He couldn't see anything yet, but it was definitely there. It felt like that prickling sensation of being watched, only a hundred times stronger. As if a massive consciousness had locked its focus entirely on him.

Finn instinctively reached for his fragment spells at the edge of his awareness, ready to actualize them. But he forced himself to stop. To keep calm and keep walking at the same pace.

He definitely knows you know… Finn clenched his jaw. Just stay calm and see what he wants to do now…

As if sensing Finn's conclusion, the feeling of being watched intensified. Finn felt the gaze moving around him, through him, examining him from all angles, almost like he was being x-rayed.

Without his input, his Error fragment suddenly stirred in response, as if in curiosity. As if it recognized something in this examination. Something familiar in the probing method that made it begin to react.

Then the probing withdrew slightly, and Finn heard a voice.

It didn't come from any particular direction. It simply existed in the space around him, resonating even through his very bones.

"Interesting."

Finn finally stopped walking. Outwardly, he looked calm, but internally, his heart pounded against his chest as he tried to decipher even the slightest trace of ill-intent from the voice that just spoke.

"Madoc, I presume," he said.

"Correct." The voice shifted again, this time more localized. It still wasn't quite coming from a specific point, but unlike before, it was no longer omnidirectional.

"You're either very brave or very foolish to enter my territory, Pioneer."

"Maybe both," Finn replied, keeping his tone level. "I was told you might be willing to speak with me before deciding whether or not to kill me."

A sound that might have been amusement rippled through the clearing. "Osmund has such confidence in my restraint. It's… touching, really."

The grass in front of Finn distorted, and suddenly a figure stood there.

Madoc. Finn took in the man's figure.

He was tall — at least six foot four — which made him a giant among the Anaelle. His white hair was longer than Osmund's, pulled back in a long braid that fell past his shoulders. His horns curved backward more dramatically, almost forming a complete semicircle before the tips pointed forward again. And his pale gray eyes that studied Finn were so intense, that Osmund's scrutiny seemed casual by comparison.

"You don't look like much," Madoc noted in a placid tone. "Physically unremarkable. Soul strength is good, better than expected, but not exceptional. And yet..."

He tilted his head, and his pale grey eyes narrowed quizzically.

"And yet there's something profoundly wrong about you… like you're not meant to exist… some kind of anomaly?"

Finn's blood ran cold. He had kept his fragment quiet so far despite feeling threatened by Madoc's presence, trusting Osmund's assessment of his honor. But now it stirred again, more actively, preparing for the possibility that this conversation might end in violence.

Madoc noticed immediately and his eyes widened fractionally. "Ah. There it is again. That sense of wrongness intensifies when you prepare to use your power." He took a step closer, studying Finn like a specimen under glass. "What are you, exactly?"

"I was hoping you could help me figure that out," Finn fought the urge to take a step back and answered carefully. "Osmund suggested you might know how to help me access memories from my fragment. To understand what I am."

"Did he?" He asked, but it didn't seem like a question at all, rather, it had a knowing tilt to it. Madoc's gaze flicked briefly past Finn toward where Osmund waited at the clearing's edge, then returned. "How convenient that he'd send you to me specifically for that particular… service."

Finn leveled his gaze with Madoc, now sure of his earlier assumptions.

"You knew I was coming," he said slowly. "Didn't you? Not just today. You knew I'd come to you eventually. Before I even knew you existed."

Madoc's expression didn't change, but something shifted in his posture. A subtle relaxation that paradoxically made him seem more dangerous, not less.

"I've known you were coming for three years," he said quietly. "Since the moment I first began to touch on causality. I saw you crossing the Stagnant Sea. I saw you making a contract with Osmund. I saw you standing here, in this clearing, asking me this exact question."

He was smiling now, but it wasn't warm at all. His eyes were frigid cold. And if not for the look of slight resignation that Finn could see was still in there, he would have decisively acted there and then, activating his fragment spells and calling out for Osmund's contract-bound help in a bid to escape.

But he didn't. And it was good that he didn't.

The resignation in Madoc's eyes became more prominent.

"...And I saw myself helping you. Not because I want to. Not because I trust you. But because the temporal current demands it. Because if I don't help you access those memories..." His cold smile widened fractionally. "Then something far worse happens. Something that ends this island. Ends all of us."

Finn stared at him for a silent second, processing. "You can see the future."

"Not exactly." Madoc released a breath and gestured vaguely. "I can see confluence points. Moments where multiple timelines crystallize around specific events. Your arrival is one such point. What you need from me is another." His eyes bored into Finn's. "And what you'll become after I give it to you... that's the convergence that matters most."

The clearing felt suddenly smaller. More confined. Finn forced himself to breathe steadily, to not let the growing unease show on his face.

"You're saying this is inevitable? That I have no choice but to let you do... whatever it is you're planning to do?"

"Oh, you have choices." Madoc waved a hand dismissively. "You could refuse. Walk away. But then you'd never understand your fragment. Never reach the level of mastery you need to survive what's coming. Never become what you need to be." He paused. "And everyone on this island dies when the Husk comes. Including you."

"The Husk," Finn repeated flatly. "You know about that too."

"I know many things I shouldn't. That's the blessing and curse of glimpsing time's structure." Madoc's expression grew more serious. "The creature you encountered is coming here eventually. It is inevitable. And when it arrives, it will have mastered something that even the original fragment bearer was unable to achieve."

"Time…" Finn said quietly. He didn't know much of what was going on. But he could relate and link the brief cues he could pick up to his own experience — his earth experience included.

And even without being a physicist or anything, he knew space and time were intertwined. Coupled with all that had happened and Madoc's ability and words so far…

"Time," Madoc confirmed, unsurprised by Finn stating it accurately. He then went further to explain in a grim tone:

"Not just Space and Time, but Time that is separated fully from Space. An independent concept, wielded by the abomination that is the Husk." He met Finn's gaze directly. "I can't stop it alone. Osmund can't stop it. Hagen..." He shook his head. "Hagen won't even try. He'll die believing the Pioneer's existence is what caused this calamity."

"And you think I can stop it? After you help me with these memories?"

"I think you can become something that has a chance of stopping it… of stopping them…" Madoc's stated matter-of-factly. "I don't know what you are. Your fragment is unlike anything in my knowledge. But I've seen echoes of what you could become. Glimpses of a power that makes the Husk hesitate. That makes even Egon's possessed body tread carefully."

He turned partially away, looking toward the eastern edge of the clearing where his territory presumably began.

"So yes, Pioneer. I will help you access your fragment's memories. I will send your consciousness back to experience what your original bearer experienced. And when you return — if you return intact — you'll understand things about power that currently exist beyond your comprehension."

Madoc glanced back over his shoulder.

"The question is... Are you ready to lose yourself completely? To become someone else for however long it takes? Because that's what this requires. It will not be just an observation or a vision. But a true transmigration of consciousness across time itself..."

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