The codex hovered in the air, pulsing gently.
Kael felt the images moving through his mind like memories.
But they weren't his.
They were Arkana's.
---
She had traveled alone.
No support, no base, no protocol.
Before there was even a name for what LIGA would later become.
Her mission was to prevent temporal contamination by entities outside the natural flow.
Creatures that belonged to no timeline.
And in the end… she failed.
But she left a warning, imprinted with living energy into the codex:
> "If you've found this,
then there's still a chance.
Do not try to restore time to what it was.
Make it survive."
---
Kael shivered.
The final image was clear:
Arkana standing before the same pillar.
And behind her, something emerging from the underwater shadows.
A silhouette.
Tall.
Human… but not alive.
The codex vanished.
The chamber darkened.
And Kael's disc lit up in warning.
Something was waking in that place.
And it wasn't him.