Vance didn't even have a chance. Human reflexes just aren't built to dodge a crack of lightning from three feet away.
The Lynx—a black shadow, really—didn't bother leaping. It just blinked out of existence and reappeared, jaws clamped down on Vance's shoulder. He slammed into the sharp obsidian, pinned hard.
Getting hit felt like getting run over by a train, but it was the electricity that tore everything apart. Raw, crackling voltage shot from the Lynx's fangs straight into Vance's nerves. His vision flipped to blinding white. Every muscle seized up until he could hear his neck's tendons popping. He couldn't even scream—the energy locked up his voice.
That's it, he thought. It's burning me up. It's a Reverse-Tether.
The Lynx's eyes, blazing like mini supernovas, locked onto his. This thing wasn't just killing him. With its temporal gear exposed in its chest, it was siphoning the Astral Engine out of Vance's soul. Piece by piece.
Inside the void of his Inner Stratum, the enormous corpse of the Aethelgard Watcher started screaming—a metallic groan, like busted machinery dying. The golden gear in Vance's chest was being yanked upward, searing through his flesh, magnetized straight to the Lynx's gear.
If those gears touched, the Lynx would swallow up his timeline. He'd be erased.
[Critical Failure. Host integrity at 4%.]
[Foreign Temporal Fragment overriding System Core.]
Buried under the pain, one sharp memory punched through—the desperate spark of a veteran's instinct. It wants the Engine, Vance thought, blood dripping from his nose and eyes. Fine, I'll give it the Engine.
His left side was done—paralyzed and trapped. His right arm felt useless, knife lying somewhere on the ground. But his right hand hovered next to his pocket.
He gritted his teeth, forced his hand down, ignoring the pain that snapped through his collarbone. Fingers found the muddy-brown Tier-1 Scavenger Core he'd carved from a Jackal.
No attempt to strike the Lynx. He just slammed that Core into the burning gear in his chest.
[Emergency Protocol: External Genetic Matter Detected.]
[Forcing Raw Conversion.]
The Astral Engine devoured the Core, desperate to survive. Raw kinetic energy blasted out from his chest, hitting the Lynx right in its heart. The beast's eyes widened. It wasn't hurt, but the blast scrambled the electricity connecting them. The jaws loosened, even if only for a fraction.
That was all he needed.
Vance didn't shove the Lynx off—he drove his hand into its chest, wrapped his fingers around the spinning golden gear buried in the monster. The instant he touched it, everything froze. Wind stopped. Lightning hung mid-arc.
Inside his mind, the Aethelgard Watcher jerked, chained up, starlight shooting out and slamming into the Lynx's soul.
[Temporal Resonance Established.]
[Warning: Target's genetic density vastly exceeds Host's capacity.]
[Initiating Forced Parasitic Tether.]
Vance's mind felt torn apart. He wasn't dominating the Lynx—the System was just tying them together to prevent two rival Watcher fragments from destroying each other.
That connection let Vance feel the Lynx's thoughts. A suffocating storm of feral anger and bone-deep intelligence. It bashed against his sanity, trying to seize control.
"No," he gurgled, blood bubbling from his lips. His hand squeezed the gear in the Lynx's chest, even though the heat blistered his skin. "You don't rule me. I know… how you die."
He funneled every scrap of hatred, every memory of betrayal, every year lost in the Fracture, straight into that mental link. He didn't back down. If you destroy my mind, my body goes. If I die, the Engine dies, and you burn with it.
The Lynx paused, weighing the risk. Vance's conviction was absolute—suicidal, even.
Slowly, grudgingly, the savage fury holding him back eased just enough for him to catch a breath. Not surrender—a truce.
The canyon snapped back to reality. Lightning died out. The Lynx released his shoulder and stepped back, fur bristling, eyes glowing with a promise: drop your guard and you're dead.
Vance slid down the boulder into the bloody dirt. His left arm was shredded, his insides burned raw, vision flickering.
Then, another line of text burned into his sight.
[Parasitic Tether Established: Axiom (Temporal-Mutant Strain)]
[Warning: The Tether is volatile. Host must maintain mental dominance. If Host's physical or mental state drops below critical threshold, the Tethered Entity will initiate a hostile override.]
