The Crossline Rift did not open like a doorway.
It peeled.
Reality tore itself back layer by trembling layer until Aiden fell through into a battlefield sculpted from shifting shadow and cold blue fire.
The ground under his feet was neither stone nor soil but a fractal mosaic of broken memories. Each step sent ripples of color dancing outward like disturbed water. The sky overhead churned with swirling void-light, pierced occasionally by jagged cracks of moonlit distortion.
Aiden's shadow-mantle writhed, reacting violently to the Rift's foreign gravity.
The parasite pulsed hard enough to make his vision blur.
Host is inside Tier-1 Awakening Zone.
Guardian presence confirmed.
Proceed with extreme caution.
"No kidding," Aiden breathed.
A tremor swept through the terrain.
Something massive shifted in the dark ahead—
a shape too large to comprehend in a single glance, moving with the weight of an extinct world.
Aiden forced himself forward anyway.
He wasn't here to win.
He wasn't here to fight the Guardian head-on.
He was here for the shard—the one stabilizing fragment Eldran needed before Aiden's memories bled again.
The ground cracked.
Another tremor.
And then—
A voice echoed through the Rift like thunder speaking in a whisper.
"Regressor."
Aiden froze.
The Guardian's presence wasn't merely felt.
It replaced the air.
It replaced thought.
It replaced certainty.
He raised his eyes slowly toward the gloom—
And the gloom raised its eyes back.
Two colossal irises ignited across the darkness like twin collapsing stars. They were not eyes in the human sense—more like gravitational lenses carved into a semblance of sight.
Aiden felt the same chill he had felt in his dying moments in the last timeline.
The Guardian remembered him.
The parasite recoiled sharply.
RETREAT.
HOST CANNOT DEFEAT ENTITY AT CURRENT TIER.
"I'm aware," Aiden rasped.
But the Guardian wasn't moving yet.
It watched him.
Waiting.
That was worse.
Aiden edged backward—
—and stumbled into a different presence entirely.
Someone stepped out of a swirling pocket of distortion behind him, boots clicking sharply against the memory-stone ground.
Aiden's stomach dropped.
Black coat.
Cold blue eyes.
A face he had seen at least six times—
five times as a rival,
once as a corpse.
Kael Draven.
"Still alive," Kael said calmly, lifting an eyebrow. "Impressive. Annoying, but impressive."
Aiden felt the world tilt.
Kael was not supposed to be here.
Not this early.
Not in this Rift.
Not before the Guild Tournament.
The timeline had fractured again.
Aiden stepped back automatically, shadow-mantle bristling.
Kael's smirk sharpened.
"Relax. If I wanted you dead, you'd already be part of the scenery."
Aiden clenched his fists. "What are you doing here?"
Kael lifted a crystalline tablet—its edges flickering with Rift-energy.
"Oh, you know," Kael said lightly. "Picking up artifacts. Testing hypotheses. Watching regressors trip over their own timelines."
He clicked the device off.
"And hunting the same shard you're after."
Aiden's blood turned to ice.
The Guardian stirred, a low rumble rippling across the Rift.
Kael didn't flinch.
He tilted his head, gaze drilling into Aiden with surgical precision.
"You're losing control of your parasite," Kael said. "I can smell the decay. Taste it in the air. You're unraveling faster than last time."
Aiden froze.
Last time.
Kael knew.
Kael remembered.
Not fully—
not like Aiden—
but enough.
In the last timeline, Kael had awakened regression after being consumed by a Rift anomaly. Aiden never learned what fragments Kael carried from past cycles.
But here—
now—
Kael's eyes held recognition that should not exist.
Aiden's voice came out raw.
"How much do you remember?"
Kael smiled faintly.
"Enough to know you're about to make the same mistake twice."
Aiden's shadows stiffened.
"And what mistake is that?"
Kael's expression hardened to steel.
"You're still fighting the parasite as if it's separate from you."
Aiden's heart slammed.
He stepped back.
Kael stepped forward.
