The glacier tomb's corridor reeked of Raine's own blood—pine resin laced with void-slime stench—as holy cannons blasted through ice. The scent emanated from the silver-masked figure three hundred meters away, whose fractured sword harmonized with the Dragonheart Blade, its cracks mirroring Raine's face.
"Fall back!" Garret's ice-claws gouged frozen earth, shoving Ellen's残躯 backward. "Energy readings off the charts—worse than the embryo!"
Serena's asphalt wings smoldered under holy light. She licked split fangs: "Darling Inquisitor, your cologne's rancid—do I still hate myself this much in fifty years?"
Six mechanical draconic tails tipped with Ellen's starlit scales unfurled beneath the Inquisitor's cloak. He removed his mask—Raine's features distorted by a crown-metal right eye and void-crystal veins.
"Failure specimen #298." The Inquisitor's voice glitched through synthesizers. "Your screams improved 0.73%."
Mechanized dragonkin soldiers swarmed from ice crevices, their inverted scales implanted with Raine's scar-matching chips. Ellen's remnant chip projected a hologram—the Inquisitor's neck scales transmitting quantum execution codes.
"Surprise party?" Serena stabbed Dracula's fang into Raine's palm, mixing black ichor with dragonblood. "Start drafting your epitaph before losing your head..."
When blades collided, time played its joke. No sparks—only memory shards exchanged. Raine saw his future self implanting Ellen's spine chip into the Inquisitor's neck; the Inquisitor saw present Raine vomiting black crystals before ice coffins.
"Each kill stacks their timelines onto you." The Inquisitor kicked Garret with Raine's signature move. "Like this mutt's 137th beastly demise—begging me to end him."
Ellen's metal fingers jammed into her temples, scales forming a self-destruct countdown. "Code...forced injection...Raine...destroy me..."
Serena's wings detonated, asphalt blood crystallizing into inverted crosses. She lunged like a lover's embrace, fangs locking mechanical tail joints: "Hatchling! Strike his nape scales—now!"
As the Blade pierced armor, Raine felt double agony. Future memories flooded—every cycle saw him remaking Ellen into a killer, every ending saw Serena restarting time with black blood. The Inquisitor's shattered neck scales revealed Elaina placing baby Raine into void-slime pods.
"Vessel reclamation 98% complete." Mechanical tails dragged Raine toward an abyssal rift. "Enjoy final 2% free will...Father."
The void roared beneath glaciers. Ellen's countdown synced with soldier chips. Before her wings disintegrated, Serena hurled Dracula's fang necklace into the rift: "Tell next-cycle me...don't save this ungrateful brat..."
Submerged Currents
Garret's ice-claws oozing slime showed visions of becoming the Inquisitor's lieutenant. His ice reflection revealed mechanical wolf tails impaling Ellen's heart—prompting him to stab his own inverted scale—