Chapter Forty-Six: The Fold in Time

Darkness. Not ordinary darkness, but a void that devours all perception. Kane felt himself torn into countless fragments, each drifting along different timelines. He saw the moment he first set foot inside the underwater pyramid; he saw the instant Lena’s left hand was consumed by the crystal; he saw the blue-golden light burst forth from the global Rose Network on Awakening Day—all these memories surged and faded simultaneously, like grains of sand swept up by a fierce wind.

“Kane!” Lena’s voice came from a distant place, carrying the crystal’s characteristic hum. “Grab my hand!”

He struggled to focus his consciousness, sensing Lena’s crystal unit forming a stable anchor point within the folds of time. Tiny crystal shards emitted a faint blue glow, sketching a human silhouette against the absolute darkness. Kane forced himself toward the light source, the imprint lines beneath his skin burning fiercely.

When their hands finally touched, a quantum entanglement effect occurred. Kane’s mark resonated with Lena’s crystal, creating a stable force field around them. The darkness retreated slightly, revealing a warped space—it resembled outer space but lacked stars; it resembled deep ocean but bore no water pressure. In the distance, Mars’s blue outline shimmered like a reflection in water.

“We’re trapped in a fold created by the Time Prism,” Lena said, her crystal left hand unfolding like an umbrella, scanning the surroundings. “That bastard Marcus... he planned this long ago.”

Kane tried to activate communications, but the imprint only received chaotic quantum noise. Squinting, he saw massive silver patterns emerging on the Martian surface. “The Time Prism isn’t just a weapon,” he said. “It’s a key. Marcus wants to unlock the Mars base.”

Suddenly, Lena pointed in a direction. “Look there!”

Within the warped space, a blurry holographic image appeared—Marcus stood inside the control room of the ship Aelta-4, the beam projected by the Time Prism syncing with the silver patterns on Mars’s surface. More unsettlingly, beyond the ship’s observation window, the Seventh Iteration’s main fleet was assembling, but their formations showed they were fighting among themselves.

“The fleet is divided,” Kane’s imprint analyzed the distant energy patterns. “The Aelta-4 exiles are resisting the main force... they’re buying us time.”

The image sharpened suddenly, and Marcus’s voice directly echoed in their minds: “Don’t struggle any longer, bearers of the Founder’s gene. The fold will collapse in one hour, and you will become part of eternal spacetime.” He sneered as he adjusted the Time Prism. “And I will gain control of the Mars base, rewriting the course of human civilization.”

“Why?” Lena demanded fiercely. “What do you gain serving the Burners?”

Marcus’s expression twisted grotesquely. After his glasses shattered, his exposed eyes glowed a dark red. “You think the Burners are invaders? No—they are evolution’s inevitability! Every civilization reaching the seventh stage faces a choice—to become Burners or perish in the purifying flame.” His image warped suddenly. “And I... I have been lurking for thirty-two years, just for this moment.”

A chill ran down Kane’s spine. Thirty-two years meant Marcus had been a Burner agent since the founding of the Gardener’s Ring. What kind of life could endure such patient concealment?

The image shifted abruptly, showing the silver patterns on Mars’s surface gradually forming a colossal structure. As the design completed, Kane’s imprint reacted violently—not with pain, but with an ancient, bloodline call.

“It’s recognizing your genes,” Lena said, astonished as the lines on Kane’s skin glowed brighter. “The Founder and the Mars base... they are directly connected!”

The time fold suddenly shook violently! A force beyond physical laws tore at reality’s fabric. Kane and Lena were pulled apart by invisible power. Just as they were about to be separated again, a silver-white beam shot from Mars’s surface, enveloping them precisely.

Warmth. Kane’s first sensation. Like returning to the safety of a womb, it spread through him. His consciousness was drawn into a strange space—without up or down, only flowing data and memories. A voice, familiar yet strange, echoed in the void:

“Finally, I have waited for you, my successor.”

Kane tried to speak but found he had no body. He could only respond with pure consciousness: “Founder?”

“The name matters little. What matters is that you have finally awakened to receive this message.” The voice bore an indescribable weariness. “The Mars base is not an armory... it is a cradle. The Seventh Iteration is not the enemy... they are lost children.”

Countless images flooded Kane’s mind: the golden age of the First Root Civilization; the discovery of the Great Filter crisis; the Founder’s desperate search for a solution; and finally... division. The civilization split into two factions—one pushing to forcibly break through the evolutionary barrier, the other choosing to wait patiently.

“We chose the latter. Encoding the civilization’s flame into DNA, waiting for the right heir. They... the Seventh Iteration, chose a shortcut, getting lost in the time fold and infected by the Burners.”

