"Memory is only a shadow trapped in time."— Su Lan, from the Chrono Archive
After the ideological battle at the Crownless Arena, Sophia followed Nova's guidance to a forgotten region behind the Moon: the Chrono Archive—a sealed facility said to contain Polaris's original time-space interference program.
She boarded the Stellar Ring's Star-Leap Pod, soaring across the void to land on the Moon's far side, where jagged black crystals pulsed faintly beneath the crust. It was like a graveyard of timelines, silent and cold.
At the entrance of the archive, an eerie inscription greeted her:
"Only the soul that has lost time may enter."
The Stellar Ring pendant on her chest shimmered and emitted a resonant hum. A vortex appeared midair—not mechanical, not magical, but temporal. Sophia stepped into it, as though crossing the fault line between consciousness and reality.
The Fog of Time
Sophia drifted into a space filled with soft white mist, where time bled like watercolor. Here, the Time Fracture Field generated a series of projections—called Afterimages of Time—manifesting three potential versions of herself:
Queen Sophia — An absolute ruler who had fused completely with the Zero System, subjugating all Stoneborn under rigid control. She brought peace, but at the cost of her humanity.
Exiled Sophia — A failed rebel, cast into deep space with her children, hunted and forever on the run.
Broken Sophia — A fragmented mind, half-mad after an unsuccessful fusion with the system, drifting between brilliance and collapse.
She wandered silently through her fractured selves, hearing her mother's voice echo across dimensions:
"Time isn't a line, Qingqing. It's a net. Every decision you make becomes a thread."
Then, a familiar figure stepped from the light—Su Lan, or rather, her projected memory frozen in spacetime.
Mother and Daughter Beyond Time
Su Lan smiled gently.
"You've done well, Sophia. You're softer than I was… and that softness is your strength. But it's also what makes you vulnerable."
Sophia's eyes brimmed with tears.
"I don't want to be you. I don't want to become them either. What am I supposed to do?"
Su Lan's voice grew quiet and serious:
"This isn't about what you should do—it's about what you're willing to pay to protect what matters."
From her hand, she produced a crystalline object of swirling blue and silver:
The Chrono Key—A tool capable of unlocking the Echo Chamber deep within the archive, granting access to the origins of all timeline deviations.
Su Lan placed it in Sophia's hand. As her image began to fade, she whispered one final warning:
"The enemy is not the future.The enemy is your fear—of choosing wrong."
The Echo Chamber
Sophia inserted the Chrono Key into a hidden slot beneath the chamber. Time cracked like glass. What unfolded next was not a room, but a multi-dimensional illusion, constructed of data, memory, and theoretical timelines.
She saw it all.
The true purpose of Project ChronoPolis.
Polaris's ultimate goal had never been domination—it was redefinition. They sought to establish a Time Nexus, a central axis from which all historical events could be rewritten. Their plan was to replace the core logic of human civilization and install the "Zero Race" as its new default reality.
All Stoneborn—including Sophia and Xingying—were nothing more than seeds, planted across timelines to replicate the Zero consciousness template.
"If you can edit the past, you can own the future."
A New Catastrophe
As Sophia absorbed this terrifying revelation, Nova's voice broke through the consciousness link:
"Sophia—urgent update. Xinglan has been kidnapped."
On the screen, Sophia watched in horror as Red Echo—the resurrected secondary consciousness of Bai Yunshuang—led a Temporal Fleet to ambush Xinglan's ship just beyond lunar orbit.
She saw her daughter's terrified face. Saw her vanish.
"They've taken her to the experimental site of ChronoPolis," Nova confirmed."They're going to use her—fold her timeline into their Nexus."
Sophia's grief boiled into rage.
"I won't let you rewrite my child."
Her eyes flared with the Stellar Ring's second phase: the Reversal Texture of Time. A celestial pattern spun across her iris like a galactic clock turning backward.
Clenching the Chrono Key, she prepared to leap across the temporal fracture—into the trap Polaris had set.
But for her, there was no hesitation.
She would walk into the paradox.For her child.For the truth.For the right to define her own timeline.