I died.
Or at the least I thought I did.
Last I recall, dying and returning to the next loop wasn't this painful.
"Ugh... My back..."
Holding my back that mirrored the state of my old grampa, I distinctly felt my bones pop back into place.
*Pop Crack!
"Ack."
It seemed that facing an explosion head on wasn't exactly good for the spine, who knew?
Groaning, I shakily got up from the metal ground covered in flickering embers.
"Ah... what the hell happened."
Struggling to prop myself up, I looked up and was stunned by the devastation that unfolded.
The glass face of the clocktower was all but intact, missing a good majority of its face alongside Two and a half of its hands.
'There's the other half.'
Finding the long thick rod of steel mixing with the various gears covering the insides of the tower, I noted that a good majority of them have melted into an unusable glowing slag.
This rendered most of the idle gears useless as bits of molten metal melted down and joined the gears together rendering any future usage impossible.
"My tower..."
A small whisper from someone that seemed to share the same sentiment.
Turning my head, I was greeted with the sight of the Timekeeper taring at the devastation wide eyed.
'Huh' I blinked. 'She looks rather pretty underneath that helmet.'
With golden yellow eyes staring wide eyed at the destruction of the tower, she shakily got up from the ground while using her longsword as a crutch.
"My tower."
With blonde yellow hair falling off the side of her head, I noted that despite what it had seemed, she wasn't wearing a grey shirt underneath the cloth padding on her chest and legs, her skin was just naturally that color.
Helmet having broken to reveal half of her stunned face, the Timekeeper stared at the destruction as I dusted myself off.
'Lord I'm tired.' Feeling emptiness fill my limbs with lead, I opened my mouth.
"Hey"
Turning her gaze to me, the Timekeeper seemed to realize what had just happened and her jaw tightened.
With a vein pulsing on her forehead, the Timekeeper stared at me before tightly clenching the shortsword that hadn't left her hands even after... whatever had just happened sent us flying.
'I still don't understand how this happened, wasn't I in the midst of losing the thing on my shoulders?'
Feeling my neck that carried the phantom sensation of it being sliced apart despite it being completely intact, the Timekeeper stomped out the remaining embers on the ground as she approached
'And now that I think about it, what the hell happened?'
'Last I recall was time slowing around me as all five of my senses became hypersensitive.'
Then came the usage of the inferno rune so that I could mimic Iron man's flight followed up by a broadsword slowly nearing my neck as she ran normally in the slowed time.
No matter what, I couldn't exactly escape thus leading to what I thought was my demise.
But no, here I am.
'If I recall, I think the Challenger rune did something but...'
I tapped at the unmoving rune that didn't seem to react no matter what I did.
'Yeah I still don't understand what the hell happened.'
It didn't help that I had no mana left to test the rune.
Standing stock still as those thoughts ran around willy nilly in my mind, I let the Timekeeper approach me with malevolent intent basically carved into her facial features.
"You destroyed my tower."
Hissing, her hand holding the shortsword shot forward until the tip of the blade was grazing my neck.
Not enough to kill me, but definitely with enough to draw blood as a pin prick of red dripped down my throat.
"I should kill you for that."
"...To be honest, I feel so exhausted that no matter what you do to me I won't be able to resist."
Shrugging my shoulders, I gestured at my trembling legs. "Even standing up and talking to you is extremely tiring."
"Grrr..." Growling, she threw her shortsword down violently, sinking the blade into the hard metal floor until only the hilt was poking out.
Feeling my throat that bled slightly, I glanced at the blade that had pierced through what looked like a few inches of sheet metal, what metal it was was unknown, but one didn't just casually pierce through several inches of metal like nothing
'Oh she's strong.'
Grabbing the scruff of my shirt, despite being the same height as her, she easily lifted my body up until my toes could barely touch the ground.
'Oh she's really strong.'
Pointing the longsword at my throat, her hand trembled with what seemed like anger and conflict as the Timekeeper bit her lip and glared at me.
'She's also really scary.'
Wanting to move the blade from my neck so I wouldn't be decapitated in the next second, despite seeming to want to desperately removed my head from my shoulders by manner of decapitation, the Timekeeper closed her eyes and let out a deep breath.
"Hoo... You really are a frustrating specimen."
'The hell did I do?'
Tilting my head in confusion, the Timekeeper slowly let me down while letting the strength in her left arm flow out slowly.
Adjusting my shirt that had been stretched by the strong grip, the Timekeeper wiped her hand as if it were dirty and turned to look at me.
With golden yellow eyes staring at my face, I noted that they were strangely empty of emotion.
