Nexus Re : Time

Chapter 55 : Loop 17

A single mote of dust drifted through a shaft of moonlight. Then the altar let out a sound – a faint crack. Kael’s head snapped around. A slender fissure snaked across the crystal dais where Stella’s foot had hovered moments before. The runes around it flashed once in angry red and fizzled out, plunging the hall into dim twilight. Yuna sucked in a breath. The silence was about to shatter.

Scene III — The Giant Unbound

Without warning, the stone floor beneath the altar exploded upward. Chunks of marble flew like shrapnel. Kael flung himself forward, wrapping an arm around Stella and yanking her back from the dais as a massive shape burst from below. Where Stella had stood seconds ago, a hulking golem now rose – a giant of obsidian and ash, its form tearing free of the earth with a sound like mountains screaming.

The golem’s body was a grotesque silhouette in the gloom: limbs of jagged rock, molten cracks glowing sickly green along its joints. It had no face, only a rounded head with a gaping circular maw at its center that churned with temporal energy – a yawning clockwork void. Time Golem. Kael’s mind supplied the name in cold terror. An ancient guardian of the loop, summoned by their refusal to pay its price.

The air shuddered with heat and static as the enemy loomed before them. All around, the world was fracturing – shards of light and shadow spinning off into the sky – but Yuna’s heart was steady. Stella stood at her side, nine golden tails fanned out in defiance, and for a moment Yuna felt the rhythm between them: two heartbeats aligning as one. She lifted her ribbon and its crimson length glimmered, alive to her will. Across the scorched plateau, the hulking figure of Alpha – the Void Stalker sentinel – let out a guttural rumble that echoed like a broken choir. Its eyes were a dozen shifting colors of corruption, but the choir had arrived to answer in harmony.

Yuna tightened her grip on the ribbon. “Together,” she called, voice clear against the thunder around them. “Melody!” At her bell-word command, the team moved as one.

Ara darted left, fox-spirits leaping from her shoulders in twin streaks of silver. Kirin and Suri – wisps of living foxfire – raced ahead of her, circling Alpha’s flank. At the same time, Saber surged to the right, mechanical joints whirring with lethal grace as he drew his blade. Yuna charged center-stage with Stella a golden blur at her side. The ground beneath them cracked with each of Alpha’s heavy strides, but the group was already in motion – an array of voices and powers in concert.

Stella struck first. With a fierce cry, she vaulted off a chunk of broken marble and straight toward Alpha’s chest, foxfire wreathed around her like a comet tail. In mid-air she spun, all nine tails converging forward; from their tips erupted a lance of searing flame. Yuna was right behind her – the crimson ribbon snapped forward in tandem, weaving through the air to coil around Alpha’s colossal right arm. The flaming lance hit a split-second after, exploding against the sentinel’s armored torso in a burst of embers.

Alpha bellowed as it staggered back, dark talons scrabbling to tear away the binding ribbon now constricting its arm. Yuna felt the recoil sing through the ribbon’s fabric – a discordant note of pain – but she gritted her teeth and sang a counter-melody under her breath, a soft, resonant hum. The ribbon answered; its glow intensified, anchoring Alpha’s arm in place.

“Stella, now!” Yuna shouted. She didn’t need to; Stella was already moving with her, attuned to every cue. As the sentinel struggled against the binding, Stella landed lightly atop its forearm, glittering claws bared. With a swift motion she plunged those claws into the gaps of Alpha’s armored limb. Metal squealed. Stella’s eyes burned with reflected fire as she met the monster’s gaze unflinching. “You want a monster?” she snarled, voice low and fierce. “Come face a fox.” With a twist of her lithe form, Stella ripped free and backflipped away just as a cascade of sparks burst from Alpha’s damaged arm joint.