(Alifer to Oliver) I changed it
Silence devoured everything.No sound. No breath. No time.A stillness so dense it felt as if the universe itself had stopped spinning.
Oliver opened his eyes slowly. The cell was gone. The walls had dissolved, leaving behind a vast, liquid expanse of gray. Strands of black and golden light drifted through the air, pulsing softly. Each pulse called his name—or perhaps whispered the curse he had carried since birth.Bearer of Death.
(Oliver… this isn't a physical world...)Drogo's voice trembled within him, weak and distant, like an echo caught in a dying dream.
Oliver took a step forward. Beneath his feet, the ground formed from shifting ash, breaking apart and reassembling with each heartbeat—as though the very memory of existence was being rewritten in real time.
In the distance stood a gate—vast, fractured, made of broken mirrors. Each shard reflected a different version of him:the child in chains,the bloodstained warrior,the man who fell with his sword through his chest,and the hollow eyes that had forgotten what light meant.
(That's no ordinary gate...) Drogo hissed. (It's bleeding time. Something inside you shattered it!)
Oliver smiled faintly, his reflection splitting and merging across the mirrored shards."The clock didn't bring me back," he murmured."It was fate itself that tried to cast me beyond its boundaries."
He reached toward the glass—and the void screamed. A sound like the first cry of death tore through the air.From the gate, black tendrils of shadow erupted, coiling around his wrists, dragging him inward with savage force.
(Oliver!) Drogo's voice faded—further, fainter—until only a whisper remained, echoing from some abyss that knew his name:
(When death breathes again… destinies will shatter.)
–––
He awoke to the sound of rain.Cold droplets struck his face, each one carrying the weight of centuries.
Opening his eyes, he found himself in a gray forest drowned in mist. The air was thick, heavy, and eerily familiar.He rose slowly, his gaze landing on the trunk of an ancient tree—etched upon it was the symbol of the clock.
"It's still following me…" he whispered bitterly.
Lifting his right hand, he saw the dragon mark that represented Drogo coiled around his wrist—no longer dormant, but glowing faintly in rhythm with his heartbeat.
(The air here… it's ancient,) Drogo murmured, his tone tense. (As if we've gone back to a time before the Abyss itself was born.)
Oliver reply came cool and steady."No. We've returned to a time that was never written… a time fate tried to erase."
He gazed toward the horizon. There, piercing the mist, rose a black tower. A dim golden light pulsed from its peak—like the ticking of a colossal clock beating within the heart of the world.
"There…" he said softly, a faint smile touching his lips."There is where it all began."
He walked.
With every step, the world seemed to age around him. Trees withered into stone. The wind moaned, carrying whispers of his first death. Even his breath began to echo—not his own, but the breaths of those he had slain… and those who should never have died.
Before him loomed the gate of the black tower—massive stones that drank the light itself. On their surface, ever-shifting symbols writhed, rewriting their shapes as if trying to recognize him.
(I sense something here,) Drogo said cautiously. (It's the same energy from the clock… but purer. Older.)
Oliver pushed open the doors. They groaned like the heartbeat of a stone giant.
Inside, the floor was made of transparent glass, beneath which turned the gears of time like dead planets in slow orbit. At the center sat an old man in a tattered gray robe, lined with symbols of fading gold. His hair was white as dust, and in his eyes shimmered the reflection of a thousand deaths.
Without looking up, he spoke:"You're late, Bearer of Death."
Oliver froze."…You know me?"
The old man's smile was faint, slanted."I am the one who forged the Clock. I have watched your life through its turning hands."
He rose, slow and deliberate."I made it to return time—to undo my failures. I fused the Shard of Life and the Shard of Time into it. But I needed the Shard of Death to complete the cycle. My time ran out before I could find it."
He paused, eyes gleaming."I am nothing more than the echo of a creator's obsession… and fate has led you here, to use what I could not."
(Oliver...) Drogo's voice wavered. (He's talking about the Death Shard… yours.)
The old man nodded."It is what cast you outside the laws of the world. Not a gift—a curse, born from a realm that knows no eternity."
He raised a trembling hand.In his pupils spun the reflection of a clock running backward.
"Your cycle has been restored, Bearer of Death. Not out of mercy—but correction."
The tower trembled. The gears below roared to life, spinning violently. The mark on Oliver chest flared, blazing like a dying sun.
(He's rewriting the world!) Drogo shouted.
The old man smiled, spreading his arms wide."Then live this time without regret."
Light exploded.Time cracked.The world began to turn inside out.
And as the blinding radiance swallowed him, Oliver heard the old man's final whisper:
"Remember… you were not sent back to save anyone.You were sent back… to remember those who must not die again."
Thus, when the Bearer of Death breathed once more—fate itself trembled.