The desert shook, not from wind or sandstorms—but from time itself collapsing.
The Weaver's threads lashed outward in hundreds, each glowing like strands of broken glass. Wherever they touched, the world dissolved. A dune froze in mid-collapse, then shattered into infinite grains that never hit the ground. A stone outcrop aged into dust and reformed into rock, repeating endlessly.
The survivors were next.
---
Mira's spear flickered. One moment she held the weapon firm, bronze gleaming under the warped starlight. The next, she clutched nothing but wood splinters, as if she had already fought and died a hundred battles. The timer on her wrist spasmed, numbers bleeding into symbols she couldn't read.
"No… no no no—!" She clutched her arm, screaming as phantom deaths tore across her mind. In one vision, the Weaver's thread slit her throat. In another, she drowned in quicksand that never existed. In another, Aelric himself turned and drove his blade through her heart.
Elara's voice cut through the illusions like a lifeline.
"Mira! Focus on my voice—anchor yourself!"
Mira's eyes snapped wide. The false deaths flickered, weakening. Her digits steadied—just barely—though they still glowed in fractured light.
---
Kael wasn't faring as well. His body jerked, strings of the Weaver wrapping around his limbs like marionette wires. His timer spasmed between [0:00:00] and [∞], every swing of the Weaver's threads rewriting his fate.
"Don't—let it—" he gasped, his own voice splitting into echoes. "It's—writing me—out—"
Lysa darted forward, daggers slashing at the threads binding him. For every strand she cut, two more coiled around. Blood ran down her arms where the threads grazed her, not from wounds but from erased possibilities that screamed against her flesh.
She hissed through gritted teeth. "Damn it… Kael, hold on!"
But Kael's eyes were glassy. In the fragments of his timer, he was already dead in a thousand ways.
---
And in the center of it all, Aelric laughed.
The sound was jagged, broken, but it carried strength the others clung to. His corrupted arm blazed with tendrils of black fire, his sword sparking as if it cut through timelines themselves.
Every thread the Weaver cast toward him, he cleaved apart. Each cut cracked reality, rippling outward like glass breaking in water. The Weaver reeled, stitched body contorting, hollow chest pulsing faster and faster.
Tick. Tick. Tick.
Its voice echoed through every survivor's bones.
"Fracture. You are not a man. You are the gap between moments. You are entropy."
Aelric grinned through the blood dripping from his mouth. "Funny. I was gonna say the same about you."
He lunged.
---
The Weaver's chest split open, revealing a spiral of broken timers. The digits weren't numbers anymore—they were faces.
Aelric froze for half a heartbeat. He saw Elara's face inside the spiral—burning, drowning, hollow-eyed. He saw Mira's, contorted in terror. Kael's, empty. Even Lysa's, cold and still.
And his own.
A thousand versions of himself, all dead, all undone.
The Weaver's threads lashed into his mind, whispering:
"You have never existed. Every path leads to your erasure."
Aelric staggered, sword trembling in his grip. His corrupted arm screamed with whispers, urging him to surrender, to let the Weaver consume him.
For a heartbeat, it almost worked. His digits flickered blank.
But then Elara's voice cut through again.
"You're real, Aelric! You're here, with us! Don't let it take that away!"
---
Something in him snapped.
The grin returned, wider, bloodier. His laugh rang out louder than the Weaver's ticking.
"You really think I care what's real?" he snarled. "I've never been real. Not once in my miserable life. But I'll tell you what I am—"
He raised his corrupted arm, black fire roaring to life, burning brighter than ever before.
"I'm the bastard who refuses to vanish!"
He swung.
---
The sword cleaved into the Weaver's chest.
The stitched body convulsed as timelines cracked open, spilling light and shadow across the desert. The fractured timers inside screamed, shattering like glass. Threads snapped and recoiled, slicing the air in every direction.
One slashed across Mira's arm, leaving her timer glitching violently. She screamed, but Elara grabbed her, pouring her own energy into stabilizing it.
Another lashed toward Kael's throat—only for Lysa to intercept it, dagger clashing against the impossible thread. She shrieked in pain, but held it back long enough for Aelric's strike to land.
The Weaver staggered, howling in broken clocks.
For the first time, it looked wounded.
---
But it wasn't finished.
The hollow chest caved inward, then exploded outward, threads pouring into the desert like rivers of fractured light. The dunes dissolved entirely, leaving the survivors standing on an endless void stitched only by collapsing time.
Their timers flickered violently, every digit screaming, rewriting, fracturing.
Elara's glow dimmed, sweat pouring down her face. "It's—trying to erase the world around us!"
Mira dropped to her knees, clutching her ears. "Make it stop! Please—make it stop!"
Kael's body shook violently, strings still latched into his flesh. "If it finishes—none of this—none of us—ever happened!"
Lysa spat blood, glaring at the Weaver even as her knees gave out. "Then we don't let it finish."
---
Aelric stood in the center, sword raised, corrupted arm blazing like a dying star. His grin was thin, but it never faltered.
"Listen up," he rasped, voice hoarse but strong. "You all hold it down—just for a moment. I'll handle the rest."
Elara's eyes widened. "Aelric—what are you planning?"
He didn't answer.
Because in truth, he didn't know.
But he knew one thing: if the Weaver succeeded, they would all unravel. And if he fell, then at least he'd take the monster with him.
The grin widened.
"Time to break the loom."
---
He charged.
The Weaver roared, every thread lashing toward him. The survivors threw themselves forward, intercepting as many as they could. Elara's light burned her alive as she cut threads with her bare hands. Mira drove her spear through her own illusions, forcing herself into clarity. Lysa darted like a shadow, intercepting death itself. Kael, half-broken, still pulled at the strands binding him, dragging them tighter around himself so they couldn't strike the others.
And Aelric—Aelric tore through it all, sword blazing, corrupted arm erupting in dark fire. His body cracked with every step, like he was tearing himself apart just to move.
The Weaver loomed above, threads converging, hollow chest pulsing with the weight of eternity.
Aelric leapt.
And as his sword came down, he roared with everything he had left—
"I decide when the clock stops!"
---
To be continued…