn't mapped.
It was forbidden.
Yet now, its coordinates were flashing on the ChronoMap. Not as a discovery.
But as a signal.
---
Kael stood before the mission altar, its surface flickering with unknown glyphs. The system had assigned the Anchor an impossible tag: Undefined Causality. Absolute Instability.
Myra paced behind him. "How the hell did Kaelen find Anchor Zero?"
Aren, still half-digitized, floated a diagram above his hand. "My guess? He didn't. He created it. Or… maybe he's always existed there."
Ghost Ronin grunted, "So we're walking into the basement of the universe. What could go wrong?"
Kael stared into the swirling void ahead. "Only everything."
---
Arrival at Anchor Zero
The landing was… silence.
No wind.
No sound.
Not even the hum of the timeline beneath their feet.
They stood in a vast desert of white dust. Above them, the sky was an endless curtain of black—pinpricked with infinite, motionless stars. In the far distance, a towering structure loomed.
Not built.
Fossilized.
The team approached slowly.
Myra whispered, "That's a palace."
Ghost Ronin tilted his head. "More like a… tomb."
They entered.
---
Inside, they found history carved into stone—massive murals of civilizations never seen in any timeline. Creatures made of stars. Empires powered by thought. Wars that consumed existence itself.
And in the center of it all…
A throne.
Empty.
Until Kaelen stepped into it from a shadow, like he'd been waiting there since before time began.
---
> "Welcome, little siblings," he said, voice echoing without air.
"You've come home."
Kael raised his chrono-blade. "We're not family."
Kaelen smiled. "That's what I used to say too. Before I remembered."
The murals around them began to shimmer, changing… reflecting Kael's face on every tyrant, every hero, every catastrophe. All variants of him.
Myra stumbled back. "He's not just a rogue timeline…"
Aren whispered, "He's the origin."
---
Kaelen stood. "This throne is a failsafe, Kael. A design of ancient timewalkers to preserve balance. Only one of us was ever meant to survive. You think I've been hunting you?"
He opened his arms wide.
> "I've been culling the false versions of me. And now, I finish the job."
---
A wave of distortion hit the chamber—time collapsing into chaos. The palace cracked.
Ghost Ronin charged, slashing in spirals. Myra hurled temporal anchors to stabilize the room. Aren activated a chronal lock, freezing five seconds of movement around Kaelen.
It didn't work.
Kaelen stepped outside of time—literally walked out of the frozen frame and stabbed Ghost Ronin through the shoulder.
> "You're good, Ronin," he said, "but you're a footnote."
Myra screamed and unleashed a memory pulse—every joy she'd ever known, weaponized into blinding light.
Kaelen faltered.
Just for a second.
Kael rushed forward, blade drawn, heart hammering.
> "You may be the origin, Kaelen. But I'm the reason it doesn't end with you."
They clashed.
---
Unknown Timecode – Palace Collapse Imminent
The ceiling began to crack as paradoxes shredded the foundations. One wall showed Kael winning. Another showed none of them surviving.
Aren sent a pulse through the throne — trying to reroute its power.
Kaelen screamed, "You don't understand! If you destroy me—YOU DESTROY THE CYCLE!"
Kael looked into his own older eyes.
And said:
> "Good."
He plunged his blade into the throne's core.
---
Explosion. Static. Silence.
Then… light.
---
Anchor Zero – Status: Unwritten
ChronoCore – Resetting…
Entity Kaelen – Status: Fragmented. Unknown
Kael Varin – Vital Signs Stable
ChronoKnot Team – Alive. Changed.
---
The team woke in the Sanctuary.
Kael gasped for breath, blinking under the ceiling's soft lights.
Ghost Ronin leaned on his katana. "That… was not a vacation."
Aren's digitized body flickered. "I think I glimpsed a universe made of music."
Myra turned to Kael. "He's not dead, is he?"
Kael slowly shook his head. "No. But he's weaker. And now... we have the throne."
---
But the victory was not celebration.
Because the Anchor Map was rewriting itself.
A new Anchor—blinking black and gold—was forming on the edge of known time.
And the label read:
> Anchor X – The Timeline That Should Never Exist