Chapter 17: The Mission

The Manila sky wept under the weight of a gray afternoon. Rain tapped gently against the windows of Kim Ji-yoo’s condominium—an oddly calming rhythm for someone accustomed to chaos.
She stubbed out a cigarette on the balcony railing and exhaled the last of her thoughts with the smoke. Her recent vacation in Japan had barely healed her frayed nerves, and now reality tugged her back into the whirlpool of cosmic disturbances.
"What's with the new makeover, Sera?" Ji-yoo asked dryly, eyeing the figure tied to the metal chair in her living room.
Sera, once a glowing beacon of celestial authority, now looked like a broken monument to herself. Her long black hair was chopped short, jaggedly at that, and the side of her face—formerly graced with a mystical red eye—was hidden beneath a charred eyepatch. A weathered gray cloak hung from her shoulders over a sleek black bodysuit, and her boots bore the dirt of a hundred dying worlds.
“I wouldn’t call this a makeover,” Sera replied with a tired voice. “More like a weakened state.”
Ji-yoo raised an eyebrow. “And yet you're still dramatic as hell."
“I need your help,” Sera said, her tone grave.
Ji-yoo blinked, letting the words hang in the air. Then she laughed, loud and sharp.
“You? The Celestial Witch? Asking for my help?” she said, doubling over. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”
Sera’s lips tightened. “Are you willing to take this job or not?”
The laughter faded. Kim lit another cigarette and leaned against the doorframe. “Tell me more about your situation.”
According to Sera, she'd been targeted by an entity known only as Ouroboros—someone with the same goals as Arth to gather all the seven pieces of the Time Cog. Sera's power over existential threads made her a threat to his plans.

But this time, there was something stranger at play.
“I tasked Arth—my assistant—with retrieving one of my experiments. I haven’t heard from him in months,” she said.
Kim's brow furrowed. “Weird. I saw him just a few days ago, here in Manila. Caught in the rain, muttering about ‘time storms.’ Same guy, same coat.”
Sera's eyes darkened behind the patch. “That’s not him.”
“What?”
“That’s not Arth. That’s an impostor.”
Ji-yoo felt a chill crawl up her spine. The rain outside suddenly seemed louder. “Then… who is he?”
Sera didn’t answer right away. Her voice dropped to a whisper, laced with fear.
“Someone else.”
Kim didn’t press. Whatever had left Sera like this wasn’t something she could joke away. Instead, she dropped her cigarette and crushed it beneath her heel.
“Alright. What’s the mission?”
Sera drew a shaky breath. “I need the Stardust Gem of Discord—one of my fail-safes. It’s hidden in a pocket dimension, protected by a group called the Keepers of the Stardust Veil.”
Kim narrowed her eyes. “Fanatics, right? Worship you like a god?”
“Exactly. I don't like them and they don’t trust outsiders. And especially someone like you.”
Kim cracked her knuckles and smiled. “Then I’ll just pretend to be you.”
Before Sera could object, Ji-yoo knelt and began carving glowing runes onto the tiled floor. Runes older than time, taught to her by herself under the guidance of forbidden spells buried in the records of time.
A portal blinked open—swirling violet, speckled with stars—and without hesitation, Kim stepped through.
The portal dropped Kim Ji-yoo into a dream built on delusion.
She stood at the threshold of a dimension that shimmered with adoration—obsession, really. A temple-city suspended in the void, constructed from fractured stars and metaphysical glass, hovered above a black hole wrapped in shimmering veils of light. Choirs of robed figures chanted a name that echoed through the artificial heavens.
“Sera... Sera... Celestial Witch Sera...”
Her name wasn’t spoken—it was worshipped.
Kim adjusted her illusion spell. Her short, dyed hair lengthened into flowing obsidian strands. Her eyes blazed crimson and magenta, her body wreathed in iridescent light. Sera had trained her well in mimicry, but even now, Kim felt the falseness itching under her skin.
She stepped forward.
The sanctuary opened into a vast hall, columns carved from crystallized time spiraling upward into nebulae, and at the center hovered a towering effigy of Sera—immaculate, eternal, grinning down at them like a digital messiah.
The moment Kim entered the space, everything stopped.
A thousand dark-robed figures turned in unison. Tears sprang into their eyes. One woman gasped and collapsed. Another began to scream with joy, clutching at her chest like a miracle had entered her bloodstream.
“She returns...!”
“She walks again among us!”
Kim’s voice rang out, distorted slightly by the enchantments woven into the room.
“I have returned.”
They erupted into cries. Weeping. Praise. Devotion so powerful it hung in the air like steam.
