Chapter Thirty-Two:

  “8.8 Seconds”

  The cave walls closed around them as John, Rai, Akira, and RW stumbled inside.

  Their breath came hard—chests rising and falling with the weight of everything left behind. The forest still smoldered in their memories. Kagemura was gone. Sterling was not.

  Realmweaver’s frame shimmered in the low light, humming to life with an eager whine. A ramp extended. RW sprinted up it, her glow sharpening as she merged into the console.

  Lights flared.

  “I have returned to my core systems,” RW announced. “Primary integration complete.”

  John dropped into the driver’s seat, hands tightening on the controls. Akira swung into the passenger side with a muttered curse, while Rai vaulted into the back.

  John paused, “the acceleration rule,” he muttered.

  Rai frowned. “What?”

  “Gameweaver has a thing for pop culture.”

  Akira’s eyes widened. “No way.”

  John gave a single nod. “8.8 seconds.”

  Akira sat upright. “Are you serious?”

  Without another word, John shifted into reverse.

  Realmweaver lurched backward—wheels screeching, engine roaring. They shot out of the cave like a bullet from a legend.

  Wind screamed past the windshield.

  Sterling rose in the distance.

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  And the realm began to break.

  The earth fractured beneath him. The sky cracked with golden veins. The ruins of Kagemura behind them rippled like heatwaves over shattered glass.

  Realmweaver tore across the battlefield—wheels screaming, dashboard flickering, every second ticking toward the moment that would either free them or end everything.

  “John,” RW said, her voice sharp. “You keep losing acceleration.”

  “I know!”

  He slammed his foot down. The vehicle swerved, tires struggling for grip as the landscape twisted under Sterling’s will. Trees folded inward. Stone cliffs shattered.

  Sterling raised a single hand.

  Reality warped.

  Mountains collapsed into themselves. New ones erupted in their place. The road ahead became a bridge of floating rubble. John wrenched the wheel, Realmweaver banking hard left.

  Akira braced himself against the dash. “Tell me this thing flies.”

  “Not yet!” RW barked.

  Lightning cracked across the sky—white, gold, violet—lancing downward with surgical precision. One bolt grazed the rear of the vehicle, sending a shock through the frame.

  “John!” Rai shouted from the back. “The abyss ahead!”

  He saw it. A rift—massive, endless, eating the ground as fast as they approached it.

  Sterling’s voice thundered across the sky, calm and certain. “Did you truly believe you could run?”

  The dashboard flickered. 6.1 seconds. Then 6.3. Then 6.8.

  Sterling lifted both arms. The sky caved inward. The realm collapsed.

  And John punched the gas.

  “Trust me!”

  Realmweaver hit the edge of existence.

  And leapt.

  The car didn’t fly.

  It fell.

  For a second—just one—they were weightless. No ground. No sky. Just the screaming wind and the black, bottomless stretch of nothing. The lights on the dash flickered violently.

  Then—

  Everything lit up.

  “8.8 seconds reached,” RW said, her voice rising above the chaos. “Initiating transdimensional acceleration.”

  Realmweaver screamed.

  Time shattered. Color fractured. The inside of the car became a tunnel of ripping light and jagged space. Rai screamed something—words torn apart before they could leave her throat. Akira clung to the dash with both hands, laughing like a man on a rollercoaster at the edge of hell.

  John held the wheel.

  His grip never loosened.

  Behind them—far, far behind—Sterling reached out from the edge of the world.

  But it was too late.

  They were gone.

  Sterling stood in silence, fingers still raised.

  Nothing answered.

  The battlefield had collapsed. The mountains, the forest, the city—gone. Swallowed by the breach he had opened himself.

  And still—no victory.

  The air around him held only the memory of failure. A scar burned through the fabric of his Realm, trembling at its edges.

  He stared into it for a long time. Not speaking. Not blinking.

  Then, softly:

  “…impossible.”

  The word dropped like a stone into the silence.

  There was no answer.

  Only absence.

  TO BE CONTINUED IN BOOK FOUR...