---
Gray Wasteland
---
Zara clung to the fissure's rim, her knuckles white as the Gray Eternity's whispers slithered into her mind. The fused voices of the Void and Maw coiled around her thoughts—Elias's calm directives, Jax's gruff laughter, Lysandra's mocking lilt.
"Let go," they urged, their tones honeyed and hollow. "We'll make you whole. We'll make you powerful."
Her left eye burned void-black, the other shimmering with the Bright Maw's rigid light. "No," she hissed, clawing at the ground. "I'm not your weapon."
A memory surfaced—Elias's hand on her shoulder, steadying her after her first chrono-leap."Control isn't about power," he'd said. "It's about choice."
She wrenched herself back from the fissure, collapsing into the Sanctum's debris.
---
Chrono Snactum
---
The Hollow Star shard in Kieran's chest pulsed like a dying heart, its gray light seeping into his veins. Lila found him in the Sanctum's remnants, scribbling equations on the walls with charred metal.
"It's a bridge," he muttered, feverish. "The shard connects us to the Gray Eternity. If I stabilize it, we might seal the fissure. But if it ruptures…"
"We'll find another way," Lila said, though her voice lacked conviction.
"There is no other way." Kieran pressed his palm to the shard, wincing. "I'm the anomaly. The paradox. It has to be me."
Outside, the sky flickered—monochrome storms devouring the horizon.
---
Gray Wasteland
---
The Gray Eternity stirred. Lysandra's form coalesced from ash and static, her body a grotesque tapestry of Void tendrils and Maw crystal. She hovered above the fissure, her voice a discordant symphony.
"You think you've won?" she laughed, tendrils lashing the Sanctum. "This realm is mine. A canvas of perfect balance… my balance."
Wren's drones buzzed defensively, but Lysandra froze them mid-air with a glance. "Your toys can't save you now, little hacker."
"But I can," Zara said, stepping forward. The Compass's remnants glowed in her grip, a shard of its former self.
---
Chrono Sanctum
---
The team descended into the Gray Eternity, ropes of chrono-fiber tethering them to the Sanctum. The realm defied logic—rivers flowed upward, shadows birthed light, and time splintered into shards.
"Don't touch anything,"n Wren warned, dodging a floating hourglass that aged to dust and reformed endlessly.
Kieran staggered, the shard's resonance warping his vision. "They're here," he whispered.
Echoes emerged: Lila, younger and bloodied, clutching the Compass for the first time. Jax, whole and unbroken, smiling before his squad's massacre. Zara, screaming as the Void consumed her.
"Illusions," Lila said, but her hand trembled.
"No," Zara said. "Ghosts of choices unmade."
They looked at the direction of Zara voice. They went near her.
"Wait." Wren taking out a chrono gun and pointed at Lysandra near Zara
Lysandra awaited them at the realm's core, two thrones of obsidian and crystal at her back. "Join me," she offered, tendrils caressing Zara's cheek. "Together, we'll sculpt time itself. No more pain. No more loss."
Zara's Maw eye glinted. "Just control."
"Yes!" Lysandra's void-half surged. "Order and chaos, perfected!"
Kieran lunged, the shard flaring. "Perfection's a lie!"
Chaos erupted. Lysandra's tendrils ensnared Kieran, draining the shard's energy. Echoes of past emerged as Lysandra raise her hand. Thay attack the team. Zara fought the entities' pull, Compass shard in hand.
"Do it!" Lila shouted, grappling with a time-twisted echo of herself. "End this!"
Zara plunged the shard into Lysandra's core. The Gray Eternity screamed.
"You… can't…," Lysandra gasped, her form fracturing. "Without balance… the realm… collapses…"
"Some things," Zara said, Elias's memory steadying her voice, "shouldn't be balanced."
---
The Gray Eternity dissolved, its fissure sealing with a thunderclap. The team collapsed in the Sanctum's ruins, the sky bleeding back into color.
But Kieran's shard glowed hotter, his veins now webs of gray light. "It's not over," he rasped. "The entities… they're still inside me."
Above them, the stars winked out one by one—swallowed by a distant, growing shadow.
Zara's eyes flickered, void and light merging into storm-gray. "They're coming."
To Be Continued…