Seraphina’s arrows rained fire on the mob.  

The Church had branded Blackforge’s citizens *heretics*, and now the zealots came—roaring, their Solar-forged blades melting snow to steam as they stormed the bakery. Seraphina’s father barricaded the door with an oven rack, her mother clutching their youngest to her chest.  

*“Run!”* her father screamed. *“Take your sisters and—”*  

The window exploded.  

A zealot lunged, his sword searing toward her mother’s throat—  

Time stopped.  

The blade hung mid-air, trembling.  

Kael stepped through the frozen chaos, his Chrono-Blade carving a path of decay. The zealot’s armor crumbled, his body aging to dust before he could scream. Seraphina stared, her bow slack, as Kael moved like a god among insects.  

When time snapped back, only corpses remained.  

*“Why?”* she breathed. *“The Church says you’re a demon.”*  

He flicked blood from his blade. *“I’m worse. I’m the *truth* they can’t control.”*  

Her sisters peered from the pantry, wide-eyed. One reached for Kael’s cloak. *“Are you an angel?”*  

*“No,”* he said, but his voice faltered. *“Stay behind me.”*  

---

**Rylan’s hands shook** as he pieced together the journal’s cipher.  

*Beware the Seventh. It’s not a who—it’s a when.*  

The words looped in his mind, scratched in *his own handwriting* from a future he couldn’t fathom. The attic door creaked.  

*“Progress?”* Kael’s shadow filled the room.  

Rylan swallowed. *“The Seventh Betrayer… it’s not a person. It’s a moment. A temporal collapse point where—”*  

*“Where all timelines converge,”* Kael finished coldly. *“I know.”*  

*Then why ask me?* Rylan thought, but the question died as Kael’s gaze fell to the journal.  

*“Burn that page. Now.”*  

*“But the cipher says—”*  

Kael’s hand seized his throat. *“Burn it, or I’ll burn *you*.”*  

---

**The purge reached its crescendo at dawn.**  

Garron’s father, Lord Heddrick, knelt in the square, his confession *coaxed* by Kael’s time-twisted persuasion. The crowd bayed for blood as the High Ascendant’s envoy raised a blackened axe.  

*“For conspiring with Void-spawn, you are sundered from light!”*  

Seraphina looked away, but Kael forced her chin up. *“Watch. This is the world you’ll save.”*  

The axe fell.  

Heddrick’s head rolled, his eyes locking on Kael—*alive with hatred*, even in death.  

*“Satisfied?”* Seraphina spat.  

*“No.”* He nodded to the envoy. *“He’s next.”*  

The crowd surged, but Kael didn’t stay to see the butchery.  

---

**The Void Hunter waited in the catacombs.**  

*“You’re accelerating the Seventh,”* she said, her scarred lips twisting. *“Every life you save damns thousands.”*  

Kael’s Shard flared. *“Who are you?”*  

She removed her helm.  

Silver hair. Hollow eyes. A face worn by lifetimes of war.  

*Liora. But not his Liora.*  

*“You,”* he snarled.  

*“Me,”* Future Liora agreed, drawing a dagger—the same one that killed him in another life. *“Every version of you makes the same mistakes. Let me fix that.”*  

Their blades clashed, time itself splintering.  

---

**TO BE CONTINUED...**