Shiro's eyelids fluttered open.
The familiar scenery greeted him once more. The same merchants shouting from roadside stalls. The same winding, bustling street. The same stone walls bathed in a soft, golden glow.
However, something was missing.
It was quiet.
Too quiet.
Shiro's gaze swept across the street. The merchants were still there, calling out their wares. The stalls were still lined with goods.
'What happened to the children?'
He scanned the street again. No laughter. No chasing. No small feet pounding against the cobblestones.
'No, the flying birds.'
He looked up. The sky was empty. No birds taking flight from the rooftops.
He blinked.
"The time changed again," Shiro said, his voice low.
Kaelen appeared beside him. "What do you mean?"
"Every loop begins at morning. But this time, the sun is already setting."
Kaelen followed his gaze across the empty street, then to the sky. His expression didn't change, but his voice carried weight.
"It seems so."
He said it casually, as if discussing the weather. But Shiro caught the meaning beneath the words.
"The timeline is shifting," Shiro murmured. "Every death pushes us forward."
Kaelen nodded. "Which means we're running out of time."
He turned back to the path ahead, his voice dropping as he continued walking.
"Looking at how the Patriarch died in Loop 3, it might not even be him. If he died first, we should have been freed from the rift. Instead, we just looped again. That means the Anomaly we're looking for isn't the Patriarch."
He stopped, glancing over at Shiro. "Which leaves us with only one option. The estate itself. Here's what we're going to do."
Shiro agreed, and they made their way back to the Patriarch's mansion.
Strolling across the iron fence, Shiro suddenly caught sight of a figure standing silently in the courtyard. The head maid.
Noticing their approach, she bowed slightly, her expression entirely unreadable. "What can I do for you gentlemen?"
Kaelen stepped forward, offering a polite, practiced greeting.
"Pardon the interruption," Kaelen said, dipping his head respectfully. "Would it be possible for us to speak directly with the lord of this town?"
Kaelen took out a token, a small, worn disc of dark iron. Etched into its surface was a pair of clasped hands beneath a crown. Beneath it, in crisp, angular script, were the words: The crown's shadow obeys the decree of Emperor Vaelrhion.
"It's rather urgent matters."
The head maid's expression remained entirely unreadable, her piercing lilac eyes lingering on Kaelen for a fraction of a second too long after seeing the token.
"I see," she replied, her voice smooth and devoid of any real warmth. "The Patriarch is quite busy right now. What message do you hope to relay to him?"
"It's nothing of importance if he's busy," Kaelen corrected smoothly, shifting his stance to keep his posture casual yet respectful. "We were dispatched to inspect the town's water source. There are reports of a potential contamination that could threaten the townspeople if left unchecked."
The head maid held his gaze for a moment longer, weighing his words before offering a slow, calculated nod.
"Very well," she said softly, turning her gaze toward the grand double doors of the manor. "I will see that the estate's caretakers are notified of your inspection so you are not disturbed. Proceed with your work."
"What did you do?" Shiro asked, his eyes narrowing slightly as he watched the head maid glide back into the shadows of the mansion.
"Something I didn't think would actually work in this timeline," Kaelen murmured back, letting out a sharp, breathless laugh as the tension finally drained from his shoulders.
The afternoon sun was sinking low, painting the forest in long, jagged shadows before bleeding into a bruised twilight. Above them, the twin moons hung side by side in the darkening sky.
Kaelen pushed through the brush, coming back into the courtyard holding an armful of dry branches and twigs.
"There's nothing on the east side," he reported, dropping his bundle with a dry snap. "What about your side?"
Shiro shook his head. "Nothing."
Kaelen wiped the dust from his hands.
"At least this confirms that Daren is actually gone," Kaelen continued, his tone dropping as a shadow of unease crossed his features. "I can't help but be worried. There is no sign of Hyu in the same place we found each other in the first, second, and third loops, or anywhere in the town."
Mid-sentence, he stopped, his gaze snapping to the small, crackling campfire Shiro had already lit against the creeping chill.
Kaelen blinked. "Wait, you found matches?"
"Oh. I had them the whole time."
Kaelen stared at him blankly. "Ah. I kind of forgot that you borrowed them from Hyu earlier."
Shiro stared down at his hand for a moment. Still nothing, even now.
He let out a quiet exhale, the warm breath dissolving into the cooling evening air beneath the twin moons.
Shiro's gaze fell on Kaelen's hand, which was tightly wrapped in bandages.
'That wasn't there before,' he thought.
"What happened to your arm?"
Kaelen looked down at his own arm as if noticing it for the first time.
"Ah. This?"
He didn't wait for an answer.
With slow, deliberate movements, Kaelen unwrapped the bandages. Layer by layer. The cloth fell away, revealing the arm, mottled red and white, with dark mist evaporating from it.