Kane’s mind trembled violently. “So the Burners are...”

“Products of failed evolution.” The Founder’s voice was tinged with sorrow. “When a civilization forcibly crosses dimensions, it either transcends or burns. They chose the latter, and now seek to drag the entire universe into the same fate.”

A new understanding formed within Kane: this was not an interstellar war, but a conflict between different evolutionary paths of the same civilization. The Founder foresaw this possibility and left double safeguards—the deep-sea facility on Earth to nurture genetic heirs, and the Mars base preserving...

“The ultimate solution,” Kane suddenly realized. “There’s a way to cure the Burners in the Mars base!”

“Not entirely.” The Founder’s voice began to fade. “Only the bearer of the genetic key can activate the purification protocol. But the cost is...”

The communication cut off abruptly. Kane was violently dragged back to reality, finding Lena desperately pulling him to avoid a black energy beam. The time fold was collapsing faster—Marcus had clearly accelerated his plan.

“You disappeared for three minutes just now!” Lena’s crystal unit was half dark red, showing she was resisting the Burner energy’s erosion. “A passage has appeared on Mars!”

Kane looked toward Mars, shocked to see the silver patterns had formed a perfect ring with a bottomless black channel at its center. More terrifyingly, an immense, indescribable entity was trying to squeeze out of the channel—a fusion of countless dark tentacles and mechanical structures radiating suffocating malice.

“What is Marcus releasing?” Lena’s voice trembled with fear.

Kane’s imprint answered: “Not releasing... he’s summoning. That is the primordial form of the Burners!”

At this critical moment, a dazzling blue-golden beam suddenly pierced the time fold! The Aelta-4 ship, disregarding its own safety, rammed directly into the bridge where Marcus stood. The explosion’s shockwave created a strange slow-motion effect within the fold, and the Time Prism in Marcus’s hand was hurled into the void.

“Catch it!” Lena’s crystal left hand instantly extended, grasping the prism just before it vanished forever.

The fold began to collapse faster. Kane glimpsed Aelta-4’s final flickering image: “Remember... the Seventh Iteration also had the right people...” Then it vanished forever into quantum turbulence.

The prism trembled violently in Lena’s hand, projecting countless branch timelines. Kane immediately understood what to do—he injected imprint energy into the prism, activating its core function. A silver-white portal opened within the crumbling time fold.

“Jump!” He grabbed Lena, and they dashed toward the light gate.

At the last moment, Kane glanced back toward Mars. The massive dark entity had squeezed out half its “body,” lacking fixed form but giving an illusion of snarling. More unsettling, Kane’s imprint resonated inversely with it—not repulsion, but... recognition.

Then the portal closed, and they plunged into the quantum ocean of reality.

When Kane awoke, the first thing he felt was gravity. He lay on a hard surface, alarms blaring urgently nearby. Struggling to open his eyes, he saw Hassan and Ada bending over him, worry etched on their faces.

“Thank the Ancestor’s Mirror!” Hassan’s obsidian totem flickered nervously. “You were gone for six whole hours!”

Ada’s entropy imprint balanced Lena’s energy. “The Time Prism... you really brought it back!”

Kane sat up with difficulty, realizing they were in an emergency medical station beneath the Greenwich Rose. Through the transparent dome, he saw ominous red glimmers in the night sky toward Mars.

“Marcus...”

“Dead.” Hassan’s voice was low. “The sacrifice of Aelta-4 wasn’t in vain. But we detected massive energy fluctuations in Mars’s orbit.”

Lena weakly raised her crystal left hand inside the medical pod. “Not just fluctuations... he’s summoning something. We must stop it from reaching Earth.”

Kane touched his forehead, finding his imprint permanently altered—a complex geometric pattern now with a tiny Martian symbol at its center. “The Founder gave me part of the answer... the Mars base isn’t a weapon, but a kind of healing facility. But Marcus twisted its purpose.”

Ada pulled up global quantum network monitoring data. “More urgent—twelve Burner infection points have suddenly appeared on Earth! All erupted in the ‘Awakening Day’ top-performing ‘changelings’!”

Kane understood immediately. “Sleepers... agents deeply embedded like Marcus. Awakening Day activated their final orders.” He forced himself to stand, though every muscle protested. “How much time do we have?”

“According to Rose Network calculations, the Mars passage will fully open in twenty-eight hours.” Hassan displayed a hologram. “And the Burner infection on Earth is expected to reach critical mass in twelve hours.”

Lena finally left the medical pod; her crystal left hand had regained its blue-golden glow. “Split the team? One group handles Earth’s Burners, another heads to Mars?”

