In the middle of the chaos, Rina lay drenched in blood. Her breath was down to its last remnants — shallow, broken, every pull of air sounding like it cost her something. Han held his sister's body as it slowly grew cold, blood soaking into both his hands and his clothes.
The rings of temporal light forming around them began to crack. Small fractures spread like a spider's web — the sign that the repetition would soon begin again.
Han gasped, his body covered in open, bleeding wounds. "Rina… hold on…"
His voice was hoarse, desperate. "THIS time… I will definitely save you…"
He tried to activate his temporal power again. His hands shook, the Divine Marks across his body glowing — but dimly, unstably.
Rina's eyes opened slowly. Her vision was blurred, but she could make out her brother's face. Han's eyes, once sharp and resolute, were now so dim. Empty. Broken.
Something inside Rina stirred — awakened by the words her brother kept saying.
"This time."
"This time."
"…Big Brother…" Her voice was weak, but fully aware. "How many times… have you watched me… die like this…?"
The question hung in the air, pressing down on Han's chest.
Han went still. His entire body locked. His mouth opened, but no sound came. He wanted to lie — to say this was the first time — but he couldn't.
Not to Rina. Not at an ending like this.
His voice caught… before finally escaping as a whisper barely audible.
"…Seven hundred… and forty-six."
---
Rina smiled faintly — not from happiness, but from understanding. From finally grasping the weight her brother had been carrying alone. Tears began to fall from her own eyes, mixing with the blood on her cheeks.
"That must have been… so heavy…" Her voice trembled. "Watching me die… again… and again…"
Han could only hold her tighter. His body trembled — not from cold, but from tears he was trying to hold back. His breathing came in ragged sounds that resembled sobs.
Rina raised a trembling hand, touching Han's cheek. Her fingers were cold, but the touch was gentle.
"Big Brother… enough." Her voice grew weaker. "I don't want… you to keep hurting yourself for my sake."
She paused. Her breath faltered.
"Please end this. Let me go…"
Han's tears finally fell — streaming down, unstoppable. Trembling hands cradled Rina's face.
"No… I promised…" His voice shattered completely. "I promised I would save you… I promised…"
"Big Brother has already saved me… hundreds of times…" Rina's smile widened slightly, even as her breathing grew shallower. "Even when the world refused to allow it. But now… let me be the one to save you."
Her eyes began to close.
"From the guilt… from this suffering…"
A final breath released as a soft exhale. Her body went limp in Han's arms.
The cycle light around them collapsed — shattering into glittering fragments. But for the first time in seven hundred and forty-six cycles, Han did not activate it again.
He simply sat there, holding his sister's body as it slowly dissolved into particles of light. His grief broke open — shattered, belonging to someone who had lost everything.
"Why did it have to be like this?"
The question echoed through the emptiness. No one answered. No one could.
Slowly, very slowly, Han rose. His body moved on its own. He picked up his sword with hands that still shook, and wiped the tears from his face with the back of his hand.
Then — a transformation took hold.
His eyes blazed gold, blinding like a burning sun. His body radiated light with the same intensity. From his left shoulder, a wing emerged — glowing red, formed from solid fire, blazing with pure, undiluted rage.
Far above in the sky, a figure hovered. Rineva, the Master of Time. She stood above swirling clouds, gazing downward with an expression that gave nothing away.
"AAAAHHHHHHH!"
Han's cry split the sky. He launched into the air at a speed that broke the sound barrier, leaving a crater in the earth where he had stood.
He struck at Rineva with every last fragment of the rage that had accumulated across hundreds of cycles.
"YOU!"
Han's voice resonated with a force that made the clouds tremble.
"You watched all of this and did nothing! You are behind all of this! RINEVA!"
Rineva exhaled quietly — a small sound that somehow still cut through the storm.
"What a foolish declaration."
Han attacked with full force.
Fire surged from every direction. Darkness swallowed light. Lightning descended from the sky like giant spears. Volleys of ice rained through the air like bullets. A storm of fire churned into a towering, annihilating tornado.
Just before the assault reached Rineva, she raised one finger.
Everything stopped.
Ice froze in mid-air. Fire was suspended in the middle of its roar. Lightning halted along its path — as though time itself had been forced to stand still.
Then Rineva lowered her finger.
