Chapter 8: The Singularity of Soul and Science
The scream of the Tesseract wasn't a sound; it was a vibration that tore at the very concept of Arthur's existence. One moment he was in the cold, stone halls of Schloss Klessheim; the next, he was suspended in a kaleidoscopic void where time felt like a physical weight pressing against his ribs.
Across the swirling blue nebula of the Space Stone's power, he saw Johann Schmidt. The Red Skull's face was contorted in a mixture of agony and religious ecstasy. He was being unmade, his atoms stretched across the stars, but his hand still gripped the handle of the containment unit.
[ SYSTEM CRITICAL ]
Protocol 25% Sync: SUCCESS.
New Title Gained: [The Unanchored Record]
Passive Effect: Resistance to spatial distortion increased by 40%.
Warning: Current location is outside the local timeline. Divergence is fluctuating wildly.
The Void Fight
Arthur realized he could move, but not with his legs. He moved with his will. Pushing against the sapphire currents of the void, he launched himself at Schmidt. There were no walls here, no floor, only the infinite.
He swung the Kinetic Conductor staff. Without gravity, the momentum was terrifying. The staff struck Schmidt's shoulder, discharging a surge of bio-electricity that mingled with the blue fire of the Tesseract.
"You... cannot... stop... the inevitable!" Schmidt's voice echoed directly into Arthur's mind, bypassing his ears.
"The inevitable just got a rewrite!" Arthur retorted, his [Mercury Catalyst] blood burning white-hot. He grabbed the Tesseract's housing with his bare hand.
The Split
The System interface turned a violent, flickering red.
[ ARCHIVIST OVERRIDE ]
Detecting Fixed Point: The Red Skull must reach Vormir.
Detecting Player Intent: Prevent the Tesseract from leaving the 1940s.
Resolution: Splitting the Stream.
A massive explosion of light erupted between them. Arthur felt the Tesseract slip from his fingers, but not before a jagged shard of pure blue energy broke off, embedding itself into the head of his staff.
The force threw them in opposite directions. He saw Schmidt being sucked into a vertical wormhole—a gateway to a desolate, mountain-covered planet. Vormir. The canon was correcting itself, but the price was steep.
Arthur, however, was falling backward, back toward the "real" world, but the coordinates were slipping.
The Return
CRASH.
Arthur hit a hard surface, the air leaving his lungs in a single, painful wheeze. He tasted copper. He smelled... pine trees and salt?
He groaned, pushing himself up. His staff was glowing with a permanent, low-level blue light, the Tesseract fragment humming within the metal. He wasn't in the bunker anymore.
"Arthur?"
He turned his head. Steve Rogers was there, but he looked older. Not decades older, but the grime of months of war was etched into his face. Next to him, Bucky Barnes stood with a sniper rifle, looking healthy, whole, and very confused.
"You've been gone for three months," Steve whispered, dropping his shield in shock. "We thought the explosion at the castle killed you."
Arthur looked at his System clock. For him, it had been seconds. For the world, the war had moved on without its Archivist.
[ CHAPTER 8 COMPLETE ]
Current Year: 1944.
Divergence: 18.5% (The Howling Commandos have operated without you).
New Quest: The Lost Chronicles of the Frontline.