Chapter 11: An Instant in Time

[Scene - Night - Outside the Royal Capital]
The air over Valerion was a whetted blade—thin, freezing, and sharp enough to draw blood from the lungs. 
Above, the moon was a fractured ghost, struggling to pierce the suffocating shroud of clouds that moved like ink across the sky. In the depths of the capital's winding alleyways, the world was reduced to shades of charcoal and obsidian.
Two figures moved through this gloom, not as physical entities, but as ripples in the fabric of the night. 
Shujin and Rei were draped in heavy black cloaks that swallowed the meager light. Their masks, matching visages of featureless porcelain, hid their expressions, leaving only their eyes to communicate. 
Shujin's eyes burned with an intense, calculated violet—a hue that seemed to vibrate with a frequency not found in nature.Beside him, Rei was a study in lethal grace. 
Gone was the cheerful girl who laughed at academy lunches; in her place was the Shadow Follower, a weapon tempered by the Abyss. Her focus was so absolute that her breathing had synchronized perfectly with Shujin's, a rhythmic tether between master and servant. 
"The Devil Guild's network is a rot that has burrowed deep into the marrow of this city," 
Shujin whispered. His voice was clinical, devoid of the heat of justice. To him, this wasn't a crusade; it was a cleaning. 
"They operate in the blind spots of the Ironwood King's law. Rei, find the nodes. Peel back the skin of this city and find out exactly how deep the corruption goes."
Rei bowed her head, the motion sharp and disciplined. "Understood, Shujin-sama. I will return with the truth, or I will return with their heads."
She didn't wait for a reply. She dissolved into the shadows, her departure so silent that the falling snow didn't even shift in the air. 
Shujin stood alone for a moment, his senses expanding. He could feel the city breathing—a frantic, uneven pulse of thousands of souls unaware that the chessboard was about to be flipped. 
The tension in the atmosphere was a physical weight, a vibration of unseen power.
"Too many eyes," Shujin muttered, his gaze drifting toward the heavens where the stars remained hidden. 
"Too much power, wasted on those who do not understand its weight."
Shujin walked. He did not use magic to travel, preferring the rhythmic crunch of his boots on the frost-bitten earth. 
He moved far beyond the city limits, past the patrol routes of the Royal Guards and the safe borders of civilization. He arrived at a place that history had tried to forget: the Old Fortress.
Its stone walls were monolithic, ancient ribs of a forgotten giant rising from the earth. Vines as thick as a man's arm choked the masonry, and the air here didn't just feel cold—it felt old. It hummed with the resonance of the Dark Magic God Umbryas, a frequency that Shujin's soul recognized with a terrifying intimacy. 
He entered the main hall. Dust motes danced in the pale shafts of light that filtered through the cracked ceiling. In the center of the hall sat a throne of jagged, dark stone—the Throne of Shadows. It was silent, untouched by the erosion of centuries.
Shujin ascended the dais and sat. His fingers curled around the cold stone armrests, and he closed his eyes. Within him, a sea of dark mana began to churn. It wasn't the elemental mana of this world; it was something primordial, drawn from the Abyss he had navigated during his terrestrial death. 
"Ten percent," he whispered.
The words were a command. He pressed his palm against the stone, and the fortress groaned. A magical pulse, deep and resonant like a subterranean bell, radiated from his core.
Then, he snapped his fingers.
Flash.
The world didn't just explode; it shattered. Dark energy, a violet-black torrent of pure psychological pressure, erupted from the fortress. 
It wasn't a physical blast of heat, but a conceptual shockwave that pierced the very fabric of reality. The air cracked with the sound of a thousand mirrors breaking at once. 
The ground beneath the fortress split into a jagged maw, and for several miles, the wondrous world of Velgrith seemed to tear apart at the seams.
Time, the most rigid law of the universe, faltered. The explosion didn't dissipate; it hung in the air, a frozen flower of destruction.
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[Scene: Gods of the Realm – The Shockwave]
High above the clouds, in a dimension of eternal light and golden pillars, the gods of the realm sat upon their celestial thrones. At the center was the World Goddess, Elmyria, her hair shining like a supernova. Around her were the four Elemental Gods: Ignir (Fire), Maris (Water), Terranis (Earth), and Sylphar (Wind). 
The moment the snap occurred, the God Realm trembled. The golden pillars groaned, and the floor of the celestial hall—a mirror of the world below—began to crack. Elmyria stood, her eyes wide with a shock that bordered on terror.
"What is that?!" Ignir roared, his mane of flame flickering wildly. "The world... it is tearing!"
"A magical storm is surging through the cosmos," Sylphar added, her voice trembling. "It isn't a demon's power. It isn't a human's. It... it surpasses any power we have ever known."
