The body hit the ground with a wet thud, its eyes still open, still staring at nothing.

Elisabeth von Noctis stood over it, her silver-white hair untouched, her deep violet eyes cold and empty. Her sword dripped blood onto the forest floor, mixing with the dark pool spreading beneath the corpse.

Grade 4. Another one dead.

She flicked the blood from her blade and sheathed it in one smooth motion, her movements precise, efficient, practiced. The monster had attacked without warning, as they all did, and it had died without mercy, as they all would.

But her mind was not on the kill.

Her mind was elsewhere — trapped in a web of questions that had no answers, circling a truth that kept slipping through her fingers like smoke.

It doesn’t make sense, she thought, turning away from the body and walking deeper into the trees. No matter how hard I try to understand it, it doesn’t make a single shred of sense.

She had been over this a thousand times.

In her past life, this exam — the entrance exam for Aegis Academy — had been different. Completely different. It had taken place in a controlled training ground, not a Forbidden Zone. The monsters had been Grade 2 at most, barely a challenge for anyone with a proper core.

The candidates had competed against each other, yes, but there wasn’t anything like this. In her past life, the exam had been a test of skill. This was a test of survival.

And the winner, she thought, was Arthur Vale. The hero. The Goddess’s Chosen One. He won with Amelia at his side, and the world celebrated, and no one died.

But this... this is different.

This is wrong.

Elisabeth stopped walking and closed her eyes.

Years ago, she had woken up in her younger body with memories of a future that no longer existed.

The transition had been jarring — disorienting in ways that words could not describe. One moment she had been dying, her body broken on the battlefield, the screams of her people echoing in her ears.

The next, she had been young again, lying in her bed in the Noctis estate, staring at a ceiling she had not seen in decades.

She had screamed. Not from fear — from grief. From rage. From the unbearable weight of knowing what was coming and being powerless to stop it.

The Eternal Night, she thought, touching the pendant around her neck. The small black gem pulsed faintly against her skin, warm and reassuring. My goddess. My savior. She gave me a second chance. She blessed me with her power and sent me back to save our people.

The goddess’s voice had been soft, ancient, and filled with sorrow when she spoke.

"The Abyss King is strong. You cannot defeat him. I cannot stop him, Elisabeth. But I can send you back. I can give you a chance to change the future. Save our people. Save our race. Do not let the darkness consume them."

She had wept when she heard those words. She had wept for the friends she had lost, the family she had failed, the future that had been stolen from them all.

Then she had steeled herself and begun to plan.

But the goddess had warned her.

"Events will change. You are not the only variable. There are forces at work that even I cannot see. Do not rely solely on your memories. Adapt. Survive. And trust your instincts."

Elisabeth had understood. She had known that her regression would alter the timeline — small ripples at first, then larger waves. She had prepared for changes.

But she had not prepared for this.

The crack in the sky, she thought, her jaw tightening. That was the first sign. In my past life, it appeared years later, closer to the Abyss King’s awakening. But this time, it appeared months ago. And the mana density has been increasing ever since.

The seals are breaking faster. The timeline is accelerating.

...And then there is him.

Leo von Celestial.

Elisabeth opened her eyes and stared at the dark trees around her.

In her past life, he had been a footnote — a name whispered in the halls of the Celestial estate, then forgotten. He had died in his Path Trial, a failure, a disappointment, a noble who couldn’t live up to his family’s name.

No one had mourned him. No one had remembered him.

He had simply... ceased to exist.

But in this timeline, he had survived.

He had emerged from his trial after seven months — something no one had done in either of her lives — with white hair and cold eyes and a power that should not exist. He had cut off arms at the gala. He had demanded a kiss from the princess. He had refused to kneel to the Emperor.

He had made enemies of the powerful and friends of the desperate.

...And now, he was here.

In the valley. Competing in an exam that should have been safe but had become a slaughterhouse.

The more I learn about him, Elisabeth thought, the less sense he makes. He is an anomaly. A variable I cannot calculate.

Is he a regressor like me?

She had considered the possibility. But that didn’t fit either. If he was a regressor, why hadn’t she heard of him in her past life? Why had he died in his trial, unnoticed and unmourned?

Unless something changed. Someone changed it.

The Watchers?

She had heard about them in her past life from the goddess — rumors of ancient entities that existed beyond the gods, beyond the laws of reality itself.