Vance threw his head against the obsidian, weak grin stuck to his face even as blood streaked his lips. This wasn't victory—he hadn't won a pet. He was now walking around with a nuclear warhead bonded to his heart, and holding the detonator.
"Nice to meet you too, Axiom," he rasped.
Then his eyes rolled back, and everything went dark.
The darkness didn't calm him. It pressed in, all sharp gears grinding and a predator's mind pressing against his own. He couldn't breathe—couldn't move. Howling wind, golden machinery, and terror wrapped around him like a vise.
Then Vance jerked awake. The air tasted like ash and old blood.
He didn't open his eyes right away. Veteran instinct. He lay completely still, cataloguing what he could feel. Not the loose gravel he'd blacked out on—he was on stone, cold and flat. His left shoulder wasn't screaming, just throbbing: numb, but still attached.
He finally cracked his eyes open.
Morning in the Fracture. The sky hung bruised and purple above the fog. He must've been out for hours. He turned his head and realized someone—or something—had dragged him deep into the cave, away from the howling wind.
And his arm—his left arm looked mangled. He stared. His skin wasn't bandaged. Black electricity, like living wire, crawled over it, knotting the muscle together, searing it closed. It looked brutal, messy, and utterly alien.
Ten feet back, tucked into the shadows, Axiom waited.
The massive, warped lynx fixed cold eyes on him. Not concern—nothing that warm. It was the look of a parasite checking to see if its host was still alive enough to use.
A sharp ping pulsed into Vance's vision.
[Parasitic Regeneration Active.]
[Warning: The Tethered Entity is forcibly maintaining Host's cellular structure to prevent System collapse.]
[Cost of accelerated regeneration: 5 years of Host's natural lifespan.]
Vance let out a dry, bitter laugh that rasped into a cough. He'd made it through the night, but his body was already paying for it.
"Don't worry," he said, his voice rough as gravel, locking eyes with the beast's sun-bright stare. "I'm not planning to die old anyway."
Axiom bared its fangs, sparks crawling across them. It hated him. Their bond was razor wire pulled tight, ready to slice the moment Vance's will slipped.
Gritting his teeth, Vance pushed himself upright. He needed out—needed a safe zone, a chance to secure the busted Astral Engine before Axiom made another push at the controls.
Except before he could stand, pain slammed through his chest.
Not just pain. Agony—branding-iron hot. It leveled him, burning him back to his knees. He clutched at his chest, struggling for breath.
At the same instant, Axiom let loose a monstrous, impossible howl. Its fur stood on end, gravity wavered, and the golden gear buried in its own chest spun wild and frantic.
But Axiom wasn't staring at him now. Its eyes were fixed east, toward the bleeding woods.
Vance forced himself to look. Through the cavern's mouth, he saw it: miles off, cutting through the fog, a pillar of screaming, spinning starlight tore open the morning. Blinding, golden, and huge—enough power to shove clouds aside, painting everything in a sickly, gold-tinged dawn. The stone under his boots quaked.
The Astral Engine in his skull shrieked and flashed crimson.
[CRITICAL ALERT: Temporal Divergence Incalculable.]
[Third Temporal Fragment Activated.]
[Anomaly Detected: A secondary Host has initiated a Mythic-Tier Tether.]
[Identity Confirmed: Sterling Prescott.]
Vance's heart stopped dead. He heard nothing but the roar of blood.
He wasn't alone.
That blast—when he triggered the Aethelgard Watcher in the future—it hadn't just tossed him back in time. It sent shards of the god into the monsters of the Fracture. And it also sent a piece into the man right next to him.
Sterling Prescott. Vanguard Syndicate golden boy. The one who betrayed him. Who murdered him. Sterling hadn't just found a companion in the Crimson Woods—he'd just awakened a shard of the time god himself.
Sterling was fresh, whole. Loaded with money, soldiers, every advantage Vance didn't have.
Vance watched the golden light crawling across the horizon and f
elt a terrible coldness settle inside.
This wasn't just a new start. The game was already rigged. And his killer was already winning.