They walked through the corridor in absolute silence.
No one trusted the calm anymore.
Not after everything the sanctuary had already shown them.
Every step echoed against the ancient stone like the ticking of a colossal invisible clock buried somewhere beneath the structure itself. The air felt unnaturally cold, yet heavy at the same time—thick with pressure, thick with anticipation.
Dark walked at the front of the group.
His expression remained calm.
Too calm.
Since escaping the False Corridor, something inside him had changed. The others noticed it even if they didn't say anything aloud. His eyes no longer carried panic when death approached. No hesitation. No fear.
Only observation.
Like someone who had drowned in horror so many times that terror itself had finally lost meaning.
Still…
Even he was waiting for something.
An ambush.
A creature.
A trap.
A massacre.
But nothing came.
Not immediately.
And somehow…
That was worse.
Eventually, the corridor ended.
A blinding white light swallowed the entrance ahead.
The group instinctively stopped.
Kimberly narrowed her eyes. Minho placed a hand near the handle of his blade. Miriam silently generated a thin spike beneath her sleeve.
Dark looked back at them.
Then gave a small smile.
"We keep moving."
And stepped into the light first.
The moment he crossed the threshold—
His pupils contracted violently.
The chamber was enormous.
Far larger than the Mirror Hall.
Far larger than anything inside the sanctuary so far.
The walls were painted in a faded white that resembled ancient bone more than stone, covered from floor to ceiling in gigantic mechanical gears that endlessly rotated within the structure itself. Some were the size of buildings. Others smaller than a hand.
Tick.
Tick.
Tick.
The entire chamber breathed with rhythm.
At the far left side of the room—
Something colossal stood motionless in the darkness.
The Pendulum.
Over six meters tall.
Made entirely of crystal.
Inside it floated a thick black-and-gold liquid that moved slowly, almost imperceptibly, like an ocean at dawn before the first storm.
The pendulum swung once.
Only once.
THOOM.
The sound resembled a heartbeat.
Silver threads of energy burst outward from its core—thousands of them—glowing like constellations trapped inside transparent veins. The threads stretched infinitely into the darkness above the chamber until their light disappeared entirely.
Dark stared at them.
And for a brief moment—
He felt something inside his chest tighten.
Not fear.
Recognition.
Miriam slowly raised her hand.
A massive spike of condensed energy formed beside her instantly, humming with destructive force.
But before she could launch it—
Adermat grabbed her wrist.
Firmly.
She looked toward him.
The professor slowly shook his head.
Don't.
Miriam clicked her tongue but lowered her hand.
And then—
Movement emerged from the darkness.
Five figures.
Slowly walking toward them.
Their robes were scarlet red, woven from fine silk threaded with golden seams that shimmered beneath the chamber's pale light. Floating hourglasses rotated above their hands, suspended in the air without support.
Sand fell upward inside them.
Not downward.
Upward.
Their faces remained hidden beneath deep hoods.
Only darkness existed where their features should have been.
But their movements…
Their movements were synchronized with the ticking.
Tick.
Step.
Tick.
Step.
Tick.
Step.
Like puppets controlled by time itself.
The one furthest to the left raised his hand.
A guttural voice emerged from beneath the hood.
"You are not welcome within the sanctuary of the Great Matusalem… God of Time."
The sound echoed unnaturally through the chamber, vibrating inside their bones rather than their ears.
Dark opened his mouth to respond—
But the priest raised his hand again.
The five hourglasses rose into the air simultaneously.
And then—
They began chanting.
Their voices layered together like distorted machinery grinding inside a cathedral.
"Matusalēm waldufnjana uzē… Gaskaftana mēla… Skalkinassus hūda… Saihwala raþjō… Atgaggana jah frawaurkjana waldufni þata aiw…"
The chamber trembled.
The gears inside the walls accelerated.
Dark immediately turned toward Minho.
"You understand Luminari. Translate."
Minho frowned deeply.
"It sounds similar… but altered. Older maybe. Or corrupted. I can't fully understand it."
The priests lowered their hourglasses.
Then spoke again.
This time in a language everyone understood.
"For the honor of our lord Matusalem."
The others responded in unison.
"So it shall be."
And then—
The chamber exploded into motion.
The floor shook violently.
Fifteen portals tore open across the chamber walls.
Black cracks split reality itself as grotesque creatures began emerging from inside.
Thirty of them.
Each around two meters tall and nearly four meters long.
Their bodies resembled prehistoric reptiles, yet their flesh looked dried and stretched like ancient parchment wrapped around bone. Their eyes were rotating gears embedded directly into their skulls.
Black liquid mixed with glowing blue particles drooled endlessly from their mouths.
Their teeth—
No.
Not teeth.
Clock hands.
Thousands of sharp metallic needles rotating between their jaws.
The creatures roared.
The sound was unbearable.
Like rusted metal screaming.
Dark's skin crawled instinctively.
But he remained composed.
Barely.
Ten creatures charged immediately.
Miriam smiled.
Finally.
Something she could crush.
Massive spikes erupted from the floor beneath the monsters, impaling them violently through their torsos. Black fluid exploded across the chamber floor as the creatures screeched in agony.
But then—
The wounds began healing instantly.
The spikes were slowly pushed out of their flesh.
Miriam's smile widened.
"So that's how it works."
The floor beneath the creatures exploded upward.
A gigantic cage of spikes enclosed them from every direction.
Then—
CRUNCH.
The spikes slammed inward simultaneously.
The sound resembled bones being fed into industrial machinery.
The creatures were flattened instantly.
Black gore sprayed between the bars in thick streams.
Pieces of flesh slid slowly down the metal spikes.
Silence followed.
For exactly one second.
Then the priests raised their hands toward Miriam.
Kimberly reacted immediately.
Flames erupted from both her palms.
Several fire blades shot across the chamber and sliced diagonally through two priests, cutting through ribs and torsos alike.
The bodies collapsed.
Split open.
Burning.
Then—
Clocks made of pure energy appeared beneath their corpses.
And began rotating backward.
The wounds reversed.
The blood returned.
The flesh reconnected.
The priests stood again.
Alive.
Kimberly's smile vanished.
"…What?"
The priests raised their hands again.
A gigantic spectral clock materialized above Kimberly.
The hands spun backward violently.
And suddenly—
Kimberly shrank.
Her body rapidly regressed.
Her clothes became oversized.
Within seconds—
She was physically eight years old again.
"WHAT THE HELL?!"
Minho rushed forward instinctively.
One priest pointed at him.
Another clock appeared.
This one spun forward.
Fast.
Too fast.
Wrinkles spread across Minho's skin.
His muscles deteriorated.
His hair whitened.
In mere seconds—
He aged over sixty years.
Again.
Dark stared at him in disbelief.
"…Why does this always happen to Minho specifically?"
Even in the middle of cosmic horror, the absurdity almost broke the tension.
Almost.
Airi quickly grabbed her camera.
But the moment she tried pulling it upward—
Time reversed around the device.
The motion undid itself repeatedly.
She physically could not lift it.
Adermat stepped forward calmly.
Snapped his fingers.
The temporal distortion shattered instantly.
Kimberly and Minho returned to normal.
