The sky was wrong again.
What had once been a bright blue stretch over the city was now divided half drenched in the light of dawn, half swallowed by night. A shimmering seam cut across the horizon, glowing with colors that didn't belong in any known spectrum. The world had been split, and no one could tell which side was real anymore.
Kael stood at the edge of the fracture, his eyes fixed on the sky that flickered like broken glass. The wind that passed through it carried whispers, fragments of voices, countless, echoing from parallel versions of existence. He could hear himself in some of them, dying, weeping, fighting.
The Rift was no longer asleep.
Behind him, Lyra adjusted the energy stabilizer on her back, its coils humming like an anxious heartbeat. "It's spreading faster than we expected," she said, her tone sharp but laced with unease. "The Rift zones have multiplied across three continents in less than twenty-four hours. If this keeps up....;
"It won't," Kael said quietly. "We'll find the Fracture Keys before it consumes everything."
Kaela, her cloak fluttering in the electric air, glanced at him. "You're sure they're real? Not just another phantom from the Rift's memory?"
Kael looked down at his hand the faint imprint Akiya had left glowed beneath his skin, pulsing with a light that wasn't entirely his own. "She told me herself," he said. "They're pieces of what once held the Rift stable and what's left of her."
The wind shifted, and with it came a low rumble that seemed to rise from the bones of the earth itself. A moment later, the ground cracked, and from it poured a stream of black energy, flowing like liquid shadow. It twisted and coalesced, shaping itself into a humanoid form, tall, thin, faceless.
Kaela drew her blade instantly, its surface flickering with blue fire. "Contact!"
But Kael didn't move. He knew that presence, he felt it.
The shadow raised its head, and a dozen eyes opened across its body, each a swirling vortex of galaxies collapsing inward. When it spoke, the voice wasn't a sound it was a resonance that rippled through time itself.
"Kael of the Riftborn Line," it said, each word warping the air. "The one chosen by her. You carry what was once mine."
Kael stepped forward, gripping his plasma blade. "You're the Fragment Emperor."
The shadow's form shivered, its edges bleeding into reality like ink in water. "A name given by mortals to what they cannot contain. I am not a being. I am what remains when truth forgets itself."
Lyra muttered, "Yeah, that sounds like something I don't wanna shoot."
But the Emperor's eyes all turned toward her. "You already have," it said softly. "In a world that no longer exists."
The ground shook. Memories surged into their minds flashes of cities they had never visited, people they had never met, dying in wars that never happened. Whole histories unraveling in seconds. The Emperor wasn't just speaking, it was showing them possibilities.
Kael gritted his teeth. "You're feeding on the rifts between worlds. That's how you grow stronger."
The Emperor tilted its head. "Feeding? No. I restore. You live in fractured illusion. I seek the whole."
"And what happens to everyone when you make it 'whole' again?" Kael demanded.
The shadow's voice was calm, almost sorrowful. "They cease. So that I may remember."
Kaela lunged, blade blazing with raw energy. The Emperor didn't even move. Her strike passed through its chest, and in that instant, she saw thousands of herself reflected in its form, each dying, fighting, screaming..., until her body was thrown backward, blood trickling from her nose.
Lyra fired her railgun, the blast tearing through the space where the shadow stood. For a second, it disappeared then reappeared behind her, whispering.
"You are echoes. You do not belong."
Kael's hand burned with light. The mark Akiya left flared brighter, and for a moment the Emperor recoiled, its edges flickering wildly.
The Emperor hissed. "Her essence lingers in you. Foolish girl. Even as one with the Rift, she defies the convergence."
Kael raised his blade, the energy around him spiraling into a storm. "She's not gone. She's guiding us."
For the first time, the Emperor's form tremble, not with rage, but with something that almost resembled caution.
"Then she will break herself against me. The Rift cannot hold two wills. When I rise, she will fade."
Kael's voice grew cold. "Then I'll make sure neither of us fades."
He lunged, his blade slicing through the air. The impact released a shockwave that tore through the terrain, splitting the ground open. The Emperor's form scattered into shadow, vanishing with a sound like a thousand worlds exhaling.
Silence returned,.. heavy and trembling.
Lyra groaned, pulling herself up. "Was that… a win?"
Kael looked toward the glowing horizon where the fracture still widened, the light spreading like veins across the sky. "No," he said quietly. "That was a warning."
Kaela's eyes narrowed. "Then we find the first Fracture Key before he does."
Kael nodded. "Akiya showed me where to start. The city at the edge of dreams Elyndra. That's where the first key lies."
As they turned toward the horizon, Kael paused and looked once more into the cracks in the sky. For an instant, he saw her "Akiya", standing in a world of light, watching him.
He smiled faintly. "I'm still listening, Akiya."
The Rift pulsed once, like a heartbeat in the fabric of creation.
And somewhere beyond the stars, the Fragment Emperor whispered
"Let the undoing begin."
....To be continued...