The Time Illusion?!

The Clock Tower Dungeon.

S-Rank dungeon.

Not for the faint of heart, or the fully sane, Knights

They called it that because the boss wasn't a beast, a demon, or a dragon.

The boss was the mystery.

Dozens of S-rank raid teams, led by knights whose names once echoed through the land, had vanished within its gears.

Gone.

Not slain in glorious battle, but… absorbed.

Vanished without a trace, leaving behind only the chilling silence of a perfectly executed nightmare.

My father, Rhaegar, a Knight whose legend was now a whispered curse, was one of them.

Lost to this labyrinth of ticking metal and echoing dread.

Now, ironically, they say he's one of Zeta Maurer's most promising apprentices… the man who trained the mightiest, now a ghost story for those who hunt ghosts.

I followed Stella and her elite team, a shadow clinging to their heels.

The air hung thick with the metallic scent of old oil and the coppery tang of fear.

My invisible spell masked my presence, a thin veil against the palpable dread that clung to the stone.

The relentless grind of colossal gears, a symphony of doom, vibrated through my bones.

Each rotation felt like a heartbeat counting down to oblivion.

The light, a sickly yellow cast from the groaning mechanisms, barely pierced the gloom.

The circular path wound upwards, a twisted spiral leading to the heart of the tower, a clockwork hell.

Silence, except for the omnipresent, soul-grinding tick-tock.

The silence itself was a predator, a chilling void that threatened to swallow the very air from my lungs.

Even Stella and her team, battle-hardened veterans, felt its weight.

Their senses, usually razor sharp, seemed dulled, almost… hypnotized.

The clock's rhythm was hypnotic.

At first, a morbid curiosity, then a slow, insidious erosion of my sanity.

It wasn't just the sound; it was the feeling, a pressure building in my chest, a suffocating sense of time collapsing in on itself.

My own heartbeat pounded a frantic counterpoint to the monstrous clockwork symphony.

I watched their faces, their usual alertness replaced by something far more unsettling.

One Knight, usually unflappable, whispered his concern, his voice tight with unease.

"Do you hear it?" he rasped, eyes wide.

Stella's voice, usually a steely command, held a tremor. "Yes. It's… unsettlingly relaxing. It's wrong."

Another Knight's words hung heavy in the air, a chilling confession.

"I'm sleepy," he mumbled. "I feel... sleepy."

Panic, cold and sharp as broken glass, pricked at my senses.

This was more than just fear.

This was… disintegration.

The clock wasn't just ticking; it was consuming them, stealing their will, their time, their very being.

The knights' hushed whispers, a venomous sibilance against the relentless tick-tock of the clocks, grated on my nerves.

Stella, her face a mask of icy determination, advanced.

The rhythmic click of her silver bow stringing echoed the deadly beat of the clocks.

Then, the world exploded.

She didn't just aim; she hunted, her silver arrow a silver comet aimed at the hearts of her own comrades.

A collective gasp, a chorus of terrified yelps – the air ripped apart by the arrow's shriek as it whistled past their ears, a whisper of death.

I dove, the stench of ozone burning my nostrils as I hit the cold stone floor.

"Boss! What the bloody hell?!" roared a knight, his voice thick with disbelief, shielding a whimpering healer.

Another question died on the healer's lips, a crimson bloom erupting across his chest as an invader's blade found its mark.

His eyes, wide with incomprehensible terror, locked with mine before the light flickered out.

The invaders, Stella among them, were possessed – eyes glazed, movements jerky, faces contorted in a horrifying parody of righteous fury.

Their weapons became extensions of their madness, flashing in the flickering torchlight.

The clash of steel, the wet thwack of arrow meeting flesh, the guttural cries of dying men – a symphony of carnage.

My stomach churned; the coppery tang of blood choked me.

This wasn't a battle; it was a slaughterhouse, a macabre dance orchestrated by some unseen puppeteer.

My own blood ran cold.

Stealth?

Invisibility?

Foolish notions.

I needed to act.

But before I could even raise a hand, a wave of suffocating lethargy washed over me.

A blurry haze consumed my vision; my limbs turned to lead.

The world tilted, plunging me into a vortex of drowsy oblivion.

Sleep claimed me, a merciful oblivion that stole the horrors unfolding around me – the relentless clang of steel, the screams fading into a dull roar.

Then, silence.

Only the insidious, ever-present ticking of clocks.

It swelled, became a monstrous hammer blow against my skull.

