The beast stepped into Ulaz like it belonged.

  No roar. No charge.

  Just deliberate movement—like it was walking into a memory it didn’t want to relive.

  Its breath fogged in the dawn air. Its eyes, too many and too dark, locked straight on the child standing alone in the open road.

  And then, it lunged.

  The ground shattered under its claws.

  Dirt and stone exploded in its wake, and the trees behind it bent away as if trying not to witness what came next.

  But Samuel didn’t run.

  He didn’t scream.

  He didn’t even blink.

  > [Codex: Emergency Battle Response – Initiated]

  [Shadow Core Override – Partial Unlocked]

  Velara Tether: ACTIVE

  Manual Stabilization Engaged

  Samuel raised one hand.

  His tiny body trembled—but not from fear.

  From pressure.

  Shadow coiled behind him like a living serpent—writhing, stretching into the air, taking a shape that made the villagers watching drop their weapons in stunned silence.

  It looked like wings.

  But they were wrong.

  Too sharp. Too fluid. Too real.

  Velara’s voice came smooth as breath in his mind.

  “Don’t try to control it. Just feel me.”

  “We’ll move together.”

  The beast struck.

  Samuel sidestepped.

  Barely.

  Too slow. Too early.

  But the shadow moved with him, dragging him out of reach at the last second.

  Like someone else had grabbed him from inside his own body.

  The beast didn’t miss again.

  It turned mid-leap and came down with a full-body crush, claws glowing faintly with curse-blooded mana.

  Samuel’s legs locked.

  His arms raised.

  Too slow.

  But Velara pulled.

  Shadow poured from his spine and slammed into the earth, forming a wall—

  The beast hit it head-on.

  The shockwave cracked windows down the street.

  Dorian

  “Gods,” Dorian whispered, his grip tightening on his sword.

  “That’s not defense magic.”

  Eliara stepped beside him, pale.

  “No,” she said. “That’s—”

  She didn’t finish.

  Because Samuel was floating now. Just a few inches off the ground. The shadows beneath him rippling like black water.

  And the air around him?

  It hummed.

  Samuel

  He didn’t understand what he was doing.

  Not really.

  He could feel his blood trying to cool too fast. His chest heaving. His bones not built to hold this weight.

  But Velara was there.

  A second rhythm to his thoughts.

  She didn’t shout. Didn’t command.

  She simply moved through him—like a dancer who knew the steps by heart and only needed him to trust her feet.

  The beast snarled and leapt again.

  Samuel didn’t block.

  He didn’t cast a spell.

  He just breathed.

  And the shadow answered.

  It rippled up like a tide and snared the beast mid-air, threads of darkness coiling around its limbs, dragging it down into the dirt.

  > [Skill: Shadow Suture – Evolved Form Triggered]

  Name: Gravetwine

  Effect: Binds targets with echoes of their own timeline residue. Duration: Short. Pain: Absolute.

  The beast screamed.

  Not in pain.

  In recognition.

  Eliara

  “He’s binding it with something it remembers,” she said, breath catching.

  Dorian turned. “How would he even know how to do that?”

  This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

  She didn’t answer.

  She couldn’t.

  Because she was still watching the shadow flickering across her son’s face.

  And for one moment—

  He looked like someone else.

  Someone older.

  Someone gone.

  > [Warning: Shadow Core Instability Rising]

  [System Note: Physical vessel nearing threshold.]

  Velara Sync Holding: 91% — DO NOT LET GO.

  Samuel opened his eyes.

  The beast was snarling, one leg still tangled in his magic.

  He stepped forward.

  One foot. Then another.

  Velara’s voice steadied him.

  “Don’t break yet. You’re not done.”

  Pain hit second.

  The first thing Samuel felt was wrongness—like something had cracked inside his chest without making a sound.

  His foot slipped as he tried to take another step. His breath staggered. The shadow binding the beast rippled, then fractured.

  > [Gravetwine Duration Ending]

  [Mana: 7/61]

  [Stamina: 4/100]

  [Warning: Physical Vessel Fatigue Level Critical]

  “Samuel—stop.”

  Velara’s voice was low, tense.

  “You’re burning out.”

  He didn’t listen.

  Not because he wanted to be reckless.

  Because the beast wasn’t slowing down.