The gods tried to stabilize the realm, but the pressure was absolute. It was a weight on their spirits, a dark psychology that forced them to feel the insignificance of their own divinity.
"He is no longer just threatening the mortals," one of the gods shouted, his voice cracking. "He is threatening the order itself!"
Elmyria remained silent, her gaze fixed on the violet tear in the world below. She recognized that aura. It wasn't the Dark Magic God she had fought a century ago. 
It was something new—a human soul tempered by the logic of a world without gods. With a sharp gesture, she closed her eyes and pulled the source of the disturbance into her domain.
Shujin didn't flinch as the world changed. One moment he was on a throne of stone; the next, he was floating in a void of infinite light. 
The throne had come with him, falling into an abyss of nothingness, yet he remained seated upon it, his posture precise and calm.
Suddenly, a terrifying, deep laugh escaped his lips. It wasn't a laugh of joy, but of clinical observation. 
"Hmm... Impossible. By now, I expected they would understand."
He sensed them before they appeared. Four small, godly figures materialized around him, their bodies wreathed in elemental fury. They had teleported him here, thinking they held the advantage of the God Realm.
Ignir, the Fire God, raised a hand, summoning a sun-bright pillar of flame. Maris called upon a tidal wave that spanned the horizon. 
Terranis raised mountains of celestial stone to crush him, and Sylphar unleashed a storm of vacuum-blades.
But the powers never reached the throne. Shujin's darkness didn't fight them; it swallowed them. The flames turned to ash before they could touch him; the water evaporated into shadow; the stone crumbled into dust.
"Gods..." Shujin's voice was a whisper that filled the entire void. "Did you truly believe your laws of nature applied to me?"
The gods attacked again, desperate now. "You are a demon! A calamity born to destroy this world!" Terranis roared.
"No god will allow a miscreant like you to breathe!" Ignir shouted.
Shujin's eyes flared with a cold, predatory anger. "I am the darkness... the void between your lights. I am the thing you gods cannot see because you are too blinded by your own radiance."
With a casual flick of his wrist, the darkness expanded. It wasn't a blast, but an erasure. 
One by one, the four Elemental Gods were enveloped in shadows. Their light vanished, their voices cut short as if they had never existed. They faded into the void, their essences consumed by the abyss within Shujin.
The God Realm fell into a silence so absolute it felt like death.
Only Elmyria remained. She stood before him, calm and unmoved, though her hands were clenched tight. 
"Hmm... It seems I am the only one left. Tell me, Shujin... wasn't this your plan from the start? To show us how fragile we are?"
Shujin stared at her, his violet eyes boring into hers. 
"You seem to know me quite well, Goddess Elmyria."
He turned his throne away, his tone turning to ice. 
"Do not interfere with me again, Goddess. If you try to guide my hand or something, I will destroy more than just your subordinates. I will destroy the memory of you."
"Again??" Elmyria gasped. Her eyes widened as a realization hit her—a memory of a timeline she shouldn't have known. 
"Impossible! You... you've done this before!"
She met his gaze, but the words died in her throat. There was no anger left in her, only a profound, hollow understanding. She knew the darkness within him now—it wasn't just power. It was a grudge against existence itself.
Shujin raised his hand, and the God Realm trembled one last time. He teleported, rubbing his wrist as he felt the strain of the mana release. He returned to the space, leaving the Goddess standing alone in the ruins of her heaven.
Back in the space with his throne, Shujin stood before his throne. He took a deep breath, the violet light in his eyes dimming.
"Come Out, Chronael; The Death Clock."
Behind him, a massive, mechanical clock face materialized. It was forged from shifting shadows and gears of bone, its Roman numerals glowing with a faint, ghostly light. The hands moved with an agonizingly slow, mechanical click.
Tick... tick... tick...
Shujin reached out and grasped the air, turning an invisible dial. He focused on the eleventh hand—the Hand of Time Travel.
"I haven't destroyed the world yet," he whispered. "It is not yet time for the endgame."
The clock hands began to spin backward. The jagged cracks in the earth zipped shut. The debris of the fortress flew back into place. The violet shockwave was sucked back into Shujin's palm.
The world took a collective breath as time reversed, returning to the precise instant before the snap. Shujin let out his breath, and his power returned to its dormant, 1% state. He was once again just Kuro Velgrith, the "perfectly average" person. 
But the consequences remained. In the God Realm, the common gods now knew what lived among the humans. They remembered their deaths. They remembered the cold void of his eyes.
The world of Velgrith continued its routine, but beneath the surface, it held its breath, waiting for the Darkness Lord to snap his fingers again.
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✦ To be continued...