From a floating dais emerged a tall figure draped in ceremonial threads spun with strands of stardust. His eyes gleamed like twin suns, and across his bald forehead was tattooed Sera’s sigil—the Stadust.
The High Keeper.
He fell to his knees before her, head bowed so low his forehead met the shimmering floor.
“Oh Divine One... we feared the worst. They told us you had been devoured by Ouroboros. That your light had faded forever.”
“They lied,” Kim said, lifting her chin. “I survived. I transcended. And now I return with purpose.”
The Keepers echoed the word with glee: Purpose.
“But,” the High Keeper said, rising with trembling grace, “you look... different. Dimmer. As if you walk with shadow.”
“The multiverse has scars,” Kim replied coolly. “So must I.”
The answer satisfied him. The others began chanting again.
“We knew she would not abandon us...!”
“She’s returned to lead us! To burn away the false gods!”
Kim didn’t let herself react. Every second spent here was a gamble. The longer she stayed, the higher the chance her illusion would fail.
“I come seeking what was left in my absence,” she said. “The Stardust Gem of Discord. You guard it, yes?”
The hall fell silent.
The High Keeper hesitated. “It has remained untouched. Unworshipped, per your last decree. We believed it sacred... forbidden to all but your emanations.”
Kim didn’t flinch. “And here I stand.”
A beat. Then a nod.
“Bring the reliquary.”
From a vault of refracted light, a procession emerged. Robed acolytes moved slowly, reverently, carrying a levitating crystal box. Inside: a gem that looked like a piece of broken night sky—glimmering with unstable entropy.
The Stardust Gem of Discord.
As they laid it before her, Kim extended her hand—fingers trembling, but not with awe.
With contact, the illusion flickered.
Only for a heartbeat. But in this place, where faith bordered on psychosis, a heartbeat was enough.
“Wait,” someone murmured. “Did you see—?”
“Her eye—her eye changed!”
“She glitched—just now!”
“She’s not—”
“HERETIC!”
The cry shattered the silence like glass.
Kim swore under her breath. She grabbed the Gem, tucking it into her coat. “Time to go.”
The air convulsed as divine rage took form. The Keepers, once meek in their praise, now ascended into the air like possessed angels. Their robes tore away to reveal burning sigils across their flesh—gifts from their so-called goddess.
“She defiles Her image!”
“She came in costume! Like some sick cosplayer!”
Kim conjured the return sigil on her wrist, but the glyphs flickered—unstable.
“Oh, come on! Don’t stall out on me now!”
The High Keeper roared. “Seal the realm! Bind her soul to the echo vault!”
Acolytes chanted as glyphs the size of cities carved themselves into the sky. The walls closed in with dimensional force. Kim ran, dodging tendrils of crystallized belief and blasts of purified zealotry.
A white-hot bolt of starlight scorched past her head.
“She mocked our goddess!”
“She used her face!”
“She must suffer forever in the mirror chamber!”
A portal flickered ahead—unstable, collapsing.
Not enough.
Then the heavens split open.
A jagged tear in space bloomed behind her, glowing with blinding fire. A wind like howling galaxies roared through the sanctuary.
And through it, she heard a familiar voice—cold, commanding, protective.
“I’ve got you. MOVE.”
Sera.
A hand shot out of the rift. Kim didn’t hesitate. She dove, tucking the Gem close to her chest as spells whizzed past her. Something grazed her leg. Fingers clawed at her boot.
Then—blackness.
She landed roughly on the floor of her apartment. The gem pulsed in her hand like a beating heart.
Sera stood in front of the active portal, her hand outstretched, her body trembling. The eyepatch glowed faintly. She slammed her staff against the ground, sealing the rift with a hiss of unstable reality.
Then silence.
Kim lay gasping, clutching the Gem as though it were her only tether to existence.
“That was too close,” she spat.
Sera nodded grimly. “They almost anchored your soul. If I had been even a second late, you’d be theirs.”
Kim stood, bruised and panting. “What the hell kind of fanbase are you running? They almost killed me for using your face!”
Sera looked away. “The Keepers of Stardust Veil aren’t just believers. They’re parasites of divinity. My absence fed their obsession. They turned faith into madness. admiration to devotion. obsession to love”
Kim walked to the kitchen, poured herself a glass of something strong, and downed it.
“Yeah, well… They’re not done.”
She pointed at a lingering crack in the apartment wall—pulsing faintly.
“They marked me. Tracked me. I saw one of them mouth a soul-binding curse.”
Sera’s face darkened. “Then we don’t have much time.”