The priests immediately retaliated.
Time froze around Adermat.
But the professor smiled faintly.
And froze them in return.
The chamber distorted violently.
Temporal energy exploded everywhere as both sides began attacking each other through manipulated timelines.
One second the priests became elderly corpses.
The next they reverted into younger versions of themselves.
Adermat's hair briefly turned black again before aging white once more.
Reality itself bent around them.
Until—
One of the creatures lunged forward.
Its jaws sank into Adermat's shoulder.
Blood exploded across his coat.
Miriam instantly impaled the beast through the skull with a massive spike, tearing its body apart.
Xia Jing entered the battle immediately after.
Wind blades screamed through the chamber, slicing into the creatures' abdomens—their weak points.
Kimberly followed with fire.
Airi's lasers pierced their heads.
Bodies exploded apart.
Black fluid rained everywhere.
The priests stared silently.
Then raised their hourglasses again.
All thirty creatures began convulsing simultaneously.
Their flesh merged together.
Bones twisted.
Skin fused.
Limbs combined into a singular abomination.
A monstrous reptilian horror over fifteen meters tall emerged screaming from the mass of flesh.
The floor cracked beneath its weight.
Airi's lasers barely scratched it.
Kimberly's flames did almost nothing.
Xia's wind only slowed it.
Miriam sighed.
Then generated a spike the size of a tree.
And drove it straight through the monster's skull.
The creature exploded.
Chunks of flesh and black blood flooded the chamber like rain.
The priests took a single step backward.
One of them finally spoke.
"That creature has slaughtered Level Three Illuminated."
Miriam laughed.
Coldly.
"Good thing I'm Level Five."
And launched another barrage of spikes.
But—
The priests snapped their fingers.
The spikes froze midair.
Time itself had stopped around them.
Adermat's expression darkened immediately.
"Something's wrong…"
The priests stepped backward together.
Not retreating.
Preparing.
And Dark realized it—
Far too late.
Adermat's expression darkened immediately.
"Something's wrong…"
The priests stepped backward together.
Not retreating.
Preparing.
And Dark realized it—
Far too late.
The pendulum pulsed.
THOOM.
Every silver thread connected to it suddenly brightened.
Then—
The chamber froze.
Not physically.
Temporally.
The ticking stopped.
The gears stopped.
Even the blood dripping from the shattered corpse of the giant creature halted in midair like suspended crimson glass.
Dark's eyes widened.
The priests raised their hands in unison.
And reality split open.
Thousands of spectral clock hands materialized around the chamber—thin, silver, impossibly sharp.
For one horrifying second…
No one moved.
Then the massacre began.
The clock hands launched forward.
Faster than bullets.
Faster than thought.
Alya screamed as three temporal needles pierced through her abdomen, exiting through her spine in sprays of blood. The wounds immediately began aging from the inside out. Flesh blackened around the punctures.
Kimberly's shoulder exploded apart as another needle ripped through her collarbone, accelerating the decay of the surrounding tissue. Skin wrinkled. Muscle deteriorated.
Minho barely managed to dodge the first wave—
Until a needle sliced through his thigh.
His leg aged decades instantly.
Veins darkened beneath thinning skin.
He collapsed to one knee with a horrified gasp.
"What the—?!"
Airi raised her camera instinctively.
Too slow.
A temporal spike pierced directly through her right hand.
The flesh around the wound withered instantly.
Her fingers became skeletal for half a second before Adermat shattered the effect with a desperate snap of his fingers.
But the priests were relentless.
Hundreds more needles descended.
Miriam slammed both hands into the ground.
A forest of spikes erupted upward around the group, forming a defensive barrier.
CLANG. CLANG. CLANG.
The temporal needles embedded themselves into the spikes.
And the spikes began rotting.
Not physically.
Chronologically.
Rust spread across the metal at impossible speed as centuries passed over Miriam's constructs in seconds.
Her eyes widened slightly.
"…That's annoying."
The barrier collapsed into dust.
And the next wave came immediately.
Dark moved.
Not because he wasn't afraid.
Because he already knew what helplessness felt like.
He grabbed Alya and pulled her downward as another barrage tore overhead, shredding chunks of stone from the walls.
The air itself screamed.
Temporal distortions warped the chamber like broken glass.
One second Kimberly stood ten meters away.
The next she flickered backward several feet.
Then forward again.
Reality could no longer maintain consistency inside the chamber.
Adermat clenched his teeth.
"They're synchronizing with the pendulum!"
One priest pointed toward him.
A massive spectral clock appeared beneath the professor's feet.
The hands spun wildly.
Adermat's body convulsed.
His age fluctuated uncontrollably.
Young.
Old.
Young.
Old.
His skin split open from the instability as blood sprayed across the floor.
But even then—
He smiled.
And snapped.
The clock shattered instantly.
Temporal shockwaves exploded outward from him, colliding violently against the priests' magic and distorting the entire chamber.
Several gears embedded in the walls burst apart.
The sanctuary trembled.
For the first time—
The priests stopped moving in perfect rhythm.
And that single moment of imbalance was all Miriam needed.
"Move."
Her voice came out cold.
Deadly.
The floor beneath the priests erupted.
Gigantic spikes burst upward like artillery fire.
Two priests avoided them.
One wasn't fast enough.
The spike entered beneath his jaw and exploded through the top of his skull.
Blood and fragments of bone sprayed upward across the white walls.
The corpse hung there twitching.
Then—
The clock beneath him reversed.
The gore lifted from the floor.
Bone fragments reassembled.
Skin stitched itself back together.
The priest regenerated completely.
Miriam stared for exactly one second.
Then sighed.
"Oh, that's bullshit."
"THE PENDULUM!" Dark shouted suddenly.
Everyone looked toward him.
"It's connected to all of this!"
The priests instantly turned toward him.
And for the first time since entering the chamber—
Dark felt genuine danger.
Not from monsters.
Not from death.
From attention.
All five priests raised their hands toward him simultaneously.
The pendulum pulsed again.
THOOM.
Dark's vision blurred violently.
Memories slammed into his mind.
Deaths.
Loops.
Screams.
Alya shooting him.
His body evaporating into golden dust.
Miriam mutilated beneath endless stab wounds.
The False Corridor.
The mirrors.
The burning.
The endless deaths.
The sanctuary was forcing the memories back into him.
Trying to crush his consciousness beneath accumulated trauma.
Dark dropped to one knee.
Blood streamed from his nose.
His breathing became ragged instantly.
"No… not now…"
The voices returned.
The same whispers from the corridor.
"You broke."
"You died."
"You killed them."
"Again."
"Again."
"Again."
Dark grabbed his head violently.
His pupils trembled.
Alya immediately rushed toward him.
"Dark!"
One priest pointed toward her.
A clock materialized directly over Alya's body.
The hands spun forward.
Fast.
Too fast.
Dark looked up just in time to see strands of white appear in Alya's hair.
Wrinkles spread faintly across her skin.
Her breathing weakened.
"Alya—!"
Dark forced himself upright.
And something inside him snapped.
The echoes of the False Corridor exploded outward from his body.
Not physically.
Temporally.
For a split second—
The priests hesitated.
