Nate felt it before he saw it.
A strange, featherlight sensation against his arms.
It took him half a second to realize what it was—Sera.
Or rather, her absence.
His grip, which had been firm around her, suddenly met nothing but air. His arms tensed instinctively, but the weight had already vanished. For a brief moment, panic shot through him, his heart slamming against his ribs. But then, as he looked down, he saw it—her form dissolving into the shifting darkness below him, merging seamlessly with the elongated shadow stretching from his own body.
Not just her.
Cleo too.
They were inside his shadow.
Gone from his grasp, but not from his presence.
The realization struck him hard and fast, but before he could even begin to process it, another feeling followed—relief.
Pure, unfiltered relief.
It didn''t matter how she did it, it didn''t matter why it worked. All that mattered was the immediate reality—Sera and Cleo were no longer a weight on his shoulders.
And that meant—
His speed exploded in an instant.
Lightning crackled along his legs as his body responded instinctively, shifting into overdrive now that he no longer had to hold back. His muscles stretched, expanded, burned—but it was a familiar burn, a burn that told him he was pushing past his limits, reaching the very peak of what his body could do.
He didn''t know how long he had.
Didn''t know if the thing behind him would be affected by his acceleration.
Didn''t care.
He just ran.
The world blurred into streaks of motion, every shattered structure, every twisted ruin warping into indistinct shadows as he tore across the earth. His breath was a rapid-fire rhythm, in sync with the pulsing thrum of electricity coursing through his veins.
Faster.
Faster.
His surroundings twisted unnaturally.
Again?
Black particles—faint but unmistakable—began to flicker into existence around him, tiny specks of void-like dust suspended in the air, shifting and swirling as if drawn to his speed.
His mind barely had time to process it before it happened.
A silent implosion.
No explosion, no shockwave—just a pull, like the universe had folded in on itself around him.
And then—
Stillness.
No wind.
No sound.
No city.
Nothing but the endless, swirling darkness that stretched infinitely around him.
He knew this place.
The same one that had dragged him into the past, the same tunnel made of black gas, with faint flashes of flickering lightning streaking through its depths. The very thing that had brought him here.
And this time—
He wasn''t alone.
A movement—so subtle, so effortless, that it almost blended into the void itself.
The air turned sharp and cold.
And then it emerged.
The creature.
But something was different now.
This wasn''t the frantic, relentless chase from before. It wasn''t lunging at him, wasn''t clawing at his heels, wasn''t trying to rip him apart.
It just hovered.
As if the rules were different here.
As if this was its domain.
And for the first time since this nightmare had begun—
Nate didn''t run.
His body was still tense, still coiled, still ready to explode into motion at the slightest hint of aggression. But he didn''t move. Didn''t turn away. Didn''t flinch.
Instead, he spoke.
"…Who are you?"
The words left his mouth, drifting unnaturally in the empty space, carried by nothing, touching nothing.
For a moment, there was silence.
Then—
A voice.
A voice unlike anything he had ever heard before.
It wasn''t loud.
It wasn''t deep.
It wasn''t a whisper, or a growl, or a shriek.
It was wrong.
Distorted.
Twisting in ways that words shouldn''t twist.
"I am the Time Keeper."
Nate''s brows furrowed.
He didn''t need further explanation.
In fact, he had already started to suspect something like this. He had been doing some thinking—some a lot of thinking.
This creature wasn''t just some mindless entity hunting him down for no reason.
It was purposeful.
Deliberate.
And now, hearing those words, it all made sense.
A guardian.
A protector.
Not of people.
Not of cities.
But of time itself.
The creature lifted one skeletal, clawed hand, pointing a long, jagged finger straight at him.
"You are an abomination."
Its voice was heavier now, carrying an unnatural weight.
"You do not belong in this time. You have already done enough damage to this timeline. I cannot allow you to do more."
Then—
A pause.
A shift.
And then the next words hit harder than anything else.
"…And the girl with you has to die."
A slow, eerie breath.
"That is her fate."
Nate''s eyes darkened.
Sera.
The girl who had just lost everything. The girl who had been used as nothing more than a tool for a ritual. The girl who had just unlocked something inside her that no one could understand.
And now this thing was telling him she was supposed to die?
His jaw clenched.
His hands curled into fists.
No.
It wasn''t happening.
"I protect time," the creature continued, its voice stretching, warping as it spoke. "I prevent abominations like you from corrupting it."
Nate''s mind flashed back— Sёarch* The n?velFire.net website on Google to access chapters of novels early and in the highest quality.
To the ritual.
To the words of the king.
To the blood on the altar.
They had needed the blood of the last Dilmunite from the Persian Gulf to open the dimensional portal.
But—
Tiaa''s blood had been spilled instead of Sera''s.
What had happened after that?
What had changed?
Nate didn''t know.
Because he had left before he could find out.
And now—
Now, this thing was here.
Now, it was saying that Sera was supposed to die.
His grip on reality felt thinner than ever.
