The air cracked with energy, timelines folding and collapsing around Alastor and Aurora as their powers clashed. Fragments of lost futures and shattered pasts swirled like a storm—each one flickering for a heartbeat, then vanishing into nothing. Aurora fought like a god—her movements fluid, chaotic, unpredictable. But Alastor was patient. He knew that even gods could falter.

  The Codex whispered in his mind, showing him countless variations of this fight, every possible way it could end—most of them in defeat. Aurora’s control over the Eye of Ra had become nearly absolute; she bent time like clay, manipulating moments in real-time to undo his strikes before they even landed. Every blow he missed made her stronger.

  But the loop had taught Alastor a lesson that Aurora hadn’t learned yet—power didn’t make you perfect. It made you arrogant. And arrogance could be exploited.

  The Codex pulsed against his mind, revealing a pattern hidden within Aurora’s timeline. Amid the chaos of realities folding over one another, there was a moment—just a sliver of time—when she was vulnerable. It wasn’t much. Just a flicker of hesitation, a ripple where her focus wavered, as if she were struggling to contain the Eye’s overwhelming power. Her ambition was too great, even for her.

  And that was all he needed.

  Alastor felt the moment coming before it arrived, the scarab beneath his sleeve buzzing in sync with the Codex’s warnings. He shifted into the loop, winding through alternate versions of the fight, letting himself lose and die over and over in those timelines just to study her movements, her weaknesses, her overconfidence.

  Then the opportunity struck.

  Aurora raised her hand to summon a new ripple of time—her eyes glowing with golden energy as the Eye pulsed in her grasp, feeding her power. She reached too far, trying to rewrite one timeline while still holding control over the others. For the briefest moment, her grip slipped.

  And Alastor was already there.

  He dove through a collapsing fracture, slipping between seconds as the storm of time raged around them. Everything slowed—milliseconds stretching into eternity—until he was right in front of her. Aurora’s eyes widened as she saw him move, too late to stop him.

  Alastor’s hand shot out, seizing the Eye of Ra from her grip just as the relic pulsed with unstable energy. The golden orb burned in his palm, hot as a dying sun, but he held on, wrenching it free from Aurora’s hand with a final, desperate pull.

  "No!" Aurora screamed, lunging forward to reclaim it, but her power flickered—the timelines she had manipulated fracturing and collapsing without the Eye’s stabilizing influence. She stumbled, falling backward into the chaos she had unleashed, her neural interface sparking wildly as the reality she had built began to unravel.

  Stolen novel; please report.

  Alastor staggered as the weight of the Eye’s power surged through him, visions of countless futures and alternate realities slamming into his mind. Time bent around him like a shattered mirror, showing him every version of what had been and what could still be.

  But there was no time to savor the victory. The world was already falling apart.

  Selene appeared beside him, her eyes wide as the chamber around them flickered between different timelines—ancient ruins, futuristic cities, broken landscapes where nothing made sense. "Alastor! The Eye—it’s not holding!" she shouted over the roar of collapsing realities.

  He gritted his teeth, clutching the glowing relic tighter in his hand. The Eye thrummed with unstable energy, its ancient power threatening to spiral out of control. Aurora had pushed it too far, breaking the delicate balance of time itself. Now, everything was unraveling.

  "Hold on!" Alastor growled, forcing the Codex’s knowledge to align with the Eye’s chaotic energy. If he didn’t stabilize it soon, the fractures would consume the world entirely.

  Aurora, still sprawled on the ground, looked up at him with wild, furious eyes. "You think you’ve won?" she sneered, her voice laced with venom. "The Eye’s power can’t be tamed, Alastor. It’s already too late—the timelines are collapsing. You can’t stop it."

  Alastor glared at her, the weight of the Eye burning in his grip. "Maybe not." He glanced around at the flickering landscape, feeling the cracks in reality growing wider with every second. "But I can make sure you don’t destroy everything with it."

  Selene grabbed his arm, urgency clear in her voice. "We need to get out of here! The longer we stay, the worse it’ll get."

  Alastor gave her a sharp nod, but he knew the truth—there was no escaping the consequences of what had already been set in motion. The fractures would keep spreading unless they found a way to stop them. And Lucius was still out there, waiting for his moment to strike.

  With a final, grim look at Aurora, Alastor turned and sprinted toward the exit, Selene right behind him. The world shifted and twisted around them, the walls of the bunker flickering between broken timelines—one moment a shattered ruin, the next a sleek corridor from a future that no longer existed. They ran through the storm of collapsing realities, racing against time itself as the world fell apart behind them.

  Alastor could feel the Eye’s unstable power buzzing in his hand, the scarab beneath his skin vibrating wildly in response. He had reclaimed the relic—but the battle was far from over.

  They burst through the bunker’s exit just as the last of the fractured timelines folded in on themselves, the world outside twisting into a warped, unstable landscape where nothing was certain. Skylance City flickered between states—whole one moment, crumbling the next.

  Alastor slowed to a stop, his chest heaving as he held the glowing Eye of Ra in his hand. The relic thrummed with dangerous energy, barely contained, its golden light casting eerie shadows across the ruined streets.

  Selene caught her breath beside him, brushing dust and debris from her clothes. Her gaze was hard, but determined. "We’ve got the Eye," she said, her voice tight. "But the world’s already unraveling."

  Alastor nodded grimly, his mind racing with possibilities—futures where they won, where they lost, where everything fell apart. But no matter which path he saw, one thing was clear.

  Lucius Cipher was waiting.

  And the final confrontation with the man who had mastered the loop for centuries was coming. With the Eye of Ra in his hand, Alastor had the power to challenge him. But the world around them was on the brink of collapse, and the battle ahead would decide not just their fate, but the fate of every timeline.