The fog in the Weeping Canyons just kept thickening. You'd think it would break up as the sun dipped behind those jagged walls, but nope—it turned black and stifling, so dense you could choke on it.
Vance Kensington just stood there for ages after Julian Thorne disappeared into the darkness. The tap of that silver cane faded, replaced by wind howling through the rocks, but Julian's words still clung to him, wrapping around his throat.
You fight like a man who's already dead.
He glanced at the slick black card on the bloody earth. The silver raven glinted in the last bit of light—almost taunting him.
He really didn't want to touch it, but acting clueless out here was asking to die. He crouched, grimacing as the skin on his left arm pulled tight, and stashed the Obsidian Cartel card in his coat next to the lone, muddy-brown Core.
"Ninety-nine," he muttered, seeing his breath billow in the freezing air.
Vance pressed a hand to his chest. Deep under his ribs, the golden gears of the Astral Engine churned slow, aching in time with his heartbeat. Waiting. Hungry.
He needed to get moving. Night in the Canyons was a death sentence for anyone cocky enough to linger.
He tightened his grip on the combat knife and carefully made his way through razor-edged ravines, pushing deeper into the dead zone. Every step was careful—no sprinting this time. He remembered running through these same paths in his last life, knowing he'd find the Vesper-Lynx just a couple miles west, cowering in its cave.
Julian had unsettled him though. Something had shifted.
As the hours slipped by, it got colder—really cold. Frost started forming on Vance's collar. Each breath cut at his lungs. His muscles felt heavy and slow. To keep himself going, he forced his mind to scan the darkness for scavenger nests.
Except the deeper he went, the quieter it all got.
He didn't like it. Not one bit.
Usually, the dead zone buzzed with bone-centipedes or jackals barking. Tonight, nothing—not even background noise. It was like the canyon itself was waiting.
Vance stopped and crouched behind a shard of obsidian, trying to sense whatever was off.
The smell hit him first. Not rotten meat like usual—more like ozone, sharp and metallic, mixed with the iron tang of blood. So thick he could taste it.
The cave was close. Right around the corner.
Vance steadied himself, tightening his grip on the knife. He thought about Axiom—the name he'd picked for the beast in another future. Come on, you're scared and hungry. Let me Tether you and maybe we both make it out.
He crept along the wall and slipped silently into total darkness.
He found the cave. But not the half-starved cub he expected.
He froze—breath stuck in his throat.
The entrance should've been empty. Instead, hulking dark shapes blocked it. Vance crept closer, staying low until he was just a foot away from the first body.
A beast. Armored, huge—like a rhino mixed with a snapping turtle. A Tier-2 Iron-Clad Behemoth.
What is a Tier-2 doing out here? Panic broke through his calm. The air pressure should've killed it in hours.
But the Behemoth wasn't just sick. It was dead.
Vance reached for the creature's plated hide. Cold as ice. When he touched it, static snapped up his arm, numbing his hand.
He jerked back, eyes wide. He took in the rest. Copper-Maw Jackals. A venomous Viper-Weasel—mutated, fierce. All dead.
No bite marks. No claw slashes.
Vance leaned in, studying the Behemoth's corpse. Its eyes were rolled back; veins bulged beneath the armor, black as ink. The air thrummed with a strange, low vibration.
They hadn't been killed for food. They'd been executed. Their nerves were cooked—blasted from inside by a surge that left nothing alive.
Suddenly, golden text from the Astral Engine flashed in the corner of Vance's vision—a harsh warning.
[Warning: Extreme Temporal/Genetic Anomaly Detected.]
[Environmental Analysis: Residual Voltage Pattern does not match standard Tier-1 Vesper-Lynx.]
[Anomaly Identifier: The target is not dormant. The target is awake.]
Vance felt his blood freeze.
In his old timeline, the Vesper-Lynx was weak—a mutant he'd rescued with a food ration. Barely more than a blank slate.
Now, staring at the slaughtered Tier-2—a beast that should've wiped the floor with any Lynx—the truth hit him, hard.
The Aethelgard Watcher explosion didn't just send him back. That surge of temporal energy probably jolted the whole Fracture, speeding up mutations everywhere.
He hadn't come back to the same world. The monsters had a five-year head start.
Vance's neck tingled. Air pressure crashed, and he struggled to breathe.
Then he saw it—a faint blue glow peeling away from the cavern roof, right above him.
No hiss. No growl.
Just a screech—like a power line snapping and sparking.
Vance didn't look up. He threw himself backward, slamming into the dirt, as a spear of midnight-blue lightning obliterated the stone where he'd been standing just a split second before.
Vance slammed into the ground, gravel ripping through his coat and digging into his shoulder. The blast hit like a truck, throwing him another three feet and wiping out his hearing in an instant. Now, all he heard was a shrill ringing that swallowed the sound of wind.
He stayed down. Getting up meant making himself a perfect target. Instead, he rolled behind a huge boulder, knife in his shaking hand, blinking away the white-hot flashes from the strike.
Ozone stung his eyes—felt like someone poured acid in them.
The dust started to settle, and that ringing faded into a low, menacing hum.
Something stepped out of the cavern roof, and its paws hit the scorched earth without making a single sound.
Vance fixed his stare, gasping so hard his lungs felt frozen.
A Vesper-Lynx stood there—not the scrawny cub he'd saved five years ago. No, this thing was a monster, easily the size of a grown leopard. Its fur swallowed up the light, so dark it twisted the air around it. Two tails swished lazily behind, disrupting the air and leaving spiderwebs of black electricity crackling in their wake.
But the eyes? The eyes were the worst.
They didn't belong to a scared scavenger. They burned like tiny supernovas, cold and ancient but terrifyingly clever.
Nothing about its size made sense. Vance's mind raced, alarms blaring. No way it should be this big. Mutations like this needed three years and a Fulminar Core—so how did it happen on day one?
The Lynx didn't bother with dramatic attacks. It just walked toward him, stepping over the charred corpse of the Behemoth like it didn't matter.
Vance tried to crawl away, but the boulder's cold stone pressed against his spine—he couldn't go anywhere. He lifted the knife, knowing if he actually managed to hit the beast, the shockwave would stop his heart right there.
The Lynx paused three feet away, lowering its massive head to sniff the air.
Not a glance at the knife. Its gaze locked right onto Vance's chest.
Suddenly, his scar erupted in a searing flare under his ribs. Golden light punched out from it, burning through his shirt. Inside, he felt the broken Astral Engine grind into action, gears screeching and sparking.
The Lynx reacted too, its chest fur parting ever-so-slightly. A deep, vibrating purr rolled through the canyon, shaking dust loose.
Vance's stomach dropped.
Inside the Lynx's chest, fused with its heart, a single golden cog spun slowly—a piece of the Aethelgard Watcher.
When Vance blew up the temporal god, the blast didn't just toss him back in time. It shattered the Watcher, scattering pieces across history. Those fragments lodged themselves inside the Fracture's deadliest predators, turbocharging their evolution beyond anything imaginable.
Vance hadn't come back alone. The god's pieces rode along.
[Warning: Hostile Temporal Fragment Detected.]
[Target is attempting to initiate a Reverse-Tether.]
[Warning
: The beast is attempting to absorb the Host.]
The Lynx's jaw stretched wide, dark electricity swirling in its throat as it lunged.