Time stopped when Raen entered Layer Seventeen.
It was not a visible or audible rupture. It was more subdued. The feeling that something had already happened—and was happening again—was what made me feel cold, not the cold itself.
It was brass on the ground.
It was brass, carved into overlapping cogs that turned slowly under his boots, not stone or soil. A sun hung high above the dark sky, dull and hollow like a huge clock face devoid of hands. It made a ticking sound, but it sounded like a heartbeat. Was it the other way around?
Hopelessness Maw stopped at the gate. This place seemed to frighten even the beast of mourning.
Raen took a deep breath.
Oil and old regrets filled the air.
"What is this location?" With a whispery voice, Ember Vow inquired.
Jester Wyrm twitched uneasily and spun upside down. Here, time doesn't move. It breaks.
[Notice: Rules are suspended in the Time Layer.]
[A Special Being Found: The One Who Winds the Dead.]
A bell rang.
Gentle. Unambiguous. However, it reverberated like a battle cry through Raen's bones.
The world was reset.
They were standing at the edge of the brass plain again. Once more. As though the final few steps had never been taken.
Raen stopped.
They found themselves in a bind.
No, they were being looped by someone.
"He's watching," Raen stated, his jaw clenched.
The others gave a nod. Even Despair Maw's eyes narrowed as she looked up at the sun-clock.
The sound of the tick increased.
Then the sound of screaming gears came from the horizon.
A tall, narrow, four-armed man wearing a coat of spinning timepieces appeared, gliding across the shifting brass cogs. His voice was Raen's, but his face was an old man's porcelain mask.
"You're late once more."
Raen pulled out his sword. "Who are you?"
The clockmaker bowed. "I've murdered you 87 times. Eighty-seven times, you have let me down.
He displayed a pocket watch that was still ticking despite being smashed. "Try not to plead at the end this time."
Raen did not recoil. "Avoid running at the end."
[Boss Encounter: The Hollow Sun's Clockmaker]
[Special Condition: Every previous death is recalled.]
[Time Loop Active — Cycle Ends with Victory]
They fought.
Raen attacked, but the Clockmaker moved first. As though anticipating each movement. The blades rang. Time paused. When Ember Vow attempted to step in, she was rewound to her starting position six seconds later. After letting out an incoherent scream, Jester Wyrm disappeared.
Despair Maw remained motionless.
It did nothing but observe.
since it remembered.
The Clockmaker was not wounded when Raen's blade sliced across his chest.
Time turned back. The blow never came.
"Isn't that unfair?" The clockmaker grinned. "You have strength. But since I know all of your incarnations, strength is meaningless.
Raen tightened his jaw.
Then he ceased his assault.
Rather, he paid attention.
To the ticking.
It wasn't typical.
It wasn't on.
Every time Raen made an erratic decision, the Hollow Sun skipped a beat.
He changed his position.
The Clockmaker stumbled.
Raen lunged for the watch, not the body.
Steel clanged.
With one arm severed, the Clockmaker hissed. "I didn't remember that."
"That's because this time." "I remember too," Raen said, ducking under a rewind lash.
He used Soulbrand: Truthwalker as a channel.
His flame was bent by reality. His movements were followed by a trail of echoes from the past: Raen fighting, failing, dying, and then rising again.
Behind his blade surged the soul of all his failed selves.
Gears exploded from the Clockmaker's coat as he screamed.
He yelled, "You don't follow the script!" "You don't follow the conclusion!"
Raen pierced the watch with his sword.
A crack appeared in the Hollow Sun.
Time comes along with it.
The loop came to an end.
There was silence again.
A withered face, half forgotten, half Raen, was revealed when the Clockmaker's mask fell.
"I only wanted to make a Raen who didn't lose," he muttered.
Before he could fall, Raen grabbed him.
"You did," Raen murmured. "But he wasn't me."
[Boss Lost.]
[Loot Acquired: Reversal Core Gear]
[Memory Unlocked: Raen Tiberis's First Fall]
The world came back together.
Eyes spinning like dials, Jester Wyrm reappeared. "That was terrible! Let's avoid dying in a time loop ever again.
Ember Vow gazed up at the Hollow Sun, which was now broken and dripping soft gold.
"Is it not possible for us to return?" She enquired.
Raen glanced down at his hand.
It contained the other Raen's last recollection.
A kid with a sword.
attempting to improve.
"No," Raen replied. "And we won't."
The dead sun turned away from them.
In the direction of the deeper Abyss.
Where death was not the only thing that waited:
A god whose name had not been forgotten.