Chapter 107: The Origin Anomaly

Time wasn’t moving.

It wasn’t standing still either—it simply wasn’t.

The space around Evryn and the team was a pale void, neither dark nor light, filled with suspended pulses of energy, like frozen thunderclaps. Coordinates meant nothing here. This was beyond mapped multiverses. Beyond the Phantom Line. Beyond the realm even the Inverted Flame dared not tread.

This was Origin.

“I’m not reading time flow,” Elara whispered, adjusting the sync-core of her Phantom sensor. “No entropy, no decay, no existence as we know it. We’re standing inside the beginning... or the end.”

Kai adjusted the stabilizer on his shoulder. “Then what the hell is that?”

They looked up.

A tower stretched endlessly above and below them. It wasn’t built—it was grown from the convergence itself. Every layer of it seemed to be made from timelines compressed into form: bricks shaped from wars, lattices crafted from love stories, staircases forged from regrets.

Etched along the sides were faces—millions. Maybe billions. Every soul that had ever existed. And at the top, glowing like a tear in reality, was a singularity of flame—black at its core, but with silver tendrils lashing out into eternity.

Evryn’s breath caught in her throat. “It’s... the Seed.”

Elara blinked. “The what?”

“The seed of the convergence,” Aurex said, appearing behind them. “The thing that started everything—and the thing the Shard is trying to rewrite.”

Kai narrowed his eyes. “So we destroy it.”

“No,” Evryn said, stepping forward. “We understand it.”

A sound echoed through the void—low, rhythmic, like a pulse from a long-dead star. A shadow began to materialize at the top of the tower, descending slowly.

The Shard.

But not as before.

He wasn’t wearing armor. He wasn’t cloaked in illusion. He walked bare, transparent almost, flickering between forms.

Evryn.

Kai.

Aurex.

Even Elara.

He was wearing their identities, like a mirror refusing to choose its reflection.

“You came,” the Shard said, voice echoing in every tone they’d ever spoken.

Evryn stepped forward. “You’ve manipulated echoes, corrupted timelines, broken anchors. Why?”

The Shard tilted his head. “Because I remember when we were one.”

A pause. Then—“I am you, Evryn.”

“No,” Kai growled. “You’re what she left behind.”

The Shard smiled sadly. “You speak of choice. But your beloved made so many sacrifices to become who she is now. Who picked up what was lost? Who bore the pain when she cast it off like chains?”

He stepped closer to Evryn, and suddenly her body shuddered.

She saw—herself.

But not her now.

Her past selves.

The scared version of her who first woke up in Project E.V.E.R.’s sterile lab.

The broken one who survived the collapse of Unit Theta.

The cold one who let Elaia consume part of her soul to survive the Hyper Rift.

The vengeful one who nearly destroyed Nexus 6 for answers.

The Shard was all of them.

“You fought to evolve,” he said, “and so did I. The convergence punished me for it. You were rewarded.”

“I didn’t ask for this power,” Evryn whispered.

“No,” the Shard said. “You earned it. But you left us behind. You evolved beyond your pain. I became it.”

Evryn looked to Kai, then to Elara, then back at the tower behind the Shard. The Seed pulsed again—calling to her.

“If I destroy the Seed... all of this ends,” she said.

“No,” Aurex interrupted. “If you destroy the Seed, we unravel everything. Not just timelines. Not just echoes. Existence.”

The Shard turned. “But if you merge with it... you become the new Constant. A god of origin.”

The implication was brutal.

She could remake everything.

Everyone who died.

Everyone she’d lost.

A clean slate.

Evryn stepped forward, drawn like gravity.

The Seed pulsed again—once, twice.

A scream tore through her mind.

It was her mother.

Not from memory.

From somewhere inside the Seed.

Trapped.

The Seed was a prison.

Evryn’s voice cracked. “They’re inside. All of them. Every echo. Every soul.”

The Shard nodded. “And the only way to free them... is to take the Seed into yourself.”

Aurex warned, “If you do that, you lose your identity.”

Kai’s voice was raw. “Evryn, don’t. Don’t sacrifice who you are.”

But Evryn already knew.

This was why she had been chosen.

Not because she was the strongest. Not because she was the last.

But because she was the only one who had endured everything and still refused to collapse.

Evryn stepped toward the Seed.

It pulsed, and time bled around her. Every version of herself flickered into being. Some were monsters. Some were saints. All of them were afraid.

She whispered, “I’m not here to remake the world.”

And then louder, to the Seed:

“I’m here to set it free.”

The Seed exploded into light.

The tower shattered.

The Shard screamed—not in pain, but in joy.

He faded, finally at peace.

Evryn felt everything flood into her—memories, pain, laughter, futures that never came to pass.

And then—

Silence.

Peace.

A heartbeat.

Somewhere Later

Evryn stood in a field.

A real one.

Grass beneath her feet. Wind in her hair.

Kai was there.

So was Elara.

Even Aurex.

But something had changed.

The convergence was gone. No more anomalies. No more echoes.

Just... life.

“Where are we?” Elara asked.

Kai smiled.

“We’re home.”

Evryn looked up at the sky. No tears in reality. No timelines bleeding into one another.

The Seed was gone.

But what she had done wasn’t forgotten.

She had become the anchor—and set it free.