The blast from Kaiya's device hadn't just shattered the glass wall—it had ripped a hole in time itself.
Colors inverted. Gravity twisted. The floor disappeared beneath them. One second, they were inside ChronoTech HQ—next, they were falling through fractured shards of reality, fragments of the past, present, and future spinning around them like a kaleidoscope gone wrong.
They had entered the Chrono Rift.
"Kaiya!" Liam yelled, reaching for her as the gravity flipped again, sending them tumbling toward what looked like a shattered 14th-century castle and a 90s arcade merged together.
She caught his hand, barely managing to keep hold.
Adrien flew past them, sword extended, grabbing onto a floating chunk of pavement. "This place is cursed!"
"It's not a place," Kaiya shouted. "It's all of time breaking down at once!"
They landed—if you could call it that—on a floating platform that buzzed with temporal static. The sky above shifted between night and day like a glitching screen. Around them, broken timelines looped—Liam as a baby crying in a crib, Adrien being crowned king, Kaiya kissing someone she didn't even know yet.
Then she saw it.
Another version of herself.
She was dressed in white, eyes glowing like stars, standing beside Zane—no, leading him.
"That's the version that rules the future," Adrien said in horror. "The one you swore you'd never become."
"She exists because I doubted myself," Kaiya whispered. "Because I let fear win."
Liam narrowed his eyes. "Then let's erase her."
They sprinted across shifting platforms, dodging warped echoes of their own timelines—some too good to be true, some too horrifying to look at. The closer they got to the white-clad Kaiya, the stronger the rift pulsed.
The evil version of Kaiya turned, smiling serenely. "You've finally accepted it," she said. "That I am your destiny."
"No," the real Kaiya said firmly. "You're my warning."
And then—it happened.
Zane appeared behind the white-clad version, whispering, "Finish it."
The evil Kaiya reached for the Paradox Chronicle, and time started to collapse completely—entire years crumbling into dust, moments erasing themselves before they could happen.
Kaiya acted.
She dove forward, catching the book midair. The two Kaiyas—light and dark—locked eyes.
"I choose my path," Kaiya said.
And then she burned her own future.
The book ignited in blue fire, the pages disintegrating into light. Time screamed. The evil version of herself vanished into ash.
And then—stillness.
Kaiya, Liam, and Adrien dropped to the ground… back in ChronoTech HQ. The control center was in ruins, but time was stable. The timelines had realigned.
Zane? Gone.
For now.
Kaiya stood up slowly, heart pounding. "We're not done," she whispered. "He's still out there. But I know who I am now."
Liam smiled softly. "Good. Because the timeline needs you. Not her."
Adrien sheathed his sword. "Let's get out of here. The present's waiting."
As they walked out of ChronoTech, the skyline of Neo-Seoul glimmered—but this time, it felt real.
The storm had passed. The paradox was sealed. And for the first time in a long time… time was theirs again.