"You're trying to stay human," Kael said. "Trying to protect people. Trying to keep your memories, your emotions, your regrets." His voice cooled. "And because of that, you will lose again."
The Guardian's massive form shifted behind Kael, mirroring the tension.
Kael lowered his voice.
"Your regression didn't make you weaker this time. Your denial did."
Aiden swallowed, throat tight.
"Why are you telling me this?"
Kael's eyes flickered—
for just a split second—
with something like old grief.
"Because whatever's happening to the timeline… it's not just your doing." A pause. "And because if you die here, everything collapses seven years early."
Aiden stared.
Kael continued:
"The shard is mine. But I'm giving you ten minutes to get out of the Guardian's kill zone." His lips twitched. "Call it… professional courtesy. Rival respect. Or boredom."
Aiden's jaw clenched.
He didn't trust Kael.
Never had.
Never would.
But the Guardian was shifting again—
and Kael's presence alone was rearranging the battlefield.
"Run," Kael said.
"Before I change my mind."
A shadow ripple tore through the Rift—
And the Guardian began to move.
The Guardian's movement wasn't a step.
It was a shift in gravity, a warping of space so violent the ground itself bent toward the creature as if eager to be devoured.
Aiden stumbled, boots sliding across the fractured terrain. His shoulder screamed in protest, the lingering wound from the Harvester throbbing in rhythm with the parasite's agitation.
Behind him, Kael didn't move.
He stood calmly with his arms folded, watching the approaching cosmic horror with the same expression someone might use for a mild inconvenience.
Aiden's shadow-mantle flared, trying to pull him backward—away—anywhere but here.
HOST MUST RETREAT.
NEURAL INTEGRITY AT RISK.
Aiden gritted his teeth.
"I can't leave without the shard."
SHARD VALUE IRRELEVANT IF HOST PERISHES.
RETREAT.
Kael's voice cut through the rising static.
"You're wasting time."
Aiden turned sharply. "I'm not abandoning the shard. I need it."
Kael's eyes narrowed. "You need to survive first."
The Guardian's massive form surged forward again. Its "body"—if such a word still applied—was made of collapsing star fragments, shadow-dust, and gravity wells that crackled like storm clouds tearing at the seams. Every inch of it radiated cosmic authority.
Kael raised his hand lazily and flicked a rune-etched dagger into the air.
It dissolved into blue light.
The Guardian responded, turning slightly as if acknowledging Kael.
Aiden blinked.
"Did it… recognize you?"
Kael didn't answer.
He simply smirked.
A tremor rumbled beneath Aiden's feet.
The ground splintered.
A pillar of dark matter erupted behind him.
He jumped aside—barely—rolling over jagged memory-stone. Shadow-Fangs sprouted instinctively from his mantle, slicing the air around him.
Kael watched with faint amusement.
"Your evasion's improved," Kael observed. "Your control… not so much."
Aiden hissed. "Now isn't the time."
Kael shrugged. "It never is with you."
The Guardian lowered its colossal head, a concentration of gravitational force spiraling inward as it prepared an attack.
The parasite screamed.
HOST—DOWN—NOW—
Aiden dropped to his knees on instinct.
A beam of blue-black annihilation ripped through the air where his torso had been, tearing the Rift's horizon open. The shockwave knocked Kael's hair back, but he didn't move.
The ground behind Aiden was gone.
Just gone.
A clean absence carved into the world.
Aiden's stomach twisted.
He had died to that attack once.
Kael spoke without looking at him.
"That's one."
"One what?" Aiden shouted.
"Your first warning." Kael gestured at the Guardian. "If you stay in its field unprotected, you won't even leave bones."
Aiden pulled himself upright, breath ragged. The Guardian shifted its attention back to Kael—like Aiden was no longer worth noticing.
Or like Kael was the greater anomaly.
Kael stepped forward, boots crunching against the distorted ground.
"You wanted to know why I'm here?" he said.
Aiden didn't answer.
Kael didn't wait.
"I'm here because the timeline didn't break on its own. Someone pushed it."
Aiden's blood ran cold.
Kael's voice was calm, controlled, razor-sharp.