Shiro observed him in silence.
He had thought maybe Kaelen scratched his arm on a branch, but this was not nothing. This was the consequence of the rift.
Two loops is all a human can take. After that, you lose yourself. They had already gone three loops, and this was the cost.
"When did the symptoms start?"
"Oh, that. I think in the last loop."
Although both of them entered the rift at the same time, Kaelen was the first to suffer its effects.
The corrosion had spread through his body rapidly, eroding him from the inside like an unseen poison. Yet Shiro remained largely unaffected despite being far weaker and reduced to little more than an ordinary human.
The same as Kaelen, not a Chimera.
'Could it be because I'm an otherworldly being?' Shiro thought.
The rift reacted differently to him, as though his existence did not fully belong within this world. Years of exposure to foreign energies, dimensional instability, and repeated contact with rifts like these may have forced his body to adapt far beyond normal limits.
In that sense, Shiro possessed an abnormally high resistance to dimensional effects, one forged not through strength, but survival.
Shiro wanted to ask if there was anything he could do, but the words died in his throat. He already knew something like this was undeniably irreversible.
"Is something wrong?" Kaelen asked.
Shiro snapped out of his trance. "No. I'm just surprised at how you were able to survive this long."
"You know, I used to be a Projector working under the Royal Dark Knights of Vaelrhion."
Projector?
Kaelen lifted his head, taking in the starless sky, clouds covering the two moons. Then an image flooded his mind like an illuminating lantern casting shadows.
Those shadows depicted him as a knight of the Vaelrhion Empire.
Kaelen had been a proud royal knight. He had fought on the front lines, bled beside his comrades, and watched friends die for the Empire. Their victories had secured territories and brought peace to villages that had known nothing but war.
But the victories came at a cost.
He remembered the day everything changed.
The Empress was traveling toward the eastern side of the continent, where she was supposed to receive the eastern territory on behalf of the Empire. Kaelen was among her royal escort, accompanied by his longtime companion, Seong Zhou.
Then they were ambushed.
The Empress was killed.
However, the attackers weren't ordinary bandits. They were Vaelrhion knights.
Then Kaelen and the others were taken hostage and brought before the Empire to be executed for their supposed betrayal.
Most of them died that day.
Some refused to accept their fate and fought back. Some sought out the truth, among them Seong Zhou.
Others, like Kaelen, abandoned their former names, took on new identities, and disappeared into the world, leaving their past behind.
Yet the past had never truly left him.
He still remembered it as clearly as the day it happened. Every time he stared at the starless sky, the sight reminded him of that day.
Kaelen lowered his gaze and stared into the fire before him. Its sparks reflected in his eyes, small and fleeting, dying almost as quickly as they appeared.
He let out a long, heavy exhale.
"Humans are saltwater drinkers in a desert of abundance. The more we swallow to cure our thirst, the more parched and desperate our souls become."
There was no bitterness in his voice. Just exhaustion. The exhaustion of someone who had spent years running from something he should have faced.
He looked down at his hands.
The mist evaporated across his skin, black with red sparks, devouring his arm inch by inch.
He reached for a roll of new bandages, then wrapped his arm slowly until the mist was hidden beneath the cloth.
But he could still feel the dark mist eating away his flesh and identity as his memories became more blank.
Shiro realized why Kaelen had survived up to this point.
The fire crackled between them.
"Why did you join the raid, Shiro?" Kaelen asked casually, not looking up from the fire. "I mean, you had the chance to just turn and run away back then."
Shiro remained silent for a long moment, staring at the dancing fire in front of him.
"I need to find a way back," he answered softly.
His gaze lowered.
"There's something I must make right."
An image flashed briefly through his mind, a memory fractured by time and distance. A pale hand reaching out toward him through a fading light. A frail, desperate voice echoing in his ears: "Promise me... you'll come back."
Shiro clenched his hand into a tight fist over the table.
"I made a promise."
Kaelen paused, then looked at Shiro in quiet contemplation before letting out a soft, low chuckle.
"In this age, most young men concern themselves only with recognition and wealth," Kaelen muttered.
But Shiro was different. He wasn't chasing fame, power, or grand ambition. He simply wanted to hold onto the promise he had made to protect the people he cared about.
Kaelen closed his eyes briefly, letting out a breath.
"In a world as broken as this one... that kind of resolve was rare."
For a moment, there was silence. Then an animalistic roar tore through the silence of the forest.
Shiro's head snapped toward the trees. His body went rigid.
"Did you hear that?"
Kaelen was already moving. He kicked dirt over the fire, smothering the flames. Embers rose into the night sky like dying fireflies, then vanished.
"Head to the east," Kaelen said, his voice low and tight. "I'll take the west."
Shiro nodded and sprinted toward the east.
