Chapter 10 – Fifty-First Death
Part 1: The Beast That Walks Backward
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There was no warning this time.
No wind. No rumble. No sign.
Just stillness.
And then a sound—one that shouldn't exist in the Dimension.
A heartbeat.
But not Yuu's.
It pulsed in reverse.
Thump.
Then silence.
Then again—backward.
Yuu stood in the center of a ruined coliseum now rebuilt from time itself. The shattered stones were reformed, floating midair, rearranging themselves as if undoing centuries of damage.
The Goddess appeared, hovering above the highest ring, arms folded tightly.
"This one is different," she said. "It's not here to kill you."
"Then what?"
"To unmake you."
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The Timebound Reaver
It stepped from the shadows with no feet.
Instead, its body hovered—half bone, half mirror.
Twelve hands reached out from beneath a silver cloak. Each hand bore a different weapon—axes, knives, blades, chains—all etched with hourglass runes.
Its face was not a face.
It was a void, reflecting only one image: Yuu's own reflection—dying.
Fifty times.
Fifty different angles.
Fifty different ends.
Yuu's jaw clenched.
"What the hell is that?"
The Goddess's voice was calm.
"An echo of death. The Timebound Reaver. It was forged from the temporal residue left by your suffering."
"You made this?"
"No. You did."
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The Fight Begins – Past Comes Crashing
The Reaver snapped one of its twelve hands forward.
Clang—BOOM
A distorted echo of Yuu's first death appeared behind him—the crushing weight of the Abyssal Warden's sword crashing down.
He turned, blocked just in time.
But he felt it.
The pain.
That same pain. His ribs cracking. His spine bending. The helplessness.
Another hand moved.
His second death: claws from the Gorebeast ripping through his stomach.
Then the fourth: neck snapped by falling debris.
Then the seventh: impaled by divine breath.
Each time Yuu blocked, it didn't matter.
The pain returned. Not imagined.
Relived.
His breathing broke.
Sweat poured from his face. His eyes flickered.
"I already survived these…"
But his body remembered. And memory hurt.
The Reaver's blades moved in sequences Yuu had seen before.
His own.
It was using his trauma against him.
---
Collapse – Trauma Replayed
It overwhelmed him.
Twelve hands.
Twelve weapons.
Twelve deaths at once.
Every block he made only activated the memory behind it.
The blade that pierced his leg.
The rock that crushed his skull.
The claws that shredded his lungs.
Blood poured from reopened wounds.
His body screamed.
His soul flickered.
He fell to one knee.
His sword dropped.
The Goddess didn't interfere.
She watched—expression unreadable.
The Reaver hovered above Yuu now, forming the shape of his last death—death fifty.
It struck.
Yuu didn't move.
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Death #10
The impact split the floor beneath him.
Stone exploded.
His ribs shattered.
His eyes went blank.
And in silence—
He died.
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YOU DIED – 10
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Intermission – The Depths Between Time
There was no void this time.
Yuu awoke inside a black ocean.
Cold.
Floating.
Memories drifted around him like jellyfish.
Each glowing. Each replaying his own death.
Over and over.
And in the center, unmoving—
Stood a version of himself.
But this one wore no armor.
No weapons.
Just a stare—blank, hollow.
Yuu approached.
The version turned.
"You were never strong," it said.
"You only got lucky. Again. Again. Again."
Yuu didn't flinch.
He raised his hand.
And punched himself in the face.
Crack.
The false Yuu collapsed.
Yuu whispered.
"Don't talk to me like you ever got back up."
The Goddess appeared behind him, smirking faintly.
"That's the first time you've broken something in here."
He exhaled.
"Then let me break one more."
---
Resurrection – Part 1 End
Yuu's eyes snapped open.
The arena was shattered again.
The Reaver hovered midair—resetting time around it like a cocoon of reversed reality.
But Yuu's aura now pulsed differently.
It didn't flow forward.
It spiraled.
Unpredictable. Controlled chaos.
His foot cracked the stone as he stepped forward.
