The air inside the bunker vibrated with tension, the Eye of Ra glowing brighter in Aurora’s grip as timelines rippled and warped around her. Reality twisted and folded under her command, as if she were conducting a symphony of fractured time.

  Alastor felt the Codex’s presence hum inside his mind, aligning with the scarab embedded in his arm. He could see flashes of possible futures, glimpses of how this fight could end—thousands of outcomes, most of them in failure. But this was the loop—and he was its master. He wasn’t just fighting to win; he was fighting to learn, to adapt, and to survive. Each misstep became a new strategy. Every death was data.

  Aurora’s grin widened as the Eye thrummed in her hand. "Let’s see if the great Alastor Creed can keep up," she whispered, her voice filled with manic delight.

  The world shattered.

  In an instant, they were no longer in the bunker—the timeline warped and twisted, folding in on itself like a collapsing star. They fought across different realities, each one a fragment of what could have been, what might still be, or what was already lost.

  One moment, Alastor stood in the ruins of ancient Egypt, the sun blazing overhead as fragments of pyramids crumbled at his feet. The next, they were atop the sleek towers of a futuristic Skylance, the skyline shimmering beneath an artificial sun.

  Aurora’s laugh echoed across the centuries. "Every timeline is mine, Alastor! Every loop, every version of you—you're nothing but a piece on my board." She unleashed a barrage of attacks, hurling streams of distorted time toward him—blades forged from fractured seconds, bursts of futures collapsing in on themselves.

  Alastor shifted into the loop, moving between moments like water slipping through cracks. He had lived this fight before—just not in this exact form. He let the Codex guide his steps, dodging by milliseconds, avoiding attacks that should have already hit him.

  He ducked under a blade of shimmering time, rolled through an alternate version of himself standing in the same space, and countered with a strike of his own, driving his fist toward Aurora’s side. But she blinked out of existence, reappearing in a different timeline an instant before his blow could connect.

  "Close, Creed," she taunted, "but not close enough."

  Aurora twisted time like a snake, sending phantom versions of herself leaping toward him from alternate timelines. Each version was slightly different—one wore a mask, another had blood-splattered clothes, and another seemed older, her eyes filled with knowledge from centuries of conquest. They attacked in unison, their movements chaotic but perfectly synchronized.

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  Alastor felt the scarab buzz violently against his skin, warning him of the danger. He slipped deeper into the loop, dying and learning with every hit, resetting just in time to outmaneuver their strikes. His mastery of the loop allowed him to rewind the tiniest moments—milliseconds that turned losses into wins.

  Aurora’s smile faltered for the first time as Alastor’s counters became sharper. He dodged one version of her, grabbed another by the arm, and flung her into a collapsing timeline. His movements became smoother with each step, his attacks landing closer and closer to their mark.

  "You’re getting predictable," he muttered, lunging forward. A flicker of a future showed him exactly where she would reappear.

  Aurora snarled, frustration flickering in her emerald eyes. "You think you can keep up with me?" The Eye of Ra blazed, pulling timelines together in a storm of possibilities. Every version of their battle fractured and recombined, layering on top of one another until it became impossible to tell which was real.

  They fought across centuries in mere seconds—one moment, their blades clashed in the ruins of Rome; the next, they stood in the aftermath of a battle in a distant future, where cities lay drowned beneath rising seas. Each reality folded into the next, twisting space and time into a chaotic tapestry of endless possibilities.

  Alastor felt the pressure building—the loop straining under the weight of their fight. Each time they rewrote an event or dodged a blow, another fracture appeared. The timelines weren’t just bending—they were breaking.

  Aurora’s grin returned, wild and triumphant. "Do you feel it, Alastor?" she whispered as the timelines cracked and flickered around them. "We’re becoming something greater—something beyond time. You can’t win, because I’ve already seen every future, and they all belong to me."

  Alastor’s jaw clenched as he stepped through another ripple in time, barely avoiding a future in which Aurora’s blade sliced his throat. The Codex pulsed in his mind, showing him flashes of what could happen—victories, losses, endless loops of struggle. But in every version of the fight, one thing remained constant: Aurora would never stop. Not unless someone made her stop.

  Their powers clashed again, sending ripples through time that shattered the space around them. The room flickered like a broken screen—Egypt, Skylance, Rome, a drowned city—all folding in and out of existence in an endless loop of collapsing realities.

  Alastor surged forward, using everything the Codex had taught him—every death, every lesson, every second of every loop. He wasn’t just fighting Aurora in the present; he was fighting her across every timeline, every version of the battle happening simultaneously.

  Their powers collided in a burst of energy—the Eye of Ra’s golden light clashing with the Codex’s ancient knowledge. Reality cracked around them, the walls of the bunker shattering into nothingness as the entire battle unfolded across time itself.