Jayden hovered above the tapestry of existence, suspended in a sky fractured by countless rewinds of reality. Below him, entire realms folded like shattered glass being carefully pulled back into place. Time screamed in agony as it bent, twisted, and reshaped beneath the weight of his power, obeying a force it was never meant to withstand.
Even now, he felt the chains—the invisible binds that restricted him. They were not physical; no, they were rules far older than him, conditions imposed by the act of undoing what had been. He could watch. He could remember. He could not touch. He could not act, he wasn't as powerful as he once was.
His mind trembled with echoes of the battle he had lost—the one that had cost countless lives, a battle whose mistake had nearly erased existence itself. Entire realms vanished in an instant, lives unmade, possibilities snuffed out. And it had been his fault. His hesitation had allowed the thread to unravel.
Never again.
The rewind slowed as one world stabilized beneath him, a single, fragile realm among nine stretching across the multiverse. Insignificant to most—but not to him. He had seen what had been destroyed, and he knew what must be preserved.
The House of Reginald, ancient and rune-etched, sat quietly beneath the waking sky. Within, a child was about to be born—a child whose fate would ripple across the multiverse in ways the newborn could not yet comprehend.
Jayden's gaze softened, but not for long. Regret lingered, coiling around him like smoke, and with it came the knowledge that he would not interfere—not yet. The chains would not allow it. Not until the child had grown strong enough, not until the right moment.
He exhaled slowly. He had watched this moment countless times in the void of his own memory, yet each observation carried the same weight. Every heartbeat, every first cry, every breath was a lesson he had learned the hard way. He could only hope this version of himself would do better.
A pulse of resistance ran through him, a warning from the rules themselves. He was reaching the limits of his tethered existence, and yet he lingered, as if the universe would allow him to imprint a trace of guidance, a silent benediction, before he faded.
Below, in the House of Reginald, the first signs of life stirred. The child's tiny fists clenched instinctively. A cry, soft and fragile, pierced the stillness of the night. It was ordinary in every sense, yet extraordinary to the eyes of the one who watched above.
Jayden's eyes, stormy and electric, traced every detail of the scene: the mother's trembling hands, the father's unaware smile, the subtle flicker of ancient magic in the air. He could sense the potential, the raw energy waiting to bloom, and the dangers lurking in shadows that he could not yet change.
You will be stronger than I was. You will not make my mistakes, he thought.
The light around him shimmered, threads of his essence brushing the edges of the newborn's aura, lingering just long enough to mark the moment. Then, as swiftly as he had appeared, he withdrew, blending into a thin shimmer of electricity that scattered into the sky like sparks from a dying star.
The multiverse continued, oblivious to the watcher above.
This time, he would not fail.