The Obsidian Teeth rose like the jagged ribs of a dead titan, jutting from the earth in twisted, blackened spires. Once a mountain range, it had been hollowed out and shattered by time, war, and something far older. The wind there didn't whistle—it howled, like it mourned something that had been buried in its stone heart long ago.
Kael stood at the edge of a cliff, eyes fixed on the spires ahead. His breath misted in the frigid air. The echo mark on his collarbone pulsed faintly, guiding them like a compass to the next gate. It beat in tandem with his own heart now—a rhythm he could no longer ignore.
The others gathered behind him.
"We really going in there?" Bren asked, tugging his jacket tighter against the cold.
"Do we have a choice?" Syra murmured. She stared at the landscape with distant eyes, reading the faint shimmer in the air. "There's a rift here. Not a tear in the ground—a tear in fate. The echo currents bend around this place."
Jax clicked his tongue. "I hate places where you can feel your guts trying to crawl out through your shadow."
Kael smirked slightly, but the weight in his chest remained. "Let's move. We find the gate, and we don't split up. This place feels… unstable."
They descended the ridge in silence. The path narrowed between two twisted peaks, and the air grew thick with static. The deeper they went, the more fragmented the terrain became—rock hanging in the air as though gravity had forgotten its job, flickers of light and memory rippling through the fog.
They passed relics—ancient statues shattered by time, runes glowing faintly on broken stone, skeletal remains of something once armored in obsidian and gold.
Then they found it.
Nestled between the largest spires, half-buried in collapsed earth, was an archway. Not made of stone or steel—but of light. Flickering, glitching, humming with unstable echoes.
Syra stepped forward first. "A Gate. But not like the last one."
Kael touched it gently. The moment his fingers brushed the light, the echo mark on his collarbone blazed—and the gate stabilized. A deep rumble echoed across the spires.
"Looks like it was waiting for you," Bren said, awed.
"No," Jax muttered, his voice dark. "It was calling him."
Suddenly, the wind stopped.
Not slowed—stopped.
And a sound like a thousand voices whispering through static flooded the canyon.
From behind the gate, shadows emerged.
Not Null Concord soldiers.
Something else.
Entities wrapped in riftlight and broken geometry. Humanoid in shape, but with too many limbs, faces shifting, bodies flickering between presence and absence. Echo Aberrants.
Bren's eyes widened. "Oh hell."
"Defensive formation!" Kael shouted.
They moved as one—Syra to the back, hands glowing as she summoned fate threads to weave protection. Jax flanked left, blade drawn, already charging. Bren crouched, extending a hand to the buried ruins—calling ancient tech to life as if whispering to it.
Kael stepped forward.
And time slowed.
It was unintentional—instinctive. The Echo surged through him, and the world bent around his presence. He moved between flickers, blade in one hand, echo-shard in the other.
The first Aberrant struck—claws of shifting metal aimed at his throat. Kael parried with precision, blade singing as it cut through the unstable construct.
Behind him, Syra's hands moved like wind, threads lashing out like spears of light and memory, impaling two of the Aberrants mid-leap.
Jax roared, energy flaring around his weapon. He twisted through the field, slicing clean through one entity and dodging three more with inhuman precision.
Bren laughed—laughed—as he rose, controlling a massive floating relic that had once been a siege weapon. It fired with a thunderous boom, disintegrating an entire wave.
But the Aberrants didn't stop.
Each time one was cut down, it reformed—less stable, more monstrous.
"They're feeding off the rift!" Syra yelled. "We have to shut the gate or they'll keep spawning!"
Kael turned toward the arch. He could feel it pulsing in time with his own heartbeat now—like it had latched onto him.
He sprinted toward it, cutting through the storm of claws and memory-glitches. Aberrants reached for him, slowed by his time manipulation but not stopped. Each step felt heavier, as though the air thickened the closer he got.
Then he was there.
He placed his hand on the gate and pulled.
The mark on his collarbone flared.
And the world fractured.
---
He was somewhere else.
Again.
Not the Core. Not a memory.
A corridor of echoes. Light. Shadows. The space between moments.
And standing before him—tall, cloaked in static, face shifting like waves on a screen—was a figure. Humanoid. Male. Familiar.
Kael stepped forward. "Who are you?"
The figure spoke.
"The first Kael. The last. And the one who failed."
Kael's blood ran cold.
"You're… me?"
The figure nodded once. "The gate doesn't show the future. It shows what you fear most. I failed to save them. I chose power over heart. And the world—my world—collapsed."
Kael's voice shook. "That won't happen. I won't let it."
"Then learn from me. And run from the pull of the fracture. You carry more than fate now. You carry the code of collapse."
The world surged.
Kael stumbled back, the gate collapsing behind him. The vision shattered.
---
He woke up coughing dust.
Jax hauled him to his feet. "You stopped the spawn. Good work."
Bren clapped him on the back. "Also, you were glowing. Again."
Kael looked around. The gate was gone. The Aberrants—dissolved. The Obsidian Teeth were quiet once more.
Syra approached him quietly. "You saw something, didn't you?"
He didn't answer immediately. His fingers trembled slightly.
"I saw a version of me… one who lost everything. Who chose wrong."
She placed a hand on his shoulder. "Then we won't let you make those choices alone."
Kael looked at her, then at Jax and Bren. "We have to move faster. Whatever's manipulating the fractures—it's not just watching. It's acting. And it's using me to do it."
Bren sighed. "Awesome. Our leader might be fate's favorite meat puppet."
Kael chuckled despite himself.
But in the back of his mind, the fractured version of himself still lingered—eyes full of regret.
And in the distance, across the Teeth, a new signal pulsed. A call to the next gate.