Because they felt it too.
Hundreds of deaths.
Hundreds of loops.
Hundreds of fractured timelines existing simultaneously inside one human mind.
The pendulum reacted violently.
THOOOOOM.
Silver threads trembled uncontrollably.
The chamber shook hard enough to crack the floor.
One priest finally spoke with genuine alarm in his voice.
"He carries contamination."
Another turned toward the pendulum.
"The sanctuary remembers him."
Dark didn't fully understand what they meant.
But Adermat did.
And the professor's face paled instantly.
"…Dark."
The boy slowly looked toward him.
Adermat's voice became deadly serious.
"Do not touch that pendulum."
Dark's stomach tightened.
Because somehow—
That warning sounded less like advice…
And more like fate.
The priests changed formation immediately.
The hourglasses above their hands rotated faster.
Faster.
FASTER.
The chamber's temporal flow destabilized completely.
The walls began aging and restoring themselves repeatedly.
Stone decayed into dust before rebuilding instantly.
The floor cracked open then repaired itself.
Time itself was collapsing inside the chamber.
And then—
The pendulum moved.
Not one swing.
Not two.
Dozens.
The black-and-gold liquid inside began spiraling violently.
The silver threads overhead lit up like galaxies.
And something enormous started awakening beyond the darkness above them.
Something connected to the pendulum itself.
Something ancient.
Something watching.
Dark slowly raised his eyes toward the ceiling.
And for the briefest moment—
He saw a colossal silhouette move within the abyss beyond the silver threads.
A shape too large to comprehend.
Covered in rotating rings of light.
Eyes like eclipsed suns opening slowly in the void.
Watching him.
Watching all of them.
And then—
The chamber heartbeat echoed again.
THOOM.
The priests smiled beneath their hoods.
And the real battle finally began.
THOOM.
The pendulum swung again.
This time the entire chamber lurched sideways as if reality itself had lost balance.
Several of the massive gears embedded in the walls began rotating backward while others accelerated uncontrollably, grinding against one another with deafening metallic shrieks.
Sparks flooded the darkness overhead.
The silver threads trembled like nerves connected directly to some sleeping cosmic organ.
And above them—
That thing moved again.
Slow.
Massive.
Watching.
Dark forced himself to breathe.
His pulse hammered violently against his ribs, but his mind had changed after the corridor.
Fear still existed.
But now it had structure.
Shape.
Logic.
He looked at the battlefield.
Priests. Temporal synchronization. The pendulum. The threads. The chamber.
Patterns.
Everything here revolved around rhythm.
The priests never attacked randomly.
Every ability followed the pulse of the pendulum.
Every distortion originated from those silver threads.
And every resurrection—
Dark's eyes widened slightly.
"The threads…"
Alya looked toward him while struggling to keep herself standing. The temporal aging effect still lingered faintly across her skin.
"What?"
Dark pointed upward.
"The priests aren't immortal. The pendulum is restoring them through those threads."
Adermat immediately understood.
His expression sharpened.
"The sanctuary is rewinding their existence every time they die."
Miriam clicked her tongue.
"So unless we sever the connection…"
"They'll continue reviving forever," Xia finished coldly from above.
She floated high near the upper gears, wind swirling violently around her body despite the lingering pain pulsing through her nervous system.
Sweat rolled down her face.
Her eyes trembled faintly.
She was still suffering from power backlash.
But she ignored it.
Below them, the priests raised their hands again.
The chamber darkened instantly.
The silver threads overhead descended like glowing roots.
And from the shadows—
The floor began moving.
Dark stared downward.
Then recoiled.
The white stone beneath them wasn't stone anymore.
It was flesh.
Ancient.
Pale.
Veins pulsed beneath the surface.
The chamber itself was alive.
"What the hell…"
The flesh split open.
Dozens of elongated arms erupted upward from beneath the floorboards.
Human arms.
Twisted.
Rotting.
Their fingers were replaced with clock hands fused directly into bone.
The creatures screamed with dozens of overlapping voices.
A sound halfway between mechanical grinding and human agony.
Kimberly immediately unleashed a wave of fire.
The flames engulfed several arms instantly.
Burning flesh filled the chamber with a nauseating stench.
But the burning limbs kept moving.
Unaffected.
The clock hands inside their arms rotated backward.
The damage reversed.
The flames vanished from their skin.
And the creatures continued crawling toward them.
"Oh, come on!" Kimberly shouted.
One of the arms suddenly lunged toward Airi.
Too fast.
Its fingers pierced through her shoulder and slammed her against the wall with a wet crack.
Blood exploded across the white surface behind her.
"Airi!" Minho shouted.
The arm twisted violently.
Bones snapped inside her shoulder.
A scream tore from her throat.
Dark moved instantly.
He grabbed a broken fragment of gear from the floor and drove it directly through the creature's wrist.
Black fluid erupted from the wound.
The arm convulsed violently.
Airi fell free, crashing hard against the floor while clutching her mangled shoulder.
The wound already began reversing.
Not healing.
Undoing.
Her flesh rewound into the state before impact—
Then the injury returned again.
And rewound again.
Her body was trapped between two moments in time.
Airi screamed harder.
"She's temporally split!" Adermat shouted.
The professor rushed toward her, snapping his fingers repeatedly.
Temporal rings expanded around Airi's body.
Each snap stabilized her existence a little more.
Until finally—
The wound remained fixed.
Blood poured normally again.
Adermat exhaled sharply.
"That almost erased her."
Meanwhile, Xia descended from above like a blade falling from heaven.
Wind exploded around her.
Dozens of compressed air blades materialized behind her in a circular formation.
Her eyes locked onto the silver threads.
"There."
She swung her sword.
The blades launched simultaneously.
The first thread snapped instantly.
A violent shockwave erupted through the chamber.
One priest suddenly staggered.
Blood poured beneath his hood.
The second thread snapped.
Another priest collapsed to one knee.
The third—
The chamber screamed.
Not metaphorically.
Actually screamed.
A colossal distorted howl echoed through every wall simultaneously.
The flesh beneath the floor convulsed violently.
The giant silhouette above shifted again.
Faster now.
Awakening.
The priests panicked for the first time.
"Protect the Pendulum!"
Their synchronized rhythm finally broke completely.
And that single mistake changed everything.
Miriam smiled.
A cruel smile.
"Oh."
Thousands of spikes erupted from every direction at once.
The chamber became a forest of silver death.
Several spikes pierced directly through two priests before they could react.
One priest lost his arm entirely.
Another had half his torso blown apart.
Blood rained across the chamber.
Kimberly followed immediately.
Columns of fire exploded upward beneath the wounded priests, igniting their robes and setting their flesh ablaze.
Their screams echoed through the chamber as skin melted from bone.
For the first time—
They did not regenerate instantly.
The severed threads above them flickered erratically.
Dark saw it.
"They're weakening!"
But then—
THOOOOOOOM.
The pendulum swung harder than before.
The chamber cracked open.
A gigantic fissure split across the floor directly beneath Miriam.
Something moved underneath.
Something enormous.
A massive eye opened inside the abyss below the chamber.
Golden.
Ancient.
Filled with rotating temporal symbols.
