The Third Chapter

The Third Chapter, catalogued in fragments across unstable branches of the Redline Timeline, is widely referred to as the Critical Error.

It begins, as most fractures do, with fire.

A man named Ryan Redmane, hollowed by loss, wielded a revolver named Malice. His land burned. His past blurred. He was alone... until he wasn't.

Somewhere else-no, not then, not yet-a chrome-shelled brawler named Dwayne injected the Prospector Mk. II into his brain and began to see too much.

And yet elsewhere, an elven warrior named Gladius Jones climbed a sacred mountain to seek divinity and instead found destiny waiting with a cigarette and a plan.

Together, they formed what I can only describe as a gravitational event: three realities converging, unstable and luminous, guided by something I now believe may have been the Reality Rune.

Note: I do not recall cataloging the Rune before this chapter. It may have overwritten itself into my records retroactively... or perhaps it was always there, waiting for enough story to manifest.

They fought a war against Capital City, a nation that tried to manufacture infinity. Its king dreamed of controlling the future through Gemtech and nightmares, powered by a sleeping entity called Void-a dragon carved from the forgotten dark between stars.

Ryan was consumed. Dwayne was dismantled. Gladius ascended, then fell again, sword-first into war.

But Ryan came back. Scarred, grinning, altered. Glitched. I suspect exposure to the Reality Rune-possibly within Void's core, or deep within Malice itself-changed him.

When the world should have ended, it split.

I only know this:
The Reality Rune still exists.
And someone is using it.
Or worse-becoming it.