"Alstair! Wake up!" A woman's voice, sharp and insistent, shattered the nightmare.

My eyes fluttered open.

Gone was the dungeon's grim reality; I lay in the familiar embrace of my own bed, sunlight slanting through my window.

My mother stood over me, her face etched with concern.

"Mom...?" I whispered, my voice raspy.

"Breakfast is ready. College," she said, her sigh a weary exhale.

The clock on the wall ticked, its rhythm mundane, utterly devoid of the sinister pulse that had haunted my sleep.

A jolt ripped me from sleep.

My heart hammered a frantic tattoo against my ribs.

I scrambled to my feet, a primal scream choked in my throat, and flung myself at my mother, my arms wrapping around her in a desperate embrace.

"Mom! Oh God, Mom! Is it really you? I was so terrified!" The words tore from me, ragged and raw.

Her frown, etched deep into her face, was sharper than a shard of glass.

The scent of her lavender perfume – a scent buried under years of dust and fear – assaulted me.

"Alstair? Are you alright? You look… haunted." Her hand, cool and firm, rested on my head.

A phantom touch, yet so overwhelmingly real.

I released her, needing to breathe, needing to know.

The feel of her silk blouse against my skin, the faint warmth of her body... it was agonizingly, undeniably real.

God, I hadn't dared to hope for this.

My gaze swept the room.

The apartment, bigger, brighter than the cramped, poverty-stricken space I'd called home since Father… since the disappearance.

This was the apartment of my childhood, before the war, before everything fell apart.

"Come, breakfast is ready," Mother's voice, laced with a weary patience I didn't deserve, cut through my spiraling thoughts.

I stumbled to the bathroom, the porcelain cold against my trembling hands.

I splashed water on my face again and again, the chilling spray doing little to quell the burning anxiety.

Each scrub of the brush was a desperate attempt to ground myself, to prove this wasn't a fever dream, a cruel trick of the mind.

Then, the dining room.

My breath hitched. Arlene, my sister, her face illuminated by the morning sun, was devouring a sandwich.

And there, at the head of the table, was Rhaegar, my father.

He sipped his coffee, the newspaper rustled in his hand, a picture of domestic tranquility that felt both utterly surreal and achingly familiar.

The aroma of his pipe tobacco, a scent I thought lost forever, hung heavy in the air.

This… this was impossible.

A wave of nausea rolled over me.

Was this a hallucination?

A cruel, elaborate illusion?

Or… was I somehow, impossibly, drifting back through time?

"Alstair! Stop staring into space! Eat your breakfast!" Mother's sharp voice pierced the haze.

"Y-yes, Mom," I stammered, my voice a broken whisper.

The eggs tasted like ash in my mouth.

The coffee was bitter, but I drank it down, desperate for some anchor in this impossible reality.

It felt too real, too visceral, to be a mere figment of my imagination, a manipulative spell. The clock ticked with a glacial slowness, mocking the relentless ticking of the doomsday clock in my mind.

The television blared mindless chatter – politics, crime – no mention of the monstrous hordes, the Knight Association's desperate battles, the never-ending war that had stolen everything from me.

This idyllic scene, this impossible peace… it was a before-time.

A world where the monsters hadn't yet risen, before I became the weakest knight, before my world shattered into a million pieces.

Before I lost everything.

Arlene's sharp intake of breath—a hiss of air like escaping steam—snapped me from the news. Her gaze, usually soft, was now a laser beam, drilling into me.

Seeing her conscious, after days of her drifting in and out beside my mother's still form, felt like a resurrection, a cruel, fragile miracle.

"Yes, your brother seems to have had a nightmare," Mother's giggle was brittle, a thin ice cracking over a chasm of fear.

"What kind of nightmare, Brother?" Arlene's curiosity, usually playful, held a desperate edge.

"Love life, probably," Mother's forced laughter grated, a discordant note in the strained silence. "Ask him, Arlene."

Arlene's attempt at a joke felt like a slap to the face, a hollow echo of normalcy in the face of the relentless, life-threatening missions that had ground me down.

The bitterness in my smile tasted like ash.

Rhaegar, my father, placed his newspaper down with a deliberate thud.

The rustle of newsprint was a morbid counterpoint to the clinking of his coffee cup, its ceramic cold against his fingers.

His grin was predatory, a wolf's flash in the dim light.

"A bad nightmare, I'd say," he drawled, his voice a silken whip. "

Tragic. Chaotic. The world teetering on the brink. Humanity gasping its last breath."

