Noctus stared at the glowing text on his system panel, his heartbeat thudding against his ribs.The words Elemental Fusion: Flames of Time shimmered with a strange, pulsing light — a fusion of crimson and silver, flickering like dying embers caught in a storm.
He swallowed hard. His palms were slick with sweat, and his throat felt dry.
Elemental Fusion (Fire + Time)Skill Type: Fusion / Cursed ElementName: Flames of TimeDescription: Flames that do not burn flesh, but the very fabric of time itself. These flames evaporate the moments of existence, devouring the past and scorching the future. They can absorb or erase the time of living beings at the user's discretion.King's Form: LOCKED.Note: Most effects are degraded for safe usage.
"Flames that absorbs time…" Noctus muttered under his breath. "Does that mean I can be immortal....well, technically"
He stood there, stunned. The forest around him was quiet, save for the whispering of leaves in the morning wind. For a long moment, he didn't move. Then slowly, a grin crept onto his face — not of arrogance, but awe.
"This… this changes everything."
He extended his hand forward, summoning his aura. Heat gathered in his palm — at first, the familiar warmth of fire, red and alive. But when he willed the time element into it, the flame shifted. Its color bled from crimson into an ethereal green, faintly translucent, flickering like a dying candle under moonlight.
The air itself seemed to bend around it.
Noctus took a cautious step back. The small flame danced above his palm — calm, steady, and impossibly ancient.
He felt it not with his skin, but with his soul.It wasn't hot. It wasn't cold. It was timeless.
His instincts screamed that this was no ordinary fusion. It was a concept made manifest — the creation, preservation, and destruction of existence woven together in a single spark.
He lifted his hand, eyes narrowing, and touched the flame gently to a nearby leaf.
The leaf didn't burn.It aged.
Its edges shriveled, veins turning black, then gray, before disintegrating into fine dust that scattered into the wind. Noctus felt something rush into him — faint, invisible, but powerful.
A pulse of vitality, yet not his own.
"This… this is their time," he whispered, eyes wide. "The moments I took from it."
He clenched his fist, feeling the strange energy dissolve into his body. It was warm, intoxicating — and frightening.
It wasn't aura. It wasn't energy. It was existence.
He could feel his body slightly stronger, his mind clearer. He exhaled slowly, trembling."If this power can take time… then it can give it too."
His gaze lifted toward the sky. "If I can control it perfectly… I could even create or preserve. Life. Matter. Memory."
But as he continued to feed aura into the flame, his body tensed. The green light flared brighter — and pain tore through him.
His veins burned, his breath hitched, and a sharp ringing filled his head.
He instantly cut off the energy flow, panting heavily. The flame flickered, then vanished.
"Too… much," he gasped, gripping his chest. "My body can't handle that level yet."
Even at degraded form, this fusion wasn't meant for mortals to wield casually. It was a cursed gift — power born from defiance of the natural order.
Noctus sank to his knees, breathing hard. Sweat dripped down his chin.
The system chimed softly.
[Warning: User's body synchronization with Elemental Fusion – 13%. Continued use at current level may cause temporal backlash.]
He let out a shaky laugh. "Thirteen percent, huh… I'll take it."
After a few minutes, he managed to calm his breathing. He stared at his hand again, flexing his fingers. "So, Flames of Time, huh? A power that burns not life, but the story of it."
He gazed into the distance. His thoughts drifted — to the Empire, to Edward, to the Fragments of Time scattered across this cursed world.
He clenched his hand into a fist. "Edward… if you're really the same as me… then you must have something like this too."
A faint sense of unease tightened in his chest. "A superior version."
Meanwhile — far away, in the capital's ruins.
The palace stood in silence. Once a symbol of glory, now a mausoleum of madness.Blackened walls, cracked marble, and corridors littered with dust and forgotten memories.
Inside one of the chambers sat a man, alone.
A single candle burned on his desk, its light flickering against the golden eyes that watched the parchment below. The man's features were sharp, his black hair falling loosely over his forehead. He looked young — far too young for the weight that lingered in his gaze.
He wrote something in silence. Lines upon lines of meaningless symbols, looping endlessly like a ritual. Then suddenly, his hand stopped.
His head turned slightly, eyes unfocused. The air in the room trembled faintly.
A smile — slow, unsteady, and terrifying — spread across his face.
"So… you've come," he murmured. His voice was calm, yet there was a tremor of madness in it. "My fellow cursed one."
His lips twisted into a grin. "The other side of the same coin."
He rose from his seat, the candlelight warping around him. The faint shimmer of distorted time energy pulsed behind his back — invisible yet heavy, like a presence watching through mirrors.
Edward chuckled softly, almost tenderly.
"At the end, we are all just fragments. Pieces meant to be discarded when the game is over."
He turned toward the massive window behind him, gazing at the broken city below.
"But not this time." His grin widened. "No… this time, I'll flip the table."
His voice dropped to a whisper, nearly drowned by the creaking of old wood.
"Let's see which of us burns brighter — your flame, or my eternity."
The candle flickered once — and the entire room was swallowed in shadow.
Back in the forest.
Noctus sat cross-legged beside his dying campfire. The night had deepened, stars scattered like frozen sparks above him. His aura pulsed in rhythm with the wind.
He stared at his sword lying beside him — the Jian of Eclipsed Time. Its blade gleamed faintly under the moonlight.
"I've come a long way," he murmured. "But I'm still not strong enough."
He placed his hand over his heart, feeling the warmth of his Fire Core and the slow pulse of his Time Core. The two beat in unison — like twin hearts struggling to synchronize.
"Flames of Time," he whispered, calling the power forth again.
A soft green glow enveloped his hand. He didn't push too much aura this time. The flame was small — almost delicate. He could feel its rhythm, like a heartbeat, or perhaps a clock ticking deep inside his chest.
He tried channeling it into his sword. The metal hummed — resisting at first, then accepting the strange power. The blade shimmered with both crimson and emerald hues.
He slashed lightly.
The air split — and the space before him aged.
The tree he'd cut didn't fall. Instead, its bark turned gray, leaves wilted, and the trunk cracked like it had endured decades in an instant.
Noctus exhaled softly. "Incredible…"
He swung again, this time slower, observing. Each strike left faint glowing trails that vanished in seconds — remnants of time distortion.
But beneath the awe, he could sense something else.
Deep inside the fusion flame was a consciousness.Not a mind, not a spirit — but an echo. The essence of time itself.
It whispered faintly. Not in words, but in sensation — cycles of birth and death, the rise and fall of empires, the burning of stars, the silence after everything ends.
It wasn't evil. It wasn't kind. It simply was.
Noctus felt tears prick his eyes, though he didn't know why. Maybe it was the overwhelming scale of it — the feeling of being small in front of eternity.
He clenched his hand around the sword hilt. "Creation… Preservation… Destruction… all part of one cycle."
He remembered what the wraith had said before vanishing: "To master time is to bear its weight."
Now he understood.
This power was not meant for chaos — it was a responsibility.
But the world he stood in, broken and twisted by gods and corrupted fragments, left him little choice.
He sheathed his sword and looked toward the horizon.
"Edward… I'm coming."
The wind rustled softly through the leaves, almost as if whispering in response.
Noctus lay down on the grass, eyes open to the stars. His mind was quiet, but beneath that calm was something else — a faint hum.
The mark of the scythe on his neck glowed faintly, its light pulsing in sync with the green flame within him.
Unbeknownst to him, that same night, far away in the ruins of the Empire, another mark glowed — the counterpart to his.
Two cursed bearers.Two fragments of a single fate.
The clock had begun ticking once more