Story Title :- Riftborn Chronicles
Chapter 4: Siege of the Riftborne
The air above the Sector 9G terminal cracked with sonic booms as a Null gunship descended from the churning sky. Its hull gleamed black with Voidsteel, anti-Rift cannons protruding like fangs. Beneath its shadow, armored troops dropped on grav-hooks, rifles humming with charged Chrono-nullifiers.
Kael stood at the edge of the platform, the sigil on his chest burning brighter than ever—alive, pulsing with a rhythm that felt almost... impatient.
“They brought a Purge Team,” Asha muttered. “That’s not standard response. That’s execution protocol.”
Haron emerged from the station behind them, unbothered. “They’re afraid of what you are, Kael. And afraid people might start following you instead of them.”
Kael glanced up at the gunship. “Then they should be very afraid.”
The Null forces advanced in formation—silent, efficient, merciless. A captain in obsidian armor raised a fist, and the squad fanned out around the perimeter.
“Target confirmed. Entropic mark verified. Deploying Phase Net.”
Kael felt the tug before he saw it—a shimmering field of collapsing energy, weaving a spherical net around the station. A time-lock trap. Meant to freeze everything within its radius and purge it from the timeline in a controlled pulse.
Asha cursed. “That’s a chronoblade containment field. They’ll collapse the whole zone.”
Kael’s vision shimmered. The sigil responded on its own, heat racing through his veins, syncing with the entropy of the field.
“I can feel the net,” he said. “Every strand. Every moment it’s trying to overwrite.”
Haron nodded. “Then cut it. Use your anchor.”
“My what?”
“Your memory. The strongest one. Something that makes you you. Use it to hold your timeline together—then shatter the others.”
Kael closed his eyes.
And remembered.
A campfire.
A mission long before the Rift changed everything. He and his Reaper squad—laughing, sharing rations, watching the sky turn over the ruins of Old Tokyo. It was calm. It was real.
It was the last time he felt whole.
His eyes snapped open.
Time bent.
Kael raised his hand, the sigil erupting in white flame, and then he pushed.
The Phase Net twisted, threads unraveling under his will. The strands of synthetic time began to tangle, then collapse in on themselves, exploding outward in a shockwave of blue light and temporal dust.
The Null squad staggered, momentarily disoriented.
Asha fired.
Her orb pulsed, launching a barrage of arcane bolts that struck the lead soldier’s core and sent him spiraling backward. Haron chanted in an ancient tongue, gesturing with both hands as time around the attackers slowed—each movement caught in a stuttering loop.
Kael dashed forward, phasing between seconds.
He appeared behind a Null soldier and drove a fist into his back—sending a wave of reversed entropy through the man’s armor, crumpling it like paper. Another swung at him, but Kael ducked into a micro-second dodge, emerging above his enemy, slamming down with an echo of kinetic time that shattered the ground.
More troops dropped from the ship.
But Kael was no longer fighting defensively.
He was unleashed.
From above, the gunship targeted him.
“LOCK SHATTERBORN. INITIATE NULL-BEAM.”
A massive cannon mounted on the underbelly of the ship powered up. A silver coil spun with lethal energy.
Kael didn’t run.
He reached into himself—deeper than ever before—and grabbed the threads of possibility.
He split.
Reality bent. Two versions of Kael emerged—one running left, the other right. The cannon fired. The left image disintegrated in a flash of annihilation.
But Kael was still alive.
Just not that version.
Asha gaped. “You’re fracturing now?! You could tear your own soul apart!”
Kael grimaced. “Buy me ten seconds!”
She nodded and darted toward the gunship’s base, orb sending out a storm of feedback pulses to scramble its targeting systems.
Kael raised both hands again.
This time, he didn’t dodge.
He reached into the Rift.
Time around the gunship froze.
Not slowed—froze. A perfect stillness like glass.
Kael leapt into the air, gravity bending around him. He landed on the nose of the ship, hands pressed to its surface.
He whispered one word.
“Shatter.”
The energy in his body surged. His sigil exploded in brilliance, and the gunship’s hull rippled outward, consumed by temporal entropy. Its engines blinked through a dozen timelines at once—some where they had never existed, others where they had long since exploded.
The ship detonated from the inside, fragments scattering across moments.
Kael dropped back to the platform, staggering.
The remaining Null troops panicked.
They opened fire—but it was too late.
Haron completed his incantation, surrounding them in a shrinking field of locked causality.
And Asha, with one final arcane pulse, collapsed their weapons into formless energy.
The battle was over.
The station smoked, the sky torn with Riftlight. Kael leaned against a broken pillar, gasping. His body felt heavier than ever.
“How long can I keep doing this?” he asked.
Haron approached, looking grave. “Not long. The more you tear through time, the more unmoored you become.”
Asha stepped beside Kael. “We need to stabilize him.”
“There’s a place,” Haron said. “A sanctum beneath the Lost Spire. A pocket of reality untouched by the Rift. We can use it to anchor Kael… temporarily.”
Kael looked up. “And after that?”
Haron’s voice was soft. “Then we prepare for what’s coming.”
Elsewhere…
In a vault far beyond the Riftline, within a bunker hidden beneath the Void Bastion, a figure stood before a glowing screen.
She wore Null regalia, but her eyes glowed with the same light as Kael’s sigil.
A scientist approached her, trembling.
“We have confirmation. The Shatterborn has awakened. He defeated Purge Team Zeta.”
The woman nodded.
“He’s learning too quickly,” she said. “We’ll have to accelerate the merge.”
The scientist hesitated. “But the convergence is unstable. If we trigger it now—”
She silenced him with a glance.
“The Rift is no longer a weapon. It is a god in the making. And Kael Draven will either kneel... or become its corpse.”
Back at the station…
Kael sat on the broken steps, watching the stars shift subtly—like the sky itself was fraying.
He turned to Asha. “Why are you really helping me?”
She looked down, thoughtful. “Because I lost someone to the Rift too. And because if there’s a chance to fix what’s coming… I’m taking it.”
Kael looked back at the stars.
In the distance, the Rift pulsed once more.
But this time, Kael didn’t flinch.
He rose.
Ready for what came next.
End of Chapter 4
