The world didn't explode so much as _shiver_.
A tremor of violet distortion rippled across the street, bending lamp posts and stretching shadows into elongated claws that scraped the pavement. Aiden threw an arm in front of his face as the parasite's scream drilled through his skull—raw, electric, primal.
Lyra's eyes widened as the resonance hammered between them, an invisible artery pulsing with shared recognition. Her breath caught. The silver gleam behind her irises flickered like a memory trying to claw its way out of her mind.
"Aiden—" she whispered again, the word cracking with familiarity.
He felt the timeline tighten around them, a fragile thread stretched to breaking.
"No," Aiden rasped. "Don't say anything else. Don't—"
But the parasite surged.
Shadows erupted from his back, unfurling into wing like arcs of living darkness. The entire street spiraled into distortion, reality fracturing into thin, glowing cracks that spiderwebbed outward from Aiden's feet.
Lyra stumbled back as the air bent. Her hair lifted in the shifting gravity, silver strands floating like threads caught in a cosmic storm.
"Aiden, what's happening—?"
Her fear stabbed through him.
The resonance spiked sharper.
**TARGET IDENTIFIED.
ANCHOR INITIATING.
RESURGENCE PROTOCOL—**
Aiden slammed both hands against his temples.
"STOP!" he shouted, voice tearing raw. "She's not ready—SHE'S NOT READY!"
The parasite faltered.
Just enough.
The violet fractures flickered, dimming. The shadow wings writhed, curling inward like wounded limbs.
Lyra staggered, gripping a lamp post as the distortion settled into a faint shimmer. Her breath shook. Confusion split across her expression in fragile lines—half-recognition, half terror.
"Aiden… I remember something. Your voice. You—"
He cut her off sharply.
"You don't remember," he said, forcing steel into his tone. "Whatever you think you saw—it's wrong. Forget it. Forget me."
Lyra stared as if slapped.
"But I—"
Aiden turned away, shadows collapsing tight around him, sealing him off from the gravity of her gaze.
"This is dangerous for you," he said, voice low. "Stay away from me until I say otherwise."
Her pulse stuttered audibly. He hated that he could hear it.
Lyra stepped forward anyway.
"No," she said. "I know you. I don't know how, but I know you."
Aiden's heart nearly cracked in two.
He couldn't look at her.
Because if he did—
the parasite might complete the resonance link.
And Lyra… would die long before Moonfall ever touched her.
He took one step back, shadows trailing like smoke.
"Aiden—please. Talk to me."
Every syllable cut him open.
He forced himself to breathe through the pain.
"You'll understand one day," he said softly. "But not today."
Then he vanished into the dark.
Aiden didn't stop running until the city lights thinned into industrial gloom. He ducked beneath a rusted skybridge, bracing a hand against the cold metal beam as the parasite's static still howled inside his skull.
He tasted copper on his tongue.
Anger.
Fear.
Loss.
And the afterburn of resonance he couldn't allow.
The parasite coiled like a serpent along his spine.
**Mistake.
Anchor engagement incomplete.
Efficiency compromised.**
"Shut up," Aiden croaked, breath sharp. "I told you—she'll die if you start the resonance too soon."
The parasite pulsed with mechanical indifference.
**Then adapt her. Force alignment.**
Aiden slammed a fist into the steel beam, denting it with a clang.
"She's not a weapon! She's not—she's not yours to calibrate!"
Silence rippled between them.
Then:
**Host instability increasing.
Memory loss probability: 38%.
Recommendation: Evolution event required.**
Aiden's jaw clenched.
He needed stabilizers.
He needed the Core-shard.
He needed the Shadow Market deal complete.
But the timeline was mutating faster than he could anchor it.
He forced himself upright.
District 6 Rift opened in forty minutes.
A Rank-E dungeon—weak, predictable, ideal for gathering Fragments and venting the parasite's aggression.
He checked the skyline.
Twin moons gleamed overhead, pale and deceptively peaceful.
"Fine," he whispered. "We clear the Rift. Then the Market. Then Eldran's shard."
Shadows uncurled behind him, sharp and eager.
**Evolve.**
Aiden swallowed the dread and began walking.
He couldn't stop the timeline from mutating.
But he could still fight it.
District 6 Rift pulsed like a bruised heart at the center of an abandoned rail hub. Holographic warning signs flickered around the perimeter, glitching between _KEEP OUT_ and a string of corrupted runes.
The Rift was bigger than he remembered.
Not by much—maybe a meter wider.
But enough to tell him something was wrong.
As Aiden approached, shadows leaked from the crack in reality in thin, spindly tendrils—mimicking his parasite's behavior.
His own shadows reared, reacting instinctively.
**Kin. Consume.**
"No consuming," Aiden muttered. "In. Out. Fast."
He stepped through.
Violet tore open around him.
The dungeon swallowed him whole.
The Rift interior formed around him like a blooming wound.
Aiden landed on jagged stone, boots skidding across a surface that wasn't quite solid. The air rippled with violet static. Echoes of distant howls bounced off the cavern walls, warped as if played back underwater.
