The Damned Demon - Chapter 921

Chapter 921: To Finally Stop Chasing Time

The Chronophage’s hands met at midnight.

The sound was not a chime. It was not a tick. It was the noise of finality, like the sound of a tomb being sealed forever.

A blinding flood of radiant white light burst outward from the faceless dial, sweeping across the world in a wave of annihilation. It tore through Asher first. His immortal flesh could not resist; it was no longer fire and bone, but ash caught in a storm. His body unraveled into countless radiant white particles, scattering upward like dust motes in a beam of sunlight. He roared, but the sound died with his lungs, his jaw disintegrating mid-cry until there was nothing left but brilliance.

The erasure did not stop there.

The blast consumed everything. The women and the other demons and humans still fighting in the distance turned to radiant fragments, their screams dissolving into silence as their bodies came apart. Rowena’s eyes widened in disbelief before she and her blazing whip burst into white particles. Rebecca’s cold fury vanished in a shimmer of frost-colored light. Isola, Naida, Lyla, Grace, Yui—all unmade in a heartbeat, their flames, winds, and wills extinguished without a trace.

The world itself followed.

The sky cracked. The blackened crust of Zalthor buckled, and fissures erupted across its surface. Chasms split wide, swallowing fire, blood, and stone—only for the entire planet to collapse into itself and scatter into the void as radiant dust. Mountains dissolved into powder. Seas evaporated into streams of white. The atmosphere collapsed inward, then shattered outward into radiant threads.

Zalthor was gone. And along with the rest of the stars and shattered planets were disintegrating as well.

Only the Chronophage remained, its colossal hands locked in position, its dial glowing with unbearable light as if it had swallowed existence whole.

The Time Wraith closed her eyes.

She did not scream, did not fight. For once, there was peace in her face. Her body, too, began to disintegrate—her pale flesh breaking down into radiant white particles, the spines along her skull flaking away into streams of light. She smiled faintly as the wave crawled up her arms, her shoulders, her chest.

Finally, she thought. Finally I can vanish with him... together, erased...along with all the pain.

But then it stopped.

Not the process, not the destruction — everything.

The radiant white particles froze mid-air, suspended like shattered glass caught in a painting. The endless explosion of light halted, its expansion arrested. Zalthor’s fragmented dust hung frozen, drifting but unmoving. The shards of the world lingered as if reluctant to complete their death.

Even time froze.

The Wraith’s eyes snapped open. Confusion creased her brow as she turned, looking around at the unmoving sea of particles. Her own body, half-unraveled, hung between form and dissolution.

“What...?” she whispered, her voice cracking. Her white eyes darted upward at the Chronophage, expecting to see its hands moving forward — but they weren’t. The second hand was frozen. The hour hand was frozen. The entire machine, this divine horror of inevitability, had stopped.

Her heart jolted with dread.

As if compelled by something she could not ignore, she slowly turned.

And froze.

Standing there, radiant beyond comprehension, was a woman.

Her body glowed with pure white radiance, her form so bright it seemed made entirely of light given shape. Her long hair flowed endlessly as though caught in a cosmic tide. Waves of luminous mana rolled off her body in endless streams, each pulse commanding the air, the void, even the Chronophage itself to acknowledge her. Her eyes blazed like twin stars, their radiance piercing deeper than the Wraith’s own.

She was no mortal. She was no echo. She was an immortal, and her presence made it clear that this was not a being bound by the rules of the world.

The corpse of the old Aira was gone. There was no broken body, no fading gown. In its place stood this being of light.

The Time Wraith staggered back a step, eyes wide in disbelief. Her lips parted, her voice trembling with raw shock.

“You... impossible... I made sure I sealed you away.”

Her eyes darted to the dagger embedded in the Chronophage. Her mind raced, horror dawning as the realization burned through her.

“The Gatekeeper’s Key...” she whispered. Her body trembled. “You planned this...”

The radiant Aira regarded her with calm sympathy. Her voice was soft but resonant, as though carried on every particle of light around them.

“I knew you would never stop,” Aira said gently. “That is why I always stood one step behind you. So that, when the time came, I could finally stop you and save him — even if it meant going back, again and again, to put everything in place so that Asher could get here. So now...let me help you see the truth.”

“I DON’T NEED YOUR HELP!” the Time Wraith screeched, rage boiling over her shock. She slammed her hand against the Chronophage’s dial, desperate to force it forward. “CONTINUE! ERASE EVERYTHING! I COMMAND YOU!”

But nothing happened.

The light did not resume. The hands did not move. The erasure remained frozen in place, mocking her fury.

Her breath hitched, panic clawing at her chest.

Aira’s radiant form floated closer. “You must have already felt it. The Chronophage is a divine artifact — it follows a master. But you are not its master. You were only borrowing its power. It allowed you to use it for one reason: to lead you here, to this moment.”

