Chapter 77 – Echoes of Power
The ruins of the cathedral still smoldered behind them, but Kael-X had moved on.
Far above the shattered zone, a floating islet of crystalline glass and metallic vines hovered—an ancient relic of a lost civilization that once experimented with dimensional thought.
It was here the group found a momentary refuge.
Maya stood by the balcony edge, looking out at the strange shifting clouds below. "I never thought we'd survive that last fight…"
Elijah was seated cross-legged, carefully studying the map of broken timelines projected from his gauntlet. "We've moved too far off the main thread. If the Time Division tries to track us now, they'll need an anomaly to do it."
Veyron floated upside down, eyes scanning the skyline. "They'll find one. You don't erase a Prime Enforcer and a Prototype in the same week without making someone panic."
Kael-X remained silent, perched on a ledge overlooking everything. His body was healed, but the energy within him was... unstable.
Umbra's voice whispered from his shadow: "Your core has shifted. You are no longer simply Kael-X."
Maya approached quietly, sensing the tension. "Are you afraid?"
"No," Kael-X said. "I'm changing. That's what scares them."
Below the hovering island, reality rippled faintly. Something distant had responded to the clash of power between Kael-X and Prototype Zero. Something old.
"They're calling me a catalyst," he muttered. "But for what?"
Veyron blinked. "You've noticed it too?"
"What?"
"The echoes. Every time you tap into your hybrid power… someone echoes you. Not mimicry—resonance."
Elijah frowned. "You're saying he's syncing with... other versions of himself?"
"Not just himself," Veyron replied darkly. "Others. Other catalysts. Like he's absorbing the paths of parallel warriors who were never meant to meet."
Maya's voice was quiet. "So what happens when all the echoes reach him?"
Kael-X turned slowly. His eyes glowed, not with rage—but with a strange, celestial calm.
"Then I stop being the Catalyst... and become the Constant."
Kael-X rose from the ledge and walked toward the center of the islet where the others gathered. The ground beneath his feet shimmered with old tech—symbols glowing faintly as though remembering ancient footsteps.
"Elijah," Kael-X said. "What's the safest zone closest to this fracture point?"
Elijah tapped his gauntlet, pulling up a map riddled with torn timelines and collapsing zones. "There's a place called the Hollow Vein. It was once a sanctuary for echo-binders—those who could anchor fragments of themselves across timelines."
Maya tilted her head. "Wait... isn't that place cursed?"
Veyron smirked. "Not cursed. Guarded."
"By what?"
"Not what. Who. A former guardian of the Constant Path. A being who once walked the edges of the original timeline before it shattered."
Kael-X narrowed his gaze. "Then we need to go there."
Maya frowned. "Why?"
Kael-X looked to the horizon, voice low.
"Because the echoes aren't just speaking to me. They're warning me. Someone is coming—someone I haven't seen before. Someone even the Time Division refuses to name."
The shadows twitched.
Umbra's voice hissed: "It has awakened. The Hollow knows. The Hunter moves."
Veyron floated back a little. "Then we move fast. If we linger here, we'll be caught between what's watching above and what's waiting below."
Kael-X turned to his team.
"We leave in three hours. Prepare for the Hollow Vein."
As the others dispersed to gather their things, Kael-X stood alone at the edge of the floating islet. The wind tore at his coat, and the void within him pulsed like a heartbeat echoing across forgotten dimensions.
He clenched his fist.
Whatever was coming next… it would change everything.