This was not how District 6's Rank-E dungeon normally behaved.
He straightened slowly.
The corridor ahead twisted like a spine bent too far, its surfaces shifting in slow breaths. Patches of darkness clung to the walls, not as shadows, but as _organisms_—clotted, pulsing, reacting to his presence with faint shivers.
The parasite purred.
**Compatible biomass detected.
Harvest recommended.**
"No."
He didn't even hesitate.
His voice cracked against the cavern walls.
"I'm not losing another memory today. We're stabilizing, not feeding."
A cold pulse of displeasure crawled through his nerves.
**Host obstruction increasing.
Instability risk: rising.**
"Yeah," Aiden muttered, "join the club."
He moved deeper into the Rift, stepping around the pools of slick darkness. They quivered as he passed.
Something in here was awakening.
Something that shouldn't exist in a low-tier dungeon.
Aiden felt the hairs on his arms rise.
"Show yourself," he whispered.
The Rift obliged.
A creature dragged itself into view—
not a gnawer, not a crawler—
Something new.
Its body was skeletal smoke wrapped around a glowing purple core. Limbs bent at impossible angles, as though it was still remembering how to stand. Its "face," if it could be called that, flickered with blinking fractures instead of eyes.
Aiden's stomach dropped.
This wasn't Rank-E.
This wasn't anything he'd faced this early.
A **Shardborn**.
A creature mutated from Dominion-tier corruption.
"That's impossible," Aiden breathed. "You don't show up until Year Fifteen."
The creature tilted its fractured head, sensing him.
Aiden swallowed.
Kael awakening early…
Lyra's paradox flickers…
The stabilizer shard…
Now this.
The timeline wasn't just changing.
**It was accelerating toward collapse.**
The Shardborn's body quaked, fissures bursting along its frame as it lunged.
Aiden reacted on instinct.
Shadows exploded from his back, forming a jagged mantle of smoke-blades that curved around him.
The creature smashed into the barrier, shrieking as fragments of its body shattered like splintered glass.
Aiden staggered back.
The parasite surged.
**Opportunity.
Evolve.
Consume.**
"No!"
But the shadows didn't listen.
They lashed outward, impaling the Shardborn with a dozen tendrils. Violet energy bled into his shadow-mantle, burning through the parasite's nodes with ecstatic heat.
Aiden felt something tearing inside his mind—
a memory trying to break loose—
no no no no–
He dropped to his knees.
"STOP—STOP—DON'T TAKE ANYTHING—!"
The parasite pulsed, drunk on energy.
**Processing memory cost…
Calculating…
Selecting…**
"NO!"
Aiden slammed his palm into the ground. The shock burst through his nervous system, ripping control back in a wave of raw defiance.
The parasite recoiled—
but not before the Shardborn dissolved into dust.
Aiden gasped, chest seizing.
Nothing vanished.
No memory stripped.
Just exhaustion, shaking hands, ringing ears.
He had stopped it.
But barely.
The parasite pulsed with a slow, simmering resentment.
**Interference unacceptable.**
Aiden hissed through his teeth. "Get used to it."
He wiped the sweat from his brow, pushing himself off the ground.
One Shardborn meant the dungeon was destabilizing.
Dominion energy was leaking into early Rifts.
The world wasn't just dying early—
**It was mutating early.**
He didn't have time to hesitate.
He forced himself deeper.
The second chamber spiraled downward into a pit of black stone carved with glowing runes. Violet light seeped between the cracks like liquid starlight.
Aiden descended carefully.
The shadows on his back stretched outward, feeling the air like antennae. The parasite was alert, predatory, almost excited.
Aiden grimaced. "Try not to enjoy this too much."
The cavern widened into a huge arena-like space. At its center hovered a crystalline Rift Heart—larger than a Rank-E core should ever be. It pulsed like a living organ, sending tremors through the walls.
Below it, dozens of tendrils of corrupted light dripped into the floor.
And emerging from that glow—
A second Shardborn.
Bigger.
More stable.
More sentient.
Its fractured face turned toward Aiden.
It moved with intention.
The parasite snarled inside him.
**Danger level: High.
Strategy: Overwhelm.
Permission to initiate Shadow-Fang Evolution?**
Aiden's breath stilled.
Shadow-Fang.
The first true offensive mutation pathway.
If he allowed it now—
the power increase could save him.
But the cost—
the cost would be a memory.
A real one.
A precious one.
Important or not, the parasite didn't differentiate.
Aiden's fingers trembled at his sides.
He whispered, "Not yet."
**Objection.
Host survival compromised.**
The Shardborn screeched, charging.
Aiden made his choice.
"No evolution. No memory loss."
He grinned grimly.
"We do this the old way."
He sprinted forward.
The creature swung an arm, its smoky bones slicing through the air like a scythe. Aiden ducked, slid across the stone, and drove a boot into the creature's core.
The impact reverberated up his leg.
The Shardborn shrieked.
Shadows flared behind Aiden, reacting to his will rather than the parasite's command—a sign his mental override was holding.
He swung again, channeling raw shadow into his fist.