"And it wasn't you, Aiden."
Aiden reeled.
"What?"
"You returning wasn't the catalyst this time," Kael said. "Something else happened before Day Zero. Something that altered the fracture points."
"That's impossible," Aiden whispered. "Regression always resets the cycle."
Kael shook his head.
"Not this time. The cycle didn't reset. It copied… then corrupted. The version we're standing in is a branching loop that shouldn't exist." He tilted his head thoughtfully. "Which means someone tampered with your regression."
Aiden staggered backward.
"Who would—why would—"
Kael finally looked at him.
"To weaponize you. To weaponize the parasite. To weaponize the Singularity you're destined to become."
A chill ripped through Aiden's spine.
His voice trembled.
"You think someone… wants me to become that thing from the future?"
Kael's smirk returned, colder.
"I don't think. I know."
Aiden's heart pounded so hard it felt like it was trying to escape his chest.
He stepped backward—straight into another gravitational pulse. He hit the ground, rolling painfully across jagged shards of broken shadow.
The Guardian began to charge again.
Kael clicked his tongue.
"That's two."
Aiden coughed hard, tasting copper.
"Two what?!"
"Two warnings," Kael said simply. "You get three before I stop interfering."
Aiden's shadow-flames flickered wildly.
"You're enjoying this."
"Of course I am."
The Guardian raised its star-forged limb.
Aiden's parasite tore through his nerves.
HOST MUST MOVE—NOW—
Aiden rolled aside as another blast carved a canyon into the Rift.
Kael sighed theatrically.
"Three."
Aiden groaned. "Three what—"
Kael vanished.
One second he was beside Aiden—
the next he stood on the Guardian's flank, blade in hand, as if gravity itself bent out of respect for him.
Aiden's breath caught.
Kael wasn't just a regressor.
He was evolving faster than Aiden ever had in the previous timeline.
Kael drove his dagger into the air—
not into the Guardian—
but into the Rift itself.
The world shuddered.
A pulse rippled outward, freezing the Guardian for a fraction of a second.
Kael turned sharply toward Aiden.
"There's your opening."
Aiden's eyes widened.
The shard—
It would be exposed beneath the Guardian's throat when it stabilized.
He didn't stop to question.
He didn't stop to breathe.
He ran.
The parasite surged.
TARGET LOCKED.
SHARD LOCATED.
OBTAIN IT—BEFORE THE GUARDIAN REACTIVATES.
Aiden sprinted toward the shimmering fracture beneath the Guardian's core, each step propelled by a desperate, burning clarity.
This was a chance he should not have.
Kael had given it to him.
Which meant—
Aiden reached out for the shard—
And the world detonated with blue fire.
The explosion wasn't heat.
It was gravity tearing itself inside-out.
Aiden's body lifted off the ground as if the world had lost interest in holding him. The terrain beneath him shattered into a spiraling storm of debris—memory-stone, void dust, fragments of shattered timelines—whirling upward like a reversed avalanche.
His ears rang.
His lungs seized.
His shadow-mantle flared instinctively, forming jagged wings of smoke and obsidian.
But even that wasn't enough.
The parasite screamed inside him.
HOST MUST MAINTAIN CONSCIOUSNESS.
FOCUS.
FOCUS.
FO—
The voice cut out as a shockwave slammed into Aiden's chest, launching him backward. He crashed into a ridge of crystallized shadow, rolling until he dug his fingers into the ground and forced himself upright.
Vision blurred.
Breath shaking.
Shadows lashing wildly.
But the shard—
the glowing, pulsing shard embedded beneath the Guardian's throat—
had been exposed.
And Aiden had landed only meters from it.
He gritted his teeth and forced one foot forward.
Then another.
The Guardian roared.
It wasn't sound.
It was a cosmic pressure that forced Aiden to his knees.
The ground cracked beneath him.
His bones vibrated.
His shadow-mantle writhed like a creature trying to flee.
The parasite surged, half fury and half fear.
HOST CANNOT WITHSTAND THIS FORCE.
EVOLUTION REQUIRED.
