The hidden door behind the grandfather clock exhaled a breath of ancient secrets. Lin Xiaoxia and Xu Yuan exchanged a glance—a silent pact woven from dread and resolve. Xu Yuan pushed the door open, revealing a narrow passageway lined with glowing runes that pulsed like a slow-beating heart.
The symbols matched those inside the silver ring.
They moved forward, the air thickening with each step. The energy here was alive, pressing against their skin like static before a storm.
At the passage’s end: a cavernous chamber.
And at its center—
A floating hourglass.
Its frame was wrought from silver, etched with the same cryptic script. But the sand inside was no ordinary grains—they shimmered like captured starlight, flowing upward in defiance of gravity.
The relic.
Before it stood a figure in black robes, his back to them. The silver ring on his finger glowed faintly.
Eric Werner.
"You’re late," he said, turning. His smile was a blade. "But blood always calls its own home."
His gaze locked onto Xu Yuan. "Welcome back, nephew."
Xu Yuan flinched. The pull of kinship warred with revulsion—this man was family, yet everything in him recoiled.
"What do you want with the relic?" Lin Xiaoxia demanded, her fingers tightening around the pocket watch.
Eric’s laugh was low, venomous. "Time is the universe’s greatest force. And we—we are its masters." He gestured to the hourglass. "With this, I’ll rewrite history. A new world, shaped by our will."
Madness. Lin Xiaoxia’s stomach twisted.
"You’re wrong," Xu Yuan said, voice steadier now. "Time isn’t a tool. It’s—"
"You weak, sentimental fool," Eric snarled. "Your blood is wasted on you."
He raised his ring.
A beam of light lanced toward the hourglass—
And the sands surged.
Time itself seemed to gasp.
The chamber trembled. The relic’s glow turned searing, the upward-streaming sand now a whirlwind.
Lin Xiaoxia grabbed Xu Yuan’s arm. "We have to stop him—"
But Xu Yuan wasn’t listening.
His eyes were fixed on the hourglass, his pupils dilating. Something in him was waking.
A whisper, half memory, half instinct:
"I know how to break it."
Then—
He stepped forward.
Toward Eric.
Toward the storm.
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