“Tawan…” Mali breathed, her eyes locking onto his, wide with an impossible truth. “You’re Tawan, aren’t you?”
The name, a whisper from a timeline that shouldn’t exist, hung in the humid air, shattered a heartbeat later by a shriek of rage. Arthit, a silhouette of fury against the dim glow of the warding runes, lunged. His hand, crackling with malevolent azure sparkcraft, plunged a serrated obsidian bodkin deep into Tawan’s back. A sickening crunch echoed through the crumbling passage. Blood, hot and viscous, bloomed across Niran’s tunic, staining the pale fabric a grotesque crimson.
Arthit yanked the blade free with a savage grin, stepping back, his eyes alight with vindictive triumph. “You talk too much, old man! ‘War-Sage’? More like dead sage! Now, who’s the protagonist?” His chest heaved, the azure aura flaring, consuming the last vestiges of the warding runes Tawan had been deciphering. He looked down at the hilt, a dark joy twisting his features.
Mali’s scream ripped through the air, raw and horrified. “Niran!” The stone creeping up her fingers pulsed, quickening its ascent. Krit, meanwhile, had frozen, his eyes wide, then narrowed to slits of animalistic fury. He took a staggering step forward, Pipsqueak, still levitating, bobbing gently beside his head.
Tawan stood still, a stark statue against the damp stone. A red stain blossomed across his shirt. He didn't gasp, didn't fall. His head dipped for a moment, a barely perceptible shudder passing through him. Arthit’s triumphant snarl faltered, a prickle of unease rippling through him. This wasn’t how a dying man acted.
Then, Tawan moved. Not with a collapse, but with a subtle, inward contraction. A tremor, as if the very air around him folded in on itself. The obsidian point, still clutched in Arthit’s hand, shimmered.
[Karma Boost: 750 points. Action: Self-Preservation – Chrono-Reversion initiated.]
To Mali and Krit’s stunned vision, reality cracked. The blood on Tawan’s back didn't just stop spreading; it *retracted*. The tear in his tunic knitted itself together, thread by thread, as if unwoven. The gaping, ragged wound in his flesh puckered, contracted, and then *vanished*, leaving behind pristine, unblemished skin. A faint, silvery ripple passed over his body, like water settling after a disturbance.
The obsidian blade in Arthit’s hand, however, did not follow the same rules. It remained coated in Tawan’s blood, a wet witness to what had just occurred, a crimson contradiction held by a stunned hand.
Arthit stared, his jaw hanging slack. “W-what… what was that?!” His voice, previously a confident bark, now cracked with disbelief.
Tawan slowly turned, his eyes, no longer shy or hesitant, fixed on Arthit. They carried the memory of a thousand forgotten battles, a calm stillness that promised absolute ruin. There was no stutter now, no flinching. “That,” Tawan stated, his voice a low, resonant rumble that echoed in the cramped passage, “was a mistake, Arthit.”
Arthit stumbled back, the bodkin slipping from his grasp as if suddenly too hot to hold. He scrambled to retrieve it, his eyes darting wildly. “No! I… I saw it! You were dead! You *are* dead!” He fumbled for another weapon, a gleaming steel kunai from his belt, its edges razor-sharp. His skin went pasty, the earlier arrogance stripped away by the sheer unreality of what he’d witnessed.
[Karma Boost: 1200 points. Action: Tactical Disarmament – Temporal Bind initiated.]
Tawan raised a hand, not in a grand gesture, but with a quiet, precise motion. A ripple of distorted air pulsed outward, centered on Arthit’s hands. It wasn’t a visible force, but something fundamental shifted. Arthit, mid-reach for his kunai, froze. His fingers clenched, but they didn’t move. He tried to pull them away, but they were stuck, suspended. He screamed, a high, thin sound of pure panic.
“Your weapons,” Tawan explained, his voice devoid of emotion, “are now trapped in a localized chronal loop. Every microsecond, they rewind to the moment before you tried to pick them up. You can exert all the force you want, but you will never actually grasp them.”
Arthit thrashed, a furious, desperate dance. He punched the invisible barrier, kicked, snarled. The kunai, just out of his reach, seemed to vibrate in place, teasing him. His face contorted, tears of frustration and terror welling in his eyes. He collapsed to his knees, utterly disarmed, utterly helpless. The self-proclaimed protagonist, reduced to a sobbing mess.
Mali watched, petrified. Mali drew a sharp breath, not in fear of Tawan, but in pure, unadulterated awe. Her own petrification had slowed, as if even the curse was momentarily stunned by this display of unreal power. The Niran she despised was gone, utterly erased, replaced by this commanding, terrifyingly competent man. Tawan. Her Tawan. The one from the sketch, the one who’d held her so gently in the archives. The one who had just defied death itself. The truth, finally, fully out in the open, reshaped everything.
Krit, beside her, let out a slow, reverent whistle. “Whoa. Just… whoa. That’s not a War-Sage, Niran… that’s a… a Time Lord!” Even Pipsqueak seemed to nod sagely on his shoulder, though his eyes remained firmly shut.
“The curse is still spreading, Mali,” Tawan said, his gaze softening as he looked at her. The concern, the deep, abiding care, was unmistakable in his eyes now. No longer hidden, no longer pretending. “We need to accelerate. Now that Arthit’s mantra charge is free…”
But Tawan didn’t finish. A tremor shook the very foundations of the Naga-Spire Institute. Dust rained down from the ceiling. From deep below them, a voice, ancient and vast, rumbled, reverberating through their bones. It was a guttural whisper that grew into a ravenous roar, consuming the air, consuming the last flickers of blue energy around Arthit, who screamed one final, desperate cry as the ground beneath them began to crack, the fissures spreading with terrifying speed. The floor of the Waterfall Catacombs groaned, twisting, then began to collapse into the abyssal darkness below.