Chapter 32: The Bleeding Reality"Evania, your arm," Rith shouted, pointing his rifle frantically between the masked woman and the twisting fabric of Evania's tactical jacket. "Look at your sleeve! It's—it's phasing!""I know what it's doing!" Evania snapped, her voice tight with suppressed pain as she clutched her right forearm. The black fabric of her sleeve was no longer entirely solid; it flickered rapidly, moments of empty air and shifting blue light bleeding through the weave. "Don't just stand there gawking, Rith! Cover the corridor before the Remnant reinforcements decide to push our position!""Let them come!" the masked leader of the Remnant mocked from the shadows, her respirator wheezing heavily as she lowered her weapon just an inch, watching Evania's arm with morbid fascination. "You brought a walking reality-tear into our sector, and now you're surprised the local geometry is rejecting foreign tissue? That arm isn't just phasing, Captain. It's forgetting where it belong

Chapter 34: The Bifurcated Limb"It’s doubling!" Rith screamed, his voice cracking as his knuckles tightened so hard against his rifle stock that the plastic groaned in protest. "Evania, your hand isn't just flickering—there are two of them! Two right hands occupying the exact same coordinate in space!""Stop screaming, I can see it!" Evania snarled, her breath hitching as a wave of cold, nauseating vertigo violently slammed into her chest.She stared down at her right arm in sheer disbelief and mounting terror. The visual proof was undeniable and terrifyingly grotesque: right before her eyes, her forearm had split into a double exposure of flesh and black tactical fabric. One version of her hand hovered half an inch to the left, gripping empty air with white-knuckled desperation, while the other remained locked around her wrist. They flickered back and forth in a rapid, nauseating strobe effect, casting jagged, fractured shadows against the damp stone floor of the subterranean chambe

Chapter 36: Into the Deep-History Vaults"Move, move, move!" Rydan yelled, hooking a hand under Evania’s left arm and hauling her violently forward as a jagged wave of blue phase-energy detonated against the stone wall where her head had been a second before. "If you drop in the middle of a displacement pocket, Rith and I aren't going to be able to fish your second copy out of the timeline!""Don't yank me, I'm walking!" Evania hissed through clenched teeth, her face drained of color as she stumbled over a protruding strip of rusted iron grating. Her right arm—now visibly doubled, casting two distinct, strobe-flashing shadows against the damp corridor—jerked wildly with every step. "And stop shouting like a drill instructor; my skull feels like it's being split open by an industrial wedge!""Your skull will be the least of your problems if we don't find a localized dead-zone," Rith snapped over his shoulder, his boots splashing furiously through two inches of stagnant, oil-slicked wat

Chapter 38: The Archives of the First Foundation"Look at those structural braces," Rith muttered, sweeping his flashlight beam across the massive, vaulted ceiling of the underground chamber. "That’s not reinforced steel. That’s pre-Collapse carbon-weave composite. Municipal workers didn’t build this. This is part of the original Oakhaven terraforming core.""Which means we’re standing directly underneath the city's primary engine housing," Rydan said, his grip tightening around Evania’s waist as she stumbled again. Her double-exposed arm flickered violently, casting two distinct, strobe-like shadows against the damp concrete walls. "Keep your voice down. The acoustic resonance in here carries for miles through these ventilation shafts.""I don't care if it carries to the surface," Evania hissed, her breath coming in ragged, shallow gasps as she leaned heavily against Rydan’s shoulder. Sweat beaded along her hairline, stark against her pale skin. "My right arm feels like it’s being sl

Chapter 40: The Records of the Deep-History Vault"Steel shelving," Rith muttered, sweeping his flashlight beam across the towering, dust-caked steel stacks that lined the massive underground chamber. "Rows upon rows of them. Not digital drives. Physical paper. Microfiche canisters. Pre-Collapse municipal records.""Municipal records don't require three-foot-thick carbon-weave bulkheads and isolated power grids," Rydan snapped back, hauling Evania further past the iron-ribbed archway as her double-exposed arm let out a sharp, electric pop. "Move, Evania. We need to get you out of the open air before this localized distortion catches the rest of your torso.""I am moving," Evania rasped, her teeth clenched so hard a thin line of crimson beaded along her lower lip. Her right arm flickered again, casting a jerky, strobe-like shadow against the towering rows of steel shelving. "Stop treating me like an invalid, Rydan. My legs still work, even if my right shoulder is currently existing in