The bullet never hit him.
The instant the trigger was pulled, time fractured.
X felt it before he saw it—the moment stretching infinitely, the bullet suspended in midair, reality trembling around it like a ripple on water.
And then—it reversed.
The bullet snapped back into the rifle's chamber, as if the shot had never been fired.
The soldiers froze, their bodies glitching in and out of existence.
And X… moved.
His instincts kicked in like a second nature he hadn't known existed.
One moment, he was standing in front of them.
The next, he was behind them.
The lead soldier barely had time to react before X's fist drove into his helmet, shattering the visor with an impossible force. The impact sent the man flying backward, crashing into two others.
The room erupted into chaos.
The remaining soldiers opened fire.
But none of the bullets reached him.
X saw every trajectory before they were even fired, his body slipping between the shots like water through cracks.
He wasn't just dodging.
He was ahead of time itself.
A soldier lunged at him, swinging the butt of his rifle—X caught it with one hand, twisted it sharply, and the gun turned into molten fragments.
The man stared in horror as the weapon disintegrated.
X snapped his fingers.
The gravity in the room flipped.
Every soldier was hurled against the ceiling, their bodies smashing into steel panels with bone-crunching force.
Evelyn gaped from behind the console, her hands hovering over the emergency escape trigger. What the hell was she witnessing?
X wasn't human anymore.
The Singularity Engine had done something to him—something irreversible.
He turned toward her. His voice was eerily calm.
"We need to go. Now."
Evelyn hesitated only for a second before slamming her palm against the console.
The escape tunnel activated.
A section of the bunker wall peeled open, revealing a narrow corridor leading deeper underground.
X didn't wait. He grabbed her wrist and pulled her forward, his movements so fast she barely had time to react.
Behind them, the soldiers—what was left of them—groaned in agony.
Then, another voice echoed from the entrance.
"Stand down."
The air turned cold.
X stopped mid-step.
Because he knew that voice.
He turned slowly.
Standing at the entrance, clad in a black officer's uniform, was General Richter.
His face was as emotionless as ever—the face of a man who had sent countless lives to their deaths without flinching.
Evelyn stiffened beside X.
"Richter," she whispered.
X's fists clenched. He could feel the reality around him shifting again, reacting to his emotions.
But Richter wasn't looking at Evelyn.
He was staring directly at X.
"You've become an anomaly."
X smirked. "Took you long enough to figure that out."
Richter took a step forward, unfazed by the unconscious soldiers littering the room.
"You weren't supposed to survive Phase Space. The Enforcer should have erased you." His eyes narrowed. "But something changed. You accessed the Singularity Engine."
X said nothing.
Richter's lips curled into a faint smirk. "Good."
Evelyn's breath hitched. "Good? You tried to kill him!"
Richter barely glanced at her. "The Bureau doesn't care about survival. We care about results."
X took a slow step forward. "Then what the hell do you want?"
Richter reached into his coat and pulled out a small, black device.
He pressed it.
The air around X distorted violently.
Every cell in his body screamed.
He collapsed to one knee, his vision blurring, flickering between different versions of reality.
Richter's voice was cold. "A failsafe. Built into you the day you were created."
X gasped, his hands gripping the floor. The Singularity inside him was unraveling.
Richter crouched in front of him.
"You are not a person, X."
"You are an experiment."
X's body convulsed. His form glitched violently between versions of himself—young, old, soldier, scientist, killer, savior—a thousand versions of him flickering in and out of existence.
Richter's voice was calm.
"And I am here to activate the final phase."
Evelyn screamed. "X! Fight it!"
But the darkness was already consuming him.
The last thing he heard was Richter's voice.
"Welcome to the end of reality."
And then—nothing.
---
Somewhere beyond time.
The frozen city reappeared.
The other X—the one who had been watching—smiled.
"So… they finally made their move."
He turned toward the swirling abyss beyond the city. "What do you think?"
A voice answered from the void.
"The war has begun."
And in the distance, something enormous stirred.
Something older than time itself.
The final reality was approaching.