When the fall finally ended… there was no sky, no earth — only silence.
Rant found himself standing in a grayish-white void — a place without sound, without motion.
Even his breath made no noise, as though the air itself feared to exist.
He raised his hand before his eyes and watched it move agonizingly slow, as if time were watching him back, uncertain whether to allow his existence.
> "Where… am I?"
No sound.
His lips formed the words, but nothing reached his ears.
Even the echo inside his mind was silent.
He began to walk — or thought he did.
Every step felt like it lasted an eternity.
The light never shifted. The shadows never moved.
And the cold… was not of the body, but of knowing that time itself had died here.
Then he saw something — far away.
A small black dot in the endless white.
He approached it slowly… until it took shape.
A figure sitting upon a stone chair.
The figure was cloaked in a long robe, hair white as ash, face hidden behind a cracked glass mask.
He was utterly still — and yet, not dead.
His eyes were open, moving faintly… as if swimming within a sea of frozen seconds.
Rant stepped closer — until he stood before him.
And then… the man's finger twitched.
Slowly.
Terribly slowly.
But enough to send a shiver through Rant's chest.
Then came a voice — not truly a sound, but a trembling in the air, like glass breaking within the void:
> "Time… is not measured in hours… but in the pain we carry."
Rant froze.
He couldn't respond.
> "Who are you?"
He tried to speak, but his voice made no sound.
Yet the man seemed to hear.
> "I am the Fourth Guardian — Keeper of Dead Time."
"And you, heir of flame… are the last who walks between still heartbeats."
The Guardian lifted his hand, and rings of gray light formed around him.
Each ring displayed a different moment:
In one — a child laughing.
In another — a young man weeping.
In the third — a woman screaming.
In the last — ashes drifting in wind.
> "Every moment you lived," said the Guardian,
"was trapped forever in a time that never finished."
"Those who cross Oblivion can no longer live… nor die."
"Do you wish to know what it means… to be immortal?"
Rant didn't answer.
He simply stared — and felt something shift inside him.
Time began to contract, as though the world were testing whether he could exist without motion.
Then, before him, a massive gray clock appeared.
Its hands did not move — yet they creaked faintly, like a dying world sighing.
> "Each heartbeat you make here equals a year in this realm."
"Every hesitation, every fear… will lengthen your prison."
Rant approached the clock, pressing his hand to the glass —
and pain erupted through him.
Not the pain of flesh, but the agony of every second he had ever lived.
In that instant, he saw his entire life flash before him —
his mother's laugh, Elena's scream, his friend's betrayal, the fire of battle, his first tear, his last smile.
> "This… is time?"
"No," replied the Guardian, his voice like wind through an ashen cave.
"This… is you."
The Guardian raised his hand.
The glowing rings stopped, then shattered —
falling like shards of light around them.
He extended his arm toward Rant.
> "Choose."
"Freeze time within you, and live forever — without a soul."
"Or release it… and die in a single, complete moment."
Rant hesitated — then smiled faintly.
> "To die in one perfect moment… is better than to live incomplete."
He clenched his fist and struck the heart of the clock.
Everything stopped.
And then — for the first time since entering this realm — sound returned.
The scream of time burst from the depths of creation, shaking the entire void.
The gray rings dissolved into a whirlwind of luminous dust, swirling around him.
He shouted with a voice that split the silence apart:
> "I will not be a slave to time…
I am the one who shapes it!"
Black light burst from his chest — fused with a pure white radiance.
Time froze for one last heartbeat…
then shattered — and began to move again.
The Fourth Guardian fell to his knees, smiling faintly behind his cracked mask.
> "So it is done… The Lord of Infinity is born."
Everything vanished.
Rant stood alone in a space that was neither time nor place — only breathing emptiness whispering his name.
Then the gray girl appeared once more, walking calmly across the nothingness.
Her eyes held neither fear nor mercy — only certainty.
> "You passed through time that does not pass… and lived."
"But remember, Rant… immortality is no gift. It is a curse that doesn't choose its victims — it makes them."
He answered softly:
> "I am no victim anymore."
She gazed at him for a long moment — then said:
> "Then prepare yourself… for the next world will show no mercy."
"It is the realm of the living… whose souls are already dead."
She raised her hand, splitting the pale sky with a beam of white light.
A path of glowing shadows opened before him.
Rant stepped forward.
And behind him, her voice whispered one last time:
> "Sometimes… the one who stops time… becomes time itself."
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