Kane shook his head. “No... the Founder hinted the key lies in my genetic imprint. We all must go to Mars.”

“And Earth?” Ada challenged. “In twelve hours...”

“Twenty-four hours,” Kane corrected, picking up the Time Prism. “With this, we can create local time folds to delay the Earth crisis.”

Suddenly, Hassan pointed at the hologram. “New development! The asteroid belt outposts... they’ve started moving!”

The projection showed hundreds of marked rocks leaving their orbits, converging toward Earth. More astonishingly, their shells peeled away, revealing intricate silver-white internal structures.

“Not weapons...” Kane whispered. “Defense systems. The Founder prepared for this moment for a hundred thousand years.”

The remaining deep-sea tetrahedral system sent an encrypted message through the Rose Network. Kane decoded it with his imprint, and a miniature Gardener-1 hologram appeared:

“Emergency protocol activated. Outposts will form a temporary quantum barrier to delay the Burners’ origin reaching Earth. Expected effective duration: forty-eight hours. Warning: Founder gene bearers must arrive at Mars coordinates 31.7°N, 222.3°E within this period to complete purification ritual.”

Lena quickly calculated: “From Earth to Mars... even with our fastest ship, it takes forty hours!”

“No.” Kane touched the Time Prism. “We use this. The Founder’s memory fragments showed the Time Prism can create short-range wormholes.”

Ada checked the data. “Theoretically feasible... but it requires enormous energy. And the destination must have a matching receiver.”

“Mars base does.” Kane said confidently. “The Founder left a complete system there.”

Hassan started preparing equipment. “Plan: open a wormhole to Mars with the Time Prism; find the purification facility; stop the Burner origin from descending; and pray Earth’s outposts hold.”

“One more thing.” Kane’s expression grew grim. “The Founder hinted... I have a connection to the Burner origin. This might mean...”

He left the sentence unfinished, but everyone understood—Kane could be an unknown variable, even a potential risk.

Lena’s crystal left hand suddenly sounded an alarm. “Remnants of the Seventh Iteration fleet are approaching Earth orbit!”

The hologram switched, showing fifteen battle-worn warships. To everyone’s surprise, they weren’t firing weapons but energy beams directly linked to Earth’s Rose Network nodes.

“They’re... charging us?” Ada checked the data in disbelief. “The Seventh Iteration exiles are feeding remaining energy to the Time Prism!”

Kane felt the cruel irony of fate. Former mortal enemies of the Seventh Iteration had become the last hope. He grasped the Time Prism, feeling the ancient energy flowing within. “Prepare to depart. Meet at the Sahara node in one hour.”

While the others hurried to prepare, Lena stayed behind. “What are you hiding? What did you see in the time fold?”

Kane looked toward Mars, the red light growing stronger. “I saw the Founder’s memories... and the truth about the Burners’ origin.” He turned to Lena, silver-white light swirling in his eyes. “They’re not alien invaders, Lena... they are us. The failed products of human civilization’s evolution.”

Lena’s crystal unit briefly faltered from the revelation. “So the purification protocol...”

“Is not slaughter.” Kane said softly. “It is redemption. But the cost may be... my existence.”

They said no more. One hour later, the team gathered at the ancient stone circle of the Sahara node. Hassan’s obsidian totem had expanded, forming full protective armor; Ada’s entropy imprint deeply synced with the Rose Network; Lena’s crystal left hand decomposed and reassembled into a weaponized form.

Kane stood at the circle’s center, the Time Prism hovering before him. Global Rose Network energy converged through Hassan’s body; residual energy from the Seventh Iteration fleet was converted by Ada’s imprint; Lena’s crystal stabilized the wormhole structure.

“Remember,” Kane reminded them, “no matter what happens, prioritize completing the purification protocol. If I...”

“Don’t say unlucky things.” Hassan cut him off. “The Ancestor’s Mirror will bless us.”

Kane nodded, pouring all imprint energy into the Time Prism. A dazzling silver-white beam shot skyward, bending sharply at a critical point—as if refracted by an invisible mirror—pointing toward Mars.

Space itself began to tear. A miniature black hole-like vortex formed, flickering with scenes of Mars’s surface. The passage was unstable, its edges warped like shattered glass.

“The passage will last only ninety seconds!” Lena warned. “Go!”

As the four plunged into the wormhole, Kane’s imprint suddenly received one last message from Earth’s Rose Network—the asteroid belt outposts’ barrier had just suffered its first strike, and the Burners’ origin had extruded a third of its “body.”

Reality distorted. They fell into the quantum deluge between the stars. In the final moment before consciousness dissolved, Kane seemed to hear the Founder’s voice again:

“Find the mirror... see the truth...”