Miriam froze for exactly half a second.
The eye looked directly at her.
And suddenly—
Her body aged.
Not years.
Centuries.
Her skin wrinkled instantly.
Bones cracked.
Blood vessels ruptured beneath thinning flesh.
Her breathing collapsed into a dry gasp.
"MIRIAM!" Dark screamed.
The eye blinked once.
And her body reverted instantly back to normal.
Miriam stumbled backward violently, horrified.
"…What the fuck was that…"
Adermat stared at the abyss with genuine terror.
"That wasn't a creature…"
His voice shook slightly.
"That was Matusalem looking through the sanctuary."
Silence fell for one dreadful second.
Even the priests stopped moving.
Because now—
Everyone understood.
The sanctuary was not merely protected by the god of time.
It was part of him.
An organ.
A living extension of his existence.
And they had just damaged it.
Dark slowly turned toward the pendulum again.
The black-and-gold liquid spiraled faster and faster inside the crystal structure.
Like a storm trying to escape confinement.
Then the whispers returned.
Not from the corridor.
Not from his mind.
From the pendulum itself.
"You understand now."
"You survived because we allowed it."
"You died because you resisted."
"Become part of the cycle."
"Become eternal."
Dark's hands trembled.
Not from fear.
Recognition.
Because part of him—
A horrible, broken part—
Actually understood those words.
The loops.
The deaths.
The endless repetition.
The sanctuary had not merely tortured him.
It had been reshaping him.
Preparing him.
Alya grabbed his arm hard enough to pull him back.
"Dark!"
He blinked.
Reality snapped back into place.
The chamber was collapsing faster now.
The severed silver threads writhed violently overhead.
The priests regrouped around the pendulum.
And above them—
The massive silhouette in the darkness finally began descending.
Slowly.
Like a god waking from sleep.
Adermat's voice cut through the chaos.
"We're out of time!"
Dark looked toward the pendulum.
Then toward his friends.
Then toward the abyss opening beneath the chamber.
And finally—
He made his decision.
"We destroy it now."
The chamber was dying.
Massive cracks spread across the white walls while entire sections of reality flickered between different states of existence.
One moment the floor was pristine marble.
The next—
It became ancient flesh covered in pulsating veins.
Then stone again.
Then rotting tissue.
Then darkness.
Time had begun collapsing inward.
And at the center of it all—
The pendulum continued to swing.
THOOOM.
THOOOM.
THOOOM.
Each movement distorted gravity itself.
Blood floated upward.
Broken debris reversed direction midair.
The screams of the creatures beneath the chamber echoed backward before replaying normally again.
The sanctuary was losing stability.
But it still wasn't enough.
Dark stared directly at the pendulum.
The black-and-gold liquid inside now churned violently like a storm trapped inside crystal.
Every swing released another temporal pulse.
Another distortion.
Another glimpse of the colossal entity descending through the darkness above.
Its outline was clearer now.
Rotating rings orbited its body endlessly.
Its skin looked carved from ancient black stone split open by glowing golden fractures.
And its eyes—
God.
Its eyes looked ancient beyond comprehension.
Not hateful.
Not angry.
Simply aware.
Like humanity was less than dust beneath its notice.
"We destroy it together," Dark said.
His voice came out sharper than before.
Colder.
More certain.
Adermat immediately stepped beside him.
"If that thing breaks completely, the temporal backlash could erase this entire chamber."
Dark nodded once.
"I know."
Kimberly wiped blood from the side of her mouth and grinned weakly.
"Then let's make it explode beautifully."
Miriam cracked her neck.
"I was getting bored anyway."
Even Minho laughed nervously despite the blood running down his ruined leg.
Airi clutched her repaired shoulder while trembling slightly, but still raised her camera again.
Only Alya stayed silent.
Watching Dark carefully.
Because she noticed it.
That expression in his eyes.
He had already accepted death.
Again.
The priests suddenly raised their hourglasses simultaneously.
The sand inside began flowing upward.
The pendulum answered immediately.
THOOOOOOOM.
The silver threads descended like divine nerves.
Then all five priests spoke together.
"Chronos reverts.
Eternity devours.
Return all things to stillness."
The chamber went black.
Completely.
No light.
No sound.
No gravity.
Nothing.
For one impossible second—
Time stopped existing.
Then—
Everything returned at once.
Dark barely reacted in time.
A gigantic temporal blade materialized directly in front of him.
He ducked instinctively.
The blade passed overhead and erased half the chamber wall behind him.
Not cut.
Erased.
The stone simply ceased to exist.
Kimberly unleashed a wave of fire toward the priests.
The flames froze midair.
One priest rotated his hand slowly.
The frozen fire reversed direction.
And exploded back toward the group.
"MOVE!" Adermat shouted.
Miriam slammed spikes upward from the floor.
The explosion collided against them.
The spikes aged hundreds of years instantly, cracking apart into rust and dust.
The shockwave still hit everyone.
Dark slammed hard against the ground.
Pain exploded through his ribs.
Somewhere nearby—
Airi screamed.
Dark looked up.
And froze.
One of the priests had reached her.
Its hood partially fell back.
There was no face underneath.
Only rotating gears.
Endless gears embedded in black flesh.
The priest grabbed Airi's head with one hand.
And began turning it slowly.
Like winding a clock.
Airi's body convulsed violently.
Her skin aged.
Reverted.
Aged again.
Her eye began bleeding.
"Airi!!"
Dark sprinted forward instantly.
Too slow.
The priest twisted harder.
CRACK.
Airi's neck snapped sideways.
Her body dropped lifelessly to the floor.
Dark's chest tightened violently.
Not again.
NOT AGAIN.
Something exploded inside him.
Not power.
Rage.
Pure rage.
The corridor flashed through his mind again.
Hundreds of deaths.
Hundreds of failures.
His breathing became unstable.
The whispers returned immediately.
"Kill."
"Break them."
"Tear everything apart."
"You already belong to us."
Dark grabbed a broken spike from Miriam's destroyed barrier.
And lunged.
The priest turned toward him—
Too late.
Dark drove the spike directly through its throat.
Black fluid erupted outward.
The priest staggered.
Dark ripped the spike sideways violently.
The entire head tore free in a spray of dark blood and shattered gears.
The corpse collapsed twitching.
Dark stood there panting heavily.
Covered in blood.
His own eyes trembling with barely restrained madness.
Then—
The pendulum pulsed.
THOOM.
The dead priest began regenerating.
Dark watched flesh rebuild itself around the broken gears.
The sanctuary was restoring it again.
And suddenly—
He understood.
"No…"
His eyes widened.
"It's not rewinding them."
Adermat turned toward him immediately.
"What?"
Dark pointed toward the pendulum.
"It's recreating them from stored time."
The professor's expression changed instantly.
"Holding temporal copies…"
The pendulum wasn't reviving the priests.
It was reprinting them from preserved moments.
Which meant—
Destroying the body was meaningless.
The source had to collapse first.
Above them, the colossal entity descended lower.
Now its enormous silhouette filled nearly the entire darkness overhead.
The chamber groaned beneath its presence.
Some of the priests actually knelt.
The gears inside their bodies rotated faster in worship.
