BOOK 7

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Chapter 1: The Weight of Defeat

Chas sat on the remains of a broken rooftop, staring out into the ruined cityscape. His hands clenched into fists, his nails digging into his palms, but the pain was secondary. He could still hear the echoes of their last battle. The overwhelming force of Jalen’s awakened state. The moment he and Stacey were forced to retreat.

The air was heavy. The silence between him and Stacey wasn’t comfortable—it was filled with something unspoken.

They had lost.

Stacey leaned against a crumbling pillar, arms crossed, expression blank. She wasn’t one to show emotion, but Chas knew she was just as frustrated. Maybe more.

“You saw it too,” she finally said.

Chas didn’t answer immediately. He didn’t need to.

Jalen’s power had evolved in that fight. His Chronomancer Ascendant form wasn’t just a step above them—it was something beyond comprehension. And if that was Jalen at a fraction of his full strength…

Chas exhaled sharply. “We need to get stronger.”

Stacey’s violet eyes flickered with something unreadable. “And how do we do that?”

That was the problem. They didn’t know.

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Chapter 2: The Limits of Power

Stacey paced, her mind working through the problem with surgical precision.

Their abilities weren’t just strong—they were among the most powerful in existence. Time distortion. Matter manipulation. These were forces that defied nature itself. And yet, against Jalen, they had felt like nothing.

“I’ve been thinking,” she said. “Raw power isn’t enough.”

Chas scoffed. “No shit.”

She shot him a look but continued. “We’ve been using our abilities instinctively, as if they were just extensions of ourselves. But what if we’ve been doing it wrong?”

Chas frowned. “Explain.”

Stacey gestured with her fingers, and the air around them twisted. The ground beneath them dissolved before reforming in an instant. “I manipulate matter. But what if I don’t just change it?” She clenched her fist, and for a brief moment, the space around them flickered—like reality itself had hesitated.

Chas tensed.

She smirked. “What if I rewrite it?”

A moment of silence stretched between them before Chas let out a slow breath. “...Alright. Then what about me?”

Stacey’s smirk faded. “That’s the problem. Your power has always been about movement. Speed. But that’s surface level.”

Chas narrowed his eyes. “Get to the point.”

She met his gaze. “You don’t just move through time. You exist within it. What if instead of traveling through it, you learn to break it?”

The idea sent a chill down Chas’s spine.

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Chapter 3: The Teacher That Shouldn’t Exist

It wasn’t long before they realized they needed outside help.

The problem? There weren’t exactly a lot of people who could teach them how to defy the laws of reality.

But there was one.

A name spoken only in hushed whispers. A being who existed outside of time, who had touched the very core of reality and survived.

Orin the Unbound.

“Are you insane?” Chas muttered as they stood at the edge of a city that shouldn’t have existed.

Stacey didn’t answer.

The world here was… wrong. Buildings shifted like mirages, flickering between centuries. The sky twisted with colors that had no name. And in the center of it all stood a figure wrapped in a tattered cloak, their face obscured by a mask that seemed to change every time Chas blinked.

Orin.

Their voice was like a thousand whispers speaking at once. “You seek to rewrite the fundamental truths of the universe.”

Neither Chas nor Stacey spoke.

Orin tilted their head. “Interesting.”

Then, without warning, Chas felt his entire body shatter.

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Chapter 4: The First Lesson – Obliteration

Chas’s consciousness snapped back into place—if this could even be called reality anymore. He was floating. No—he was disassembled. His form flickered between ages, his thoughts tangled in memories that weren’t his.

This wasn’t training.

This was erasure.

“Time is not a road,” Orin’s voice echoed in the void. “It is not something you walk upon, nor something you can manipulate like a toy.”

Chas struggled to move. His body didn’t exist.

Orin’s voice was everywhere. “You think you understand time? Then tell me—what happens when time forgets you?”

And in that moment, Chas felt it.

A sensation worse than pain, worse than death.

He was being erased from history.

He had always assumed that, no matter what, he was there. That even if he failed, even if he lost, he existed somewhere.

But what if he didn’t?

What if he had never existed at all?

Something snapped.

A presence surged within him, something ancient, something terrifying.

Orin’s voice softened. “Now… you’re beginning to understand.”

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Chapter 5: The First Lesson – Creation

Stacey’s trial was different.

Orin had placed her in a world of static.

Nothing existed here. Not time. Not space. Not even thoughts.

For someone whose power was matter itself, this was hell.

“Your gift is impressive,” Orin murmured, standing in the void with her. “But you are merely shifting what already exists. That is not true power.”

Stacey’s jaw clenched. “Then what is?”

Orin’s mask shifted, revealing something that shouldn’t have been possible. A reflection of Stacey’s own face—but older.

“Creation.”

And with a single motion, Orin undid her.

She ceased to exist.

And yet—she was still aware.

There was no body. No form. Just consciousness.

And then, realization struck.

She had always manipulated matter. But what was matter?

A concept.

If she could manipulate the physical… what stopped her from manipulating the idea of the physical?

Her presence reformed, but this time, it wasn’t just her body returning.

She was rewriting her own existence.

And she wasn’t bound by the same rules anymore.

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Chapter 6: The Awakening

When Chas and Stacey returned, they weren’t the same.

Their auras didn’t flare with chaotic energy. They didn’t radiate overwhelming pressure.

They were… calm.

Refined.

Chas moved, and space itself hesitated. He wasn’t just traveling through time anymore—he was stepping outside of it.

Stacey breathed, and reality itself adjusted around her.

For the first time, they weren’t fighting against the rules of existence.

They were rewriting them.

And when they looked at each other, a silent understanding passed between them.

They were ready.

The next time they faced Jalen…

It wouldn’t be a battle.

It would be a war.

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End of Book 8

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