Liora’s scream tore through the night.  

Kael jolted awake, his Chrono-Void Core pulsing like a second heartbeat. The air tasted metallic, charged with a distortion he’d felt only once before—when he’d clawed his way out of death.  

*Eclipse Beast.*  

He was moving before his mind caught up, boots slamming against cobblestones as he raced toward the orphanage. The streets blurred, time bending to his fury. *Not yet. They shouldn’t manifest for another three years—*  

He kicked open the door.  

The Beast crouched over Liora’s cot, its obsidian carapace glistening under moonlight. Six segmented legs, a maw of spiraling teeth, and eyes like fractured glass. But this one was *smaller*, imperfect—a larval shadow of the monsters he’d slain.  

*“Kael…”* It hissed, its voice a wet amalgam of his own and another’s—a woman’s, jagged with static. *“…you’ll bleed us all.”*  

Liora huddled against the wall, clutching a splintered bedpost. Her nightmares made flesh.  

The Beast lunged.  

Kael *pushed*.  

Time fractured. The creature slowed, mid-air, saliva dangling like syrup from its teeth. Kael’s hand closed around its thorax, Chrono-Void energy surging.  

*Decay.*  

The Beast shuddered, its exoskeleton crumbling to ash. But instead of dying, it *laughed*, the sound echoing from its dissolving throat.  

*“She’s ours now…”*  

Then it was gone.  

Liora stared at him, tears carving lines through the dust on her face. *“It knew your name.”*  

Kael grabbed her wrist, shoving her sleeve up. The eclipse-and-serpent mark pulsed faintly. *“What did the Church tell you?”*  

*“N-nothing! They just… they made me drink something. After the nightmares started.”*  

A cold realization. *They’re using her as a beacon.*  

Footsteps thundered outside—enforcers, drawn by the noise.  

Kael hauled Liora to her feet. *“Come or die.”*  

---

**The Blackforge Catacombs** stank of wet stone and forgotten rot.  

Liora gagged as Kael dragged her deeper into the tunnels, his grip bruising. *“Why here?”*  

*“Because the Beasts hate this place,”* he lied.  

Truth was, the catacombs hummed with the same dissonance as his Core. Ancient murals lined the walls: robed figures sealing a rift, a blade plunged into a vortex, a hooded woman weeping black tears.  

*Future Liora’s war.*  

He stopped at a collapsed archway. Beneath the rubble lay a skeleton clutching a journal—its pages filled with frantic sketches of Beasts and a single phrase: *“The Seventh Betrayal is the First.”*  

Liora peered over his shoulder. *“That’s… my handwriting.”*  

Before Kael could respond, the ground trembled.  

A Void Hunter stepped from the shadows, her armor forged from Eclipse Beast chitin, twin sickles glowing with stolen Chrono-energy.  

*“Kael Ardent.”* Her voice was a scar. *“The Church sends its regards.”*  

She attacked.  

Time bent around her strikes, each slash arriving a heartbeat before it should. Kael parried with his dagger, but a sickle grazed his ribs, burning like frost.  

*“You’re slow,”* the Hunter taunted. *“The girl’s presence weakens you.”*  

Liora screamed as the Hunter’s second blade arced toward her.  

Kael did the math.  

*Too far. Too late.*  

So he *cheated*.  

Reversing time’s flow for himself alone, he stepped *behind* the Hunter, Chrono-Blade forming in his hand—a jagged shard of frozen entropy.  

*“Tell the Church I’ll return their regards,”* he growled, “*in person.*”  

The blade pierced her Core.  

The Hunter dissolved, her final breath a whisper: *“She’s already one of them…”*  

A black feather fluttered to the floor.  

---

**TO BE CONTINUED...**