The massive eye beneath the floor reopened.
Watching.
Waiting.
Hungry.
Then Alya grabbed Dark's arm.
"Look."
He turned.
The pendulum had changed.
Hairline fractures spread slowly across its crystal surface.
Tiny.
But visible.
Dark's pulse spiked.
"It can break…"
Miriam overheard him and smiled viciously.
"Well then."
She raised both hands.
"Let's break it."
Every illuminated attacked at once.
Xia descended from above surrounded by hundreds of compressed wind blades.
Kimberly unleashed a storm of white-hot flames.
Miriam filled the chamber with colossal spikes.
Adermat distorted temporal flow around the priests to destabilize their synchronization.
Minho charged directly through the center despite his ruined body.
And Dark—
Dark ran straight toward the pendulum itself.
The priests panicked instantly.
"STOP HIM!"
Dozens of temporal constructs materialized around Dark.
Blades. Chains. Clock hands. Distortions.
He ignored all of them.
One sliced open his shoulder.
Another pierced through his side.
Blood sprayed behind him.
Still he kept running.
Because now—
He finally understood the sanctuary's true fear.
Not outsiders.
Not intruders.
Not death.
It feared collapse.
A priest appeared directly in front of him.
Dark slammed into it violently.
Both crashed across the floor.
The priest tried to raise its hand—
Dark bit into its wrist hard enough to tear flesh free.
The priest shrieked mechanically.
Dark grabbed its head.
And smashed it repeatedly against the floor.
Once.
Twice.
Three times.
Until gears burst from the skull alongside black blood.
Then he stood again.
Still moving.
Still running.
Still alive.
Barely.
The pendulum loomed before him now.
Enormous.
Beautiful.
Terrifying.
The black-and-gold liquid inside churned like a galaxy drowning in darkness.
And the whispers became deafening.
"Touch it."
"Become part of eternity."
"Accept the cycle."
"Accept us."
Dark's hand slowly rose toward the crystal surface.
Behind him—
The chamber collapsed into absolute chaos.
His friends screamed.
Reality tore apart.
The god above descended further into existence.
And the pendulum—
Waited.
Like it had always known this moment would come.
Dark touched the pendulum.
And reality screamed.
The crystal surface did not feel solid.
It felt alive.
Warm.
Pulsing.
Like placing his hand directly against the heart of a sleeping god.
The moment contact occurred—
The black-and-gold liquid inside the pendulum exploded upward violently.
THOOOOOOOOOM.
Every silver thread lit up simultaneously across the chamber.
The priests froze.
The gigantic entity descending from above suddenly stopped moving.
And Dark—
Dark saw everything.
Not visions.
Not memories.
Time itself.
Millions upon millions of fragmented moments flooded directly into his consciousness.
Civilizations rising.
Worlds collapsing.
Stars dying in silence.
Entire species turning to dust beneath the passage of eternity.
He saw ancient worshippers kneeling before impossible gods.
Saw oceans evaporate.
Saw mountains crumble into nothing over eons.
Saw people screaming as time accelerated around them until their flesh peeled away into ash.
Saw Matusalem watching all of it.
Unmoving.
Eternal.
Patient.
Dark's nervous system nearly collapsed instantly.
Blood burst from his nose.
Then his ears.
Then his eyes.
His body trembled violently as the sheer weight of infinite temporal information crushed against his mind.
The whispers became unbearable.
Thousands of voices speaking simultaneously inside his skull.
"Witness."
"Remember."
"Become."
"Accept eternity."
Dark screamed.
Not from pain.
From overload.
Veins across his body ignited gold beneath his skin.
The same gold from the corridor.
The same energy that had once vaporized him alive.
Only now—
It was stronger.
Far stronger.
"DARK!"
Alya's voice sounded impossibly distant.
She tried to reach him.
A temporal barrier erupted around the pendulum instantly, throwing her backward violently.
She crashed across the floor hard enough to cough blood onto the white stone.
Dark couldn't hear her anymore.
He barely remembered who she was.
The flood of information kept growing.
More.
More.
MORE.
His body began breaking apart under the strain.
Tiny fractures spread across his fingernails.
Blood vessels burst beneath his skin.
Golden light leaked from the cracks.
His muscles spasmed uncontrollably.
His teeth shattered one by one beneath the pressure building inside his skull.
Still—
His hand remained attached to the pendulum.
As if the sanctuary itself refused to let him go.
Above the chamber, the colossal entity finally opened its eyes fully.
The entire sanctuary froze.
Every priest immediately dropped to their knees.
Even the flesh beneath the floor stopped moving.
The god had awakened.
Completely.
Its gaze lowered toward Dark.
Toward the human touching its heart.
And for the first time—
Matusalem acknowledged him.
A massive pressure crashed down upon the chamber.
Minho immediately collapsed to one knee.
Kimberly's flames extinguished instantly.
Airi's repaired body trembled violently as blood streamed from her mouth.
Even Miriam struggled to remain standing.
Only Adermat managed to resist partially by distorting time around himself.
But even he looked horrified.
"That pressure… impossible…"
Xia gritted her teeth while hovering in the air.
Her wind began destabilizing around her body.
"Dark!" she shouted.
But Dark no longer reacted.
Because now—
He was somewhere else.
An endless black ocean stretched infinitely in all directions.
No sky.
No ground.
Only darkness and floating golden symbols rotating endlessly around him.
Dark stood alone atop invisible water.
And before him—
A gigantic figure emerged slowly from the abyss.
Not fully physical.
Not fully conceptual.
Matusalem.
Its body was draped in countless silver threads extending infinitely into darkness.
Entire galaxies rotated slowly inside the cracks across its stone-like skin.
Its voice did not echo through the ocean.
It echoed directly through existence itself.
"You endured the corridor."
Dark tried to breathe.
His lungs felt frozen.
The god continued.
"Hundreds of deaths."
"Hundreds of fragmentations."
"Yet your consciousness persisted."
The golden symbols surrounding Dark rotated faster.
"Do you understand why?"
Dark's mouth trembled slightly.
"…No."
The god raised one enormous hand.
And suddenly—
Dark saw himself.
Again.
And again.
And again.
Thousands of versions of himself dying across endless timelines.
Burned alive.
Dismembered.
Consumed.
Shot.
Torn apart.
Vaporized.
Driven insane.
Every loop.
Every death.
Every fragment of suffering.
All connected by invisible golden threads.
Matusalem spoke again.
"Most minds collapse after repetition."
"Yours adapted."
Dark stared silently.
The god leaned closer.
The scale difference was incomprehensible.
Dark looked microscopic before it.
"You were not surviving the loops."
"You were evolving through them."
A horrible realization slowly spread through Dark's mind.
The sanctuary had never merely been testing him.
It had been refining him.
Breaking him apart repeatedly until something stronger emerged from the fragments.
The corridor was not punishment.
It was selection.
Back in reality—
Dark's body levitated slightly above the ground.
Golden veins spread across his entire body like molten cracks.
The priests looked terrified now.
Actually terrified.
One of them spoke shakily.
"He is synchronizing with the Pendulum…"
Another stepped backward.
"That should be impossible…"
Adermat's expression darkened immediately.