But before I could delve into the why they were so empty, the Timekeeper turned to look at the broken clock face, granting me the view of her helmet's orange eye slits.
"Follow me."
Gesturing for me to follow, without a reason to politely refuse, I followed silently.
Silence stretching on, the sound of glass crackling underfoot and the wind whistling through the air briefly interrupted the silence.
It was only when she finally reached the clock face and rested her arms on the railings just before it did she speak, gesturing for me to join her.
"...Do you understand what it is you are trying to do?"
"..."
Meeting her question with silence, the Timekeeper continued to stare outside of the clocktower while I stared at her in silent confusion.
Perhaps seeing my silence as an answer in itself, she gestured at the world beyond the clock face.
"Beyond this broken window of glass, what do you see?"
I turned to look out of the window.
There were two islands, Oldcastle had a black castle covered by black clouds, a forest of green stretching across the entire island
Surrounding the giant cubic stone structure standing prominent in the forest was an extensive wall of stone, it circled across the entire expanse of the island.
On the way to Newcastle was a giant black bridge that withstood the test of time and the waves of the sea.
With dirt roads running from the checkpoint set at the end of the black bridge, they led to a series of floating islands sanctified by temples, swords and snakes, a port town with dirty green wood, a graveyard of stone and a weird looking block of glowing blue.
If I just viewed with the mentality of an observer unaffected by anything, it seemed like a grand world filled with wondrous adventure and life.
But despite all of the grand architecture and the idyllic scenery, there was no life to be found within it in the slightest.
It was like a painting focused only grandness and not the little life that populated its every corner.
"To be blunt, it looks like a painting of a kingdom ruined by a plague."
"A painting of ruin huh? Fitting"
She pressed her free hand against her face.
"A painting painted lifelessly by a painter with a good eye can be admired for its beauty, but that's the extent of which the admiration extends."
She pointed her blade towards the world beyond the clock face.
"But a painting filled to the brim with the artists heart and soul is something else entirely."
"Small details that the average person couldn't possibly notice fill its every corner, it's why the nobility pay a high price for paintings like that." She sighed and lamented
"And although our present world is like the former painter, the world in the past was one that even the King would admire."
She rested the hilt of the blade against the half melted railings, turning to look at me with her golden eyes.
"So are you one hundred percent sure of the burden you are undertaking when you say you want to take the Boss Cell that I am to be keeping?"
"I don't pride on myself being that good of an artist."
Hearing the answer that wasn't a yes or a no, the Timekeeper turned to look back at the ruined kingdom.
"Well I guess being a great artist that can engrave life into every corner of the canvas is to much to ask for, at the least tell me you can bring life back to the port town down there."
Pale white fingers pointing at the village of green and blue, I stared at the port town before pointing at the graveyard and the shrines.
"Why not dream big and paint some details in the graveyard before moving to the Shrines? We have all the time in the world don't we?"
"...You really are a specimen to be studied"
"Thank you?"
"It wasn't a compliment."
"Oh well."
Silence befalling the top of the clock tower, the Timekeeper let out a long sigh once again, her chest heaving as air left her lungs.
"...It's about time someone did something to paint over the cruel design of the painter that erased all the details."
"Hmm?"
Tilting my head, the Timekeeper pulled out a small locket made of brass from within her bosom.
"Take it."
"What is this?"
"It's the boss cell you wanted... and an hourglass of how much time there may be left before what you just said comes to past"
"An hourglass? Ah..."
"I always wondered why a clock manifested in a place where I didn't intend for one to appear, but I guess it's to predict the eventual end of this timeline, it always did seem to carry on from the previous timeline."
"Ah... So are you admitting I beat you since you're giving me the boss cell you're guarding?"
"It was a draw, now shut it." Snapping at me, I chuckled lightly in response.
"Well I'll gratefully take it." Moving to grasp the locket/ pocket watch, the Timekeeper took it back.
"To reiterate, are you sure you want to take this with you?"
"If I didn't have the will to do so, would I have fought you in the first place?"
"True." Nodding her head, the Timekeeper handed me the Locket.
And as I took it, I watched as it merged with the inventory, forming a brand new interface bearing the symbol of an hourglass with most of its grains of sand fallen.
It seemed that I now had a timer on how much longer I had to complete this task before the end of the world.
Nodding my head, the Timekeeper who had been watching me all of this time curiously asked.
"Is that the blessing of the God of Death as well?"
"Hm? Oh this? Oh no, it's actually the blessing of a son of a bitch."
"?"
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