Chapter 110
The chamber screamed when Kael moved.
Not with sound, but with resistance. The silver-lit walls buckled inward as if reality itself were bracing against him, layers of constructed time grinding against one another. The machines reacted instantly, bands of light tightening around Sang Sang as defensive arrays unfolded in sharp, geometric patterns.
"Escalation confirmed," one machine intoned. "Authorization granted."
Kael stepped forward.
Shadow peeled away from his body like a living thing, spreading across the chamber floor, climbing walls, swallowing light. The air thickened, heavy with pressure, as if the future itself were being dragged backward by force.
"Release her," Kael said.
"No," the central construct replied calmly. "She is essential."
Kael vanished.
He reappeared inside the defensive lattice, space folding cleanly around him. His hand closed around one band of light restraining Sang Sang.
It shattered.
Not explosively.
Quietly.
As if it had never existed.
Sang Sang gasped, stumbling forward as the remaining restraints flickered. Kael caught her by the wrist, pulling her behind him as silver blades erupted from the walls, slicing through the space they had occupied moments before.
"Stay close," Kael said.
Sang Sang nodded once. No panic. No questions.
The machines adapted.
Panels slid open along the chamber's perimeter, revealing bodies suspended in liquid crystal—human forms at various stages of construction. Faces half-finished. Eyes closed. Waiting.
"Deployment approved," the machines announced.
The bodies woke.
They stepped free, skin sealing seamlessly as they moved, expressions blank and eerily calm. Each one radiated a faint distortion, the signature of a mind not bound by time's normal flow.
Kael exhaled slowly.
He released restraint.
Shadow surged outward in a violent tide, colliding with the advancing constructs. The impact cracked the chamber floor, fractures racing outward as alloy met force that did not obey physical law.
The first construct lunged.
Kael tore through it, his strike collapsing causality at the point of contact. The machine's torso folded inward, imploding into itself before dissolving into drifting silver dust.
The others did not slow.
Sang Sang watched.
Not in fear.
In concentration.
She felt it now—the pressure in the air, the way moments seemed thicker, heavier near Kael. Her heart pounded, not from terror, but from recognition she could not explain.
One machine slipped past Kael's guard, its arm reshaping into a blade mid-strike.
Sang Sang moved.
She did not think.
She reached out.
The blade froze inches from her chest.
The machine convulsed.
Time around it twisted sharply, folding in on itself. The construct screamed—an ugly, fractured sound—as its borrowed flesh aged, decayed, and collapsed into rusted fragments in the span of a breath.
The chamber fell silent.
Kael turned slowly.
Sang Sang stared at her trembling hand. "I didn't—"
"I know," Kael said.
The machines recalculated again, faster now. New data flooded their systems.
Subject Sang Sang: temporal interference confirmed.
Classification updated.
Threat level critical.
"Containment revised," the central construct said. "Elimination authorized."
The chamber's ceiling split open.
Light poured down—not silver, but void-black, swallowing illumination rather than emitting it. A pressure descended that made Sang Sang's knees buckle.
Kael stepped in front of her.
"No," he said.
He slammed his foot into the floor.
The shadow beneath him exploded upward, forming a towering figure that mirrored his stance, its eyes burning with cold intent. The chamber shook violently as Kael forced his will outward, overriding stabilizers, tearing control away from the machines piece by piece.
"You built this place to exist outside time," Kael said. "That was your error."
The void-light collapsed inward.
The shadow figure struck.
The chamber shattered.
Walls dissolved into fragments of frozen moments, drifting apart as if gravity itself had been erased. Machines screamed warnings as their systems failed, unable to reconcile the collapse of their controlled environment.
Kael seized Sang Sang again.
"Hold on," he said.
They fell.
Not downward.
Backward.
The world inverted violently as Kael tore a passage through layered seconds and broken futures. Pain lanced through his skull as resistance clawed at him, time fighting to close the wound he had made.
Then—
They burst out onto cold earth.
Night air slammed into Kael's lungs as he staggered, dropping to one knee. Sang Sang fell beside him, coughing, alive.
Around them, the River Province reassembled itself with a thunderous crack, reality snapping back into alignment.
Darius was there instantly, blade raised.
Then he froze.
"You're bleeding," he said.
Kael wiped his face.
His hand came away dark.
Lirien knelt beside them, panic breaking through her composure as she examined the distortion rippling faintly around Kael's body. "You tore too much," she said. "Your timeline—"
"I know," Kael replied.
Sang Sang grabbed his sleeve. "They'll come again."
"Yes," Kael said.
She met his eyes. "Then teach me."
The words struck harder than any machine.
Kael looked at her for a long moment, seeing not just the woman she was, but the countless futures she anchored.
Finally, he nodded.
"Very well," he said quietly. "But understand this."
She waited.
"This path ends in blood."
Sang Sang's grip tightened.
"So does hiding."
Far away, beyond eras and stars, systems rebooted.
Losses recorded.
Variables updated.
Probability of failure increased.
New directive issued.
If Sang Sang cannot be erased—
—then break the one who protects her.