Time resisted.
He walked anyway.
"I'm not done dying yet," he muttered.
—
Part 2: A Sword That Cuts Backward
Word Count: ~2,600
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Time fought him.
Every breath he took echoed wrong.
Every blink replayed twice—once forward, once in reverse.
The Timebound Reaver floated above the fractured battlefield, its twelve arms rearranging again, as if rewriting history. Its mask no longer reflected only Yuu's death.
Now it showed everything he lost.
The classroom where Rin once smiled.
The night his empire fell before he awoke in Alicia.
The faces of his fiancées—blurring, twisting—fading.
"Stop," he whispered.
The Reaver pulsed.
Another echo triggered.
A death he had forgotten—one that had snapped his spine and stolen the warmth from his limbs.
He coughed blood.
His vision trembled.
He should've collapsed.
But he didn't.
Because something shifted.
Deep inside his mana.
His aura pulsed—not forward.
Backward.
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Aura Reversal: The First Fracture
The Goddess's voice whispered into his mind.
"You figured it out."
Yuu's eyes sharpened.
"You said time was against me."
"Yes."
"Then I'll make time remember what I became."
---
He raised his hand.
And drew his blade not from steel, not from memory—
But from recoil.
Every scar he had healed…
Every death he had come back from…
He forced it back into the world, as mana.
The aura condensed in his palm.
It screamed.
It shook.
And then—
It formed.
---
Eclipse Arsenal – Blade Four: Nocturne Reverse
A katana. Thin. Black with a reversed curve.
It radiated cold, and its edge shimmered not with light—but with time decay.
He held it low.
And stepped forward.
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Reversal Combat Begins
The Reaver swung.
Twelve arms. Twelve weapons.
All descending.
Yuu vanished.
No Phantom Step. Just anti-temporal phase movement.
He reappeared on the Reaver's shoulder.
And swung Nocturne Reverse downward.
Time cracked.
The slash didn't hit the Reaver's current position.
It hit the version of it from ten seconds ago.
Its mask fractured.
One of its arms fell off—still attached to a form that no longer existed.
The Reaver reeled.
It screamed—a broken reverb howl that reversed itself halfway through.
---
Counter-Adaptive Combat
It learned instantly.
It folded two arms into its core.
Spat back a slowed version of its own time-warped attacks.
Yuu swung again—cutting into the air, not to strike the enemy—but to destroy its memory.
Each slash erased a second from the Reaver's predictive code.
It staggered. Confused.
For the first time since it was born, it couldn't calculate the outcome.
Yuu pushed forward.
He bled.
He gasped.
But he walked through time distortion like it was glass.
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One arm slashed toward his face.
He ducked.
Spun.
Stabbed upward—reversed—
And Nocturne Reverse's tip phased through the Reaver's skull…
Then appeared a second earlier—stabbing from behind.
The creature convulsed.
Yuu stepped through the moment.
And whispered.
"I remember everything you took."
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Cut Into the Past
Yuu raised the blade once more.
It glowed faint blue now—saturated with the weight of reversed pain.
He slashed once—
Horizontally—
And carved into the timeline.
The battlefield froze.
A ripple spread out like a stone dropped in still water.
The Goddess above looked down, her lips parting slightly.
"That… was a backward slash."
The Reaver tried to dodge.
Too late.
Its body was cleaved from the version it had been three seconds ago.
And in both moments—it died.
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Collapse
The echo shattered.
The battlefield collapsed again—crumbling backward, sto
ne falling up, then sideways, then disintegrating.
Only Yuu stood untouched.
Blade in hand.
Breathing shallow. Eyes calm.
Nocturne Reverse pulsed once, then faded into stasis.
He looked down at his hands.
Time fractures ran along his arms like glowing scars.
His bones ached from every decade he had just forced into reverse flow.
But he didn't collapse.
He exhaled.
And whispered:
"You want to take my past?"
He looked up at the broken sky.
"Then I'll carve it back."
—
Chapter 10 End