  It was fighting through the binding. Claws dragging through the ground. Snarling through a mouth that didn’t need air. Its blood leaked like ink—but even now, it moved faster than it should.

  It wasn’t dying. It was learning.

  And it was watching him.

  Studying.

  Samuel pushed mana through his limbs. It felt like threading lightning through soaked cloth. His body wasn’t ready. But the fear—that same fear from his old life—rose like bile in his throat.

  If he stopped now, something would break.

  Not him.

  Them.

  His parents.

  This village.

  This fragile second chance.

  He raised both hands and screamed without sound.

  Shadow poured.

  Unrefined. Wild. Beautiful and ugly at once.

  It surged across the field like black fire, cracking the earth, snapping into spikes and spears—but it didn’t aim. It didn’t think.

  It lashed out like a wounded animal.

  And the beast charged through it.

  > [Velara Sync: Dropping – 77%]

  [Codex Stability: Unstable. Passive Auto-Shutdown Imminent.]

  “Samuel, let go. I’ll pull us out.”

  But he didn’t.

  Because part of him—the buried part—wanted to win.

  Not just survive.

  To prove he wasn’t weak anymore. That he wasn’t just some scared man behind a desk waiting to die without mattering.

  He clenched his fists and roared.

  The shadows answered.

  But his body—too small, too new, too fragile—gave way.

  His knees buckled.

  His vision blurred.

  Blood dripped from his nose, then his mouth.

  And the beast was right there.

  Its jaws opened—wide, impossible, full of things that didn’t belong in this world.

  Dorian (Watching)

  The moment Samuel collapsed, Dorian moved.

  He didn’t think.

  Didn’t plan.

  He just ran.

  The way you do when something you love is about to vanish.

  Samuel (Again)

  Time slowed.

  The air blurred.

  His shadow peeled off the ground, rising without his command.

  And Velara screamed—not out of pain.

  Out of choice.

  > [VELARA – FULL MANUAL OVERRIDE: ENGAGED]

  [Relic Core Burn Warning – Chance of Permanent Fragmentation]

  “Not this loop.”

  Shadow wrapped around Samuel like a second skin.

  A cloak. A wall. A shield.

  The beast’s jaws closed—and hit something it couldn’t see.

  Not stone. Not magic.

  Something older.

  The Fang pulsed once, cracked slightly… and held.

  But Samuel didn’t see it.

  He was already unconscious.

  Falling backward into a shadow that caught him like a cradle.

  The beast reeled back, snarling.

  Dorian slid between them, sword drawn, breath ragged—but the fight had shifted.

  Not toward victory.

  Just pause.

  Because now, everyone had seen it.

  The boy.

  The shadow.

  The relic.

  And the cost.

  Let’s do it.

  “The Hourglass Bleeds.”

  There was no light.

  No breath. No pain.

  Samuel floated in a sky made of cracked glass—each pane showing a different life, a different version of him.

  One where he ran.

  One where he failed.

  One where he didn’t make it to the girl in time.

  One where he did—but still died screaming.

  They didn’t move. But they were alive.

  Each one whispered.

  “That wasn’t enough.”

  He tried to speak.

  Nothing came.

  His body was somewhere far behind him—curled in shadow, maybe dying, maybe not.

  The Codex didn’t answer.

  Velara was silent.

  But something else was here.

  A sound.

  Soft.

  Like tears falling on marble.

  Like wind curling through the spine of a book no one should have opened.

  Then—a voice.

  Feminine. Distant. Broken in the way old music is broken.

  “You were not meant to carry me.”

  Samuel turned—or thought he did.

  In this place, movement was intention, not muscle.

  Before him stood a woman.

  Or the echo of one.

  She wore a gown of dusk and thread, her face veiled in cracked silver glass. An hourglass hung where her heart should be, shattered, with black sand frozen mid-fall.

  Time did not touch her.

  Because time had abandoned her.

  “You woke the Codex.”

  Her voice was a lullaby made from regret.

  “But it was mine before it was yours.”

  Samuel swallowed. The air hurt, even in a dream.

  What are you?

  She tilted her head, and cracks spiderwebbed across her veil.

  “The Lady of Fractured Time.”

  “Solenne, they once called me.”

  “Now I am only a cautionary tale told by empty calendars.”

  Samuel’s breath hitched.

  He didn’t remember hearing that name.

  But it felt like it had always been in his bones.

