The cohort was never supposed to reach the forbidden palace. Whatever lay beyond was not meant for mortals, not even them—cannibals of gods and bearers of forbidden curses. Their journey had already defied natural laws, but the parallel dimension twisted those defiance into punishment. As they neared the gates of the palace, the very floor beneath them ruptured. Reality blinked.
They plummeted.
The fall didn't end in ground. It ended in silence.
They had reached the core of the parallel dimension—an evil pit so deep, so secret, that even the palace itself seemed a decoy. This was the real cage.
Here, at the absolute center of existence gone wrong, time no longer worked. Gravity drifted sideways. Color bled from one shade to another. The laws of nature bowed to the will of something else entirely—
A Gatekeeper.
No… the owner of the pit. The last defense. A demon born not of hell, but of unstructured void, stitched from canceled timelines and dead deities' regrets.
It had been waiting.
And now, it rose.
The fight erupted like a dying sun.
Zephyr and the Gatekeeper clashed midair, the bridge beneath them crumbling under the pressure. The others were forced to scatter, barely able to stand from the residual spiritual shock.
The Gatekeeper had four arms, each lined with temporal fissures—swinging great rusted cleavers that sang in reversed screams. Its chest bore a gaping wound that oozed black memory. Its face was a blank void, pulsing with hunger.
Zephyr didn't wait. He summoned Edilion Fang—the cursed blade of black crusade.
The symbols on the sword blinked backward. Time itself hissed.
"Staggered Hour," he whispered.
—And vanished.
The first clash didn't even appear.
It sounded—an aftershock.
Then Zephyr was behind the Gatekeeper, sword carving a glowing path across its spine.
To everyone else, it looked like the Gatekeeper had paused mid-motion, then fell forward from an invisible strike.
Again, Zephyr blurred. Another cut. Another lag in reality.
But the demon was learning.
With one swipe, the Gatekeeper opened a tear in time-space—a portal from which it yanked a screaming, future version of itself, momentarily increasing its power. That version dissolved seconds later, but not before landing a glancing blow.
Zephyr stumbled, arm torn.
He didn't scream. He grinned.
More sigils activated.
He launched into the Second Phase of Staggered Hour.
Phase Two: Time Lash
Zephyr's sword now curved with arcs of lightning. Every slash left a delayed echo that struck again 1.2 seconds later. His own body began to glitch—vanishing and reappearing in fragmented frames. To the Gatekeeper, he became a stuttering nightmare. An image layered in time.
Slash. Echo. Blink. Stab.
Each movement Zephyr made became three. Reality stuttered.
The Gatekeeper's leg exploded—then its jaw—then one arm.
It fell.
But it didn't stay down.
The demon let out a roar—not physical, but conceptual. A scream that made the others' memories bleed.
Then it evolved.
It transformed.
Its body burst outward. Skin became fire. Arms multiplied. Bones jutted from its back like towers. A massive, bleeding eye opened in its chest, showing only future death. It no longer had a face—just a spiral of darkness.
The bridge cracked beneath it.
From the darkness of the hole, screams echoed. Not human. Not beast. Just possibilities dying.
Zephyr stood ready, panting, blood dripping from his nose.
The Gatekeeper rushed him.
He dodged once.
Twice.
But the third strike clipped him—sending him flying into a wall.
His ribs shattered. Time around him wobbled.
"ZEPHYR!" Lilith screamed.
He coughed blood, but didn't rise. The sword lay beside him, pulsing dimly.
The Gatekeeper advanced.
Then—
The sky changed color.
The Staggered Hour wasn't over. It was evolving too.
The sword activated its Final Form: Last Dissonance.
Time collapsed into a single heartbeat.
Zephyr vanished, and reappeared inside the Gatekeeper.
One thrust.
Not through flesh. Through sequence.
He stabbed the demon's timeline, not its body.
The Gatekeeper shrieked. Reality cracked. The bridge exploded.
Zephyr's blade twisted.
And the demon died.
Not physically. Not spiritually.
It died in every future it could have had.
It died conceptually.
Zephyr collapsed.
One knee.
Sword in bridge.
Behind him, silence.
Lilith moved forward, hesitant. "You… tore its reality apart."
Zephyr's eyes were bloodshot. He didn't respond. Just whispered nonsense.
Necros tilted his skull. "He's… lagging himself."
His perception was gone. Blinking warped time. His heartbeat no longer synced with the world.
But the Gatekeeper was gone.
Or so they thought.
A deep, wet crack split the silence.
From below, where no light reached—a mass of writhing bone, smoke, and vengeful essence exploded upward.
The Gatekeeper had returned.
But not as a being of form.
As a curse incarnate.
"YOU GLITCHED MY DEATH—SO I GLITCH YOUR END!"
It screamed.
Now it had dozens of arms. Black spikes. A maw in its chest. Its body bled backwards.
And it struck Zephyr from behind.
Blood exploded. He was flung like a ragdoll.
Lilith screamed. The others moved.
But they were too late.
The demon slammed a spike into Zephyr's stomach—pinning him.
"You tore time," it hissed. "Now I tear you."
But even as he bled… Zephyr smiled.
His hand reached for the blade.
Still glowing.
"Round two," he whispered.
To be continued...