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Chapter 6 – The World That Forgot Time
The Council's chamber dissolved into mist, and Kael felt himself pulled through another portal.
He had grown used to the sensation—light stretching, space bending—but this time, it was different. It wasn't a fall or a flash. It was like being un-written.
When he blinked again, he stood in a place that felt… wrong.
The air was still. Too still. The sun hovered halfway behind dark clouds, frozen. Birds hung motionless in the sky like ink blots on glass.
Tethys' voice hummed in his thoughts. "This world's law of time has collapsed. We stand between seconds."
Kael tested his footing. The ground echoed as if beneath it were a hollow drum.
"So how do we fix something like… time?"
A shimmer moved behind him—a figure walking through the frozen scene. She wore a long coat of brass-colored fabric, mechanical joints clicking faintly as she moved. Her eyes glowed gold, clock-hands rotating within them.
"You must be the new Balancer," she said, voice clear and metallic. "I am Seren, keeper of the remnants of Chronos. Welcome to the dead hour."
Kael's hand hovered near his belt out of reflex. "You're… not human, are you?"
"I was," Seren replied. "Before the loops began."
Lyra's voice drifted faintly from the crystal at Kael's wrist—her projection through the Council's link.
> "Kael, Seren was once a guardian here. Her world was consumed by a temporal collapse. If you restore the central clock-heart, you may reset the flow."
Kael looked around. The city ahead was vast and beautiful—towers shaped like hourglasses, streets of mirrored metal. All frozen mid-motion.
"Alright," he said, squaring his shoulders. "Show me this clock-heart."
Seren nodded and led him through streets filled with statues that weren't statues—people locked mid-stride, faces twisted in half-spoken words. Kael's stomach knotted. "They're alive, aren't they?"
"Yes," Seren whispered. "Trapped in a moment that never ends."
At the city's center stood a colossal clock suspended over a chasm, gears the size of mountains grinding ever so slightly. Every few minutes, a fragment of time tried to move—but failed, resetting with a thunderous clang.
"That," Seren said, "is where the heart lies. But the guardian still remains."
Before Kael could ask, the clock's hands jerked violently—and a wave of distorted time crashed outward. Buildings bent, shadows elongated, and from the center crawled a creature made of fractured hours—its body shifting between ages and moments, screaming in a thousand voices at once.
Kael braced himself. "Guess that's our guardian."
Tethys' growl reverberated through his mind. "Remember the Crucible. Adapt."
Kael raised his hands, focusing on the clock's rhythm. Time here wasn't linear—it pulsed in patterns. He could feel it, like a heartbeat too large for one world.
When the creature lunged, Kael twisted space around it. Instead of dodging, he bent the moment, forcing the attack to repeat itself—then countered in the same instant. Energy rippled; fragments of time shattered like glass.
Seren joined in, drawing a blade of condensed seconds, slashing arcs that aged the creature where they struck. "The heart is rejecting its own flow!" she shouted.
Kael thought fast. "Then we change the beat!"
He synchronized his pulse with the ticking sound, forcing it into a steady rhythm. The creature screamed, flickering between past and future. With each pulse, Kael's energy spread wider, weaving order into chaos.
"Tethys, anchor me!"
The shadow-beast flared around him, grounding Kael's power. Seren struck once more—clean, precise—and the guardian exploded into golden sand.
Silence fell. Then, slowly, the sun began to move. Wind whispered. The frozen city exhaled.
All around them, people finished their sentences, blinked, gasped for air.
Kael dropped to one knee, exhausted but smiling. "That's… one world saved."
Seren looked at him—half human, half machine, eyes soft now. "You restored time itself. Few can claim that."
Lyra's voice echoed faintly from the crystal.
> "Good work, Kael. But Vorath's influence is spreading faster than expected. Every world we save draws his gaze closer."
Kael stood, watching the newly moving city with awe. "Then we keep moving faster."
Seren tilted her head. "If you'll have me, I will join your cause. I owe this world… and time itself."
Kael grinned. "Welcome to the team."
Above them, the eclipses stirred again—four now, their light touching every horizon. Somewhere, far beyond sight, Vorath's laughter rippled through the fabric of creation.
Kael felt the chill, but his resolve burned hotter.
"Alright," he murmured, eyes on the sky. "Round two, multiverse."
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