2025-12-20 00:03:19
Previous Chapter
Latest Chapter
Chapter Two Hundred and Thirty-Six — The Place Where Causes End
Fowler felt it tug at him not his body, but his choices. Every decision he’d ever made vibrated faintly, resonating with something down there. “It knows me,” he murmured.Selene nodded. “It knows everything that ever couldn’t be solved.”The darkness shifted, parting slightly. Within it, a structure appeared not built, not grown, but revealed. A vast, circular basin of nothingness, its edge defined only by contrast.At its center: a single point of pale light, steady and small. A seed. Fowler stared. “That’s… familiar.”Selene’s face went pale. “It shouldn’t be.”The seed pulsed once. The darkness reacted not recoiling, not advancing acknowledging. “That’s the moment,” Selene whispered. “The one the Engine was avoiding.”Fowler’s jaw tightened. “Which moment?”She looked at him. “The first time a choice was made without an outcome attached.”The implications rippled outward. “No optimization,” Fowler said slowly. “No correction.”“Just intent,” Selene finished. “Pure. Unresolved.”The
Chapter Two Hundred and Thirty-Five — The Thing Beneath Time
The silence was worse than the scream. Where the Engine’s presence had once been calculating, watching, correcting there was now only absence.Not emptiness, but withdrawal. As if something vast had recoiled, realizing it was no longer the largest force in the room.The darkness beneath them rose. Not like smoke. Not like shadow. Like depth. Fowler felt it in his spine first a vertigo that had nothing to do with height.The crack beneath their feet widened, revealing a layered void that bent perception inward. Looking into it felt like trying to remember something that had never happened to you… but had happened around you.Selene’s fingers dug into his arm. “That’s not an entity,” she whispered. “It’s a boundary.”The darkness shifted again, slow and deliberate, as if acknowledging her. “A boundary between what?” Fowler asked.Selene swallowed. “Between before and after.”The void answered. Not with a voice but with pressure. A gravitational pull that wasn’t physical, tugging instead
Chapter Two Hundred and Thirty-Four — When the World Answers Back
The world answered with another tone sharper this time, impatient. Stasis offers maximum stability. Deviation increases risk of collapse. Selene closed her eyes, jaw tight. “Of course it does.”She looked at him then really looked as if trying to memorize the way he stood, the set of his shoulders, the stubborn tilt of his chin. “If it freezes us now,” she said quietly, “you keep your memories. I stay whole. The Engine survives.”“And?”“And the world beyond this never moves forward.”He swallowed. “And if we refuse?”Her voice dropped. “Then it lets time resume“And the cost?”“I don’t know,” she admitted. “It’s never let that happen before.”The layers around them began to tremble, cracks spreading like veins through glass. Somewhere deep beneath it all, the heartbeat faltered, struggling to keep pace.Fowler exhaled slowly. “Figures. The one time we choose freely, the universe asks for collateral.”Selene huffed a weak laugh. “You always said you hated easy answers.”He cupped her
Chapter Two Hundred and Thirty-Three — The Weight of Choice
Fowler felt it first in his bones. A deep, subsonic tremor that traveled through him like a question with no language.The light around them didn’t vanish; it hesitated, frozen mid-surge, strands of gold and white suspended like nerves caught between firing and rest.Selene was still in his arms. That fact alone felt impossible enough to anchor him. “Are we” he started.“Don’t finish that,” she said, breathless. “If you say it out loud, it’ll prove you wrong.”He gave a rough, half-laugh. “Still bossy.”“Still alive,” she countered, then stilled. “I think.”The Engine responded. Not with a command but with a sound. A low, resonant tone rippled through the fractured world, like a bell struck underwater.The broken layers of beach, sky, and memory began to rotate around them, slow at first, then accelerating, reorganizing themselves as if trying to understand what had just happened. Choice accepted. Outcome… undefined.Fowler stiffened. “That’s new.”Selene pulled back just enough to lo
Chapter Two Hundred and Thirty-Two — What Remains
She closed her eyes at that, just for a moment. Then she leaned down and pressed her forehead to his. “You will,” she said gently.“Because you did. Over and over again. Even when it hurt. Even when you thought you were empty.”The light climbed her shoulders now, tracing the curve of her neck, threading into her hair. The seam in the sky widened until it felt like the world itself was holding its breath.Fowler’s hands shook. “If you go, if you disappear, what happens to you?”She hesitated. That was answer enough. His grip loosened for half a second not because he wanted to let go, but because the truth hit him like a physical blow.The Engine noticed. Consent window detected. Finalization imminent. “No,” Fowler snarled, rage cutting through the fear. “You don’t get to decide that.”He stepped forward into the light. It slammed into him instantly cold, crushing, infinite. His vision blurred, veins igniting with familiar gold as the system recognized him, reacted, recalculated. Confl
Chapter Two Hundred and Thirty-one — What Answers Back
The pull intensified. It wasn’t violent that was the worst part. It felt reasonable. Like gravity deciding where something belonged.Selene’s breath caught as the light wrapped around her ankles, cool and precise, threading upward in bands that shimmered between white and gold.The sand beneath her feet dissolved into motes, lifting her slightly from the ground. Fowler’s grip tightened around her wrist. “Selene. Hey look at me.”She did. His face was close now, eyes sharp with a concern that felt instinctive rather than remembered. Whatever the Engine had taken from him, it hadn’t taken that. “They want me,” she said quietly.“Who’s ‘they’?”“The system. The Dream Engine. Whatever name it’s wearing right now.” She swallowed. “It’s correcting an imbalance.”His jaw clenched. “You already paid.”“Apparently not enough.”The horizon split wider. The seam pulsed, and the air filled with a low, resonant hum that vibrated through bone and thought alike.Symbols not quite letters, not quite
You may also like
Rise of the Student Trillionaire
Ty Writes157.6K viewsTRILLIONAIRE IN DISGUISE
Lyonlee323.3K viewsSon-in-law: The Billionaire's Reign
Deliaha Shine107.9K viewsThe Billionaire Husband in Disguise
Banin SN188.0K viewsFROM SHAME TO SUPREMACY
Ayomide Writez238 viewsI Was Their Clown, Now I Wear the Crown
Derek2.5K viewsThe Underestimated Ex-husband
Preshy Wrights572 viewsThe Tyrant Heir's Return: Reclaiming the Thorne Empire
William Tsang309 views