  Like it had waited until now to unfold.

  “Your loops were not born of mercy,” she said.

  “They were pieces of me—hurled into you the moment you died for someone else.”

  Her hands rose—slender, wrapped in thread. She didn’t touch him.

  But he felt it.

  Like a hand brushing against the part of him he hadn’t grown into yet.

  “You are not chosen.”

  “You are stolen.”

  > [Codex Fragment Recognition – Level ???]

  [Entity Identified: Eclipsed Court Member — Solenne]

  [Warning: Soul destabilization threshold approaching. Exit dream sequence soon.]

  “Why me?” he finally asked. His voice sounded small.

  Solenne tilted her head again.

  “Because you broke beautifully.”

  The hourglass in her chest cracked once more.

  “Because you died with your heart open.”

  Suddenly, the sky fractured around him.

  The memories screamed again.

  Samuel dropped to his knees—if they existed here.

  He felt the pain of every version of himself collapsing.

  The loops pulling. Demanding. Breaking.

  And through it all, Solenne’s voice whispered—

  “If you want to survive…”

  “Don’t try to be whole.”

  “Be aware.”

  A final pulse.

  Velara’s voice slammed into the void like thunder.

  “SAMUEL—WAKE—”

  Light.

  Breath.

  Pain.

  He gasped back into his body.

  And the first thing he felt—

  Was tears.

  But he didn’t know if they were his.

  “The Shadows Refuse to Die.”

  The beast didn’t flee.

  Even wounded.

  Even tangled in cursed thread and half-formed bindings.

  It adapted.

  That was the problem.

  It was made of loops, too.

  Just a different kind. Corrupted. Evolved. Hungry.

  It reared back, black ichor dripping from its forelimbs, and screamed into the air.

  Not a roar.

  A sound that broke glass.

  Three windows across Ulaz cracked at once. One villager collapsed holding his ears.

  Even the birds fled the trees—those that hadn’t already fallen dead from the pressure.

  Dorian staggered in front of Samuel’s fallen body.

  His sword trembled in his grip.

  He’d seen monsters before.

  But nothing like this.

  This thing didn’t attack for blood. Or hunger. Or territory.

  It attacked like it had been wronged.

  Like Samuel’s very existence was an insult it had waited lifetimes to answer.

  “We end this now,” Dorian muttered.

  “You’ll die.”

  Eliara’s voice. Firm. Quiet. Shaking.

  “If you go alone, you’ll die.”

  He looked at her.

  Looked at their son.

  Then nodded.

  “Then we go together.”

  The beast lunged again.

  But the shadows moved first.

  > [Residual Echo Detected]

  [Unconscious Defense Protocol – Instinctual Anchor Response Engaged]

  The black mass near Samuel’s body quivered.

  Then rose.

  Like a cloak.

  Like a beast shaped from his own silhouette.

  It didn’t think.

  It didn’t speak.

  It just blocked.

  The moment the creature came within reach of the boy—it struck the phantom instead.

  And the impact lit up the night.

  Velara's voice hummed through the Codex.

  “Even in sleep, the will remains.”

  The beast skidded back, claws ripping the earth.

  Snarled.

  Then dove again—this time past the shadow, toward Dorian and Eliara.

  It wasn’t just here to end the loop.

  Now it wanted the anchors too.

  Break the soul?

  Break its tethers first.

  Dorian charged, blade low.

  Eliara raised both hands—air rippling around her like wind caught in strings.

  > [Magic Type: Pressure-Weaving – Rank A (Dormant)]

  [Combat State Reactivated]

  The moment the beast closed in, it met the force of two former SS-Ranks side-by-side.

  And still—it didn’t stop.

  They fought like people with everything to lose.

  Because they did.

  Not for Ulaz.

  Not for glory.

  But for the boy who might not wake up in time.

  And the beast?

  It fought like something that had already died and refused to accept it.

  For every wound they landed, it adapted.

  For every spell she cast, it twitched a little smarter.

  For every slash he made, it countered harder.

  It wasn’t just learning Samuel.

  It was learning them.

  Blood hit the dirt.

  Dorian dropped to a knee.

  Eliara screamed and flung the beast back with a shockwave that cracked the nearest oak tree in half.

  > [System Alert: Proximity Threshold Breached]

  [Unstable Entities Converging]

  Codex whisper: “This was only the first.”