The flow of time returned with a subtle ripple. "Annoying," the goddess's voice came again, this time without the whisper's closeness yet somehow still inescapable.
Kairos narrowed his eyes. He stopped time himself, his own mastery over its threads taking hold, and stepped forward until he stood within arm's reach of the unmoving goddess. A weapon manifested in his grasp, a blade shaped like the hand of a clock, its edge ticking faintly with a sound only he could hear.
Without hesitation, he struck. The blade connected and instantly, he felt it die.
The spirit of the weapon, the essence that made it his, was snuffed out like a candle. The blade crumbled in his grip, scattering away into nothingness. But something else moved something far worse.
A current of cold, divinity traveled along the disintegrating fragments, slithering into his arm. His skin prickled, his blood seemed to still, and the air itself thickened around him.
