Story Title :- Riftborn Chronicles
Chapter 7: Axis Protocol Ignition
Kael’s dreams were no longer his own.
Each night, since absorbing the Chronite shard, he drifted into timelines he didn’t live—lives he might one day lead. Some were glorious. Others were monstrous.
But one was always the same.
A world drowned in Riftlight. Cities hovering above endless void. Oceans boiling. Stars falling like tears. And in the center stood a throne of shattered time—occupied by himself, wrapped in silver flame, eyes like collapsed stars.
He always woke before that version turned to face him.
Kael jolted awake, breath ragged, sweat soaking his skin. Asha was already up, scanning Rift flares across a shifting tactical map projected over their camp’s ground station.
“You saw it again?” she asked quietly.
Kael nodded. “The Axis throne.”
Haron emerged from the shadows behind a crumbling pillar, rubbing sleep from his eyes. “The Rift’s bleeding into your sleep. The deeper you get in, the harder it is to tell dreams from warnings.”
Kael sat up. “They’re more than dreams. I think I’m seeing echoes—real futures.”
Asha’s gaze sharpened. “You’re evolving.”
Kael looked at his hands. Silver lines—once veins—now glowed faintly under his skin. The Riftmark pulsed in a slow rhythm like a second heartbeat.
“What happens when I fully become… whatever this is?”
Haron didn’t answer.
Elsewhere — Nullspace Fortress
The chamber was carved from frozen entropy itself. No material, no construct, no known reality should’ve supported its existence.
At the center, the Axis Engine pulsed like a dying star.
Nyra Voss stood before it, arms crossed. Behind her, Inquisitor engineers chanted fragments of the Chrono-Litany. Massive pylons charged with Riftlight formed a web of synthetic time-layers.
“Status?” she asked.
An Engineer bowed. “Temporal lattice stabilizing. Cross-timeline echoes locked. The Axis Protocol is primed.”
“And the coordinates?”
The Engineer hesitated. “Still oscillating, General. The engine is… searching. It seems to be choosing.”
Nyra turned to the monolithic core—a crystal sphere caged in Nullsteel, spinning in every direction at once.
“Let it choose,” she said. “It knows where Kael Draven is destined to fall.”
She turned and walked away.
Behind her, the Axis Engine flared—emitting a scream that wasn’t sound, but memory.
Back at the Outpost – The Drift-Shell Ruins
The team had moved their base into a half-buried Architect outpost: a fractured dome of glass and obsidian humming with dormant tech. Kael stood inside a forgotten Archive Nexus, watching as timelines played out on a loop in the air—streams of possible futures flickering like projections on water.
He saw:
- A world where he led a rebellion against Null.
- Another where he was Null.
- One where he didn’t survive the Revenant.
- And one where Asha killed him before he could lose control.
He turned to Haron. “How do I stop this?”
Haron sighed. “You don’t stop futures. You choose them.”
Kael frowned. “That sounds like a lie wrapped in wisdom.”
“Welcome to prophecy.”
Before they could speak further, the dome shook. A warning flare lit the command table.
Asha raced into the room. “Something’s coming. Bigger than anything we’ve seen. Multiple breaches—reality’s folding on itself.”
Kael focused, feeling the Rift’s tension stretch across his spine like a violin string.
He saw the Axis Engine.
He felt it.
Pulling.
Searching.
And then—locking.
Kael’s vision went white.
Interlude — The Rift’s Mind
For a fraction of a second, Kael was not in his body.
He was everywhere.
He was the falling stars. The screaming timelines. The broken past and the unborn futures. He stood before the Axis Engine, alone in the center of the cosmic spiral.
A voice echoed—not sound, but idea.
"You are not the key. You are the lock."
He gasped.
And returned.
The Riftquake Begins
Reality ripped open above the ruins.
The sky fractured. Three moons appeared at once—none of them real. The stars spun in reverse. Gravity failed for seconds at a time.
The Axis Gate emerged—twisting metal and Riftflame, descending from the sky like a god’s blade stabbed into the earth.
Kael, Asha, and Haron stood frozen.
From the Gate stepped three figures in Void-Armor, faceless and silent, surrounded by orbiting glyphs.
And then—her.
Nyra Voss.
Clad in ceremonial battle robes, her eyes burning silver, her voice amplified by layered resonance.
“Kael Draven. You are the anomaly. The deviation. The fracture.”
Kael’s fists clenched. “You woke the Revenant to kill me. Didn’t work.”
Nyra smiled thinly. “That was phase one.”
She stepped forward.
“Phase two is conversion.”
Kael charged.
Nyra lifted her hand. The world halted.
Literally.
Kael froze mid-strike. Asha’s lightning locked mid-flight. Haron’s words died on his lips.
Only Nyra moved.
She circled Kael.
“You don’t understand your value,” she whispered. “You’re not meant to destroy the Rift. You’re meant to become its anchor. A living constant.”
Kael fought against the stillness. His blood boiled.
“The Axis Engine has chosen you, Kael. Your soul resonates with the core lattice. You could remake the multiverse.”
“I don’t want to remake it,” he growled, teeth grinding.
“I want to survive it.”
Nyra paused.
“You still think this is about survival.”
She tapped Kael’s forehead.
He screamed.
Vision Surge — Core of the Axis
Kael stood again at the heart of the Axis.
But now he saw deeper.
Worlds built atop worlds—fractals of civilization, constantly rewritten. Null wasn’t preserving reality. It was rewriting it to match a single approved future.
One controlled by the Axis.
One built on him.
He saw them—thousands of versions of himself—enslaved, erased, copied, broken.
The Axis didn’t just want him.
It was built from him.
Kael broke the stillness with a primal roar.
Time snapped.
Asha and Haron rejoined motion in a wave of backlash energy.
Kael’s Riftmark exploded outward, forming a burning sigil in the sky.
The Axis Gate shuddered.
Nyra staggered, blood at her lips. “You’re… rejecting the lattice?”
Kael pointed at the Axis Gate.
“Tell your Engine this—”
He formed a blade of coalesced futures in his hand.
“I’m not the key. I’m the demolition charge.”
He threw the blade.
It struck the Gate’s core.
A chain reaction ignited.
The Axis Gate imploded.
The Riftquake collapsed.
Silence.
Nyra was gone. The Gate was gone.
Kael dropped to one knee, exhausted, blood seeping from his eyes and ears.
Asha ran to his side. “What did you do?”
Kael blinked slowly.
“I said no.”
Elsewhere — Null Apex Citadel
The Axis Engine screamed.
Every timeline shifted by one node.
In the control chamber, a Null Seer fell to her knees. “He severed the anchor. The future is—unwritten.”
General Nyra, coughing blood but alive, stared into a Rift mirror.
And saw Kael Draven looking back.
“You made your move, Kael,” she whispered.
“I’ll make mine.”
End of Chapter 7
