With a tired sigh, she raised her hand.
The air responded, tightening like a breath held too long. The hum of the monitors around her deepened, their glow sharpening at the edges, vibrating with tension. Light pooled across her fingers, dancing like strings drawn taut between time and intent. Each movement of her hand was precise, quiet, yet the fabric of the moment shivered.
Time buckled.
On the screen, flames retreated.
The inferno that had devoured rooftops now pulled inward, smoke curling unnaturally in reverse. Buildings, moments ago reduced to rubble, reassembled with impossible grace. Stone by stone, timber by timber, until they stood whole again, shadows of the chaos erased.
The dead stirred.
A body, still half-buried in dust, lifted gently from the ground. Wounds knitted shut in reverse. Screams uncried. Weapons unstained. A girl clutching her lifeless mother now stood in her embrace once more, the wall that had crushed them reassembling behind them in silence.
With every flick of her fingers, the battleground unraveled.
The storm of violence faded. Steel unswung, spells uncast, terror unmade. Sound itself reversed: the crunch of marble returned to stillness, the crash of columns drawn back into place. The Titan's sword lifted from the split floor. Kael, bloodless and steady, straightened mid-step.
The world quieted.
All that remained was the silence before everything began.
The screen blinked once, resetting. The chaos was gone.
She stood slowly. The shadows folded around her like familiar cloth, veiling her form. She stepped forward, and then, without sound, she vanished into the dark.
###
The behemoth met his gaze. That mocking grin still in place. His chest rose and fell with the slow rhythm of confidence. A predator measuring his kill.
"At last, King, we speak the only language that matters."
He moved.
The hilt of the colossal blade rose behind him, and with a deliberate motion, he drew it. Metal scraped stone, shrieking through the chamber like a scream held too long. The ceiling cracked slightly as the blade cleared its resting place.
And then...
Stillness.
Kael didn't feel the impact. No rush of air. No clash of steel.
Nothing.
His eyes widened. Breath caught in his throat. Every sound that had once filled the world—the grind of the Titan's armor, the soft shimmer of magic.
Everything ceased.
Outside, the silence spread like fire in the grasslands.
The streets, alive with tremors only seconds before, now lay still beneath a sky too quiet. A breeze that had carried the dust of destruction now paused, motionless. The ripples in the untouched coffee cup outside the corner café suspended.
The marketplace froze.
Time had stopped.
Back inside the hall, the air held its breath.
Dust hovered in the light like uncertain stars caught in mid-fall. Kael remained motionless, blades raised in a guard that no longer mattered. The steel gleamed faintly, suspended in a moment that refused to move.
His gaze locked on the Titan. The sword that should have ended him now hung mid-swing, the edge a whisper from the stone. The surrounding air warped with the effort of stopping something unstoppable.
The Aurora Paladin's shield remained raised, frozen in its glow. The energy still mid-pulse, as though the spell itself hadn't yet realized time had fled.
Only one thing moved.
Footsteps.
Soft. Measured. Each one echoed far too loud in the silence, ringing from wall to wall as though they had always been there. Kael's chest rose in shallow, uneven breaths. His eyes darted across the still tableau, searching, knowing.
Then a voice.
Quiet as a breeze. Colder than winter rain.
"You've crossed a line," it said.
The words pressed into the room like fog slipping under a door, gentle yet unstoppable. The stone groaned, the ceiling bowed ever so slightly.
"I've witnessed the chaos your recklessness can sow. A kingdom nearly erased by the clash of your insignificant blades."
The air thickened.
"Impressive and utterly unforgivable."
Kael closed his eyes for half a second, half a lifetime.
The voice. He knew it.
His hands trembled.
He had stood before armies, defied monsters that bore no names, survived fires that bent the skies. But her voice unraveled him. Guilt uncoiled beneath his ribs, shame stitching itself beneath the skin.
"I expected more from you."
The words hit harder than any strike the Titan could deliver. Kael stood frozen, not by magic, but by truth.
He tried to steady his grip. The twin blades no longer felt like weapons. They felt like mistakes.
A serpent of self-doubt slithered through his thoughts.
He had been chosen. Not by sword, not by blood, but by something greater. And now, that greatness stared back at him and found him wanting.
This wasn't a battle.
It was a judgment.
And she was the judge.
The Titan, who moments ago towered like a god, now felt distant, irrelevant. Kael could defeat him. But this? This was the reckoning he couldn't prepare for.
He looked up, not to meet her gaze, because she had no need for that. Her eyes were everywhere. Within him. Around him. Beyond him.
His pulse echoed in his ears. His pride fractured beneath her silence.
A smirk curled in the air. Not cruel. Not kind. Infinite.
Behind him, the Aurora Paladin, unflinching a breath ago, trembled. Her knees wobbled. Breath turned ragged, drawn through lungs that suddenly remembered their mortality. Her barrier flickered, its glow faltering before snapping back.
Her body refused to fall. But the strength within it was already breaking.
Then came her voice again.
"Fate is as delicate as morning mist, as unpredictable as a summer storm."
The air around the Paladin thinned. Her magic trembled. Every breath a battle.
"One misstep, and all you cherish scatters like leaves in a gale."
The silence trembled.
"You sense it, don't you?"
Her voice dropped so soft it could have been mistaken for a memory.
"The fragility of your fleeting existence."
The Paladin gasped. Not from fear. But from proximity to something vast, something eternal.
She couldn't speak. Couldn't move. Only her eyes moved, flicking between Kael and the space where the mysterious woman stood unseen.
Time did not move.
Only she did.
And nothing would be the same when it did again.