Mother and Arlene's faces paled, their breaths catching in their throats.

The air thickened, a palpable dread settling over the room.

"Dear, what nonsense is this?" Mother's voice trembled.

"You're always joking, Dad," Arlene echoed, her voice a frail whisper.

My gaze locked with Rhaegar's, a storm brewing in the icy depths of his eyes.

Curiosity warred with something darker, a malevolence that chilled me to the bone.

Then, the world froze.

Time stilled. The ticking of the clock ceased, the rhythmic swish of Mother's dishcloth, the soft crunch of Arlene's sandwich—all vanished.

The world became a silent tableau, except for Rhaegar, his breath a ragged gasp against the suffocating stillness.

Only he moved, only he lived.

"Peaceful, isn't it?" he purred, his voice dripping with a venomous sweetness. "No monster invasions. No pathetic knightly struggles. Your college life is assured."

"Peaceful?" My voice was a razor blade. "Peaceful when you still haunt my life?"

"I thought you wanted a loving father, Alstair?" His question was laced with cruel irony.

Rage, a scalding torrent, flooded my veins. "Not after everything you've done! I can't count the times you tried to kill me! I'm alive only to take my revenge, Father!"

His grin widened, a cruel parody of paternal affection. "Good. Hold onto that hatred, Alstair. A lazy man needs fuel to grow."

I slammed my fist onto the table, the wood splintering under the force of my fury.

I stood, towering over him, my breath a ragged snarl. "What are you planning, Father? Are you in league with the Clock Dungeon's Boss Monster?! Whatever you're scheming, I will crush it. I will defeat you!" The words were a roar, a primal scream tearing through the suffocating silence.

Rhaegar didn't answer, his gaze a glacial shard boring into me.

The air crackled with unspoken menace.

His boots scraped against the polished floor as he swung his legs onto the table, the movement jarringly casual against the icy contempt in his voice.

"What makes you think I'm the real Rhaegar?"

The question hung, a venomous dart aimed straight at my heart.

A physical ache bloomed in my chest, a raw, searing pain that transcended mere discomfort. What the hell was this?

The taste of bile rose in my throat, the scent of impending doom thick in the air.

Was this all some elaborate illusion?

His voice dripped with scorn. "I know you're an idiot, Alstair, but even you should recognize this illusion. However, your pathetically weak mind is blind to the larger manipulation, to the spell itself."

The words were a lash, each syllable precise and cutting.

His arrogance, the condescending tone, made my fists clench.

"The fuck are you talking about?!" I roared, my voice raw with fury.

Rhaegar rose, a predator stalking his prey.

He moved to Arlene, his touch on her head a chillingly gentle caress. "In the Clock Tower Dungeon, time is everything. This…peace…this idyllic scene…it's the past you crave, isn't it? Your mother, free from the soul-crushing weight of a second job. Arlene, oblivious to the anxieties of high school. And me… toiling for my family, for you, unaware of the monstrous gates ripping through reality, slaughtering innocents."

He turned, his embrace of my mother suffocating, a possessive grip.

Their stillness was horrifying; the chilling absence of breath, the glassy stare of their eyes, felt like a physical weight pressing down on my soul.

"Believe in this fabricated comfort, Alstair, and your life will end. Right here. Right now. Without you even realizing it. That's what happened to Stella's knight; a mysteriously peaceful sleep, a silent death."

The words slammed into me, shattering the fragile façade of reality.

He was saving me?

From this…this time-prison?

The notion offered a flicker of hope, but the unsettling unease remained, a venomous serpent coiled in my gut.

My hand instinctively went to the familiar weight of my Magical Magnification staff, its smooth, cool surface a small comfort in this storm of deception.

Then, the System's notification – a cold, clinical voice echoing the chilling certainty of my impending doom.

The manipulation was taking hold.

The air itself felt thick, viscous, suffocating.

I could taste the despair; it was bitter and inescapable.

> You're not recognized in Supreme Sorcerer System!

> You're not have a right to utilize Sorcerer's passive and Active Skill!

WHAT THE FUCK?!

My magic, stolen?!

This goddamn time-manipulation spell!

"Foolish Alstair! Think you can still wield your power?" Rhaegar's mocking laughter clawed at me, the black circle spitting between us, a venomous bloom.

Before I could react, it exploded.

A blinding blue supernova, obliterating the comforting portraits of my mother and Arlene.

They vanished, replaced by the suffocating stench of stale beer and despair.

The cramped, cheap apartment.

Our apartment.