Could it be? Did the Watchers send him? Is he here to help? Or to destroy?

But it didn’t make any sense. The goddess had told her that all the Watchers were dead.

After all...

She trailed off in her thoughts and didn’t dare to complete them.

I had the edge, Elisabeth thought, resuming her walk through the trees. I knew the future. I knew what was coming. I could prepare, plan, position myself and my people for the coming war.

But the edge is gone.

The crack in the sky came early. The exam changed. The timeline is shifting in ways I cannot predict.

...And Leo von Celestial is at the center of it all.

She had heard the rumors about him but never met him in either of her lives.

What kind of man does that? What kind of man survives a trial that should have killed him, emerges with power he should not have, and throws himself into danger without a second thought?

A fool. Or a weapon.

Or both.

She needed to find him.

She needed to look into his eyes and see what he was. A regressor? A pawn? A threat? If he was an enemy — if he was dangerous — she would kill him. She would not let one variable destroy everything she had worked for.

I will do anything to save my people, she thought, her hand drifting to her sword. Anything.

The forest was quiet around her, the shadows deep and hungry, and somewhere in the distance, a monster roared.

Elisabeth von Noctis walked toward the sound, her silver-white hair catching the dim light, her deep violet eyes cold and steady.

Find him, she told herself. Confront him. And decide.

Friend or foe.

Ally or enemy.

The future depends on it.

_

Meanwhile, something else was happening that no one had imagined...

The ruins were silent now.

Blood pooled in the cracks between ancient stones, black and thick, already beginning to congeal in the cold night air. Bodies lay scattered across the broken courtyard — some human, some elf, some beastkin — their faces frozen in expressions of terror, their limbs twisted in ways that bodies were never meant to bend.

One of the elves had been thrown against a pillar so hard that her spine had snapped, her back arched at a terrible angle, her silver hair spread across the stone like a halo of death.

The beastkin lay face down in a pool of black liquid that had not been there before, her fur stained dark, her limbs splayed out like a broken doll.

The smell of blood hung in the air like a shroud, thick and copper-sweet, making Amelia’s stomach turn every time she breathed.

Lyssaria Sol-Valis lay crumpled against a fallen pillar near the edge of the courtyard, her silver-blonde hair matted with blood that had seeped from a gash on her forehead. Her jade green eyes were closed, her lips were pale, and her chest rose and fell in shallow, uneven breaths that seemed to come slower each time.

She was alive — barely, but her staff lay broken in two pieces beside her, the crystal at its tip shattered into fragments that glittered on the stone like tears.

Her right arm was bent backward at the elbow, the bone visibly displaced beneath her skin, and her leg was twisted beneath her in a way that suggested something inside had snapped. She had not moved since the knight had thrown her across the courtyard.

Amelia Nightshade knelt in the center of the carnage, her hands trembling around her staff, her silver-violet eyes fixed on the creature that stood between her and the only exit she could see.

Her knuckles were white where she gripped the wood, and her arms ached from holding the same position for too long, but she did not lower her weapon. She could not.

The moment she did, the moment she showed weakness, the moment she looked away, that would be the moment it struck.

The Weeping Knight had not moved for the past thirty seconds.

It did not need to. It knew she wasn’t going anywhere.

It stood twelve feet tall, a towering figure of black stone carved into the shape of a warrior from an age long forgotten. Its armor was ancient and cracked, covered in moss that hung from its shoulders like a tattered funeral shroud, and vines had wrapped around its legs and arms like chains that had been there for centuries.

Its surface was pitted and scarred, marked by weather and time and battles that had been fought before the Empire was born.

Its armor was etched with symbols that no one in the valley could read — swirling patterns and jagged lines and shapes that seemed to shift when you looked at them too long, like they were written in a language that was never meant to be spoken aloud.

The symbols glowed faintly in the darkness, a pale, sickly light that pulsed in time with the black tears that dripped from its helmet.

The helmet had no face. There were no eye slits, no mouth grill, no visor to lift. Just a smooth, curved surface of black stone that would have been featureless if not for the dark void where a face should have been — a hollow emptiness that seemed to go on forever, like looking into a hole that had no bottom.

From that void, black tears dripped down its chest in slow, endless streams, thick and viscous, like oil or blood or something in between.

The tears did not stop.