Shiro moved through the trees in a blur, rushing until he reached the east side of the town.
On the dirt path, he spotted footprints. Kneeling down to inspect them, he realized they weren't human. They were large, heavy, and deeply clawed into the earth. Whatever made this had passed through recently.
At his feet, a trail of dried blood painted the path, leading him further into the eastern district. Upon arrival, the grim reality came into view. The mangled bodies of the town guards littered the cobblestones. Some were broken and crushed, others bore vicious claw marks, while a few lay eerily intact.
As he walked closer, his breath caught. A familiar shortsword lay on the ground, and right next to it was a detached arm, the very same arm that had handed him the lantern earlier before the loops.
His gaze shifted to the fractured town monument. Carved onto the surviving stone was the inscription: You are at the Eastern town of Haleford.
Leaning against the shattered base was Hyu, covered entirely in blood, large portions of his body literally fraying away into nothingness.
"...Hyu," Shiro breathed.
Hyu blinked slowly, turning his head with visible effort. "Oh, Shiro... it's you. I didn't actually see you there."
"Euk-huek." Blood surged up his throat. He coughed hard, spitting a thick mouthful of dark blood.
"What happened?" Shiro demanded, stepping forward.
"You actually came... you didn't need to," his voice came out weak and ragged. "My cowardice... it only ever brings you harm. This endless cycle of loops, the dying, the waking up just to die again... I can't carry it anymore. It was supposed to be an everyday, easy raid. Just another simple mission.
"We were supposed to just survive, figure it out, and move on. But I couldn't handle the reality of it... I tried to outrun the weight of all these deaths. I spent the last two loops running away and hiding from you both, terrified of the truth, terrified of what we'd find, just trying to buy myself another pathetic breath."
"...I suppose this is the life an orphan like me was supposed to live," Hyu whispered, his voice barely audible over the crackle of distant flames. "Tell Kaelen that I'm thankful for what he did, and I tried my best."
He gripped Shiro's sleeve with a trembling, fraying hand. "Please hurry. Get out of here. Because if you don't, they'll come back to finish me."
"They?" Shiro pressed urgently. "Who? The Patriarch? The Anomaly? What is it?"
"It... it was—"
Before Shiro could catch the answer, Hyu's head suddenly went limp along with his only hand, his eyes losing their remaining color as life faded from him.
Hyu's unfinished words hung heavy in the silence.
A moment later, a deafening explosion ripped through the air, turning the night sky into blinding daylight. Without a second thought, Shiro turned and sprinted at full speed toward the western side of the town, completely unaware that two red phantom eyes were watching him closely from the creeping shadows.
He jumped from house to house, moving faster than he ever had. The wind whipped past his face. The smoke grew thicker. The orange glow grew brighter.
He reached the town's edge and launched himself onto the roof of the tallest building still standing.
Below him—
Houses burned. Bodies lay in the street frozen in terror, blackened by flame, while some onlookers scrambled for water and others were in chaos.
Shiro scanned the chaos. His heart pounded in his chest. But Hyu was nowhere to be found.
He was about to drop down and search when he heard it.
A whisper of air.
Then pain.
Shiro glanced down, his eye widening in horror at the center of the blooming red on his shirt. A green needle-like spike protruded from his chest.
"This... thing. I've seen it somewhere."
Green veins erupted from the wound, crawling across his skin like a root system.
'The Poison,' he realized.
The exact same toxin that had led to his death back in the third loop. But now it coated the material right in front of him, the very same substance he had inadvertently stepped on during the first loop, and the exact material that had been used on Daren.
Shiro had briefly suspected that Hyu might have been the one hunting them down. But looking closer at the brutal, massive claw marks carved across Hyu's chest, he knew the truth. They were far too large to belong to Hyu. Whatever had killed him was the true Anomaly. Shiro had spent so long trying to figure out who or what was behind the carnage, convinced he was on the right track, but he had been completely wrong.
Grimacing, Shiro ripped the tainted material away from his chest and clamped a hand tightly over the wound.
"All this time... the clues were right there."
His body was failing fast. His vision swam and blurred around the edges, though the searing agony in his chest was almost a relief compared to the trauma of losing an arm in a past loop.
Suddenly, his entire field of vision flashed a violent, blinding crimson as another needle-thin spike drove straight into his forehead.
The sky spun in blurring stars and billowing smoke. As he stumbled and fell backward off the rooftop, through the fractured, fading haze of his sight, a silhouette caught his eye at the edge of the crackling flames. It wasn't Kaelen, and it wasn't the Patriarch.
Standing there in the firelight was a woman with long, midnight-blue hair.
Shiro's eyes widened in a final flash of realization, but his failing body refused to obey. He couldn't hold onto his consciousness any longer, leaving him to finally surrender as darkness rushed up to claim him.