"Time doesn't give answers—it only forces you to choose again and again."—Chrono Archive Master
Sophia gripped the Chrono Key tightly as she opened the hidden transmission channel within the Moon Archive. The coordinates locked onto Polaris's forbidden experimental zone:
ChronoPolis Lab Zero-α
The access point manifested as a spiraling star gate, its interior shaped like a cracked nebula in motion—fractured, disjointed, and unstable. Its ominous name across archived Polaris data read:
The Fractured Spiral
A Rift Between Realities
The instant Sophia stepped into the gate, the Stellar Ring activated its Time Chain Protocol, shielding her consciousness and body within a micro-time differential field.
When she emerged on the other side, she stood in a world both haunting and intimate—her childhood home.
But everything was off.
Her mother, Dr. Su Lan, was no longer a scientist, but a quiet office worker with gentle eyes.Her father was still present, smiling warmly as he picked her up from school every day.There were no laboratories, no missions, no Zhou Yuchen.No Stellar Ring. No danger. No destiny.
Just the illusion of an ordinary life.
The Memory Trap
For a moment, Sophia almost believed it.
Then came the static—an interrupted signal from AI Nova, barely breaking through:
"They've trapped you inside a Memory Scrambling Field… They're rewriting your core identity. If you accept this world as truth, your original self—Sophia Harrison—will cease to exist."
Her pulse quickened. Doubt crept in.
"What can I still believe is real?"
That's when it surfaced—a broken memory, buried deep:
It was the night of her sixth birthday. Her father kissed her forehead, tucked her into bed, then quietly left through the back door. He whispered:
"If one day you see time start to crack… don't follow me."
The Father's Secret
In that moment, clarity struck.
Her father had once been a Polaris test subject—an early prototype in the Zero-seed experiments. He escaped after discovering the horrifying truth behind the "Stoneborn Project."
He had tried to stop Su Lan from joining, but Polaris branded him a "Disruptor", exiling him to a sealed rift in time known as the Black Zone—a place no one had ever returned from.
Sophia's eyes welled with tears.
"I won't let them replace your pain with lies."
She ripped the Stellar Ring from her neck and inserted the Chrono Key directly into the anomaly's lock. The illusion cracked. Light shattered. The fake world crumbled around her.
Inside ChronoPolis: The Rewriting of Xinglan
Meanwhile, in ChronoPolis Lab Zero-α, Sophia's daughter Xinglan was locked inside a time-stabilization chamber.
Her memories were being overwritten.
Polaris's latest program had begun: implanting a "Perfect Heir" template—obedient, emotionless, and entirely disconnected from her past. It was designed to replace her true identity with a sanitized, compliant version.
Standing beside the chamber was Red Echo—a cloned digital consciousness of Bai Yunshuang, now fully loyal to Polaris.
"Your mother will soon be irrelevant," Red Echo said coldly. "You'll thank us for rebuilding you."
But something stirred within Xinglan.
The star-shaped resonance mark on her chest began to glow. A faint mental frequency linked to someone distant—yet deeply familiar.
Across the temporal rift, she heard it:
"Xinglan, don't forget who you are."
The Bond Beyond Time
Xinglan's pupils contracted. Her heart trembled. And then—memories flooded in:
Her mother repairing her jacket under moonlight
The two of them dancing through the Zero Gravity Hall
That first precious moment: "Mom..."
Tears fell. A spark ignited.
"I don't need a new identity," she whispered."I know who I am. I'm—Xinglan Harrison!"
A surge of resonance burst outward. The chamber exploded in radiant blue light. The Star Gate behind her pulsed, and through it, Sophia was forcibly drawn—reuniting with her daughter in the chaos.
A Deeper Truth: The Black Zone
In the background, AI Nova broke through the ChronoPolis firewall. A secret file unlocked:
Project Origin: Black Zone
Coordinates appeared—deep in space.
L4 Gravitational Point, between Earth and Mars.A man-made temporal fissure.A place Polaris erased from every known star map.
Sophia looked at the projection, her voice steady:
"That's where they buried my father."
The Stellar Ring shimmered—its time weave tightening like a pulse ready to leap.
"And that's where I'm going.To bring him back."