"Synchronization?"
The priest looked toward Dark.
"If he completes resonance… he will become part of the sanctuary itself."
Alya's eyes widened instantly.
"No."
She forced herself back onto her feet despite the pain.
"No!"
She began running toward Dark again.
Inside the black ocean, Matusalem extended its hand toward him.
"Accept eternity."
"Become my vessel."
"Become the axis upon which time rotates."
The golden threads wrapped slowly around Dark's arms.
Warm.
Comforting.
Inviting.
And worst of all—
Part of him wanted to accept.
No more fear.
No more uncertainty.
No more suffering.
Just silence.
Eternal silence.
The loops would stop.
The pain would stop.
Everything would stop.
Then—
A memory surfaced.
Small.
Weak.
Human.
Alya smiling at him.
Minho laughing stupidly during dinner.
Airi taking photographs.
Kimberly arguing loudly.
Miriam pretending not to care.
Adermat explaining ancient magic with genuine excitement.
Xia quietly watching over everyone.
Tiny memories.
Insignificant against cosmic eternity.
Yet somehow—
They hurt more than all the deaths combined.
Dark slowly clenched his fists.
The golden threads tightened harder around him.
The god watched silently.
Then Dark finally spoke.
"…No."
The ocean trembled.
Matusalem's gaze narrowed slightly.
"You reject transcendence?"
Dark looked upward despite the crushing pressure.
Blood streamed from his eyes.
But this time—
His voice did not tremble.
"I reject becoming empty."
The golden symbols surrounding the ocean destabilized violently.
The sanctuary reacted instantly.
Back in reality—
Cracks spread rapidly across the pendulum.
The priests panicked.
"STOP HIM!"
But it was already too late.
Because Dark had finally made a choice.
Not survival.
Not escape.
Humanity.
Even if it destroyed him.
The pendulum cracked.
A single fracture spread across the crystal surface like lightning frozen in glass.
Then another.
And another.
The entire chamber reacted instantly.
THOOOOOOOOOM.
The pendulum's heartbeat became unstable.
The silver threads connected to the darkness above snapped violently one after another, recoiling through the chamber like severed nerves.
The colossal entity overhead finally moved.
Not slowly this time.
Violently.
Its massive body descended further into reality, dragging impossible gravitational pressure behind it.
The sanctuary screamed.
Literally screamed.
The walls emitted a horrifying metallic howl as time itself began collapsing out of synchronization.
The priests panicked.
"He rejected synchronization!"
"The vessel is unstable!"
"Stop him before the resonance collapses!"
Dark remained suspended before the pendulum.
Golden light poured from every wound across his body.
His veins no longer merely glowed.
They burned.
Like molten gold flowing beneath torn flesh.
His left eye had become completely golden now, overflowing with radiant energy that evaporated tears into steam before they could fall.
Blood floated around him unnaturally.
Drops suspended midair.
Reversing.
Accelerating.
Repeating.
His body existed inside multiple temporal states simultaneously.
And it was destroying him.
Inside the black ocean, Matusalem stared down at him silently.
The god no longer seemed calm.
Its countless silver threads twisted violently through the darkness.
Entire constellations flickered across its body.
"You choose suffering."
Dark forced himself to breathe.
His lungs felt full of broken glass.
"I choose them."
The black ocean trembled.
"Human attachment is temporary."
"Pain is eternal."
Dark slowly raised his head.
"Maybe."
Blood dripped from his chin into the infinite water below.
"But pain matters more when it's shared."
For the first time—
The god's expression changed slightly.
Not anger.
Confusion.
As if it genuinely could not understand him.
Back in reality—
Alya finally reached Dark.
The pressure around the pendulum immediately tore open the skin across her arms.
Thin cuts spread everywhere like invisible blades were slicing her apart.
Still—
She kept moving.
"Alya, stop!" Adermat shouted.
"You'll die!"
"I KNOW!"
Her voice cracked violently.
"But I'm not leaving him again!"
She forced herself through the temporal distortion surrounding the pendulum.
Every second inside the field aged and reversed parts of her body simultaneously.
Bruises appeared and vanished.
Her fingertips cracked with age before returning to normal.
Blood vessels burst beneath her skin.
But finally—
She grabbed Dark's hand.
The reaction was catastrophic.
GOOOOOOOONG.
The pendulum released a massive temporal shockwave.
Everyone in the chamber was thrown backward violently.
Kimberly slammed against a wall hard enough to fracture stone.
Minho rolled across the floor coughing blood.
Even Miriam lost balance momentarily.
The priests screamed as several of their hourglasses shattered instantly.
Black sand poured across the floor.
And the pendulum—
The pendulum began breaking apart faster.
Dark suddenly gasped.
The black ocean destabilized around him.
Alya's voice reached him faintly through the void.
"Come back…"
Matusalem lowered its enormous gaze toward the connection.
"Attachment weakens evolution."
Dark's fingers tightened slowly around Alya's hand.
"No."
The god's threads lashed violently around him.
"Attachment creates suffering."
Dark remembered Alya crying over his corpse.
Remembered Minho dying over and over.
Remembered every scream.
Every loop.
Every failure.
And despite all of it—
He still chose them.
Even knowing it would hurt again.
"I know."
The ocean shook harder.
"But that's what makes us human."
CRAAAAAAACK.
A massive section of the pendulum shattered.
Golden-black liquid erupted outward like exploding blood.
The fluid hit the chamber floor and immediately distorted reality around it.
Stone aged thousands of years in seconds before reversing into pristine marble again.
One priest was struck directly across the chest.
Its body rapidly decomposed.
Reformed.
Decomposed again.
Its screams became distorted loops layered over themselves repeatedly.
Then its body imploded into black dust.
The remaining priests finally lost composure completely.
"The core is collapsing!"
"If the pendulum breaks completely—"
"The sanctuary will destabilize!"
Matusalem finally extended its full hand toward Dark.
The sheer scale blocked out the endless black horizon.
"Then perish with your humanity."
The god closed its hand.
The pressure nearly crushed Dark instantly.
Bones cracked throughout his body.
Blood exploded from his mouth.
Golden energy burst uncontrollably from his veins.
Back in reality, Dark's body arched violently as fractures spread across his skin like shattered porcelain.
Alya held him tighter desperately.
"Dark!"
His heartbeat became unstable.
Fast.
Slow.
Fast again.
Then—
Wrong.
As if several heartbeats overlapped simultaneously.
The golden energy began consuming him from inside.
Just like before.
Just like the corridor.
His fingers started turning into glowing particles.
Disintegrating.
Adermat's eyes widened.
"He's overloading!"
Miriam immediately reacted.
"Can you stop it?!"
"No!"
Even Adermat sounded shaken now.
"That's not temporal energy anymore!"
The professor stared at the pendulum in horror.
"That's direct divine synchronization!"
Dark's vision blurred.
The black ocean began collapsing around him.
Matusalem watched silently as his body slowly broke apart.
"You cannot carry eternity and remain human."
Dark trembled violently.
His existence felt like it was tearing apart molecule by molecule.
Every death from the corridor resurfaced simultaneously.
Burning.
Drowning.
Disintegration.
Mutilation.
