The sky above the frozen canyon shimmered unnaturally—no stars, no moon, just a slow swirl of crimson and void.
Kade, Lira, and Aurelle stood over the bloodstained ground, eyes locked on the strange sigil carved into the bark.
Then came the sound.
A hum.
Not mechanical. Not magical.
It was like a choir trying to sing, but failing—each note off, out of sync, like it was being sung by something with too many mouths.
Lira gripped her blades tighter. "They're here."
From the treeline stepped a figure, cloaked in tattered ecclesiastical robes, stitched from veils and flesh. Its face was hidden behind a mask made of interlocking timepieces, and a slow ticking echoed from within its chest.
"Kade Ashveil," the figure rasped, "Herald of Collapse. Blade of the Hollow Age. You were never meant to wake."
Kade instinctively stepped forward. "And you are?"
It bowed mockingly. "The 3rd Cantor of the Severed Choir. You may call me… Ruin."
The air thickened. Ice cracked beneath their feet. Trees withered.
Aurelle swore under her breath. "Time-singer. It's projecting temporal dissonance. Our magic won't sync."
Lira launched forward anyway, blades flashing.
The Cantor's body twisted unnaturally, dodging mid-air—as if time itself rewound him—and he reappeared behind her, palm outstretched.
> "Be unmade."
A sonic pulse struck Lira, and she flew across the field, smashing into a tree and crumpling.
Kade's rage surged. Ashveil responded.
The runes on his gauntlet lit up like wildfire, spiraling across his arm. He stepped forward—and activated the Mark of Severance.
Reality warped.
The Cantor blinked—just once—and Kade reappeared mid-air, above him.
Blade drawn.
> "Sever possibility."
Ashveil's edge sang as it cleaved downward.
The Cantor screamed as his mask cracked, splitting down the middle.
But not entirely.
The blade struck only half—splitting a future that hadn't yet happened.
The Cantor reeled. Black ichor oozed from the wound, evaporating on contact with air.
"You—" it hissed. "You're not bound to a single thread."
"I'm not," Kade growled. "But I will tie your end."
He struck again.
The Cantor vanished.
Reappeared behind Aurelle.
She raised her spear just in time.
> CLANG!
They clashed in a storm of fragmented time—a fight where seconds twisted and echoed. One moment became many.
Kade lunged.
This time, Ashveil sang.
The gauntlet erupted with runes, forming a long, black blade forged from warped timelines.
He called it Oblivion Edge.
And he brought it down.
> CRACK!
The Cantor shrieked as its torso was split cleanly—past, present, and future.
Time snapped around the wound, trying to stitch it back. But Ashveil refused.
"You are not a thread," the Cantor gasped. "You are a tear."
And then—
It exploded.
Not with fire, not with light—but with silence.
A blastwave of emptiness wiped the snow clean, leveled trees, and cracked the canyon walls.
---
Silence followed.
Kade lay panting, blood trickling from his nose.
Lira groaned, sitting up. "Ugh. Did we win?"
Aurelle nodded grimly. "Barely."
Kade looked at his blade. It pulsed once… then returned to its gauntlet form.
"Ashveil's evolving," he muttered. "I'm not just remembering it. It's remembering me."
Aurelle looked grim. "Kade… that thing wasn't the strongest."
He looked at her. "There are more?"
"Seven Cantors. Each tied to a song. And the Seventh… is said to be Reality's Final Verse."
---
Far away, across a fractured sea of memory…
The masked woman stood before a wall of suspended timelines.
Each one showed a different Kade.
One where he was a tyrant.
One where he was a martyr.
One where he never existed.
She turned to a massive door, bound in chains of light.
"Open it," said the crystalline voice behind her.
"But he's not ready," she said.
> "He will be. The next anchor lies within."
She touched the door.
Inside—a sleeping girl, with hair of fire and a mark across her chest in the shape of an open eye.
"She's from the first loop," the woman whispered.
> "Then let her awaken. Let the next arc begin."
---
End of Chapter 20