There is a sound that no one ever wants to hear:The sound of time breaking.
It starts like the creaking of ancient wood. Then it becomes a hum, deep and metallic, vibrating through the bones. Finally—if you're unlucky—you hear the shatter. It is not a crash, not a bang. It is a silence so loud it steals everything from the air… even breath.
Elion heard that sound at sunrise.
He was in the middle of meditation inside the Chrono Chamber, his fingers balanced on the glowing pendulum, feeling its rhythmic pulse, when it hit. A massive void ripple shattered through the chamber walls.
The pendulum snapped off its axis. Time around him faltered—jumping backward by two seconds, then forward by five, then halting altogether. Dust froze mid-air, then rewound and resettled. His own heartbeat echoed twice, even though his chest had only moved once.
Elion staggered back, gasping. "No, no, no…"
Lyra burst through the doorway, her body flickering—appearing in three different versions of herself for a split second before stabilizing. "He's done it!" she yelled, panic in her voice. "Biggenator broke a major timeline node!"
"Where?"
"The Core of Vireholt. The Grand Clocktower—it's gone."
By the time they arrived at the outskirts of Vireholt, the city was no longer a city.
It was a fracture.
Reality blinked in and out like a glitched memory. Roads led to nowhere. Windows showed past events. People looped endlessly through five-second actions, completely unaware they were stuck. A man continuously dropped his briefcase, over and over. A little girl tried to hug her mother, only to flicker back into standing still again.
And above them all, high above the ruins, Biggenator hovered in glory.
His cloak flared like a star unraveling, gold and white and blinding. His hands reached wide as if embracing the world, his voice booming without sound—felt in every mind, not heard through ears.
"You have bound yourselves to cause and effect for too long," he declared."But I see the bigger picture."
And then… he snapped.
With a gesture, the entire eastern half of the city enlarged—all at once. Buildings ballooned in size, growing until their own weight collapsed them. A single street stretched so far, its end curved back around the Earth.
Time tried to follow… but couldn't.
It bent. It screamed.
Then it broke.
Elion didn't wait. He surged forward, activating the Hourcore Crystal embedded in his chest pocket. The blue light flared, granting him a five-second burst of true Chrono-Speed.
He ran through the chaos—dodging crumbling time echoes, ducking through frozen air like thick water.
He reached the center of the distortion: the fractured node where the Clocktower once stood.
There, swirling in the debris, hovered a relic half-buried in golden dust.
The Clockroot.
It had been part of the foundation. Now, exposed and unchained, it pulsed like a beating heart, wild and out of rhythm.
Elion reached for it. Time resisted. His hand stretched toward it—aging and de-aging in milliseconds. Fingernails cracked, then healed. Wrinkles appeared and vanished.
Still… he touched it.
The moment his fingers brushed the metal bark, a shockwave of frozen time exploded from the Clockroot. Everything within a hundred meters stopped.
Truly stopped.
Not slowed. Not looped.
Stopped.
Dust froze. Light stopped mid-bounce. Even the sound of destruction hung suspended like snowflakes.
Inside that pause… Elion stood.
The Clockroot's voice, or perhaps its memory, entered his mind like a whisper through water.
"You are not ready, but you are needed.One second is all you have.Use it well."
His eyes glowed.
The Hourcore fused with the Clockroot.
He gasped as ancient timelines, forgotten epochs, and fractured histories burned into his brain. He saw the birth of hours. The betrayal of the first Timekeepers. He saw Biggenator—once human—arguing before a shattered council. He saw himself. Again and again, through thousands of versions.
Each time, running out of time.
Until now.
Time resumed with a thunderclap.
Elion stood taller. Straighter. His eyes shimmered gold-blue. Floating behind him: two glowing hour rings, orbiting like moons.
Lyra stared in awe. "What did you do?"
He looked up at the sky where Biggenator watched.
"I took time… and made it mine."
Biggenator descended slowly, his golden cloak stretching unnaturally as if refusing to let him leave the sky. He landed before Elion, dust curling around his feet in reverence.
"You touched the root," he said, tone amused. "You accelerated."
Elion stared at him. "You broke the timeline."
"I freed it," Biggenator replied. "I gave it room to breathe."
"And the people trapped in loops? The cities you've warped?"
Biggenator's grin deepened beneath the hood. "Necessary fragments. Collateral for growth."
Elion summoned the power inside him, breath steady. The air around him slowed, the ground beneath his feet shimmered.
Time obeyed him.
For the first time… he was not just surviving.
He was ready to fight.
"Then I'll do what Timekeepers failed to do," Elion said.
"I'll stop you."
Biggenator tilted his head.
"Try, Chrono-Lord. Try."