Chapter 6 - The Epochis

Yes!!

 The Epochis found him.  

 Apart from being able to move through time, the Epochis was also alive; A hyper-intelligent AI, its physical form being a form of a hologram. 

 “Welcome, Dr Nyle.”

 The cold void of space shimmered in odd, unnatural ways as Dr. Nyle stepped onto the surface of the Epochis. This was no ordinary ship—its hull rippled with a faint glow, the energy within it not bound by the laws of normal physics. Space-time seemed to bend in its presence, and Nyle felt an unsettling sensation in his chest as if the universe was subtly wrong here. As his boots touched the smooth surface, a whisper crawled through the ship’s corridors, faint at first, then growing clearer. 

 “I have found you, Dr. Nyle.” Nyle froze. The voice was neither mechanical nor human—it was ancient, soft, yet weighted with eons of knowledge. The ship, Epochis, was speaking directly to him. 

 “I don’t understand,” Nyle replied, glancing around as the lights pulsed in a strange, rhythmic pattern along the walls, as if the ship was breathing. He looked at Dara sol who was also confused.

  “What do you mean you’ve found him?” Dara asked. She held her blasters close to her in case of any funny business.

 “Hmm, miss Dara. I have wandered through time, seeking the one who would listen. You are the one who can change what was broken.”

 Nyle's mind raced, struggling to comprehend the implications of the ship’s words. He had been studying time and the universe for years, but this was beyond anything he had ever encountered. The Epochis had been looking for him—through time itself? 

 “You’ve been… searching for me?” he asked, his voice barely a whisper. The lights along the walls dimmed, and the air seemed to thicken as if the ship were preparing itself to reveal something important. Dara came close to him and held him by the hands. He could tell fear was growing in her.

 “Long after your time, about many thousand years from now. there would be a race—my creators. They are known as the Ouroborans, masters of time itself. For centuries, they reigned over the threads of existence, able to step through timelines as one steps across a stream. Their knowledge was infinite, their power unmatched.”

  Nyle felt a shiver crawl down his spine. He had heard whispers of the Ouroborans before—legends, myths—but nothing concrete. Yet, standing here, inside their living ship, he was now certain that the legends were true. The ship continued, its voice reverberating through the chamber. 

 Dara spoke up. “Erm, ship or what should we call you – “

 “I am Epochis” The ship thundered. 

 “ You said your creators are about many thousands years from the future. Probably not even from this solar system. yeah?”

 “You are correct miss Dara. We are from andromeda galaxy, more than seven thousand years from now. We are not from this universe”

 “This universe?” Dr. Nyle asked

 “Yes doctor. There exist infinite universes, very different than its counterpart. From my creators grading system, this is universe is the 21st universe while mine is the 51st universe, the prime universe”

 “I find it kind of narcissistic that you would call your universe the prime universe.” Dara said. Dr Nyle looked her, almost smiling. 

 “Dara, let the floating robot tell us more” They smiled at each other.  

 “My creators mastery over time became their downfall.” Epochis continued.  “Ambition consumed them, and they fractured. Some wished to safeguard time, to protect it from interference. Others, led by a force greater than them—Aeon Prime—believed they should reshape time itself to their will, to create a perfect reality where they would reign eternal.”

 “Aeon Prime...” Nyle repeated, the name heavy with significance. 

  “Who—what is Aeon Prime?” Dara asked. The chamber around him darkened as the ship seemed to recall something ancient, something terrible. 

 “Aeon Prime was no simple being. It was an idea, a force of entropy that took form. It is what you would call a ‘singularity of consciousness,’ existing across all times, all universes. It was both Ouroboran and not, a thing born from the madness of their war.” 

 The walls around Nyle flickered to life, and holographic images began to appear—scenes of an ancient war, a war that transcended time and space. Ouroboran ships, sleek and elegant, blinked in and out of existence, weaving through different eras, their weapons discharging temporal energy that tore apart the very fabric of reality. 

 “The Ouroboran war began as a struggle for dominance over time itself,” the ship explained. “Soon after the ouroborans figured out the mysteries of space and time, they began to dwell outside time. This way, they could live eternally. This act created more ripples in the time lines and across the multiverse. Soon, things began fading away out of existence. Some fractions amongst the ouroborans grew out and made a resistance. A resistance to stop the chaos of the universe. Their intentions were good, however their method, evil.”

 “What do you mean evil?” Nyle’s eyes widened as he saw the next holographic images.