Kim held up the Gem, its glow now infected with a hint of crimson. “I’ve got the gem but I just made enemies out of a multiversal religion.”
Sera took the Gem carefully and nodded. “They’ll follow. Across dimensions if they must.”
Kim looked at the glowing crack again and exhaled. “Then we better keep moving.”
Sera extended a hand toward the gem but winced. “Too soon… I can’t absorb it yet.”
Ji-yoo crossed her arms. “So… the impostor. You're gonna tell me more?”
Sera’s voice dropped. “He looks like Arth. Speaks like him. But he’s… wrong. There’s a fracture in his soul.”
Ji-yoo frowned. “A clone?”
“Worse. A shadow. A version of Arth from a timeline that shouldn’t exist. If he gathers all seven Time Cogs—”
“He could overwrite the multiverse.”
Ji-yoo’s expression hardened.
“Then we find the rest first,” she said.
“It may be too late,” Sera murmured. “He already has four. And I suspect the one who sealed me away has the remaining three.”
Ji-yoo nodded slowly. “You’re lucky I didn’t come back from Japan just for sushi and ghost trains.”
Sera chuckled weakly.
“There’s more,” Ji-yoo added, thinking aloud. “When I spoke to him—‘Arth’—he didn’t remember things I remember.”
“He’s lying,” Sera spat.
“He hides too much,” Ji-yoo admitted.
Sera’s voice shifted. “Then I have another task for you. I need you to jump to a certain universe.”
Ji-yoo raised a brow. “Where am I headed this time?”
Arth’s Perspective: Universe-382, Codename “Argonaut”
It was supposed to be a routine adventure.
This universe’s defenders called themselves The Argonauts—a new brand of caped crusaders. I had just helped them take down a rogue AI built by one of their own—Atomic-Man, a size-shifter with delusions of digital godhood.
“Thanks again, Arth,” said Miss Fury, shaking my hand. Her voice was low, commanding. She wore a black suit laced with golden thread.
“You’re welcome,” I replied. “But I work alone.”
Iron Ace—an armored aerospace engineer—grinned from beneath his helmet. “Still, wanna be an honorary member?”
Before I could decline, a new voice chimed in.
“Only if he doesn’t steal your spotlight.”
Lady Luck swooped down beside us, brushing a strand of white hair from her cheek.
“I’ve heard that line before,” I said, recalling my run-ins with The Unlimited.
Miss Fury smiled. “You’re welcome here, whenever fate brings you.”
“I’ll keep my portal open,” I quipped. “You’re lucky I was here. No pun intended.”
Iron Ace wheezed with laughter. “Good one!”
Lady Luck rolled her eyes and dragged him away by the ear.
But one hero stood apart—a girl in a sleek body suit, silent but observant.
“Who’s she?” I asked.
“Newest recruit,” said Miss Fury. “Her mentor sent her here to learn teamwork.”
“Name?”
“Can’t give you her real one. Her codename’s Spider Queen.”
“Spider powers?”
“Not quite. Her mentor—the first Black Spider—got his powers from an ancient spider totem. She’s a clone. Mixed with the DNA of her original creator's late daughter.”
“How poetic,” I muttered.
“She’s listening, you know,” Miss Fury said.
Spider Queen removed her mask and gave me a bored look. Brown hair. Red eyes. Fangs.
“You have web fluid?” I asked.
“I brew it myself,” she replied, flexing talon-like fingers.
I nodded. “Be a good kid, Siobhan.”
I opened a portal and stepped through.
“Stay lucky.”
With that I jumped into the next universe as my mind fogged for some reason….
In a cyberpunk world bathed in neon hues and endless rain, the city roared with life—hovercars zooming through mag-rails, holo-ads flashing on mile-high towers, and drones patrolling the skies like metallic birds.
Atop a dark obsidian tower streaked with pulsing magenta. A portal popped on the rooftop of the building. And it was raining.
“Is everything ready?” A voice said
“Yes, master and I have the three pieces with me” a robotic voice said
It was Ouroboros talking to someone but the dark environment of the cyberpunk world covered the man's true face only his voice was noticeable.
After a while…
“I'm back” Arth said as he passed through Altair, who was seated on the couch.
“Did you end up in a Underwater World? You're drenched in water” Altair jokes.
“I just ran some errands” Arth replied as Altair looked at him.
“Go change or you'll get cold” Altair said
“Wasn't I supposed to take care of you? Why is it the other way around?” 
“Doesn't mean you have the power over space and time doesn't mean you're immune to a common cold” Altair said
“Alright I'm gonna go change now” Arth said as he left.
Chapter 17: The Mission