At the edge of time, where hours decay into dust and seconds fall like rain, lies the Echo Vale—a place even the Chrono-Warriors feared to name.
It is not a place in time.
It is a place before it.
Here, buried beneath centuries of forgotten laws and failed eternities, the Fractured Tribunal hides—what remains of the original Timekeepers, the celestial order sworn to preserve the balance of all timelines.
No one has seen them in over a thousand years.
No one—until now.
Elion walked in silence.
The terrain beneath his feet was made of memories: fragments of broken time, whispering voices from lives that no longer existed. With every step, he felt his own past trying to catch up with him.
"You shouldn't be here.""Turn back.""This truth is not meant to be walked upon."
But Elion pressed forward, the Clockroot in his chest glowing softly, guiding him like a compass beyond cause and effect.
Behind him, Lyra and Inari followed. The rest of the warband had remained at camp, watching the timelines stabilize around Novara's crater. The Ring of Echoes had bought them time—but only just.
This mission wasn't about battle.
It was about answers.
They reached the gate at the end of untime.
It wasn't made of stone or metal. It was made of memory, shaped into arching spirals of golden thread. Each strand contained an entire era, looping infinitely.
Elion reached out.
The gate responded not to touch, but to intention.
"I seek the Tribunal," he said.
The gate shivered—then unraveled.
Inside was a vast chamber suspended in stasis. Stars orbited above, frozen mid-glow. Lanterns hung sideways from nothing. Books fluttered without wind. And in the center, seated upon floating chairs that aged and de-aged with each tick, sat three ancient figures.
The Fractured Tribunal.
They did not speak.
They remembered.
At first, Elion simply stood in awe.
These were the original Judges of Time. The ones who created the very laws he now bent. Their forms were hazy, wrapped in robes made of woven timelines. Their faces flickered—young, old, forgotten, restored.
Lyra stepped forward, cautious. "Are they alive?"
"They are…" Elion whispered, "…held together by principle."
One of the Timekeepers turned its head slowly toward him.
Its voice, when it finally came, was not a sound—but a truth that echoed inside their minds:
"We remember you, Elion Vale."
He blinked. "You do?"
"In many timelines. In many failed versions. Always running. Always rewriting. This is the first time… you came here."
Elion approached. "I need to know the truth about Biggenator. Who he was. What he became. Why you banished him—and why you left the rest of us to suffer."
Silence. A long pause in eternity.
Then the second Timekeeper raised a hand. A sphere of golden light appeared in the air.
Inside it: a vision.
Elion watched it unfold.
A young man, brilliant and curious, wrapped in ivory robes, stood before the Tribunal. He argued fiercely.
"Why should time be fixed? Why should we limit growth? Shouldn't the universe expand without chains?"
That man was Auren Bale—the one who would become Biggenator.
He had once been one of them.
A Time Architect.
He believed that time was a prison—that every limit placed on growth, on size, on potential, was a form of slavery. His proposal: The Expansion Doctrine. A plan to remove all boundaries, to let space, matter, even identities, grow indefinitely.
The Tribunal had denied him.
But Auren refused to be contained. He stole relics—Scale Seeds, Core Hours, and even fragments of the original Clockroot—and escaped into the Unbound Folds, where time cannot reach.
He reemerged centuries later.
Not as Auren.
But as Biggenator.
The third Timekeeper finally spoke—voice dry as dust:
"We failed to stop him. And when we tried… we fractured."
Elion stared at them. "You're all that's left."
The Timekeepers nodded in unison.
Lyra frowned. "Then why hide? Why not help us fight him?"
A long silence.
Then the second replied:
"Because to stop him… you would need to break time itself."
Elion's heart sank.
"What do you mean?"
The Tribunal turned to him.
"The Expansion cannot be unmade unless the original timeline is severed.You would have to sacrifice everything. Even this moment.You, Elion… would cease to have ever been."
He staggered back, stunned.
"Then there's no way to win?"
"There is always a way," Lyra said sharply, stepping forward. "But we find a different one."
Elion looked at her—then back at the Tribunal.
"I won't give up. I won't destroy everything to save it. There has to be another way."
The Timekeepers stared at him for a long time.
Then they held out their hands.
"Then take what we no longer deserve."
From each hand fell a shard of the Original Clockroot, once split to contain Auren. Each shard shimmered with pure temporal essence.
Elion took them.
Immediately, his vision exploded into light.
He saw time itself—as a web, a storm, a breathing thing.
He felt a fourth Hour Ring beginning to form.
As he opened his eyes again, the Tribunal had faded into stillness.
Elion turned to Lyra, breath steady.
"We have what we need."
She nodded. "Let's end this."
But far beyond, in the Labyrinth of Expansion, Biggenator opened his eyes at the same moment.
He felt the Tribunal awaken.
He felt the shards pass hands.
And for the first time…
He whispered:
"Good.Let the final hour come."