The world did not snap back gently.
It slammed into Aster like a collapsing dream—cold air, dim stone corridors, and the echo of distant mechanisms grinding beneath the academy. His vision wavered for a breath, the remnants of the illusion still clinging to his skull like frost.
He exhaled shakily.
No… not an illusion. A vision.
A future that shouldn't exist. A doom stitched into reality like a scar.
And he had walked through all of it alone.
Aster steadied himself against the wall as a pulse of mana trembled under his skin—fractured, volatile. The "mark" left by the Whispering Crown still lingered, its cold presence coiled beneath his ribs.
Not dominating.
Not controlling.
But waiting.
A faint reflection rippled across the polished metal plate on the far wall. His reflection didn't move the way he did—it lagged behind by a heartbeat, its shadow peeling slightly away from the figure.
Aster narrowed his eyes.
"…You're getting impatient too," he muttered.
The shadow did not answer. It rarely did. But its subtle quiver spoke volumes: something was calling to it. Something deeper in these forbidden floors.
Footsteps suddenly echoed—a slow, deliberate rhythm.
Aster straightened. The tension in the air curled like smoke. Then a figure emerged from the distant archway: Professor Kael, his white coat fluttering like torn parchment.
The man's expression was unreadable, but his eyes—silver-gray—cut straight through Aster.
"You returned sooner than I expected," Kael said quietly.
"And… you returned alone."
Aster didn't reply.
Kael stepped closer, gaze flickering to the faint mark glowing under Aster's collarbone. His jaw tightened.
"So the Crown did brand you."
Aster inhaled sharply.
"It tried," he said, voice steady, "but it didn't succeed."
Kael studied him for a long moment.
"…That depends," he said softly, "on what you consider 'success.'"
Before Aster could ask, Kael raised a hand. The hallway around them shimmered—layers of silence arrays locking into place one after another. Thick, oppressive. Even mana flow stilled.
"Listen carefully, Aster," Kael continued.
"From this point on, your path will attract things you are not prepared to face. Beings that watch from between timelines. Entities that answer to no 'God' you were taught to fear."
Aster's heartbeat quickened, but his gaze did not waver.
Kael's voice lowered.
"The world will not bend for you. It will break you first. Crush your mind. Strip your identity. That is the cost of seeing… even a fragment of what you saw."
Aster's fingers curled into fists.
"But you endured it, didn't you?" Kael whispered.
Aster didn't answer.
Because the answer terrified even him.
The vision—the massacre, the fractured sky, the colossal shadow descending behind him—should have shattered his sanity. Yet when the darkness closed in, a strange calm had filled him. As if part of him had known that future already.
As if his soul had been shaped for it.
Kael stepped back.
"Follow me. There's something you must see before the academy realizes the anomaly you triggered."
They descended deeper into the underground levels, passing sealed doors carved with runes that pulsed at Aster's approach. Almost as if greeting him… or recognizing him.
Finally, Kael stopped before an iron chamber.
He pressed his hand against its surface.
The door opened.
Inside lay a vast spherical room, its walls covered in luminous sigils. At the center hovered a crystalline sphere—fractured, barely holding together—filled with swirling strands of light and darkness.
Aster felt his breath hitch.
He had seen this once before—
—in the vision.
Kael's voice echoed.
"This is the Chrono-Weave Core, the artifact that stabilizes the academy's timelines."
"It shouldn't be breaking. Not unless someone… or something… interfered with the weave."
Aster stepped forward.
The sphere pulsed as he approached.
The threads inside began pulling toward him.
Kael's eyes widened.
"That's impossible—! It's reacting to—"
The chamber trembled.
Shadows pooled under Aster's feet like ink.
A voice whispered behind his ear.
"Found you."
Aster froze.
He turned.
A figure stood at the chamber's edge—hooded, faceless, wrapped in a shroud of darkness that devoured the light around it. Not the same shadow that followed him. Something vastly older.
The Whispering Crown…?
No.
This presence was far heavier. Far more ancient.
Kael stepped in front of Aster, mana flaring violently.
"Stay back. That is not something you can fight."
The faceless figure tilted its head, as if amused.
"The boy carries a thread that is not his own."
"Return it, and I may spare this timeline."
Aster's heart pounded.
A thread that is not mine…?
Then realization struck.
The mark.
The vision.
The shadow that moved just a heartbeat late—
He didn't bring the future back with him.
Something from the future…
had followed him here.
Aster's shadow rippled.
Then it smiled.
Kael whispered, voice trembling for the first time:
"Aster… whatever happens… do not let it take you."
The hooded entity extended a hand.
The chamber fractured like cracked glass.
Aster's breath turned to frost.
And his shadow stepped forward, separating from him entirely.
"He can't return what no longer belongs to him," the shadow hissed.
"Because I am him."
The chamber collapsed into darkness.