The Time Eruption

The hall was a cathedral of glass and shadow. Tall panes stretched endlessly upward, rain streaking down in rivers that fractured the amber light into broken shards across the marble floor. A handful of black columns held the ceiling aloft, etched with spirals that seemed to twist when stared at.

In the center of it all, the Amber King stood, robed in fractured gold, his back turned to the entrance, his gaze still focused through the dripping windows into the downpour.

The air tore open with a sound like tearing silk. Xallarap emerged and knelt, voice trembling against the attempts at hiding it.

“My King,” Xallarap said, shivering. “It’s Lucius. He’s-he’s gone. He broke free. I don’t know how. One moment the chains bound him, the next, he burned through everything. Even Mandukath.”

For a long silence, the Amber King did not move. His head inclined slightly, the rain’s reflection bending across the planes of his masked face.

“I know,” he murmured, voice low in its tone. “I felt the shatter. The moment he tore himself apart to become whole. It seems that he is ready.”

Xallarap flinched, stammering. “Then we should act before he strikes first. The others are searching for him as we speak.”

The King turned. His amber lit eyes cut through Xallarap like blades.

“Send everyone,” he said simply. His voice rippled with a quiet command that filled the glass hall to its edges. “The Hourmen. Iscarius. You. Every shadow, every hand that serves us will go there.”

Xallarap’s unstable form wavered. “You mean to breach- “

The King raised one hand, and the glass around them shivered violently, rain spattering harder.

“They will all be brought here before me,” the Amber King said. “This has gone on for long enough.”

Xallarap bowed low. “As you will, my King.”

The Amber King turned back toward the rain, his reflection rippling faintly across the window. He no longer spoke to the shadowed figure, his words were for someone far away.

“I have brought you here, and I will see this through to its end. The cleansing act, to wash away your sins.”

And as the words settled, the storm outside seemed to laugh.

***

Lucius stood before the central dais, his aura still flaring in faint ribbons. Ultra, Umbra, and Caesar lingered at a distance, each watching him with unease, like he might erupt at any second.

But Lucius’s eyes were locked on the object set upon the table. The Gnomon hovered weightlessly, a shard of immense significance, its shifting face glimmering with faint light.

“You’ve had it all this time,” Lucius said, voice low, steady. “Why haven’t you used it? Why aren’t they back yet?”

“Because, it’s not for us to use,” Ultra said. “The Gnomon only responds to you. Look closer.”

Lucius frowned, stepping toward it. The shard pulsed as he neared, its pale light igniting into a fierce blaze of jade resonance that mirrored the fire burning in his veins.

“You’re the only one who can command it,” Umbra whispered.

Lucius reached out, his hands trembling from the storm surging through him.

“Be careful, the consequences could be more extreme than we know,” Ultra cut in.

But the words were lost on Lucius.

He closed his fingers around the blunt shape, and in that instant the Sanctum vanished from his awareness.

The Gnomon roared to life. Jade fire spread through its surfaces, bursting into endless planes of light. His breath caught, his body locking in place as memory after memory ripped through him like lightning. His childhood. His failures. His torture. The many voices of the Amber King. Every weight, every wound, every word he had never escaped.

But through the chaos, he seized on one memory with teeth bared.

The Angiporium.

That place hidden among the alcoves, a slivered escape in the folds of the city. The day Lain and Surazal fell.

The light surged brighter. The Sanctum shook around them, its lattice of stars bending inward.

With a sound like reality searing in two, Lucius was ripped from the Sanctum, body and soul, swallowed by the Gnomon.

When his senses returned, he stood not in the safety of the pocket lair, but in the main hall of the Angiporium, moments away from his objective. The echo of deaths waiting to be rewritten.

He hid away, out of view of the figure who would be entering at any second.

And enter he did.

Out of the shadows stepped the man who caused all of this, his indigo hair catching the faint light, orchid blade writhing with its own hunger. Iscarius.