IMMEDIATE.
MANDATORY.
Aiden's breath hitched.
"No…" he gasped. "Not again… I can't lose another—"
EVOLVE OR DIE.
His fists clenched so tightly his knuckles split.
He wasn't ready to lose a memory.
He wasn't ready to lose another piece of himself.
He wasn't ready to become the thing he saw in the Rift Heart vision.
But the Guardian rose above him like an executioner sculpted from collapsed galaxies, ready to drive him into oblivion.
Aiden whispered:
"…Fine."
The parasite flared.
Shadow-Fang nodes along his mantle ignited with violet lightning.
His body seized as new tendrils unfurled, sharper and longer than before, dripping with corruptive power.
Aiden screamed as something tore free—
A memory.
A small one.
A treasured one.
He didn't know which.
He only knew the pain.
The parasite roared triumphantly.
SHADOW-FANG: PHASE 2 ACHIEVED.
PREDATION PROTOCOL ACTIVE.
Aiden surged upward with unnatural speed.
The Guardian's killing blow descended—
And Aiden dodged it.
Barely.
He zipped across the battlefield like a flicker of smothered lightning, shadow-tendrils gripping the ground and slinging him toward the shard.
He reached out—
And Kael's voice cut through the chaos.
"Crowe! It's unstable!"
Aiden grabbed the shard anyway.
It burned like a star against his palm.
Reality trembled.
The Rift screamed.
Aiden's parasite went wild.
CORRUPTION SURGE DETECTED.
ABSORPTION IN PROGRESS—
WARNING—
WARNING—
WARNING—
Aiden forced the parasite down with every ounce of will he had left.
"No! You don't touch this! You don't eat this! This is mine!"
The parasite fought him—
hard—
until he felt his vision shatter momentarily, like his mind was a mirror being cracked.
He held on.
Barely.
The shard slowed.
Dimmed.
Submitted.
Aiden collapsed to one knee, gasping.
But the shard was his.
The parasite recoiled with a hiss, furious but restrained.
Kael appeared at Aiden's side in a blink of distortion, his expression unreadable.
"You actually did it," Kael murmured. "Didn't think you had it in you."
Aiden didn't respond.
He couldn't.
He could barely breathe.
Kael glanced at the Guardian—which was reassembling its cosmic form with building fury.
"Time to leave," Kael said. "Before that thing remembers it's a god."
Aiden staggered to his feet. "The Rift gate—?"
Kael pointed behind him.
The Rift exit was crumbling.
Closing.
Seconds left.
"Move," Kael said. "Unless you want the timeline to end early. Again."
Aiden didn't hesitate.
He sprinted toward the collapsing gate, shadows dragging him forward. The Guardian lunged, sending a tidal wave of gravity tearing across the battlefield.
Aiden leapt—
The parasite propelled him—
And Kael shoved him through the final meter.
Light swallowed everything.
---
Section 4
Aiden slammed into cobblestone.
Cold. Solid. Real.
He gasped, rolling onto his back as the night air of Twin-Moon Metropolis washed over him like a rebirth.
His hands shook violently.
The shard glowed faintly in his fist.
His shadow-mantle trembled like a traumatized animal.
The Crossline Rift shattered shut behind him.
Aiden lay there for several seconds, panting, staring up at the twin moons.
The parasite pulsed weakly.
Host… survived.
Stabilization required… soon…
Aiden forced himself upright.
He had a shard.
A powerful one.
And Eldran—
Eldran would honor the deal.
He began walking.
His legs barely worked.
His mind felt wrong.
A pressure at the edge of his thoughts haunted him—something missing.
A small smile?
A laugh?
A memory of someone's hand pulling his—
Aiden froze.
He didn't remember the memory.
He only remembered losing it.
His eyes stung.
But he kept walking.
He had no choice.
As he limped into the Shadow Market's dim tunnels, one thought followed him like a shadow that didn't belong to him:
Kael remembers things he shouldn't.
The timeline was tampered with.
Someone wants the world to break early.
And Aiden Crowe was running out of time to stop it.