He didn't know how much time had passed… or if time was even moving at all.
Everything around him was still — the gray city, the frozen faces, the suspended rain in the air.
But suddenly, he felt it.
That faint shiver that no one hears, yet it splits the heart of the moment.
> [Temporal Pulse Detected...]
[Stability: 47%]
He looked around, confused.
The frozen faces began to move —
No… they weren't truly moving, just trembling.
As if their souls were trying to escape the moment in which they were imprisoned.
Then the air split before him.
---
A metallic screech emerged, and then a being of fractured light materialized.
It had a distorted human form, half moving at incredible speed, the other half barely catching time.
Its face wasn't fixed… it changed every second into a different person's face.
> [Temporal Anomaly: Class C - The Echoed One]
[Objective: Purge the unstable intruder]
Eren stepped back, gripping his silver clock, whispering to himself:
> "One minute… just one minute."
But before he could do anything, the creature moved.
At a speed that tore the air, it struck him with such force he flew between the petrified walls.
He screamed in pain.
Blood spilled from his mouth, yet he couldn't move.
> [System Hint: Each wound resets with time reversal. Cost: 1 memory]
He looked at the clock's hand, hesitating.
Each use meant losing a part of himself…
But he remembered the Keeper's words:
"When your heart stops beating at the right moment, you will understand."
---
He pressed the clock.
Light erupted.
Time twisted around him, and the creature was pushed back, if only for a moment.
In that second, Eren moved forward and drove the clock into the monster's chest.
> [Clock Resonance Activated.]
[Time collapse initiated.]
The creature screamed — a sound no one heard, yet it pierced the heart of time itself.
Then it exploded into dust made of light.
Everything vanished.
---
But Eren didn't feel victorious.
He felt emptiness.
He recalled a moment from his childhood — his small hand holding his mother's hand by a fog-covered river…
Then the memory vanished completely from his mind.
> [Memory Lost: "Mother's Face"]
[System Update: Stability 63%]
[Ability Enhanced: "Minute Reversal II" - Allows 2 reversals per cycle]
He sat on the ground, gasping.
Every time he survived… he lost a part of himself.
---
From afar, the same whisper returned.
The Keeper's voice.
> "Everything you restore… restores you less than you were.
Remember, Number 13 — time gives nothing without taking something greater."
He lifted his head toward the gray sky.
In the distance, a gate of light began to form — circular, spinning with reversed hands.
> [Next Zone Detected: The Broken Hourglass]
[Prepare for Transition.]
Eren stood on his feet, blood dripping from his mouth.
He muttered with a faint smile:
> "If time wants to erase me… let it try."