Madness.
All of it overlapped at once inside his nervous system.
He should have collapsed.
Should have surrendered.
Should have begged for the pain to stop.
Instead—
He laughed weakly.
Blood spilled from his mouth into the black ocean.
Matusalem paused.
Dark's broken voice echoed through the void.
"You still don't understand…"
The god remained silent.
Dark slowly looked upward.
"We aren't strong because we endure alone."
His body continued crumbling into golden particles.
"We're strong because someone gives us a reason to come back."
Alya suddenly pulled Dark violently away from the pendulum.
The connection snapped.
And reality exploded.
THOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM.
The pendulum shattered almost entirely.
Silver threads ruptured across the chamber.
The colossal entity above roared for the first time.
The sound transcended sound itself.
Everyone in the sanctuary dropped to their knees screaming as blood erupted from their ears.
The ceiling began collapsing.
Time fractured.
Entire pieces of the chamber repeated the same second endlessly while others accelerated toward destruction.
The sanctuary was dying.
And Matusalem—
Matusalem was furious.
The roar of Matusalem shattered reality itself.
Not metaphorically.
Literally.
The sound tore through the sanctuary like a divine shockwave, rupturing space in visible fractures across the air.
CRAAAAAAAAACK.
The white walls of the chamber split apart into endless black fissures.
Entire sections of reality began repeating themselves.
One fragment of the ceiling collapsed infinitely.
Another reversed endlessly between destruction and restoration.
Time no longer flowed forward.
It convulsed.
Dark hit the ground hard beside Alya.
His body smoked violently.
Golden veins pulsed beneath torn flesh like living cracks filled with molten sunlight.
Entire portions of his arms faded in and out of existence.
One moment skin.
The next—
Nothing but glowing particles.
His breathing came in broken spasms.
Every inhale sounded painful.
Every exhale sounded incomplete.
Alya pulled him closer immediately.
"Stay with me."
Her voice trembled despite her efforts to remain calm.
Dark barely reacted.
His eyes twitched rapidly beneath the golden glow consuming his left iris.
Fragments of memories were bleeding into reality around him.
Images flickered above his body like projections.
His deaths.
Hundreds of them.
Kim burning him alive.
Miriam throwing him into the abyss.
Airi driving glass into his throat.
His own body dissolving into golden smoke.
The memories overlapped violently.
Everyone saw them.
And for the first time—
The group understood.
Not intellectually.
Emotionally.
Minho froze completely.
His face lost all color.
"…What the hell…"
Kimberly stopped breathing for a second.
Airi covered her mouth with trembling hands.
Even Miriam—
Miriam looked disturbed.
The projections continued flashing uncontrollably around Dark's body.
Death after death after death.
Endless suffering.
Endless terror.
Endless loneliness.
Adermat stared in horror.
"He remembered everything…"
The professor's voice sounded hollow.
"No…"
His eyes widened further.
"He endured everything."
Dark suddenly convulsed violently.
Blood exploded from his mouth.
Golden light erupted from his chest like a miniature supernova.
A massive fracture spread across the floor beneath him instantly.
The sanctuary reacted immediately.
Silver threads hanging from the broken pendulum suddenly redirected toward Dark.
Thousands of them.
Like veins reconnecting to a heart.
"MOVE AWAY FROM HIM!"
Adermat shouted.
Too late.
The threads pierced into Dark's body simultaneously.
Alya screamed as several pierced through her arm while she tried shielding him.
The moment the connection completed—
Dark arched backward violently.
His scream finally came out.
And it did not sound human anymore.
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH—
The sound layered over itself unnaturally.
Like several versions of him were screaming simultaneously across different timelines.
The sanctuary answered him.
Every clock inside the chamber began spinning uncontrollably.
Forward.
Backward.
Forward.
Backward.
Faster.
FASTER.
The remaining priests fell to their knees immediately.
"The synchronization is accelerating!"
"He's becoming a new anchor!"
"That's impossible!"
One priest turned toward Matusalem in absolute terror.
"Our lord—what do we do?!"
The colossal entity above remained silent.
Watching.
Studying.
Judging.
Dark's body began changing further.
The golden veins spread up his neck.
Across his jaw.
Into his face.
The left side of his body looked almost crystalline now, as though golden energy was replacing flesh itself.
His fingernails cracked apart.
Golden light leaked from beneath them.
His spine bent unnaturally.
Bones snapped back into place instantly.
Then broke again.
Healing and destruction occurring simultaneously.
Alya held him tighter despite the damage to her own body.
"Dark!"
Her tears evaporated before touching his skin.
"You're here, okay?!"
Dark's head moved slightly.
Very slightly.
His gaze drifted toward her.
For one tiny moment—
Recognition returned.
"…A…lya…"
Her expression shattered instantly.
"I'm here."
His trembling fingers weakly grabbed part of her sleeve.
Then another memory pulse erupted outward.
This time—
Everyone saw Alya shooting him.
Over and over.
They saw Kimberly laughing while burning him alive.
Saw Minho's skull explode.
Saw Miriam mutilated beyond recognition.
Saw Dark killing all of them during the previous loop.
The chamber fell completely silent.
Only Dark's broken breathing remained.
Kimberly staggered backward slowly.
"No…"
Her voice came out weak.
Airi's hands trembled violently around her camera.
Minho looked sick.
Miriam stared at Dark silently.
For the first time since entering the sanctuary—
Nobody saw him as stable anymore.
They saw what the corridor had turned him into.
Dark suddenly grabbed his own head violently.
"MAKE IT STOP—"
Golden blood poured from his eyes.
The voices returned instantly.
Hundreds of whispers.
Thousands.
Layered over each other.
"OPEN THE GATE."
"ACCEPT ETERNITY."
"BECOME THE VESSEL."
"ABANDON HUMANITY."
"LET TIME CONSUME YOU."
Dark screamed again.
The pressure exploding from his body shattered every remaining mirror-like surface in the chamber.
Adermat immediately stepped forward.
"We have to sever the connection now!"
"How?!" Minho shouted.
The professor looked toward the nearly destroyed pendulum.
"That thing linked itself to him!"
Miriam narrowed her eyes.
"So we destroy what's left."
The sanctuary shook violently again.
Huge sections of the ceiling collapsed.
One of the priests attempted escaping toward the shadows—
A massive temporal rupture instantly erased half his body.
Not cut.
Not burned.
Erased.
His upper torso simply ceased existing.
The remaining half wandered blindly for several seconds before collapsing.
Reality itself was disintegrating.
Above them—
Matusalem finally moved completely into view.
The sheer scale of the entity defied comprehension.
Its body was formed from black oceans, silver galaxies, and endless rotating clockwork embedded beneath translucent skin.
Countless eyes opened across its form.
Every single one focused on Dark.
The god spoke once more.
And this time—
Everyone heard it.
"Humanity is a temporary illness."
The chamber trembled harder.
"Pain is the final truth."
Dark slowly raised his head.
Blood streamed endlessly from his mouth.
His voice came out fractured.
Weak.
But defiant.
"…Then why…"
The god remained silent.
Dark forced himself to stand despite his collapsing body.
"…Why are you so desperate to erase it?"
