The world around Lys fractured. Time itself, once an unyielding current that flowed like an endless river, now seemed like a million jagged pieces, scattering in every direction. The distortion Kheara had wrought had shattered everything—space, reality, even the very essence of the world Lys once knew.
Lys could barely keep track of what was happening, and the steady beat of his heart was drowned by the maddening pull of time—stretching, bending, and snapping at impossible angles. It was as if he was caught in a whirlwind, his body being dragged backward, pulled forward, and then torn apart by the force of Kheara's will.
Lys stumbled, his vision spinning, and the air felt like quicksand, holding him in place. The past, the future, and the present collided. For a moment, he wasn't sure where he was anymore. Everything had become a blur, fractured in Kheara's hands.
"You can't escape it," Kheara's voice echoed, a low, menacing whisper that seemed to surround Lys from every direction. "Time isn't a cage for me—it is my domain. It bends to my will. I am everywhere."
The words echoed in Lys's mind as he struggled to maintain control. "Stop this!" he shouted, but even his voice seemed trapped in the dissonance of time. He could feel his mind pulling apart, trying to cling to something, anything that made sense.
Kheara appeared before him, as though time had merely rewound to a moment before. His silver eyes glowed with an icy fire, and his smile was as cold as the void between the stars. "You have always been a fool, Lys," he said, almost in pity. "You fight against the flow of time, but you forget—you are nothing more than a moment. An instant."
Lys pushed forward, summoning every ounce of his strength, but no matter how hard he tried to move, time refused to let him go. The weight of years, decades, centuries, all pressing against him, crushing him, dragging him toward a point where he could barely comprehend where he was—lost in time.
As Lys struggled, the world around him began to shift again. But this time, something was different. A moment—a fragment—ripped free from the distortion. Lys found himself standing on the edge of a familiar landscape—Penthara—but it wasn't the ruined city he had known.
This was before the battle. Before the war. Before everything had fallen apart.
"What is this?" Lys whispered to himself, his mind racing. He felt an overwhelming sense of loss—a memory that had never been his own, yet it tugged at his very soul.
Kheara's voice shattered his thoughts, "Ah, the past. The place where you are most vulnerable."
The image of Seraph, standing in the distance, flickered before Lys's eyes. She was alive again—whole, uncorrupted, her eyes soft and filled with warmth. But something was wrong. He knew that this wasn't truly her, but a shattered fragment of the timeline, a moment that could have been, but never would.
"You were never meant to save her," Kheara murmured, appearing beside him, his hand hovering above the illusion of Seraph. "She was always destined to fall. You couldn't save her. Just as you won't be able to save the world. You can't escape time, Lys."
The world wavered again, and this time Lys felt the crushing weight of truth press upon him. He wasn't merely fighting against an enemy. He was fighting against the inevitable—the endless march of time that could not be stopped, could not be changed.
But Lys refused to believe it. He wasn't some powerless pawn in Kheara's game.
Lys's eyes snapped open, his hands clenched into fists, each finger crushing time itself under the force of his power. "I will break this!" he snarled, his voice filled with defiance.
His gravity manipulation surged like a violent storm, pushing back against Kheara's control. The ground beneath him buckled, the space around him contorted, and for the first time, he felt the weight of Kheara's manipulation begin to falter.
"Impossible," Kheara said, stepping back in surprise. "You… you cannot possibly—"
But Lys didn't care about what was impossible. The gravity around him intensified, and the world around him began to shudder. He pulled time itself toward him, ripping apart the illusion Kheara had created.
The shattered timeline crumbled, and Lys, with all the force of his will, pushed back against Kheara's power, breaking free from the time distortion.
For a brief moment, everything stopped.
Lys stood in the center of the battlefield, surrounded by an empty void, the fabric of reality still flickering like a malfunctioning hologram. The air was still, and time hung suspended. Kheara, standing at the edge of the void, looked at Lys with an expression of disbelief.
"How?" Kheara asked, his voice almost incredulous. "You are nothing more than a fleeting moment. An anomaly in the grand design. You cannot win."
Lys's chest heaved with exertion, but his gaze was unwavering. "I've learned something, Kheara," he said. "Time doesn't control me. It's just another force, like gravity. And every force can be bent to my will."
With a surge of power, Lys raised both hands, the gravity field around him expanding like a supernova, pushing outward. The force of the gravity ripped through the void, and time itself began to fracture. Every moment that had been rewound, every illusion Kheara had created, shattered.
Kheara's expression shifted from disbelief to fury. "You think you can defy me? I am beyond your petty force."
But Lys wasn't listening anymore. The gravity around him intensified, pulling at the very threads of Kheara's existence. The fabric of time, stretched so thin by Kheara's influence, began to unravel under the strain.
"I am not some fleeting moment," Lys said, his voice strong. "I am the force that bends time."
With that, the ground beneath them shattered, reality itself tearing open. Time fractured completely, breaking into chaotic streams.