But Lucius was ready this time. More than ready. His body ablaze, jade fire crawling from his skin, eyes burning like twin novas. He raised a hand and thrusted it forward, screaming as the field of power roared from him and soared at him ready to annihilate Iscarius to nothing-

-and passed straight through him.

Like smoke. Like he wasn’t even there.

“No!” Lucius bellowed, staggering forward.

With a flash of light, Surazal, Lain, and past Lucius now all stood in the Angiporium.

His pulse thundered. He knew exactly what came next.

He dove toward Lain, but his hands phased through hers as if she were mist. He screamed again, clawing, pushing, pounding the floor. His rage shook the chamber, but the scene didn’t break. It was happening exactly as it had before.

“Lucius, how did it feel this ti-”

TSNIKTTTTTTTT.

The blade pierced flesh. Lain’s body jolted, her abdomen blooming red.

“No...” Lucius whispered, already sprinting forward.

Her gasp, sharp and wet, cut through the chamber. The blade withdrew, slick with her blood, ready for its next mark. Surazal’s screech followed, primal and raw, wings exploding in golden flame as he hurled himself at the killer.

“Not again-NOT AGAIN!” Lucius unleashed everything, fire exploding outward, enough to level mountains. The Angiporium didn’t even ripple. Surazal’s wing still fell. Lain still bled. Time mocked him by refusing to change.

“No no no no no no no-” Lucius grabbed the Gnomon at his waist, shoving every ounce of resonance he had into it, trying to rip himself away, to break through, to do something. But the shard sputtered in his hand, the light refusing to flare. His power, his fury, his whole being, none of it could pierce the memory. There was nothing he could do but watch.

He fell to his knees, teeth grinding so hard his jaw ached, tears cutting down his scarred cheek.

“PLEASE!” he roared at the walls, at the sky, at the cruel faceless architect of this prison. “Please let me change it! I’ll give everything! I’ll die right here, just let me save them!”

Ignoring his cries, the script played on. Surazal collapsed, breathless. Iscarius twisted the blade in his chest.

Lucius pounded the floor until blood split from his knuckles. “WHY WON’T YOU LET ME?! I’M STRONG ENOUGH NOW!”

Through the cacophony, through the rot of inevitability, her voice rose again.

Lain.

Soft, trembling, but reaching across the barrier like a thread spun for him alone.

“...Lucius...”

His head snapped up. She wasn’t speaking to the boy holding her hand in the memory. She was speaking beyond it, her eyes fixed straight ahead, to where Lucius now knelt.

Wait, I remember this. Her final words…she spoke away from me back then, only towards empty space. I thought she was just delirious but…did she know? Did she know I was going to be right here?

His knees slammed the marble as he dropped beside her, desperate to catch every syllable. “Lain…what are you…”

Her eyes locked on his. Though she couldn’t even see him. Her lips curved in that same fragile smile, and her voice came softer than breath, but cut deeper than any blade.

“You’ll come back. I know you will. You’ll try to change it. But you can’t. Not like this. ” She coughed, blood flecking her lips, but her eyes never left him. “This isn’t your burden to rewrite. It’s your relief to carry. Do you understand? You must live for what comes after.”

Tears blurred Lucius’s vision as he leaned closer, his forehead nearly touching hers, as if proximity could rewrite fate.

“No... please... don’t say that...” His voice cracked. “Don’t leave me with this again.”

She reached into her dress, pulling out the same blood smeared drawing, placing it into the hand of the boy beside her. But her gaze was on him, the future him, the man on his knees that no one could see.

“Forgive yourself, Lucius,” she whispered, her eyes focused as though she really could see him. “Or you’ll never be free. You are the bleeding tree, and only you can put an end to all of this blood.”

Just as before, her light flared and swallowed the chamber whole, casting all in the brilliance of her being.

Lucius was left screaming into the void, clutching nothing, jade sparking wildly like a storm with no one around to feel it. No one but him.