Silence stretched between them.
Lyra grabbed Orion's arm. "She's trying to manipulate you."
Nyxara let out a soft laugh. "Am I? Or am I revealing the inevitable? You see, Orion… to control time, you must first break the one thing holding you back—your mortal attachments."
The pages of the Chronomancer's Testament flipped on their own, stopping on an inscription written in blood-red ink:
"The Astral Paradox is not a curse. It is a throne waiting for its ruler."
Orion swallowed hard. He could feel the pull of the book, the raw power coursing through it. It wasn't just a way to fix the paradox—it was an offer.
An offer to rule time itself.
Nyxara's voice was a whisper in his mind. "Take it, Orion. Rewrite fate. Become something greater."
Orion turned to Lyra. Her blue eyes were filled with unspoken fear. "Orion… don't."
His heart pounded. This wasn't just a decision. It was the decision.
Did he take the book and embrace his destiny? Or reject it and fight against an impossible fate?
And then—
A hand shot out of the darkness, grabbing the book before he could react.
Seraphina stepped into the light, her golden hair whipping in an unseen wind.
Her voice was cold, distant. "You're too weak to make the choice, Orion. So I'll make it for you."
She opened the book.
And the universe shattered.
Chapter 49: The Unmaking of Reality
The moment Seraphina opened the Chronomancer's Testament, the universe screamed. A blinding light erupted from the pages, twisting the very fabric of reality. Orion reached out, but it was too late—time itself fractured.
The labyrinth crumbled around them, and suddenly, Orion wasn't standing in Nyxara's realm anymore. He was everywhere and nowhere at once.
Memories that weren't his surged through his mind—lives he had never lived, futures that had never happened. He saw himself as a tyrant ruling over time, as a forgotten soul erased from history, as a mere shadow watching the cosmos collapse.
Then he saw something far worse.
A new Orion—one with golden eyes, standing beside Seraphina. But this Orion wasn't him. He was something else.
And he was smiling.
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