“You’re the only one who’s solved its equations,” he said, his voice steady. “Earth needs you .”

Sharun smirked, leaning over her shoulder. “Or we’ll improvise. Remember, I’ve survived asteroid fields with less warning.” The journey to Hyperion-7 was a blur of supernova-dodging and zero-gravity turbulence. Yet upon landing, they were ambushed. Eclipse operatives, clad in adaptive camouflage suits, materialized from the shadows. A brutal skirmish ensued—Sharun’s plasma rifle sparking against alien metal as Vaishnavy jerry-rigged power surges to disable the attackers.

Sharun Raj stood there, his eyes a swirl of starlight. The Core had not erased him—it had recontextualized him, a fragment of time’s anomaly now anchored in a multiversal state.