The boy named Rin sat motionless, blood trickling from the cut on his leg, crusting against his skin.
Above him, the sky was not merely crimson—it churned like a living wound, boiling clouds veined with threads of black lightning.
Rin blinked rapidly. Each time his eyes closed, they fought to stay shut longer than before. His mind was a maelstrom of fear and exhaustion.
He tried to press his palm against the stone wall beside him, but the surface seemed to slip away like water, leaving him swaying, breathless.
He didn't even remember collapsing. Only that the shadows swallowed him, cool and gentle as sleep.
Somewhere Else.
A place untouched by the sun. A place that could not die because it had never truly lived.
A throne stood atop a mountain of white bone. Its back rose so high it vanished into darkness overhead. It was said that if one climbed to the top of the throne's crown, they would see every thread of fate woven into existence.
The chamber was vast, echoing with the distant sounds of chains clinking and winds screaming through cracked stone.
Upon that throne sat a man draped in robes blacker than night.
A veil of obsidian cloth concealed his face, but the outline of a mouth sometimes showed as he spoke. Around his temples rested a crown fashioned not from gold or jewels—but from intertwined thorns of petrified shadow, glistening as if wet with eternal blood.
This was Lord Umbra Voss.
And kneeling before him, smiling like a man offering poison in a jeweled goblet, was the Red Advocate. His red hair spilled around him like flowing silk, and his cloak billowed as though alive.
"My Lord," the Red Advocate purred, voice liquid velvet. "How long has it been since your voice last tore open the silence?"
The man on the throne did not move. When he spoke, it was like the sound of a dying star collapsing into itself.
"Time fractures. The lines of fate twist upon themselves again. The weave tears."
The Red Advocate tilted his head, curiosity glittering in his crimson eyes. "Is this about him?"
"No," Umbra Voss answered, and the shadows seemed to tremble at the denial. "Not only him."
The Advocate's grin widened. "Then… the Soulborne Star?"
The mention of that name sent a ripple of distortion through the chamber. A thousand echoing whispers seemed to murmur from the walls themselves.
Umbra Voss nodded once, slow as the fall of an executioner's blade.
"He has crossed into the North Gate."
The Advocate blinked, surprise flickering across his otherwise elegant mask of indifference. "Impossible. The Soulborne Star was chosen for the Western Gate. His fate was already sealed."
"And yet he is there. Now. With Rin."
The Red Advocate's fingers twitched around the silver ring on his hand. "Such things are not meant to happen, my Lord."
Umbra Voss's voice dropped to a lower resonance, vibrating the floor itself.
"If he survives… if both of them survive… the future cannot unfold as it must."
A hollow pause.
Outside, the storm of shadows and wind intensified, howling like beasts in chains.
The Red Advocate tapped his lower lip thoughtfully. "Then… the boy. Rin. He is not yet who he must become."
Umbra Voss remained silent for a long moment.
When he finally spoke, each word was measured, heavy with grief.
"If Rin does not walk the path, if he does not become what I am… this universe will fall. It will fall screaming into the jaws of the Great Devourer."
A tremor ran through the bone throne as he tightened his grip on its armrests.
"The Chosen Soulborne was meant to ascend. Now he and Rin collide in the same Gate. This breach will spiral."
A black rift split open beside the Red Advocate. Within it floated countless visions: cities burning, seas of ash, shadows eating entire constellations.
"And the Council?" the Advocate said softly. "The Immortal Knights will intervene if they sense you moving directly. They will not permit another rupture in the Timeline."
"They cannot stop me," Umbra Voss growled. His fingers flexed as though grasping unseen threads of time itself. "I will summon them to me. I will call them from their Kingdoms."
A swirling vortex of shadows spiraled around his throne, pulsing like a heartbeat.
The Advocate's grin returned, wicked and dazzling. "Oh… a gathering of the Immortal Knights. Such pageantry. But my Lord, even if you convene them… what will you say? That you wish to save yourself?"
"No," Umbra Voss whispered, voice softer now, sorrow leaking between syllables. "I wish to save him… from becoming me."
The Red Advocate raised an eyebrow. "How… sentimental. That is unlike you, Lord Umbra Voss."
"There are fractures in the weave," Umbra Voss replied. "Too many. Some wounds never close. If the timeline collapses again, even I will not survive what comes. The kingdom I have built… the one at the End of Time… it crumbles, brick by brick."
At this, the Advocate's expression darkened. "And so you call the Council."
"Yes."
The chamber grew impossibly cold. Cracks formed along the walls, and thin streams of blood seeped from them as if the very stone wept.
Umbra Voss's voice turned into a whisper that could slice iron.
"Summon them. Call the Knight of a Thousand Mirrors. Call the Silent Huntress. Call the Architect of Falling Stars. And if you must… call him. I know he shall never enter this world again… but he might be the only one who could side with me."
A hush fell across the throne chamber. The Red Advocate's ever-present smile faltered, just for an instant, as the words echoed like iron doors slamming shut.
He lowered his gaze. "My Lord… him? You cannot mean—"
Umbra Voss cut him off, voice trembling with both wrath and sorrow.
"I do. He was once the blade that guarded the edge of eternity. He was the only one who ever stood beside me willingly. If even he refuses… then this universe is lost."
Outside the chamber, the howling winds screamed louder, rattling the entire fortress of bone and shadow.
The Red Advocate swallowed hard. His voice emerged as a velvet whisper. "Very well, my Lord. I shall send the summons. Though if he answers… even the stars may bleed."
Umbra Voss leaned forward, shadows cascading around his shoulders like a king's mantle.
"Let them bleed. It is a lesser price than extinction."
The Red Advocate gave a low, graceful bow. "As you command, Lord Umbra Voss."
The shadows churned around them. And far away, as the veil of sleep clung to him, Rin's fingers twitched.
Somewhere in the depths of that slumber, he felt a chill run through his soul.
He saw, for a fleeting instant, the silhouette of a man sitting on a throne of bones… and wearing his own face.
Then he woke, gasping.
Above him, the crimson sky crackled with black lightning.
And the count remained at 12.