A direct blow to the core.
Cracks webbed across the Shardborn's chest.
Violet light spilled out.
Aiden braced for the explosion.
The Shardborn detonated.
Not outward—
but inward.
Its core collapsed into a singularity of violet-glass shards, imploding with a sound like cracking bone sucked into a vacuum. Energy pulsed through the cavern, scattering dust and sending Aiden skidding backwards across the stone.
He hit the wall hard enough to see stars.
Shadows surged instinctively, wrapping around him in a protective cocoon. The parasite pulsed, not with hunger this time, but irritation.
**Inefficient combat method.
Host output suboptimal.**
Aiden groaned, clutching his ribs.
"Excuse me for not letting you eat my childhood."
The parasite's silence was not agreement.
It was a warning.
Aiden forced himself upright, leaning heavily against the mottled cavern wall. His head spun—not from the impact, but from the faint aftertaste of unclaimed evolution drifting through his nerves.
He had denied the parasite twice in the same hour.
That put strain on both of them.
He rubbed a shaking hand across his face.
Something was wrong with this Rift.
Something wasn't obeying the logic of early-stage dungeon ecology.
A Shardborn shouldn't exist here.
Not at Tier 0.
Not at Rank-E.
Not before the tenth year of the cycle.
Which meant only one thing:
**The corruption curve of reality itself was accelerating.**
He swallowed hard.
If even the Rifts were mutating, then his window to stop Moonfall wasn't twenty-five years.
It might be ten.
Five.
Maybe less.
A shiver crawled up his spine.
He couldn't afford to lose any more memories.
Not a single one.
He needed stabilizers now.
He needed the shard for Eldran.
He needed distance from Lyra until he could approach her without ripping the timeline open.
And he needed to survive this dungeon.
A pulse of light drew his attention back to the chamber.
The Rift Heart—cracked, unstable—pulsed again, spilling fragments of violet flame into the air. Each pulse distorted space like ripples around a stone thrown into a pond.
Aiden stepped forward.
The parasite stirred eagerly.
**Absorb. Complete. Stabilize.**
"For once, we agree."
He reached out.
His palm touched the core—
And the world folded.
A vision slammed into him—
not a memory,
not a hallucination,
but something stranger.
A moonless sky.
A barren world.
A shattered metropolis drowned in shadow.
Rifts bleeding like open wounds.
Skyscrapers twisted into ribcages.
A colossal entity—
a silhouette shaped like a man,
but hollow,
writhing with parasites—
towered over the ruins.
Aiden's breath caught.
He recognized the figure.
Not Kael.
Not any regressor.
Not a boss he'd fought before.
It was **him**.
Older.
Broken.
Consumed.
The final state of the Shadow-Parasite.
The ultimate mutation of a host who evolved too far, too fast, too desperately.
The system whispered:
[Endgame Singularity Projection.]
[Cycle Outcome: 94% Probability.]
[Shadow-God Echo Identified.]
Aiden stumbled backwards, wrenching free of the vision.
"No…" he whispered. "No. That wasn't real. That wasn't—"
But the Rift Heart pulsed again, confirming the truth without words.
If he kept evolving, kept consuming, kept letting the parasite dictate his strength—
He would become the very thing that ended the world.
A cold dread filled his lungs.
This wasn't just regression.
This wasn't just a second chance.
This was a warning.
Aiden staggered back, clutching his chest as the shadow-mantle behind him flickered with frightened tremors.
The parasite pulsed—
not with hunger—
but with something close to awareness.
It had seen the vision too.
And it was _intrigued._
**Ascension viable.
Potential limitless.
Host evolution… inevitable.**
Aiden's throat tightened.
"No," he whispered. "I'm not becoming that. I'm not losing myself again."
The parasite relaxed with cold indifference.
**Eventually.**
Aiden trembled.
Then the Rift Heart cracked.
Light burst through it, swallowing the chamber in a blinding violet flash.
When the light faded, Aiden lay sprawled on concrete.
Concrete.
He blinked against the city lights overhead.
He had been expelled directly outside the Rift—
something that only happened when a dungeon was unstable or collapsing.
Guild drones hovered nearby, projecting containment barriers around the now-shuddering fissure.
Aiden dragged himself into the shadow of a support pillar before anyone noticed him. His limbs felt like lead. His breath rasped against the cold night air.
He checked his system interface.
[Minor Rift Cleared.]
[Reward: Rift Stability +1%.]
[Warning: Corruption Rate increasing globally.]
[Shadow-Parasite Core: Disturbed.]
[Timeline Integrity: 62%.]
Aiden's blood turned to ice.
"Sixty-two…?"
He exhaled.
This wasn't a countdown.
It was a decay.
The world was unraveling.
Too fast.
Too violently.
Too early.
Aiden pulled himself into a sitting position, shadows curling protectively around him like frightened wings.
He whispered:
"I'm running out of time."
The parasite pulsed silently.
**Then evolve.**
Aiden closed his eyes.
And for the first time since returning to Day Zero—
he felt fear not just for the world,
or for Lyra,
but for what he might become.