The Wraith’s eyes widened, trembling, fury cutting through the fear. “You... how did you plan all this? You made me go through everything, suffer for millions of years, just to fool me? How dare you...” She gnashed her teeth, her expression darkening into pure venom.

Aira’s radiant eyes softened with sorrow. “I am sorry. But you wouldn’t listen. There was no other way. You had to lose all hope in destroying him, so that this day could come.” She lifted her hand slowly toward the Chronophage. Wisps of radiant white energy coiled outward, linking her glowing body to the machine. “Now, with its power, I can ensure his fate in this timeline can never be tampered with again.”

“No...” the Wraith breathed, horror rising in her chest. “NO!”

Her body convulsed as she poured every shred of power into the Chronophage, trying to force it forward, but the machine resisted her completely. Her hands shook violently, then crumbled further into white particles.

Her eyes went wide with dread as she looked down at her disintegrating arms. The Chronophage was claiming her. Even if she didn’t succeed in using its power, the price still had to be paid.

“No... no, no!” she screamed.

But it was too late.

The Chronophage’s hands began to slowly wind backwards.

Reality obeyed.

The shattered dust of Zalthor trembled, then swirled inward. Fragments of stone, oceans, and skies reformed, rewinding into their rightful places. Entire continents rebuilt themselves from ash. Mountains rose from streams of particles. Skies darkened back into their eternal red, clouds pulling together into thunderheads.

And it didn’t stop there.

The white particles that had once been lives — demons, humans — began to coalesce. Rowena’s crimson eyes reignited as her body knitted back together. Rebecca’s pale hands reformed, her dark aura of frost and blood returning. Isola, Naida, Lyla, Grace, Yui—all of them breathed again, their bodies piecing together as if time itself had chosen to apologize.

The battlefield was reforming, piece by piece.

The Wraith watched it happen with wild eyes, screaming, “STOP IT! Even if you bring him back, you’ll just kill yourself! No matter how strong you are, the Chronophage will take your soul in return and exact its price! What’s the point if he lives but you don’t?!”

Aira’s expression didn’t waver. She smiled softly, almost peacefully. “I have lived long enough trying to save him. Now that I finally can, I would rather disappear than watch him die again. That is the point, and you have forgotten it.”

The Wraith snarled, powerless, her body dissolving further into particles as she clawed at the air.

Then it happened.

The particles near her began to gather, but not around her. They coalesced in front of her, swirling together into flesh, bone, and flame. A body was reforming.

Asher.

His flesh rippled back into existence, veins knitting, muscles twisting, skin sealing. His green fire flickered back into life, blazing brighter than ever. In moments, he stood fully formed, frozen for an instant in the position he had been in before the erasure.

Then he gasped sharply, his lungs filling again. He stumbled forward, eyes wide in shock, confusion spreading across his face as he looked around.

“What... what happened?”

His gaze darted to the Chronophage, then to the battlefield that had reformed around him, then finally to the figure of the Wraith on her knees, her body halfway broken into white dust.

But then he felt it.

A gaze. Warm. Familiar.

He turned—and his heart stopped.

The radiant figure of Aira hovered before the Chronophage, her body glowing brilliantly, her hair a stream of light, her eyes radiant stars. She smiled softly at him, sorrow threaded through her expression.

“Asher,” she said, her voice carrying like the whisper of eternity. “You are no longer damned.”

“A-Aira...” His voice cracked, trembling with disbelief and desperation. His eyes burned. “Aira! AIRA!”

He ran toward her, his flames flickering wildly, his arms reaching.

But even as he moved, he saw her body starting to fade. Her radiant form was unraveling, claimed by the Chronophage’s price. Each step she took toward him shed fragments of her into particles of light.

“No... no, stay with me! Please!”

Aira shook her head softly. Her radiant smile never faltered. She lifted her hand toward him, cupping his face, “I stood behind you across timelines, always watching, always hoping... even when you couldn’t see me. And now... now I can finally stop chasing time.”

Asher fervently shook his head, his voice choking, “You don’t have to stop—stay, please, I need you—I-I didn’t even apologize to you enough for hating you all this time. I never deserved you But I...I want you beside me again. Without you, I can’t...”

Aira shook her head faintly as she gently caressed his cheek, “No, Asher. You don’t need me anymore. You’re free. So promise me... live without chains, without suffering. That will be my eternity.”

Asher reached for her hand desperately, “No, don’t leave me!”

Her luminous form flickered. Her voice was faint, but steady as tears shimmered in her fading radiant eyes, “I was never leaving you, my love. I was always... leading you... here. I’ll still be with you. In every flame you carry, in every breath you fight for and every second you live. You’ll feel me there. Always.”

Her hand touched his cheek one last time — warm, impossibly gentle — before her entire body dissolved into radiant white particles, scattering into the air.

“No!” Asher’s roar shook the battlefield, his flames erupting violently, his knees hitting the ground as he clutched at the air where she had been. “Aira!!”

But she was gone.

Only the drifting radiance remained, fading into the winds of Zalthor’s reborn sky.

Damn :/

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