Alastor sprinted through the warped streets of Skylance City, with Selene close at his heels. Every step felt like walking through a dream half-forgotten, the world around them flickering and twisting, sliding between versions of itself that shouldn’t coexist.

  One moment, the streets were lined with modern skyscrapers gleaming under artificial suns; the next, ancient ruins rose from the ground, their stones cracked and worn, draped in centuries-old moss. Cars blurred into horse-drawn carriages, then into flying drones, only to vanish altogether in the blink of an eye. Time itself was breaking.

  "This isn’t just alternate realities," Alastor muttered, his breath ragged as he dodged a collapsing street that folded in on itself like paper. "It’s everything—past, present, and future bleeding into one."

  Selene scanned their surroundings, her neural interface flickering wildly as it struggled to process the chaos unfolding around them. Nothing stayed the same for more than a few moments—buildings, people, even the ground beneath their feet flickered between different states of existence, as if every possible timeline were trying to manifest all at once.

  This was what the Eye of Ra had unleashed. Aurora’s reckless use of the relic had cracked the timeline, sending ripples of fractured realities through the world. And the deeper they moved into the heart of the city, the worse the fractures became.

  Alastor felt it too—a weight in his chest, like gravity pulling in every direction at once. The Codex of Eternity pulsed in his mind, struggling to give him clarity in the storm of overlapping timelines. The loop was no longer just a cycle—it was an open wound. Every version of the world that had ever existed or could exist was bleeding into the present, colliding in ways that defied logic.

  He glanced down an alley, where a mother cradling her newborn baby shifted in and out of existence, her features flickering between joy and despair. One moment, the baby was an infant; the next, it was a grown man lying still, cold in her arms.

  Alastor tore his gaze away, forcing himself to stay focused. This wasn’t the time for hesitation.

  "Keep moving," he said sharply to Selene, ducking under a half-collapsed bridge that flickered between steel and stone. "The fractures are spreading. If we stop, we’ll get pulled into one of these alternate loops—and we won’t come back."

  Selene’s voice was tight but steady. "How much worse is this going to get?" She kicked aside the ruins of a vending machine that had briefly turned into a Roman statue, then back into scrap metal.

  Alastor shook his head grimly. "Aurora doesn’t know how to stop. Every timeline she creates fuels the fracture, and the more it spreads, the harder it gets to untangle. If she keeps pushing, it won’t just break Skylance—it’ll break everything."

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  They turned a corner, only to find a street overrun with twisted versions of the same people. Alastor recognized a shopkeeper they had passed earlier that morning—but now, his face flickered between dozens of versions of himself. One moment, he was a young man in his prime; the next, his skin sagged with age, his eyes sunken and distant. Then, in the blink of an eye, he was a skeleton, long dead and decayed—and just as quickly, he was alive again, smiling as if nothing had happened.

  Alastor felt a knot tighten in his gut. This wasn’t just time manipulation—it was annihilation. The past, present, and future weren’t just overlapping—they were devouring each other.

  Selene gave him a sidelong glance, her lips pressed into a grim line. "How do we even fight something like this?"

  Alastor exhaled slowly, his mind racing. The Codex showed him fragments of possibilities, broken timelines swirling in his head like jagged pieces of glass. But even with all the knowledge he carried, there were no easy answers.

  He stopped for a brief moment, scanning the fractures spreading through the street. The people flickered, their faces shifting between lives they had lived, would live, or had never lived at all. A little girl skipped past them, her dress stained with blood—but a second later, she was gone, replaced by an elderly woman dragging her cane through the dust. Time had no meaning here anymore.

  Selene nudged him sharply. "We need to move, Creed. This place is coming apart."

  Alastor nodded, forcing his legs to move even as the weight of fractured time pressed harder against him. Every ripple Aurora created was spreading outward, twisting reality further and further out of shape. And unless they found a way to stop her soon, there would be nothing left of the world to save.

  A sharp crack echoed through the air as the pavement beneath them shifted again, turning to sand—then stone, then metal—before dissolving back into sand. Alastor stumbled but caught himself, pulling Selene forward as the ground shifted beneath their feet.

  "The fractures are getting worse," Selene muttered. She swore under her breath, brushing sand off her coat. "Aurora’s not just playing with the future—she’s rewriting history in real time. If she doesn’t stop soon, everything we know will be erased."

  Alastor clenched his fists, frustration boiling inside him. He had to find Aurora—and soon. If they didn’t stop her before the fractures spread too far, the timelines would collapse in on themselves, destroying the very fabric of reality.

  The scarab beneath his sleeve buzzed angrily, reacting to the temporal instability, as if warning him that time itself was unraveling faster than he could control.

  Selene’s voice cut through his spiraling thoughts. "What’s the plan, Creed? How do we stop a god with control over time?"

  Alastor’s jaw tightened. There was only one way to fight Aurora—and that was to beat her at her own game.

  "We don’t stop the fractures," he said grimly. "We follow them."

  Selene shot him a sharp look. "What do you mean, follow them?"

  Alastor’s eyes narrowed as another piece of the Codex’s knowledge snapped into place. The fractures weren’t random—they were leading somewhere. Each ripple in time was connected, forming a tangled web that radiated outward from a single point. Aurora was at the center of that web, pulling the strings—and if they could trace the fractures back to her, they’d find her before the damage became irreversible.

  "Every fracture Aurora creates leads back to her," Alastor said, his voice cold with determination. "If we follow the pattern, we’ll find her. And when we do, we take the Eye back."

  Selene nodded, her grip tightening on the hilt of her blade. "Then let’s stop chasing ghosts and start hunting."