Allison arrived at the temporal wormhole (N-89) in Manhattan, New York, where the rift had already consumed half the city. Skyscrapers had transformed into colossal trees hybridized with machinery and flesh, their roots spewing temporal spores. Liquid memories flowed through the streets, and within the spores, her grandmother's parasite embryos hatched into "memory devourers." Her encrypted phone indicated that the coordinates of the anchor point were located in Central Park, its core powered by the "Lancaster Family Resentment Matrix."
The Crown of Thorns switched to detection mode. Its roots pierced the colossal trees, extracting her grandmother's encrypted directive: "The hunting program for Subject #07 has been activated. All borer incubators will evolve synchronously." She leaped onto the debris of a building, swinging her scythe to slash through the spore clouds. The beam of light sliced through the mechanical blood vessels, forging them into healing thorns. However, the borer swarm mutated, their exoskeletons now covered in the genetic armor of the traitorous Knights. Their bullets spat venom that could tamper with memories.
"Your scythe is nothing more than a plaything of the Dimension God," sneered a clone of Subject #07, emerging from the spores. Its face was a grotesque blend of Allison and Francis, its roots twined around fragments of her grandmother's spine. "Grandmother has strengthened the anchor with the resentment of the traitors. Every attack you make only feeds her ascension energy."
Allison embedded the Reverse Wheel into the core of her heart. Her roots reverse-devoured the venom, transforming it into purifying explosive thorns. The clone tore through the thorns, unleashing her grandmother's "Time Rewind Trap." The neighborhood instantly reverted to its pre-infected state, but the anchor point's coordinates split into twelve phantom nodes during the temporal reversal.
"The true core of the anchor lies hidden within the folds of the rewound memories," the voice of the Dimension God flickered across the dial of the Crown of Thorns. The scythe automatically navigated towards the underground of Central Park. Allison pierced through the roots of the mechanical colossus, only to discover that the core of the anchor was a "mechanical matriarch"—a grotesque hybrid of her grandmother and the Merchant of Entropy. Its body flowed with the currency-blood of dimensional buyers, and its womb gestated new breeds of temporal borers.
"Weaving an umbilical cord of immortality from family resentment, the corruption of the Knights, and the capital of dimensional buyers," the mechanical matriarch unleashed a wave of temporal collapse. The underground structures distorted into swirling vortices of gears. She swung her scythe to cut through the collapse, her roots piercing the heart of the matriarch to tamper with its code chains. But her grandmother's mocking laughter echoed from within the collapse wave: "You've destroyed only the surface of the anchor. The true purpose of the dimensional wormhole is to incubate my ascension embryo."
Her encrypted phone suddenly received an emergency signal from the Dimensional Management Committee: "Subject #07, your grandmother has been detected activating the 'Embryo Incubator' in the dimensional interlayer. Coordinates X-37. If not stopped, she will devour all wormhole energy to ascend." The signal was laced with the screams of the traitorous Knights, hinting at infiltration within the organization.
Her roots extracted the core data from the matriarch, revealing that the key to the embryo incubator was hidden within the temporal souls of generations of Winston family members. Allison fused her scythe with the Reverse Wheel, unleashing a beam of dimensional annihilation. The mechanical matriarch dissolved into a gear embryo within the beam. The Manhattan wormhole began to heal, but new coordinates, X-37, appeared on the dial of the Crown of Thorns. Fragments of her grandmother's temporal soul glimmered deep within.
"Every step you take is part of her plan," the projection of the Dimension God reappeared, its ethereal form revealing encrypted codes belonging to the highest-ranking members of the Knights. "Your grandmother has conspired with the dimensional buyers to lure you into a trap using the wormhole incubators. Meanwhile, the Knights are preparing to revoke your 'Dimensional Wormhole Reaper' clearance."
She embedded her roots into the gear embryo, tampering with its incubation program. The embryo began to release reverse energy, annihilating the nearby borer nests. The encrypted phone unlocked 80% of the secrets hidden within her heart core: "Your stitcher genes contain the 'rift immunity code.' Dimensional wormholes cannot truly harm you, but your grandmother's resurrection embryo is copying this code."
The bounty alert from the Dimensional Management Committee updated, marking Allison's profile: "Traitor elimination priority upgraded. Immediate evacuation recommended." The Crown of Thorns switched to escape mode, its roots lay dormant. She gazed into the void of coordinates X-37, realizing that this hunting game had become her grandmother's ritual of ascension. In the dimensional abyss, new rifts split open, each oozing the blood of the Winston family.