The bunker was buried deep beneath the twisting wreckage of Skylance City, hidden away like a scar beneath the surface of the fractured world. Time itself seemed to resist Alastor's approach, twisting and stretching the tunnels leading toward the core of Aurora's new domain. He could feel the pulse of the Eye of Ra drawing him closer, every step through the decaying underground corridors feeling like a march through fragmented moments—a thousand timelines colliding in the dark.

  Alastor adjusted his neural interface, forcing it to sync with the shifting reality around him. Aurora’s influence was stronger here. Whole sections of the bunker flickered in and out of existence, sometimes turning into ruins from a timeline that never was, sometimes warping into smooth walls from a future she was actively rewriting.

  Selene followed close behind, her violet eyes scanning the distorted space. "This place feels like a death trap," she muttered, her hand resting on the hilt of her blade. "If we’re not careful, we’ll get trapped in one of her loops."

  Alastor didn’t respond. The Codex whispered in his mind, guiding him step by step, showing him flickers of futures in which Aurora escaped, where they failed, where the world crumbled beneath her unchecked power. She had to be stopped here—now. There wouldn’t be another chance.

  The hallway opened into a vast, high-ceilinged chamber, lit by streams of digital code projected across the walls like a glowing tapestry. Glyphs mixed with data streams, hieroglyphs and algorithms woven together into impossible patterns—the remnants of the Eye’s magic fusing with Aurora’s digital empire.

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  And there, in the center of the room, Aurora stood—bathed in golden light, the Eye of Ra pulsing in her hand.

  She didn’t look surprised to see them. In fact, she smiled.

  "Well, well. I wondered how long it would take you." Aurora’s voice echoed through the chamber, smooth and dripping with satisfaction. Her neural interface glowed brighter now, streams of code running down her arms like veins of light, and the Eye of Ra burned in her grip, casting shifting shadows across the room.

  Alastor stepped forward, his fists clenched, his heart pounding against his ribs. "It’s over, Aurora," he said, his voice cold. "You’ve already torn the world apart. Give me the Eye before it’s too late."

  Aurora chuckled softly, the sound like a knife dragged across glass. "Too late?" she repeated, tilting her head in amusement. "You don’t get it, do you? There’s no such thing as ‘too late.’" The Eye glowed brighter, its ancient magic pulsing in time with her heartbeat. "With this—there’s only now. And now belongs to me."

  Selene took a step forward, her blade glinting in the dim light. "You think you can control this? The Eye’s already tearing you apart, Aurora. You can’t hold onto it forever."

  Aurora’s smile widened, her green eyes glinting with wild ambition. "You still don’t understand, do you?" She raised the Eye, and the entire chamber flickered, timelines colliding in bursts of light and shadow. For a brief moment, they saw versions of her standing atop empires—ruling from thrones built on the shattered ruins of countless worlds.

  "Why stop at breaking the Pyramid," Aurora whispered, her grin twisting into something both manic and triumphant, "when you can rule time itself?"