The ground wasn't ground anymore.
It twisted under Kashyap's boots like liquid metal, shifting between roads, shattered bridges, and half-formed buildings stolen from other timelines. Air folded like paper. Light bent around corners it shouldn't. Every step felt like running inside a dream stitched together by a mad architect.
But Mandakini ran ahead of him as if she had lived her entire life in impossible worlds.
Her silhouette flickered through the fractured city, illuminated by pulses of quantum blue from her rings. She moved fast—too fast—like she understood the rhythm of the collapse.
Kashyap's jaw tightened.
She knew something he didn't.
He pushed harder.
His Temporal Gauntlet ejected a burst of stabilized gravity beneath his feet, launching him forward. The street warped upward into a spiral. Kashyap sprinted along its curve, using collapsing structures as springboards.
Mandakini glanced back once.
A mistake.
Kashyap closed the distance immediately.
Mandakini:
"Stop chasing me!"
Kashyap:
"Then stop running."
Mandakini:
"Running is how I survive."
Kashyap:
"Not today."
---
THE CITY ATTACKS
The universe spasmed.
A skyscraper tore open, splitting into two realities at once—one version intact, one burning, both collapsing. Mandakini jumped across a chasm of swirling static, landing on a sideways wall.
She sprinted vertically like it was natural.
Kashyap followed, his gauntlet adjusting gravity around him.
Above them, a rip in space widened, releasing a storm of sharp, crystalline shards—fragments of dead timelines.
They rained down like meteors.
Mandakini raised a hand, a quantum shield blooming around her.
Kashyap didn't slow.
He punched a shard out of the air mid-run,the gravitational pulse vaporizing it.
More shards screamed down.
Mandakini glanced back and saw him tearing through the storm like it was nothing.
Mandakini (breathless):
"Whoare you?"
Kashyap:
"The one who told you to stop."
---
CORNERED
Mandakini leapt into an alley that flickered between three versions of itself: old stone, steel neon, ruined ash. She skidded to a stop.
A dead end.
Behind her, Kashyap landed with a heavy thud, blocking the exit.
Dust settled between them.
The tension thickened.
Kashyap didn't raise his weapon.
He didn't need to.
His presence alone pressed the air down like gravity.
Kashyap:
"Talk."
Mandakini:
"I don't have time."
Kashyap:
"Make it."
She took a step back, eyes darting. Not fearful. Calculating.
Then the world answered for her.
The building above them groaned, turning transparent—phasing into another timeline. Through the transparent walls, Kashyap saw flickering figures—alternate civilians trapped in endless loops. Echoes of what used to be.
The universe was dissolving.
Mandakini exhaled shakily.
Mandakini:
"If I don't reach the core rift soon,this universe won't collapse—"
She looked directly at him.
A weight behind her words.
A truth she didn't want to speak.
Mandakini:
"It will collapseinto the others."
Kashyap's eyes narrowed.
That wasn't a simple collapse.
That was a multiversal infection.
Kashyap:
"…You're lying."
Mandakini:
"I wish I was."
She tapped her Quantum Scanner.
A hologram burst out– a map of universes linked like veins.
AX-19's node was black and expanding, tendrils pulsing toward the neighboring universes.
Like corruption.
Like a cancer.
Kashyap felt his stomach drop.
Kashyap:
"A cascade collapse…"
Mandakini:
"If I shut down the rift,I might slow it."
Kashyap:
"Or speed it up."
Mandakini:
"Do you have a better plan?"
He didn't.
And that made him angry.
---
THE UNSEEN THREAT
Kashyap stepped forward.
Mandakini tightened her stance—but didn't raise her rings.
Their matching energy signatures hummed again, syncing despite their distance.
She looked shaken.
Mandakini:
"…You feel it too,don't you?"
Kashyap:
"I don't want to."
Before either of them could speak again, the alley darkened.
Not from collapse.
From shadows.
They slid across the walls like ink, pooling in the corners, gathering into a shape. Something tall. Humanoid. Featureless.
Kashyap's instincts screamed.
Mandakini's rings flared in panic.
Mandakini (whisper):
"…Not here.Not now."
Kashyap raised his blade.
Kashyap:
"What is that?"
Mandakini's voice broke for the first time.
Actual fear.
Mandakini:
"A Rift Walker."
The creature's head twisted unnaturally, as if sniffing their reality.
Then—
It lunged.
Straight at Mandakini.
Kashyap moved without thinking.
Their fates collided again.
Blade clashed with shadow.
Quantum rings burst with blue fire.
The alley shook as three forces collided.
The Rift Walker shrieked—
a sound that didn't belong in any universe—
and Kashyap gritted his teeth.
Kashyap:
"Stay behind me—"
Mandakini:
"Not a chance!"
The fight for survival began.
Not against the collapsing universe.
But against something far worse.