The ritual site reeked of burnt copper and rotting flesh.  

Kael gripped Liora’s shoulder, steering her through the Church’s underground sanctum. Chains hung from the ceiling, cradling pulsing sacs of translucent membrane—each containing a half-formed Eclipse Beast, its limbs twitching in amniotic fluid.  

*“Keep moving,”* he hissed.  

Liora stumbled, her eyes fixed on a sac split open like overripe fruit. A Beast pup writhed on the floor, its glassy eyes locking onto hers. *“They’re… singing,”* she whispered.  

*“Don’t listen.”* Kael shoved her forward, but the pup’s gurgle echoed in his skull, morphing into words: *“Father… you came back…”*  

He crushed it under his boot.  

Ahead, a circular chamber glowed with stolen Chrono-energy. Priests in eclipse-marked robes chanted around a rift in the air—a jagged tear leaking shadows.  

*The Breach.*  

Memories surged: his original self plunging the Chrono-Blade into this very rift, triggering the first Beast wave. *This is where it began.*  

Liora’s mark flared, and the rift *shuddered*, tendrils of darkness licking toward her.  

*“The prophet has arrived!”* A priest turned, his face a mask of zealotry. *“Blessed child! Offer your blood and complete the—”*  

Kael snapped the man’s neck before he finished.  

Chaos erupted.  

---

**Rylan’s hands shook** as he unfolded Kael’s stolen journal.  

*“…Chrono-Void energy destabilizes after reversing localized time. Subject experiences cellular decay, hallucinations…”*  

He’d found it under Kael’s bed, wedged between floorboards still stained with the Void Hunter’s ash. The equations were clear: every time Kael cheated death, he inched closer to unraveling.  

*“Tell the Church,”* he muttered, pacing his hut. *“They’ll purge him. I’ll be safe.”*  

But the journal’s last page stopped him cold—a sketch of Rylan himself, throat slit, captioned: *“Loyalty has limits.”*  

A knock.  

Seraphina stood in the doorway, her golden bow slung over one shoulder. *“Kael sent me. We need your help with… something.”*  

Her smile didn’t reach her eyes.  

---

Kael carved through priests like wheat, Liora’s screams ringing in his ears.  

*“Enough!”*  

The voice froze him mid-strike.  

A Void Hunter stepped from the rift—*his own face* staring back, clad in onyx armor, Chrono-Blade crackling with corrupted energy.  

*“Mirror-Kael”* tilted his head. *“How many times have we done this?”*  

Liora collapsed, clutching her searing mark. The rift pulsed, its edges creeping toward her.  

*“She dies here,”* Mirror-Kael said. *“Every loop. And you always choose vengeance over saving her.”*  

Kael’s blade trembled. *“You’re not me.”*  

*“Aren’t I?”* The Hunter’s grin was a wound. *“You’ll carve through worlds, break every oath, just to watch them bleed. Even her.”*  

Liora’s whimper cut through the haze. *“Kael… please…”*  

Mirror-Kael lunged.  

Time split.  

Two battles raged—one in the sanctum, one in the fractured seconds between heartbeats. Kael aged the Hunter’s armor to dust, but it reformed faster. Mirror-Kael retaliated, reversing Kael’s decay into *growth*, tumorous flesh swelling on his arm.  

*“You’re a parasite,”* Mirror-Kael spat. *“Consuming time until nothing’s left but—”*  

Liora’s hand gripped the Chrono-Blade.  

She rammed it into the rift.  

The world *screamed*.  

---

**TO BE CONTINUED…**