Chapter 103: The Fractured Pantheon

The air vibrated—an oppressive hum of frequencies woven into the fabric of space-time. The Originals descended like divine executioners, their cloaks trailing trails of light and echo. Ten of them. Each representing a paradox. Each born from the first convergence of timelines. And now, they had come to erase their greatest threat.

Evryn.

She stood on the ledge of the precipice, Aurex and Kai at her flanks, the Omega Seal on her palm glowing with a fury she could barely contain. Energy crackled through her skin like lightning caught in veins. The Core inside her wasn’t just awake—it was angry.

Kai shifted his stance, his cybernetic arm bracing for impact. “We won’t win in a direct assault.”

Aurex agreed. “They’re beyond powerful. We’ll need strategy. Manipulation. What they never expect.”

Evryn narrowed her eyes. “We divide them. Break the unity. Fragment their hold.”

“And how do you propose we fragment gods?” Aurex asked.

She smirked. “We remind them they were once human.”

A single step forward—Evryn raised her glowing hand toward the sky. The Omega Seal expanded, fractal runes dancing along her arm. With a single pulse of thought, she projected her voice across the battlefield.

“You who call yourselves Originals,” she spoke, her voice echoing across planes, “you are not absolutes. You are memories made arrogant. I am the living will of all timelines. I am not yours to command.”

The sky shook. The leader of the Originals—cloaked in shadow woven from collapsed dimensions—spoke with a voice that shattered stone.

“We are the Architects. We forged the first sequence. We are the breath between existence and void. You are a mistake.”

“No,” Evryn whispered.

Then she ran.

Straight toward them.

The Originals didn’t expect it.

Kai launched after her, his cybernetic enhancements flaring. Aurex vanished into smoke, reappearing behind the rearmost Original.

The battle ignited.

Evryn’s first clash was with the Timeweaver, whose weapon was a thread of living chronology. He lashed it toward her, and in a single flick, a decade tried to bind her arms—but the Core flared and shattered the tether. She countered, palms glowing, and released a wave of compressed reality that knocked him into a spiraling collapse.

She turned—too late.

A second Original, the Echoer, struck her with a blow that rippled through possibilities. It felt like being hit in every version of herself simultaneously. She screamed, staggering—but Kai dove in, driving a pulse blade through the Echoer’s chest. It didn’t kill him, but it stunned him long enough for Evryn to regain her stance.

“Focus on the Seal!” Kai shouted. “It’s drawing them in!”

Evryn raised the Seal again, and this time—it unfolded.

From it poured memories. Theirs.

She forced them to see themselves—before power, before the Nexus. The Originals cried out in disarray as their identities fragmented. One dropped to his knees, whispering a child’s name. Another vanished in smoke, unable to cope with his own origin.

It was working.

But it came at a cost.

Evryn’s body trembled violently. Her heart pounded like a collapsing sun. The Core was overwhelming her—rewriting her biology, stitching new pathways through her DNA.

Aurex reached her, panting, his arms burned with quantum flame. “You’re changing—too fast!”

“I can’t stop it,” she gasped. “It’s not just power. It’s becoming a new law.”

“Then anchor yourself! Use the seal to lock onto one timeline—yours!”

She clenched her fists. “If I do that, I’ll lose access to all others.”

“You’ll survive!”

Before she could decide, the leader of the Originals descended directly before her. His mask dissolved, revealing a face… she recognized.

Dr. Verion Kael.

The founder of Project E.V.E.R.

He smiled coldly. “You should never have lived.”

Evryn’s mouth went dry. “You... died.”

“In your timeline, yes. In others, I became the first Core-bearer. And eventually... I ascended.”

He raised a hand—and the ground beneath her shattered. Evryn was thrown backward into the air, caught by Kai mid-fall. The impact broke his wing modules, and they tumbled into the lower strata of the terrain.

“We’re losing her,” Aurex muttered, gripping the fractured Core interface on his gauntlet.

But suddenly—the sky pulsed again.

And from the rift above—

Another version of Evryn fell through.

This one… older. Her hair white as bone, her eyes twin galaxies. She wore armor that shimmered between timelines.

Future Evryn.

She landed beside Aurex with such force it bent the rules of physics. “About time I got here,” she said, her voice layered with echoes.

“You’re—” Aurex blinked. “You made it.”

“Didn’t have a choice,” she replied. “She’s not ready.”

Together, they rushed to where the present Evryn lay—weak, fading.

“You can’t exist here,” the present Evryn whispered. “You’ll cause a paradox.”

“I am the paradox,” her older self said gently. “But right now, you need guidance.”

Evryn stared at her older self, eyes wide. “How did you win?”

“I didn’t. I died,” the older Evryn said. “In every version of this battle... we lose. Unless you do something no version of us ever tried.”

Evryn’s breathing slowed. “Which is?”

“Forgive them.”

“What?!”

The older version pointed toward the remaining Originals—now staggering from the flood of memories.

“They were made from us. They are echoes of humanity’s ambition. If you destroy them, the cycle resets. But if you merge them—make them remember—you overwrite the Nexus itself.”

Evryn closed her eyes. The Seal pulsed again.

And then—she stood.

As the present and future versions converged—becoming one.

Evryn’s body ignited with radiant energy. Not just light—but truth.

The leader of the Originals screamed. “NO!”

But it was too late.

Evryn walked toward him, unafraid.

“You feared me because I was incomplete,” she said softly. “Now I am every possibility. Every failure. Every triumph. And I choose wholeness.”

She pressed her palm to his chest.

The Omega Seal expanded—then imploded.

A shockwave swept across the entire plane. The Originals screamed—as they were rewritten into people. Not gods. Not monsters. But who they had once been.

And as the world calmed—

Only three remained standing.

Evryn.

Kai.

Aurex.

The sky cleared. The citadel cracked open.

Peace. For now.

Kai took her hand. “You rewrote the code of reality.”

Evryn looked to the horizon. “No. I just reminded it what it means to be human.”