The Eyes That See All Things As One.

  A contradiction. A force that defied what was beyond defiance. A rule that imposed itself where rules should not exist. Even entities with endless strings of fate, those untouched by the concept of destiny could not escape. It did not matter if they were outside dimensionality. This power reduced all their vastness, their infinity, into a single, absolute strand. And if cut..

  Finality.

  It could not be resisted. It could not be undone.

  Emma raised the Sword of Fate without hesitation. The blade, luminous and ethereal, hummed with a quiet resonance, as if aware of its purpose. Her grip tightened, fingers pressing against the hilt as she took in the sight of the six deer-like entities before her. Massive, towering, shifting creatures, beings that should not be bound by existence. And yet...

  Swing.

  A clean arc. A movement so smooth, so effortless, that it was almost serene.

  The world held its breath.

  Silence.

  Then.... Nothing.

  The entities did not die. They did not fall. They simply ceased. Their presence was erased, their fate cut from reality as if they had never been. Where there was once something, now there was absence, an absence more profound than mere void. Their infinite fate had been severed, and with it, everything they were.

  Matana, who had been locked in battle mere moments ago, watched as the last remnants of his foes unraveled into nothing. The massive feline's deep blue eyes gleamed with an unreadable expression before his form began to dissolve. Like dark frost smoke carried away by an unseen wind, his body dissipated, flowing seamlessly back into Emma.

  A slow breath left Emma’s lips. Her posture eased, her grip loosening as the Sword of Fate shimmered, its form shifting. The luminous blade fractured and reformed, shrinking until it became a simple bracelet, coiled around her wrist like a delicate silver band.

  She glanced around.

  The battle was over.

  But where was she?

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  The sky loomed above her, an immense, shifting canvas of deep green hues that pulsed like a living thing. The colors bled into one another, vibrant and unnatural, moving in slow waves, as if the sky itself breathed. Yet, despite its strange beauty, there was something inherently wrong about it... something that sent a quiet unease trickling down her spine.

  And the vast emptiness surrounding her was anything but empty.

  Colossal clocks hung in the distance, suspended in the air, their sheer size defying all logic. Some were pristine, their golden gears turning in slow, intentional rotations, ticking forward with purpose. Others were erratic, their hands jerking in sudden bursts, some moving too fast, others twitching back and forth as if they were caught in a struggle against time itself. A few ticked backward, their mechanisms defying reason in a quiet, maddening loop.

  Her gaze swept across the ground beneath her feet. Or what passed for the ground.

  It was not solid. Not truly.

  A vast expanse of box-like tiles stretched endlessly in every direction. Each tile pulsed with a faint glow, their edges barely defined, flickering in and out like the heartbeat of something old, something ancient. Some tiles dimmed, their light waning, while others brightened in sporadic intervals, irregular and unpredictable. The surface beneath her was shifting, unstable, yet it held her weight as if it acknowledged her presence.

  The air itself was thick. Not heavy in the way a dense atmosphere would be, but weighted with something unseen. A presence. A force that pressed against her skin, as if the very space around her was watching... waiting.

  She took a slow step forward.

  Then another.

  And despite the surreal landscape, the unnatural stillness, and the weight pressing against her very existence, one thought echoed in her mind.

  How do I escape this place?

  Emma thought, moving forward, her footsteps light against the shifting tiles beneath her. Each step felt like a quiet test of her surroundings, her senses stretched thin in the eerie vastness of this world. The tiles pulsed faintly as she walked, rising and lowering unpredictably, forcing her to adjust her balance with every movement. When one tile lifted, she climbed effortlessly, her body shifting with the subtle motions of the ground. When another dipped, she let herself drop down lightly, barely making a sound.

  Above her, the colossal clocks loomed in the distance, their forms ancient and unyielding. One, in particular, caught her eye. It was immense, its vast frame turning slowly, methodically, then, as she watched, it twisted upside down. The gears within its depths groaned in defiance, moving in reverse, each shift accompanied by a deep, resonant Gong! Gong!

  Emma stopped.

  Her white eyes traced the intricate movements of the colossal timepiece. Every motion of its gears, every strange reversal of its mechanics, felt intentional, like it was undoing something rather than merely marking the passage of time. The sound of each Gong! echoed through the air, heavy and unsettling, as if it were ringing out some distant warning she couldn’t yet understand.

  Her fingers twitched slightly at her sides.

  She could feel the pull of curiosity, the urge to reach out, to test the nature of this place. But she didn’t.

  She had already touched time itself, had felt its weight in ways she couldn’t explain. And she didn’t know how much of that had changed her. What consequences had already taken root inside her? What unseen forces had already wrapped themselves around her existence?

  No, she wouldn’t risk it.

  So she only observed. Memorized the details. Let the knowledge settle within her before slowly turning away.

  And she kept moving....