They fell onto its armor with soft, wet sounds, ran down its chest and arms and legs, and dripped onto the ground at its feet, leaving black puddles that did not dry. The puddles spread slowly across the stone, pooling in the cracks, seeping into the earth, leaving dark stains that looked like wounds on the ground.

The greatsword was made of the same black stone, chipped and weathered but still sharp enough to tear through flesh and bone like paper.

Its edge was jagged in places, worn down by centuries of use, but the parts that remained were still keen enough to split a hair. It dripped black tears too, the liquid running down the flat of the blade and falling to the ground in a steady stream.

When the knight moved — and it did move, slowly, steadily, unstoppably — the tears fell to the ground and left trails of darkness in its wake, like a funeral procession marking its path.

It did not run. It did not chase.

It walked.

Every step shook the ground, sending vibrations through the stone that Amelia could feel in her teeth. Every breath was a grinding sound, like stones rubbing together in the dark, like a landslide happening far away. It did not feel pain.

It just kept coming.

The black tears were not just for show. They burned. If a tear landed on your skin, it felt like acid and fire at the same time, eating through flesh and leaving dark scars that never healed.

The knight could flick its sword to send tears flying at you like black rain, could stomp the ground to make the puddles splash, could grab you with its stone hands and press its weeping helmet close to your face until the tears filled your eyes and mouth and nose and you drowned in darkness.

To fight it, you needed to break its armor.

Normal blades would chip it, crack it, but not destroy it. You needed blunt force, or fire, or magic that burned hot enough to melt stone. You needed to hit the same spot over and over until the cracks spread and the armor fell apart.

Inside the armor, there was no body. Just a core — a black crystal shaped like a heart with a bit of purple color on it, as if it was corrupted — weeping black tears. That was the real monster. The knight was just its shell. Break the shell, destroy the heart, and the knight crumbled to dust.

But Amelia had none of those things.

She had water affinity — healing, shielding, mending, but also cutting, freezing, boiling, eroding, drowning.

Water could be gentle or destructive depending on the will behind it. She had a staff that was better suited for channeling spells than striking blows. She had no fire, no brute strength, no way to crack armor that had weathered centuries of war.

She was going to die here.

When did things go so wrong? she thought, her hands shaking, her breath coming in short, ragged gasps. When did we walk into this nightmare?

Three days ago, she had landed in the valley alone.

The teleportation had scattered everyone across the Sealed Valley, and she had found herself in a dense thicket of thorns and twisted trees, her staff clutched in her hands, her heart pounding in her chest.

The branches had torn at her clothes and scratched her arms, and she had stumbled out of the thicket with blood on her sleeves and dirt on her face, looking around wildly for any sign of Arthur, any sign of Leo, any sign that she wasn’t completely alone.

She had killed three monsters in the first hour — small things, Grade 1 and 2, nothing she couldn’t handle. A Needletooth had lunged at her from a bush, and she had smashed its skull with the butt of her staff.

A pair of Shadow Stalkers had tried to flank her, and she had blinded them with a flash of light before driving her staff through their chests. It had been messy and terrifying, and her hands had shaken for an hour afterward, but she had survived.

She had spent the next few hours searching for any sign of Arthur, calling his name into the trees, following every sound that might have been his voice. But the forest was vast and dark, and the deeper she went, the more she realized that she might not find him at all.

She had found Lyssaria instead.

The elf princess had been standing in a small clearing, her staff raised, her silver-blonde hair tied back from her face, her jade green eyes cold and focused. At her feet lay the bodies of three Thorn Vipers, their heads severed, their blood pooling on the grass. She was not breathing hard.

She was not a front-line fighter like her brother — she was a healer, a mage, a diplomat — but she had been trained since birth to survive. She had steel beneath her gentle exterior, and she was not afraid to use it.

"Are you alone?" Amelia had asked, keeping her voice soft, not wanting to startle her.

Lyssaria had turned to face her, her jade green eyes calm and steady. "I was," she said. "But now I’m not."

Amelia had blinked, surprised by the quiet confidence in her voice. "You’re not scared?"

"I am terrified," Lyssaria had admitted, her grip tightening on her staff. "But being scared doesn’t mean I stop moving. My brother taught me that."

"Roan?"

"He’s an idiot," Lyssaria had said, a small smile tugging at her lips. "But he’s not wrong about everything."

