The Architect's laughter sent ripples through the fabric of reality. Orion, Lyra, and Seraphina braced themselves as the cosmos twisted around them.
"You think you fight for freedom?" The Architect's voice slithered through time itself. "You have merely created an unstable reality. Your past, present, and future no longer belong to you."
Before Orion could respond, everything around them shattered like glass.
---
Orion found himself standing in a world unfamiliar yet eerily familiar. A grand city of obsidian towers stretched toward an endless, stormy sky. A name formed on his lips before he could comprehend it.
"Eldoria…?" But that wasn't possible. Eldoria had been destroyed eons ago.
A voice behind him sent chills through his spine. "Orion? Why do you look so confused?"
He turned. Lyra stood there, but her eyes held no recognition of him.
"Lyra?" Orion reached for her, but she took a step back.
"Who… who are you?" Her voice trembled. "And why do you speak as if we know each other?"
His heart pounded. This wasn't their Lyra. This was another version of her—a version from a timeline that should not exist.
---
Chapter 39: The Echoes of Lost Selves
Seraphina was gone. Orion searched desperately, but instead, he found himself face-to-face with… himself.
A second Orion, dressed in dark armor, wielding a blade of pure void energy.
"You're not supposed to be here," the Dark Orion said, his eyes devoid of light. "The cycle must remain unbroken. You have no idea what you've done."
"I shattered the paradox!" Orion snapped. "I broke free!"
Dark Orion laughed, an empty, hollow sound. "And now, the universe is correcting the mistake. You were never meant to escape, Orion. None of us were."
A portal of swirling darkness erupted behind him, and from it, hundreds of figures emerged. Hundreds of Orions—each from a different shattered reality.
Some had scars, others had missing limbs, some had mechanical augmentations. And all of them bore the same tortured gaze.
"There is no escape," Dark Orion whispered. "Only the endless loop."
Orion clenched his fists. "Then I'll break it again. I'll break it until something new is born."
A cruel smile spread across Dark Orion's face. "Then let's see who survives the collapse."
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