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Chapter Seventeen: When Time Stops
The Mask…
That cold, iron mask rolled away from the severed head, as if fleeing a truth the world couldn't face.
Ethan's eyes widened, shock frozen in his features.
As for Iris… she fell to her knees, her body trembling, blood staining her clothes, her voice rising to the heavens, shattering the silence:
> "Mother!!"
Her scream pierced every heart that still possessed a shred of feeling, but it was met with a cold, arrogant smile… the smile of the King of Time.
Iris burst into tears, a ceaseless torrent, while Ethan descended from the sky, his head bowed, his steps slow as if he carried the weight of the world on his shoulders.
He approached the fallen head, his grip trembling… then he clenched it so tightly that blood trickled between his fingers, and red sparks flew around him like flashes of broken lightning.
Then… with a single blow.
Just one.
The entire branch of the organization crumbled, everything within it shattered like a house of cards before a hurricane, the earth trembling beneath the reverberating force.
Walls fell, chains snapped, and prisoners were freed from their cells, screaming in astonishment and terror.
Ethan approached his sister, took her in his hands, then gently closed her eyes and rendered her unconscious, as if she were a child in his arms. He handed her to the shelter commander in a heavy, uncompromising voice:
"Protect her… even if the universe burns."
Then he tore off the bottom of his cloak and threw it to his companions in the shelter as a sign that survival now belonged to them, not him.
He opened a void with his hand, throwing everyone through it one by one, until only he remained… Ethan alone against the entire organization.
…
Here… he was no longer human.
He was nothing but a monster, unleashed from all his chains.
He activated all his powers, and an energy unlike that of the living emanated from his body.
He advanced slowly, looking at no one, hearing no screams, seeing no bodies, simply tearing them all apart as if they were mere shadows before him.
Blood covered the ground, but his eyes didn't blink.
Until…
He stopped before him.
Before the King of Time.
The air froze.
Their gazes met, as if eons had been lived in that moment.
Then a tremendous energy exploded from Ethan's body, an energy like hellfire, now free from its chains.
He charged madly, attacking with relentless ferocity, each blow like a chapter of the apocalypse.
But the King of Time?
He didn't move.
He was content with a single barrier, an invisible one that deflected every blow, as if Ethan's strength were nothing more than a child's play before him.
He calmly raised a finger, then gestured.
And in an instant… Ethan flew like a speck of dust, crashing into the mountain behind him.
But Ethan didn't break.
He let out a scream that shook the heavens, unleashing all his power and crafting the most powerful attack he had ever known.
Red shadows and the void itself gathered around him, merging into one, transforming into a demonic arrow that pierced through space itself.
Then—
The Time King's barrier shattered!
But the world itself stopped.
Time froze completely.
The Time King raised his hand and launched an even greater attack, a hammer-like assault that shattered universes, aimed directly at Ethan.
Ethan… stood tall.
Though he knew he had no power to stop it, he didn't back down.
He opened his arms, as if to face death standing.
But suddenly… the old man appeared.
Beside him was another figure, mysterious and imposing, whom Ethan had never seen before.
This stranger reached out and touched Ethan's forehead with his fingers.
And in that moment… the monster awoke. Ethan screamed, his voice now a demonic roar. His eyes burned, and a power he'd never known enveloped his body. He looked like a demon just emerging from the abyss, like Calvus once did in the Time of Ruin.
The unity of red shadows and emptiness was complete within him; he became the embodiment of chaos understood only by its creator.
He charged at the King of Time, destruction swirling around him.
But the King of Time… smiled.
The smile of one who knows the game is over.
"You're finished."
He raised his hand, and with a single blow… a power beyond human comprehension, a power that instantly felled Ethan, like a dry leaf in the face of an eternal hurricane.
— End of Chapter