Every attack reversed direction — slamming back into Han with full force.
BOOM!
Han was hurled downward. His body struck the earth at a speed that carved a crater. Bones cracked. Blood fell.
But he rose again.
He always rose again.
"You!" His voice was raw with rage. "You who are called a god, and yet—"
"So then — what do you actually know?" Rineva cut in. Her voice was calm, yet it carried a weight that pressed down. "You still haven't understood everything?"
Han kept attacking. A brutal combination of every element he commanded was released without pause. But Rineva evaded or deflected each one with ease — as though she already knew every movement before Han made it.
Han fell and rose again.
Again and again.
Rineva watched him with something resembling compassion in her eyes.
"Life," she said, quietly, "no one is born into it by their own consent."
Han moved at maximum speed, appearing behind Rineva in the air, slashing with a blazing sword —
Rineva sidestepped with minimal effort.
"Death," she continued, "even those who know when it comes can never refuse its arrival."
Han summoned hundreds of ice projectiles and released them all at once.
Rineva waved a hand. They vanished.
"And time…" Her voice softened, becoming almost a murmur. "It takes everything from everyone with perfect fairness. Yet not even a single second will it ever return."
Han's wing blazed brighter — the fire burning with greater intensity. He flooded Rineva with wave upon wave of attacks. Fire surged, ice crystals launched in rapid succession, darkness reached out to take hold.
All of it was useless.
Rineva felt like an opponent beyond victory — no, more than that. She was something that existed outside the concept of winning or losing entirely.
"But you…" Rineva stepped closer, each footfall as though climbing invisible stairs. "You are indeed capable of manipulating time. However, there are two things you have never been able to touch — life, and death."
"Silence! Be quiet!!" Han's voice broke with desperation. "SILENCE!!"
"In the end, you will understand." Rineva's expression softened, carrying something that resembled true sympathy. "You will always have… enough time."
With a gaze that was strange — innocent, yet unfathomably deep — Rineva stepped backward. A portal of space and time opened behind her, spinning into a vortex of light and darkness.
In an instant, she was gone without a trace.
Han staggered. The rage he had contained across hundreds of cycles — the rage that had been burning his humanity from within for so long — finally detonated.
The sky split apart. The world seemed to tear.
Massive waves rolled over the land. The ocean rose to impossible heights, obliterating everything in its path.
Lava erupted from the earth's core. Volcanoes that had slept for thousands of years erupted simultaneously.
Lightning danced wildly across the heavens, destroying everything it touched.
Han's body floated in the air, wrapped in a dark aura that burned. The heat was suffocating — even water evaporated at his approach.
"THIS WORLD…"
His voice resonated like thousands of voices speaking as one.
"MUST BURN!"
Everything collapsed.
Destruction on a scale never before witnessed.
Then —
"HAN! STOP!"
The voice broke through the storm. Han recognized it instantly.
Alice came running through the chaos. Her hair was whipped across her face by the raging wind, the ground beneath her feet cracking with every step.
"HAN!"
Han didn't move. He didn't turn. He only floated in the middle of the destruction, staring into the distance — at the burning world.
"The only person who made me feel alive…" His voice was flat. "Is dead. This world no longer means anything."
"But your sister…" Alice's voice trembled. "She would not have wanted you to become this."
Those words hung in the air.
In an instant — a flash cut through.
A memory struck his mind.
Two siblings sitting beneath a tree. The evening sun was low, casting golden light. Rina leaned against Han's shoulder, her head resting comfortably against him.
"Big Brother, even if I'm not around… don't do anything strange, okay? Promise me."
A small smile. Innocent. Full of trust.
Back to reality.
Han closed his eyes.
A long silence.
Slowly — very slowly — every catastrophe ceased.
The lightning vanished from the sky. The waves receded back to the sea. The lava sank back into the earth. The fire went out.
The world was still wounded, still broken — but it was no longer collapsing.
Han descended from the sky. His fire wing faded. The golden light in his eyes slowly disappeared.
He stood on scorched earth, looking down at his own hands — stained with blood, covered in wounds, etched with the symbols of sacrifices beyond counting.
"Rina…" he whispered. "I… I'm sorry."
Tears fell again. But this time — they were not tears of rage or despair.
They were tears of acceptance.
Tears of finally letting go.
To be continued...