The descent deepened.
Stone steps, worn smooth by the passage of countless years, spiraled downward into the unknown. The stale air turned heavy, tinged with ozone and something older, something electric that tickled the skin and tugged at the nerves. Faint glows pulsed from the walls — not light exactly, but residual memory. They flickered like ghosts, whispers of the past brushing against the edges of the present.
Yuki moved cautiously, Selene and Kai close behind. They hadn't spoken much since the last vault layer. Something had changed in Yuki — not just the revelation of his trait, Predatory Sync, but the awakening of a deeper, more alien part of himself. Something that felt... ancient.
"This place," Selene murmured, her eyes narrowed. "It reacts to you. More than the others did."
Yuki didn't answer immediately. His mind was fractured, not in a chaotic sense, but in a layered one. As if multiple threads of his thoughts ran parallel now, some echoing faster, others distant yet present.
Fracture Echo.
That was the skill's name. He had kept it to himself so far, unsure how to explain what it even meant. During the last sync, when the Vault had surged into him like a flood of data, it had bloomed from within his neural thread — an ability that allowed him to split into three temporal versions of himself. Echoes. Real, tangible, autonomous for a few seconds.
He hadn't used it. Not yet.
But now, something stirred ahead. A tremor, faint and rhythmic, pulsed through the stone underfoot.
Kai growled low in his throat.
"We're not alone," Yuki said.
They reached a vast chamber, circular and impossibly high, the ceiling lost in shadow. At its center rose a massive crystalline structure shaped like a fractured eye. Around it, figures stirred — translucent humanoids, clad in armor from eras long lost. Guardians, but unlike the ones they had faced before, these were different.
They shimmered like corrupted data, flickering in and out of phase.
"Temporal Guardians," Selene whispered. "I've read of these... only in the deepest core obelisks. Constructs meant to test not strength, but identity."
The figures turned toward Yuki, and the chamber darkened. A voice echoed from all directions at once.
"Three paths. Three choices. Only the true thread may remain."
Without warning, the ground beneath Yuki surged with energy, and he felt the familiar snap of sync.
Now.
He triggered Fracture Echo.
Reality split.
To Selene and Kai, it looked like a ripple in time. Three versions of Yuki burst outward, each with distinct expressions — one colder, his eyes metallic and calculating; another younger, brimming with compassion and hesitation; and the last, silent and focused, scars marking his face where none had existed before.
Each Echo moved independently.
The first dashed toward the left, drawing one Guardian's attention and unleashing a volley of glitch pulses.
The second knelt, analyzing runes etched into the ground, fingers glowing with memory resonance.
The third moved forward, straight into the center, locking eyes with the crystalline eye.
For ten seconds, three Yukis acted in perfect divergence and yet — harmony.
The room responded violently. Time warped. The Guardians split, attacking each version with unique methods. One fought with raw energy, one with illusions of the past, and one with silence — absolute void.
Yuki felt all of it. Each of his selves felt the others. And in that short moment, he saw.
The cold Yuki had once walked a path where he had abandoned Selene to survive. The younger Yuki had never awakened his Glitch side, still afraid of his own potential. The scarred Yuki had merged with Kai too deeply, losing parts of his humanity.
The timer ended.
Reality snapped back.
Only one Yuki remained.
He staggered, breathless, as the fractured eye pulsed. The Guardians bowed.
"Thread confirmed," the voice said.
Selene ran to his side. "Yuki... what just happened?"
He looked at his hands, still trembling from the split. "I saw... who I could've been. Who I might still become."
Kai stepped forward, fur bristling. "And?"
Yuki smiled faintly, a crack of weariness in his voice. "I chose the version who still walks forward. The one who remembers everything but doesn't run from it."
From above, something descended. A key. Metallic, glowing with fractal lines.
The chamber acknowledged them.
Vault Depth Accepted. Access Granted to the Hollow Core.
Yuki caught the key.
"Let's finish this," he said.