NOVEL NEXT Chapter 316: The Third prophecy
Xavier floated in the void—weightless, breathless, caught in that same cold emptiness that came before every vision. There was no sound, no light, no body. Just the echo of his heartbeat somewhere far away, like the pulse of a dying star.
Then, suddenly, gravity hit him like a crash.
The void shattered.
A wind screamed past his ears, burning and dry. His feet hit solid ground mid-stride, knees bending instinctively. His lungs filled with air—real air—and he realized he was running.
The sky above was a swirl of violet haze split by three massive blue suns. Their overlapping halos burned like god's own eyes, casting fractured shadows across a jagged metal landscape. The air shimmered with static, and in the distance, enormous towers stabbed into the horizon—each one caged under a translucent glass dome that curved across the entire skyline. The world itself looked like a locked jewel, imprisoned under its own brilliance.
And he was naked.
Completely.
'What the fu—' Xavier's thought cut short as he almost tripped over his own damn foot.
"Keep running!" Reva's voice snapped from his left.
He looked and nearly stopped out of pure shock.
Reva—older, sharper—her silver hair tied back, wearing a matte-black exosuit lined with silver channels of light. A plasma rifle was slung over her shoulder, her other hand carrying a glowing case with unfamiliar symbols. Her expression was furious, but it was a kind of fury that came from experience. A leader's rage.
To his right, Lyra ran beside him, her hair shorter, almost snow-white at the ends, her beast tail flicking behind her suit. Her armor wasn't standard issue either—it was sleek, segmented, laced with faint bioluminescence that pulsed in sync with her heart. She looked more alien than beast now—something that evolution had adapted for war.
And Xavier—bare-ass naked, running down a glassy runway surrounded by fire and gunfire.
Behind them, the ground shook.
Dozens of soldiers poured out of a collapsing facility—machines clanking, hover vehicles screeching, energy rifles lighting up the violet air. Explosions burst behind them in rolling waves, hurling chunks of molten steel into the sky.
"Reva—what the hell is happening?!" Xavier shouted while covering his crotch with one hand and trying not to slip on the slick metallic floor.
Reva looked at him like she wanted to slap him into another dimension. "What's happening? You happened!"
"What—what do you mean I happened?"
"The plan was to infiltrate the facility and steal classified data," she yelled between breaths. "That's it!"
Lyra ducked under a flying bolt of plasma and yelled, "But no, this idiot had to seduce and sleep with the head of planetary intelligence in the middle of the mission!"
"I didn't—!" Xavier dodged an explosion behind him, the heat burning the edge of his legs. "I didn't do anything!"
Reva shot him a glare. "Oh, really? Then why were you found naked in her bed with her security team breaking down the door?"
"That wasn't me!" Xavier barked back. "My drink was spiked or something! Or—maybe it was those mind-tampering freaks—uh—what are they called—the Aethrix! They screw with memories and shit!"
Reva gave him a long, disbelieving look mid-sprint. "You're blaming interstellar hypnotists for your lack of pants?"
Lyra turned just enough to glance down—and froze. "He's not even lying, Reva. He still has a boner!"
"I know!" Reva shouted.
And Xavier, running half-blind through the smoke, realized just how utterly surreal this was. He wasn't watching the prophecy this time—he was it. His body moved on instinct, his breath burned in his chest, and the heat of plasma grazed his skin. Every nerve screamed real.
It felt… more synced with his soul. As if he could almost control his body.
He could feel the adrenaline, the vibration of the ground, the air pressure from passing bullets.
'What the hell is this place?' he muttered to himself, his voice trembling between awe and disbelief. 'What timeline is this supposed to be—what kind of future am I in?'
"Worry less about your naked-ass, more about running!" Reva shouted as a missile struck a hangar behind them, vaporizing the structure in a burst of blue fire.
Lyra raised her arm, firing a glowing burst from her wrist cannon that shot a pursuing drone clean out of the sky. She shouted over the chaos, "We're close! The ship's ready for the jump, but we have to break atmosphere first! #&%^'s* already waiting for us!"
The last part distorted—static in Xavier's ears, like his mind couldn't process the name.
'Who's waiting?!' he yelled back, but of course, the voice didn't come out of his mouth.
Reva was already firing her rifle backward, while Lyra grabbed his wrist, practically dragging him across a collapsed section of runway. The glass beneath them cracked, glowing red with heat from the engines of the facility's defense drones.
Then—
A thunderous hum.
A massive cruiser broke through the dome's far edge, its shadow swallowing the entire horizon. It was sleek and black, etched with gold symbols glowing faintly—a beast of alien engineering. The glass dome shimmered as the ship's engines warped gravity itself.
Lyra shouted, "There it is!"
Xavier looked up, panting, half-covering himself with a torn blanket he'd picked off a broken flagpole. "Okay, but can someone explain why the fuck I'm naked while everyone else is dressed for war? It's ruining my image. I am a fucking celebrity, you know?"
Reva groaned. "Because you ruined the mission! And isn't it a good thing that your fans will finally see new and unfiltered content after a while?"
"And because you don't listen," Lyra added, half-grinning through the madness.
Xavier glanced around—his future self's mind spinning as he tried to piece this insanity together. Three suns. A glass-covered planet. Himself, Reva, Lyra—all alive, older, still together… and apparently on the run from half a galaxy's worth of firepower.
This wasn't just a prophecy. It felt like a memory. A memory from a future he hadn't lived yet. Either way, it was something that was going to happen, no matter what. Something that couldn't be altered or stopped. Hence… it was indeed a destined and fated event.
A prophecy.
Explosions shook the sky again, and the dome above began to crack. Reva yelled, "We're almost there! Hold—"
The sound warped. The light bent.
Everything began to fade.
The air dissolved, the suns collapsed, and Xavier felt himself being pulled backward—dragged through a vortex of blue fire and broken glass. The world around him crumbled into streaks of color, and he could hear faint voices echoing—his own, Reva's, Lyra's—fading into static.
Then, silence.
He was floating again, naked, surrounded by nothing.
His own voice whispered faintly inside the void:
"Three suns… a glass world… and they were still with me…"
Then everything went dark.
And somewhere in the real world—back in the cold castle chambers—Reva leaned closer to his sleeping body, brushing a damp strand of hair from his forehead. The healers whispered ancient incantations as the light from the red moon flickered through the windows.
Xavier's fingers twitched. His lips moved slightly.
"Reva…" he muttered faintly. "…Lyra…"
Reva froze, her hand tightening over his.
Outside, the crimson moon shone brighter—its light pulsing, as though listening.
And waiting.