They had formed a party — not out of trust, but out of necessity. Two girls alone in a forest full of monsters could survive longer than one. And Lyssaria, despite her gentle appearance, was not someone who needed protecting.

Others had joined them over the next two days.

A dwarf with a broken axe and a grim determination to survive. Two elves from a minor house who had been separated from their main party. A beastkin with the ears of a fox and eyes that saw in the dark. A human mage who could cast shields but couldn’t fight. A vampire scout who moved through the shadows like they were part of her.

Eleven of them, by the end. A party of strangers from different races, different backgrounds, different worlds, united by the simple need to stay alive.

They had slept in shifts, backs against each other, weapons in hand, their eyes always watching the darkness.

They had shared food and water, told stories about their homes and their families and their dreams, learned each other’s names and faces and the small quirks that made them human — or elf, or dwarf, or beastkin, or vampire.

For a while, it had felt almost safe.

While traveling, they found ruins — a cluster of broken buildings and collapsed towers, markers of an old settlement that had been abandoned long before the valley became a Forbidden Zone. Lyssaria had suggested they search for supplies.

The dwarf had agreed, muttering something about finding a new axe. The beastkin had sniffed the air and said something felt wrong, but they had been surviving for days, and they were tired and hungry and desperate.

They had entered anyway.

The ruins were larger than they looked from the outside. Broken walls and crumbling archways, courtyards overgrown with weeds, fountains that had long since run dry.

The buildings leaned against each other like tired old men, their windows dark and empty, their doors hanging crooked on rusted hinges.

The ground was cracked and uneven, and the shadows between the ruins seemed deeper than they should have been, as if the darkness was pooling in the spaces where the sun couldn’t reach.

They had spread out to search, calling to each other when they found something useful — dried rations in an old cellar, water caches in a collapsed well, a bundle of arrows still in their quiver hanging from a hook on a wall.

The dwarf had found a new axe, its blade still sharp despite the rust on its handle. The mage had found a mana crystal, still pulsing faintly with stored energy. The beastkin had found nothing, her nose twitching, her ears flat against her skull.

Then the screaming had started.

The Weeping Knight, a Grade 5 Mid rank, had emerged from the central tower without warning.

The door had exploded outward in a shower of splinters and dust, and the knight had stepped through the opening, twelve feet of black stone, its greatsword already dripping with black tears, its empty helmet already turned toward them.

It had moved faster than anything that size had any right to move, its first step carrying it halfway across the courtyard, its second step bringing it within striking distance of the dwarf.

The dwarf was the first to die. He had raised his new axe to block the knight’s swing, and the axe had shattered against the black stone like it was made of glass.

The knight’s greatsword had continued its arc, and the dwarf had been split in half from shoulder to hip. His blood sprayed across the ancient stones, hot and red, and the black tears fell on his corpse and hissed as they burned through flesh and bone.

His beard caught fire, and the smell of burning hair mixed with the copper scent of blood.

The elves had tried to run. They were fast — faster than the knight — but the knight didn’t chase them.

It flicked its sword, sending a spray of black tears flying through the air like a shotgun blast. The tears had caught them in the back, burning through their clothes and skin and muscle, and they had fallen to the ground screaming, their hands clawing at their spines, their bodies convulsing as the acid ate through them from the inside.

One of them had managed to crawl a few feet before her spine gave out. The other had not moved at all.

The beastkin had tried to fight.

She was fast too, faster than the elves, her claws extended, her teeth bared. She had dodged the knight’s first swing, ducked under its second, and leaped onto its back, digging her claws into the cracks in its armor.

She had ripped and torn at the stone, pulling chunks free, chipping away at the ancient surface. But the knight had reached up, grabbed her by the scruff of her neck, and pulled her off like she weighed nothing.

It had held her in front of its helmet, and the black tears had dripped onto her face, filling her eyes and mouth and nose.

She had stopped screaming after a few seconds.

The vampire had tried to use the shadows. She had melted into the darkness between the ruins, becoming one with the night, moving silently toward the knight’s blind spot.

But the knight’s tears had created puddles of darkness on the ground, and the vampire had stepped into one without seeing it. The black liquid had clung to her like tar, dragging her down, drowning her in darkness.

She had reached out a hand toward Amelia, her crimson eyes wide with terror, and then she had been gone.

