Chapter 919: The World Eater Clock
The Time Wraith froze mid-step as Asher tried to lead her away from others, her radiant white eyes narrowing until they seemed like twin blades of light stabbing straight into Asher’s soul. The halo of hovering mana orbs stilled around her, their lethal glow pulsing like the slow, steady heartbeat of an executioner biding their time.
Sickly strands of her white hair floated as if the air itself feared to touch them. Bone-like spines jutted from her skull, each catching the pale gleam of her conjured light.
“You still think this struggle matters?” she asked, and the sound wasn’t just words—it was a layered chorus of voices that carried the weight of uncountable lifetimes. Some were whispers, some were cries, and some were so hollow they felt like the air inside a tomb. “I have seen you fall more times than the stars have set. Every swing of your blade, every eruption of your rage... they’re nothing but echoes I’ve already heard.”
Her voice slid under his skin like a cold blade. His grip tightened around the Void Reaver, its dark green flames writhing as though feeding off his defiance.
“You might be immortal now,” she continued, drifting in a slow, deliberate circle around him. Each step was silent, yet he swore he heard the ground flinch beneath her feet. Her tattered gown whispered as it passed over cracks in the scorched battlefield, smearing faint streaks of blood in its wake. “But you can never kill or defeat me. Not in this timeline, not in any. And deep down, you know it.”
His jaw set. “Why are you so sure?”
Her head tilted, the gesture almost sympathetic but with none of the warmth to back it. “Because I have already watched you try. In every path, every desperate move, every sacrifice you could dream of—I have seen you fail. And I...” Her lips curled into a smile that was neither cruel nor kind, but simply absolute. “...am done pretending otherwise.”
The words settled like ash in the air, bitter and choking.
Asher forced his voice to stay steady. “Then show me. Show me I can’t change fate.”
The Wraith let out a soft, world-weary sigh, as if indulging a child for the last time. “If you insist.”
Her hand rose, and the mana orbs screamed forward like spears of condensed starlight.
Asher spun Void Reaver into a whirling shield, his six jagged ring-blades bursting into motion and encircling him in a cyclone of dark green fire. The orbs slammed into the barrier, detonating in blinding flashes that seared runes into the air. The shockwaves rattled his bones, but before he could breathe, she had already torn open the very air in front of him.
Space split, an ugly wound of white light bleeding into reality. From it poured spears of crystallized mana, their edges shimmering with impossible sharpness. They pierced through his defenses, slicing into his immortal flesh with surgical precision. Pain tore through him—not dulled by immortality but amplified by it. His body healed instantly, but the agony lingered, clinging like a shadow that refused to let go.
“You fight exactly as I remember though,” she said softly, her voice brushing against his ear though she stood meters away. “Predictable. Predictability is the death of you..”
“Predict this then!” Snarling, he surged forward, Void Reaver blazing, his flames roaring into a wall of incandescent green. The air screamed under the pressure, heat warping the world around them. He brought the blade down in a sweeping arc meant to cleave through both her and the sky.
She didn’t even step aside. One pale finger drew a spiral in the air, and the inferno slowed mid-charge, the flames thinning, cooling... dissolving into harmless smoke that curled around her feet.
His stomach sank. She had read him again. No...she already knew.
“You see?” she murmured, almost tender. “This is the millionth time I’ve watched you fail. Every time you think you’ve done something new, I have already seen it—and its failure—play out.”
Breathing hard, Asher tried to keep his voice from cracking. “You might know my past, but you don’t own my future.”
He launched his six ring-blades in a vicious, unpredictable storm, feinting twice before sending Void Reaver through in a massive surge of corrupted flame. It was a combined assault designed to overwhelm even the sharpest foe.
But the Wraith’s lips barely moved as she whispered something old, and a radiant shockwave burst from her form. His blades crumbled to dust mid-flight. The wave smashed into him, tearing him from his footing and hurling him across the ground.
“You’ve suffered enough,” she said, her voice flat, as if she was tired, “Why do you still persist despite knowing the outcome? There is no point in prolonging your suffering. Let me end it for you now.”
*CRACKKK!*
Her hand lifted again—and this time, the air warped violently, the world bending inward as though trying to collapse in on her. The ground trembled. The sky dimmed. Then a tear split reality itself, a raw wound spilling an unholy, cold light into the world.
Aira’s voice lowered to something almost reverent. “I found it in a pocket dimension between timelines... a place where even time dares not walk. I managed to retrieve it with great difficulty so that I can end your damned fate for good. No more cycles. No more pain.”
Asher’s instincts screamed. From the wound emerged a colossal construct of pale metal and radiant crystal, a thing so massive it felt like a new horizon had grown where there had been none.
“What...what have you done?” Asher murmured, unable to mask the fear in his voice. Fear that this threatened not just him but the entire world or worse. He couldn’t even read or sense what this thing was.
“I’ve summoned the Chronophage. The World-Eater Clock,” she replied, her voice serene yet infinitely haunting. “It does not mark time, it consumes it. When it’s powered, the timelines —your entire existence across all of them—will cease to have ever existed. Your suffering, your pain, and all of your damned fates will finally be erased from eternity.”
Its faceless dial was rimmed with shards of fractured mirrors, each reflecting infinite versions of reality—most of them already burning or breaking apart. Two massive hands swept across the dial, their movement glacial but unstoppable. The second hand ticked forward, and the sound was not a tick but a subtraction—something stolen from existence itself.
“No,” Asher whispered. “Aira, don’t—”
He charged.
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