Chapter 182 :The prison dimension shuddered again.Not violently this time — not like an attack — but with a deep, exhausted groan, the sound of a place that had been holding together far longer than it was meant to. Cracks widened beneath Billy’s feet, thin threads of light seeping through the fractured ground like veins glowing under skin.Billy felt it inside his chest.A pressure. A pull.The relic-bond tightened, responding to proximity — to his father, to the prison, to the choice hanging in the air like a blade.His father watched him closely now, eyes sharper despite the way his body flickered at the edges. He looked like a man trying to stay present through sheer will alone.“You need to listen to me,” his father said. “Not as your father. As someone who already made the wrong choice.”Billy’s jaw clenched. “You don’t get to say that.”“I do,” his father replied quietly. “Because I survived it.”Tyla’s grip on Billy’s arm hadn’t loosened since the first tremor. She could fee

Chapter 184 :The shadow didn’t rush them.That was the first thing Billy noticed—and the thing that scared him the most.It moved slowly, deliberately, as if it already knew the outcome and was simply allowing time to stretch so they could feel it coming. The prison dimension groaned under its presence, the fractured ground folding inward like weakened bone. Light bled out of the air, dimming until everything felt submerged, heavy, wrong.Tyla tightened her grip on Billy’s shoulders. “Can you stand?”Billy nodded, even though his legs felt like they didn’t belong to him anymore. Every nerve in his body screamed, not with pain exactly, but with warning. The relic-bond pulsed weakly now, subdued after his last outburst—but not gone. Never gone.“I can move,” he said. “I just… don’t know how much control I have left.”Owen raised his weapon, jaw tight. “Then don’t try to be clever. We buy time. That’s it.”The shadow tilted its head.It noticed.A ripple passed through its form, like a

Chapter 186 :The corridor didn’t give them time to breathe.The moment the shadow pulled back, the rift itself began to collapse inward—walls folding like broken ribs, space grinding against space. Gravity twisted sideways, then inverted, then vanished altogether.Billy stumbled as the ground vanished beneath his feet.The bond flared.Too hard.Pain ripped through him, sharp and immediate, like something inside his chest tearing loose. Power surged without permission, flooding his limbs, his spine, his skull. He screamed as the energy misfired, arcing wildly into the corridor.The blast missed the shadow entirely.Instead, it shattered the stabilizing runes embedded in the rift walls.Owen swore violently. “Billy—stop! You’re tearing it apart!”“I’m trying!” Billy shouted back, but the truth terrified him—He wasn’t in control anymore.The relic-bond had shifted from conduit to predator. It didn’t respond to will; it reacted to fear, to instinct, to desperation. And right now, Billy

Chapter 188 :The world didn’t snap back into place.It shed itself.Reality peeled away in slow, grinding layers, like skin tearing from bone. The rift space around them began to dissolve, not with violence but with exhaustion—as if the universe itself had finally run out of strength to hold this place together.Billy felt it first in his chest.The relic-bond spasmed.Not the sharp, commanding pull it used to exert—but something erratic, wounded. It throbbed unevenly, sending jagged pulses through his ribs, like a heart that no longer remembered its rhythm.He sucked in a breath and nearly screamed.Pain flared, hot and invasive, radiating outward from the bond mark beneath his collarbone. His muscles locked, fingers curling into the dirt as something inside him began to tear loose.Owen dropped beside him immediately. “Billy—hey—look at me. Stay with us.”Billy couldn’t answer.The bond convulsed again, and this time it dragged memories with it.Not visions.Fragments.Unfinished e

Chapter 190 :The air smelled of ash and heat, sharp against Billy’s nostrils like the world had been burned clean of everything that mattered. Even as the adrenaline of the collapse faded, his body refused to relax. Every muscle ached, every nerve sang with exhaustion, and yet the loss inside him felt heavier than any physical pain could ever be.He sank to the scorched ground, letting the weight of the moment press him down. His hands were still trembling from the relic bond snapping, the surge of energy that had protected Tyla, that had saved him from the gateway, that had kept him from losing control completely. And yet, none of it mattered anymore. None of it could bring back the one person who had anchored him in ways he hadn’t realized he needed.Billy’s chest tightened, an invisible fist crushing him from within. His father. Alexander Anderson—he felt absurd even thinking the name aloud after everything, but it was the only one that fit. The man he had reached for in the rift,