The mage had tried to cast a shield. She had raised her hands, summoned a barrier of shimmering light around herself and the others, and held it steady as the knight approached. The knight had walked through the shield like it was made of paper.

The mage had stared at the hole in her barrier, her mouth open, her eyes empty, and then the knight’s greatsword had come down and there was nothing left of her but a dark stain on the stones.

One by one, they had fallen.

Lyssaria had been the last. She had tried to heal the beastkin, but the beastkin was already gone, her body dissolving into ash and darkness.

She had tried to run, but the knight was faster. She had raised her staff to cast a spell, and the knight’s sword had swept her aside like she weighed nothing.

She had flown through the air, her body spinning, and hit a pillar with a sound that made Amelia’s stomach turn — a wet crack, like a tree branch breaking under too much weight. She had crumpled to the ground, her staff shattering beside her, and had not gotten up.

Now there were only two left.

Amelia stood alone in the center of the courtyard, her staff clutched in her trembling hands, her silver-violet eyes fixed on the Weeping Knight. It had stopped moving. It was watching her — not with eyes, because it had no eyes, but with something else.

Something worse. A presence, heavy and cold, pressing against her skin, crawling into her mind, whispering things she didn’t want to hear.

You’re going to die here, it whispered. Just like the others. Just like the dwarf, the elves, the beastkin. Just like Lyssaria. You’re going to die, and no one will remember your name.

Shut up, she thought.

Arthur will forget you. Leo will forget you. Your family will mourn for a week, and then they’ll move on. You are nothing. You have always been nothing.

I said shut up!

The knight’s helmet tilted. From the dark void where its face should have been, a voice emerged — not loud, not deep, but hollow. Empty.

Like someone was speaking through a corpse.

"Come with me," it said. "Serve him. He will save you. He will save all of you."

The Weeping Knight took a step forward. The ground shook. The black tears dripped from its helmet, splashing onto its chest, running down its armor in dark streaks. Its greatsword rose, and the black liquid dripped from its edge, sizzling where it hit the stone.

Amelia raised her staff.

I need to break its armor, she thought. Magic that burns hot enough to melt stone. I need to hit the same spot over and over until the cracks spread and the armor falls apart.

But I don’t have fire. I don’t have blunt force. I have water magic.

I can’t win this fight.

The Weeping Knight raised its greatsword higher.

But I can’t run either.

Amelia closed her eyes.

Arthur, she thought. I’m sorry. I should have told you how I felt. I should have said something. Anything. But I was scared, and now it’s too late.

Leo..., she thought. I’m sorry too. For everything. For the way things ended between us. For not being there when you needed someone. For not understanding what you were going through.

I hope you find what you’re looking for.

I hope you survive.

I hope...

The greatsword came down.

She heard the whisper before she saw the blade.

"Eclipse of the Singularity."

The voice was cold, calm, familiar.

"First Form — Fractured Eclipse."

The world shattered.

Amelia opened her eyes.

The Weeping Knight’s greatsword was frozen in mid-air, stopped by a blade of black steel that had appeared from nowhere. The black tears dripped onto the katana, sizzling, hissing, but the blade did not melt.

The lightning that crackled along its edge did not fade. The katana held firm, its edge pressed against the black stone, and for the first time since it had emerged from the tower, the Weeping Knight hesitated.

A figure stood between her and the knight.

White hair, tied back in a low ponytail, glowing faintly in the darkness. A black jacket with silver embroidery, torn in places, stained with blood and dirt from days of hunting. A katana in his hand, black lightning dancing along the blade, casting strange shadows across the ruins.

And a grin on his face — sharp, cold, and utterly without fear.

Leo von Celestial.

"Well," he said, his voice light despite the strain in his arms, despite the way his hands were shaking. "Fuck...."

The Weeping Knight shoved him back, and he stumbled, barely keeping his feet beneath him. His boots scraped against the stone, and he caught himself at the last moment, his arms still raised, his katana still pointed at the knight.

"Leo—" Amelia started, her voice cracking.

"Don’t," he said, not looking at her. His eyes were fixed on the knight, tracking its every movement, calculating its every angle. "Just... don’t."

He stepped forward, placing himself between her and the knight, and raised his katana again.

The Weeping Knight took a step forward.

Leo’s grin widened.

"Come on, then," he said. "Let’s see what you’ve got."