THE BLACK THORN CODEX
Episode 51 — The First Fracture
November 17, 2023 – 9:47 PM – Marseille
As they prepared to advance toward the next fracture, a new supernatural energy manifested in the sky: a signal from Selerion, announcing that their return to the present was not complete and that new, more powerful enemies were already on the way.
The heroes exchanged a glance, aware that the battle to protect Marseille in this era had truly begun.
Night had fallen over Marseille, heavy and silent. Yet, above the Old Port, a strange rumble was heard. The sky split with a luminous line, a moving scar like a wound in reality. The streetlights crackled, and the air thickened, laden with the smell of burnt metal.
Léandre raised his head. —It's not a storm... it's something else.
Clarisse, panting, placed her hand on the crack that widened in the air.
"It looks like... a door."
Then the fracture exploded silently, revealing a silhouette. A man dressed in black rags, his body covered in motionless flames, stepped forward. His eyes glowed a dark red. Each step he took slowed the world around him.
The wizard of Selerion had just crossed.
Clarisse reacted first. Shards of ice burst from his hands, transparent blades shooting straight toward the intruder. But halfway across, everything seemed to slow down. The projectiles floated in the air, slowed as if passing through invisible resin.
The wizard smiled.
"Your powers are weak here. Time belongs to you, but I devour it."
Leander clenched his fists, electrifying the air around him. A shower of lightning flashed across the pavement. He leaped forward, striking with all his might. But the electricity dispersed in the slowed-down field, suffocating like an airless flame.
Clarisse, panting:
"Impossible... he's distorting time itself..."
At that moment, a translucent figure appeared behind them. The Buddhist monk Benjamin Borax, as an astral double, his features grave and concentrated.
"Don't give in to fear. It's not time he's manipulating, but your perception of it. Focus your powers beyond the illusion."
He raised two fingers, and the sorcerer's flames seemed to flicker.
Borax, firmly:
"Aim for his heart. There, the distortion is weak."
Clarisse channeled her energy. This time, his hands didn't launch simple blades of ice, but a polar wave. The cold bypassed the distortion and bit into the sorcerer's flesh.
He screamed, his flames cracking.
Leander seized the opportunity.
—Heavenly Lightning!
A dazzling arc slashed down, piercing the crack in the sky and striking the enemy directly. The impact shook the ground.
The sorcerer, kneeling, his body cracking under ice and lightning, hissed through his teeth:
—You... dare to challenge Selerion... But this fracture... will not heal.
He raised his arms and his body consumed in an explosion of black flames, dissolving into the air like an extinguished torch.
Clarisse, panting, gazed at the luminous fissure still vibrating above them.
—We've defeated him... but the door remains open.
Borax slowly shook his head.
"He was only a scout. Others will follow. If the rift widens, your world will never know peace again."
An oppressive silence fell again. The sound of waves against the docks seemed strangely distant.
Leander clenched his fists.
"Then we have to find a way to close it... before it's too late."
The light from the rift pulsed violently, casting distorted shadows on the walls. Something behind it seemed to be preparing to break through.