But there was one thing he knew.
One thing he refused to question.
Sera wasn''t dying.
Not here, not now, not ever. And if this thing wanted her life–It was going to try really hard.
The Time Keeper tilted its grotesque head, the dried, stretched skin over its skeletal face barely moving as it let out a sound—something indescribable, something that wasn''t quite a growl, nor a screech, nor a whisper, but a twisted fusion of all three. It wasn''t human, and whatever noise it had just made was proof of that.
Then—
It attacked.
One second, it was merely watching him, hovering in the swirling darkness of the time-space tunnel. The next, it was in front of him, its jagged claws slashing toward his face with impossible speed.
Nate barely had time to react.
His instincts flared, his body moving before his mind could even catch up, his powers activating in an instant as he shifted his weight, pushing backward to avoid the strike. But the moment he did, realization hit him like a war hammer—
It was following him. Perfectly. Effortlessly.
Matching his movements as if it wasn''t just moving through time, but existing outside of it altogether.
And before he could even process what that meant—
SLASH!
A burning pain tore across his face.
"AHHHH!"
The scream ripped from his throat as he stumbled back, his hand flying up to his cheek. He could feel it—the warmth of his own blood seeping through his fingers, the deep gash running across his skin.
The Time Keeper didn''t pause. It attacked again. Another slash. Another agonizing tear across his face.
The pain was unlike anything he had ever felt before—it wasn''t just a cut, it wasn''t just sharp claws raking across his skin. It was deeper. Something was wrong. The wounds burned, not with heat, but with an unnatural, gnawing cold, as if time itself was trying to erase him.
His vision blurred. His breath was ragged. He could barely open his eyes. He had to get away.
His body reacted, his speed exploding in an instant as he ran.
Faster.
Faster.
He pushed himself to the absolute limit, his muscles screaming, his body feeling like it was tearing apart from the effort. He wasn''t just running for his life—he was running against time itself.
But no matter how fast he went—The Time Keeper was there. It didn''t run. It didn''t chase.
It simply appeared ahead of him, blocking his path, existing wherever he tried to go, as if space itself bent to its will.
And that''s when it hit him. This was its territory. There was no outrunning it. No escaping it. Not here, not in this place, he had to get out.
Before another claw could tear through him, he pushed forward with everything he had—
And broke through.
One second, he was surrounded by darkness.
The next—
Cold.
Chilling, freezing cold.
Nate barely had time to adjust before his body reacted violently to the sudden change in temperature. The air burned as he sucked in a breath, the frigid wind cutting against his exposed skin like thousands of tiny needles.
Snow.
Ice.
Endless white stretched in every direction.
His mind reeled, his body tensing.
He knew this place.
Not exactly, but historically.
He had gone too far.
This wasn''t just the past.
This was the Ice Age.
His breath came out in sharp, visible clouds, his body already starting to protest against the unbearable cold. His wounds stung even more now, the frost creeping into his exposed cuts, making his face feel like it was splitting apart.
And then—
A sound.
A shrill, familiar, horrifying sound.
It had followed him.
Of course it had.
The Time Keeper''s presence loomed behind him once more, its shriek cutting through the frozen air like a blade. Nate didn''t wait. Didn''t hesitate.
He ran.
But this time, as his body pushed itself past its limits, as his feet barely even touched the snow before launching him forward at inhuman speeds, something began to change.
The black particles.
They were back.
Swirling around him, sparking against the freezing air, flickering like tiny specks of darkness being ripped from time itself.
He was reaching the threshold again.
And just as he expected—
A silent implosion.
And then—
He was back.
Back in the tunnel.
Back in the void.
Back in time-space.
But this time—
He was ready.
His mind was racing, his thoughts finally coming together.
The Time Keeper had called him an aberration. Had said he was damaging the timeline. That much made sense.
But it had also said something else—something far more important.
Sera had to die.
That was her fate.
Nate clenched his fists, his body still aching, his face still burning, but his mind clear.
This creature wasn''t just a guardian of time.
It was a correctional force.
It existed to fix disruptions.
And Sera—
Sera was a disruption.
That meant something had already changed.
The king had wanted to use the blood of the last Dilmunite from the Persian Gulf to open the dimensional portal. But instead of Sera''s blood, it had been Tiaa''s blood that was spilled on the altar. Sera was supposed to die in Tiaa''s place which meant Nate must have changed the timeline somehow.
What did that mean?
What had it changed?
He didn''t know.
But if the Time Keeper was hunting Sera, that meant she was never supposed to leave that ritual alive.
And that gave him an idea.
A plan.
If the Time Keeper''s entire purpose was to protect the timeline—Then it should have zero effect in the present day.
It was bound to the past, to fixing what was already wrong.
But the present?
The now?
It had no authority there.
That meant—If he could take Sera back to the present then she would be safe. It was the only way. He had to get back.
Not to the Ice Age.
Not to Ancient Egypt.
Not to any other moment in history.
But to the island.
To the present.
Before it was too late.
****
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