For the first time—
The sanctuary itself hesitated.
Even Matusalem stopped moving.
Then the god became enraged.
Every eye opened simultaneously.
The black ocean above split apart.
And the entirety of eternity descended toward them.The heavens opened.
Not metaphorically.
The black ocean above the sanctuary split apart completely, revealing something deeper beneath Matusalem's domain.
Something older.
Something wrong.
The sight alone made reality unstable.
The human mind was never meant to perceive eternity directly.
Minho immediately dropped to his knees vomiting blood.
Airi's camera shattered in her trembling hands.
Kimberly screamed as her own flames spiraled out of control around her body.
Even Miriam's expression finally cracked.
Fear.
True fear.
Not fear of death.
Fear of insignificance.
Because above them—
Matusalem's true form continued descending endlessly.
Its body was not a body.
It was time itself given awareness.
Billions of rotating silver rings turned inside the black ocean like cosmic machinery.
Entire civilizations flickered and vanished within its translucent flesh.
Worlds aged into dust and were reborn inside its gaze.
And every eye across its impossible form remained focused on Dark.
The god spoke.
This time the words bypassed sound entirely.
They appeared directly inside their minds.
"Humanity clings to suffering because it fears eternity."
"You call pain meaning."
"You call attachment strength."
"You call mortality beauty."
"Pathetic."
The sanctuary trembled harder.
Entire sections of the chamber collapsed upward instead of downward.
Time had completely lost direction.
Dark stood trembling beneath the descending god.
Golden blood streamed endlessly from his body now.
His left arm had become partially translucent.
Inside it—
Silver threads moved beneath the skin like living wires.
His heartbeat echoed unnaturally through the chamber.
THUMP.
THUMP.
THUMP.
Each pulse distorted reality.
Alya held onto him desperately.
But she could feel him disappearing.
Not physically.
Existentially.
Like his humanity was slowly dissolving beneath the weight of eternity.
"Dark…"
Her voice shook violently.
"Please…"
He barely turned toward her.
His expression looked fractured.
Confused.
Like several personalities were overlapping inside him.
For brief moments—
Different versions of him appeared.
The terrified Dark from the corridor.
The broken Dark from the loops.
The emotionless shell from the sanctuary.
And something else.
Something ancient beginning to awaken beneath all of them.
Adermat's breathing became uneven.
"No…"
He stared at the silver threads embedded in Dark's flesh.
"The synchronization didn't fail…"
Miriam looked toward him sharply.
"What does that mean?"
The professor's face turned pale.
"It means Matusalem isn't trying to possess him anymore."
Silence.
Then—
Adermat whispered the words none of them wanted to hear.
"It's trying to evolve him."
The chamber exploded into chaos.
Dark suddenly screamed again—
But this time the scream carried temporal force behind it.
A shockwave erupted outward.
Everyone nearby was thrown across the sanctuary.
Stone walls aged thousands of years instantly before crumbling into dust.
Other sections reversed into pristine white marble again.
The dead priests briefly reappeared screaming before decomposing once more.
Reality itself was malfunctioning around him.
Dark collapsed onto one knee.
Golden light erupted from beneath his skin.
CRACK.
His right arm split open from shoulder to wrist.
Not from injury.
From pressure.
Liquid gold poured from inside him like molten sunlight.
Instead of muscles—
Silver threads and glowing fractures existed beneath the torn flesh now.
Dark stared at his own arm in horror.
"…What…"
The voices answered immediately.
"ASCENSION."
"TRANSCENDENCE."
"THE END OF HUMAN LIMITATION."
"SHUT UP!"
Dark slammed his hand against the floor.
The impact shattered the chamber beneath him.
A massive crater spread outward instantly.
Matusalem observed silently.
Then—
For the first time—
The god smiled.
Not kindly.
Not warmly.
Predatorially.
"You already belong to eternity."
Dark's memories exploded again.
Not just the loops.
More.
Far more.
Impossible memories flooded his consciousness.
Ancient civilizations worshipping the black ocean.
Worlds consumed by temporal collapse.
Countless failed vessels screaming as they disintegrated beneath synchronization.
Millions of years of death.
Billions.
The knowledge burned through his mind like acid.
Dark grabbed his head violently.
Blood leaked from his ears.
His scream became distorted again.
Fragments of other voices mixed into it.
Not hallucinations.
Echoes.
Previous vessels.
Dead minds trapped inside eternity.
Alya ran toward him again despite the collapsing sanctuary.
"Dark!"
The moment she touched him—
She saw everything.
Every death.
Every loop.
Every second of suffering.
Every moment he endured completely alone.
Kim burning him alive.
Her own bullets tearing through his chest.
His body evaporating into golden smoke.
His mind breaking apart after hundreds of deaths.
The corridor reducing him into a screaming shell begging God for mercy.
All of it.
At once.
Alya collapsed instantly.
A scream tore from her throat.
Tears flooded her eyes uncontrollably.
"No…"
Her hands trembled violently against his chest.
"No no no no—"
Dark weakly grabbed her wrist.
"…Sorry…"
That single word destroyed her.
Kimberly looked away completely.
Minho lowered his head in horror.
Even Miriam remained silent now.
Because none of them could comprehend surviving that much suffering without becoming a monster.
And somehow—
Dark still cared about them.
Matusalem descended further.
The sanctuary walls completely disappeared now.
Only the black ocean remained around them.
The pendulum floated above the abyss, barely intact.
The god extended one colossal hand toward Dark again.
"Abandon mortality."
"Become eternal."
"Become free from pain."
Dark stared upward silently.
His body continued breaking apart.
Golden particles drifted from his skin constantly now.
He was dying.
Or transforming.
Maybe both.
Then—
Slowly—
He smiled.
Not with madness.
Not with despair.
But clarity.
"…That's the problem."
The god stopped moving.
Dark's golden eye glowed brighter.
"If I stop feeling pain…"
His breathing trembled.
"…Then I stop being me."
Silence consumed eternity itself.
For the first time—
Matusalem did not answer immediately.
Because it genuinely could not understand him.
Dark slowly stood despite his collapsing body.
Alya tried stopping him.
He gently moved her behind him.
Then he faced the god directly.
Broken.
Bleeding.
Dying.
Human.
And still refusing eternity.
The silver threads inside his body suddenly ignited.
Every single one.
The pendulum reacted instantly.
CRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAACK.
The remaining structure shattered apart completely.
A pulse of golden-black energy erupted across the black ocean.
Matusalem's expression changed instantly.
Shock.
Real shock.
Adermat's eyes widened.
"He's rejecting synchronization manually…"
Miriam looked stunned.
"That's possible?!"
"No human should survive that!"
Dark screamed one final time.
And tore the silver threads out of his own body.
Blood exploded everywhere.
Chunks of flesh ripped away alongside the glowing cords.
His left arm nearly split apart completely.
But he kept pulling.
Again.
Again.
Again.
Until the final thread snapped.
The result was catastrophic.
The black ocean detonated.
Matusalem roared in genuine fury as the sanctuary began collapsing completely into temporal oblivion.
Reality shattered.
Eternity fractured.
And at the center of the apocalypse—
Dark finally began to fall.