Rex slammed into solid ground.
Pain shot through his back as he rolled over, coughing out digital dust that shimmered like broken glass.
The loop was gone — replaced by a colorless wasteland filled with floating shards of frozen moments.
Time wasn't moving here.
It was fractured.
Each shard showed a different version of the world — him fighting in one, dying in another, walking alone in a third.
He reached toward one shard, and his fingers passed through it like mist.
[System Log: Temporal Zone Detected — Stability 3%]
Then a voice cut through the silence.
Calm. Mechanical.
But layered — as if a thousand echoes spoke the same word.
"Target confirmed. Guardian Unit 03 — Time Splitter — activating."
Rex spun around.
From the chaos stepped a humanoid figure made of shifting gears and glowing veins of light.
Its face was split down the middle — one half aged, one half young — its movements slightly out of sync, like it existed in two moments at once.
"Rex Valen," it said. "Your interference with the Loop Sequence violates core directives. Prepare for timeline correction."
Rex steadied himself, his Rewrite Blade flickering into his grip.
"Correction, huh? Try surviving first."
The ground fractured as they clashed.
Rex moved fast — but the Guardian was faster.
Every strike Rex made was countered before it even connected, as if the enemy already knew his next move.
[Temporal Prediction — Active]
Time itself bent.
The Guardian split into two versions — one attacking from the present, one from two seconds in the future.
Blades of compressed time sliced through the air, creating cracks that erased chunks of reality.
Rex's shield shattered. Blood trickled from his lip.
"You can't outplay time," the Guardian said.
Rex smirked, even through the pain. "Maybe not… but I can rewrite it."
He slammed his hand into the ground.
[Reality Rewrite — Time Fragment Override.]
A pulse exploded outward.
The fractured shards around him flickered — showing dozens of alternate Rexes, each locked in battle.
He reached out mentally, syncing with them all.
For a heartbeat, the timelines aligned.
"Now," they all whispered together.
Hundreds of Rexes struck at once.
The Guardian faltered — its system lagging, reality stuttering as multiple timelines forced themselves into the same frame.
Rex's blade tore through its core, releasing a burst of white energy.
The explosion threw him backward, knocking him unconscious.
When Rex woke, the world was still again.
Only fragments of the Guardian remained — flickering lines of dying code floating above a cracked floor.
He staggered up, vision blurred.
[Reward Unlocked — Temporal Core Fragment Acquired]
[New Function Access: Phase Shift]
Rex stared at the notification, exhaustion mixing with curiosity.
Phase Shift. The ability to move through frozen time.
A weapon — and a curse.
He clenched his fist. "Thanks, Guardian. I'll use your power to end this system."
As he started walking through the fading wasteland, the world trembled again.
Far above, in the system's control layer, unseen eyes watched him.
"He survived Guardian 03…"
"Then it's time to release the next one."
Static filled the sky — and in the distance, a black structure rose from the void.