The ghosts of poverty clinging to the peeling wallpaper like a second skin.

The raw, echoing scream of a man – a creditor's fury – ripped through the thin walls.

This was the pit we'd crawled into after Father's disappearance, a hole of crushing debt and endless exhaustion.

My mother, a shadow of her former self, swallowed by a relentless tide of three, four part-time jobs.

The taste of instant noodles and fear coated my tongue, a bitter memory.

I remember the gnawing emptiness in my stomach, the desperate scramble to earn enough as a low-ranked knight, a pittance to ease her burden.

I hadn't known about the leeches, the festering debt she'd hidden from Arlene and me, a secret festering like a wound left to rot.

"How many times must I tell you?!" One of those leeches bellowed, his voice a rasping whip. "Pay up! Now!"

My mother's voice, cracked and weak, a whimper swallowed by the rage. "I… I need to pay Arlene's tuition. Can I… can I pay tomorrow? Please…" She bowed, a broken figure, her dignity shredded.

"Bullshit!" The leech spat on the floor, the spittle a tangible insult. "Tuition? Food? You think that excuses your debt?! You're a pathetic fool, woman!"

His boot connected with her ribs, a sickening thud.

"My son… he promised to help. He just needs time to get money from the Knight's Association…" Her words were choked by sobs.

A searing sting across her face silenced her.

The leech's hand, a brutal instrument of his cruelty. "I don't give a goddamn where the money comes from – your work, your son, your soul – just get it to me tomorrow, with interest! What a stupid old hag!"

The door slammed, leaving behind the stench of their contempt and the sound of my mother's quiet, heartbroken weeping.

A weeping she'd hidden so well, a silent testament to her strength, her unwavering love.

The pain, raw and suffocating, clawed at me.

It felt like they'd kicked me, broken me, right along with her.

The festering wound on my mother's cheek—a crimson bloom hidden beneath a flimsy bandage—was a constant, sickening reminder of my failure.

Her whispered lies about a fall, a clumsy stumble on the cobblestones, choked in my throat.

The truth, a brutal fist to the gut, was the leeches' work; their vile marks branded onto her flesh.

How could I, the Weakest Knight, the pathetic excuse for a son, have been so blind?

The sting of that realization, sharp as shattered glass, cut deeper than any blade.

The meager coins I earned, the paltry assistance I offered, felt like spitting in the face of her suffering.

The phantom scent of fear clinging to my clothes… they were a constant, suffocating presence.

My gut churned with self-loathing, a bitter bile rising in my throat.

The rage, once directed at my absent father, his callous disregard, now imploded, consuming me.

I was the true villain, a weakling, a coward who'd let them prey on my family.

Rhaegar's voice, a venomous whisper that slithered into my soul, ripped the scab from my festering guilt.

His hand, a branding iron on my shoulder, seared the image of my mother and sister, Arlene—their faces drawn and pale, haunted by my inadequacy.

"Are you realizing how weak you are, Alstair?" His words, sharp as ice shards, pierced the fog of my self-deception.

The gnawing fear, the suffocating weight of responsibility… it was a crushing burden.

Fuck.

I threw Rhaegar's hand off, my eyes blazing. "Thank you for the reminder," I spat, the words hard and cold. "You may be a fragment of him, my true father, but listen well. I will took back that stolen Miracle Potion, not as a beggar, but by my own strength. I will secure my mother and Arlene. It is my oath, my curse, and my duty."

Rhaegar's ghost of a smile was chillingly serene.

His fading form, a dissolving nebula of mana, left behind a silence heavy with the weight of impending doom.

"Then it falls to you, Alstair," he whispered, his voice trailing off into the void. "Death looms. But strength… strength is not an option. It is a necessity" His words, his essence, vanished, leaving a gaping hole in reality, the illusion shattering like brittle glass.

The blinding blue light washed over me, a harsh baptism of reality, pulling me back to the harsh, unforgiving present.

My eyes, still swimming with disorientation, focused on the grim tableau of the Clock Tower hall: Stella's team – the hulking Knight Tankers, their armor stained crimson, slumped in exhausted, bloody heaps; the Healers, their faces etched with a horrifying mixture of fatigue and despair, barely clinging to consciousness.

The rhythmic thud of collapsing bodies punctuated the horrifying symphony of battle raging beyond.

Stella.

She was a whirlwind of motion, a blur of silver and steel, a furious Valkyrie locked in a desperate dance with death.

Her Knight Invaders – far more numerous than I'd ever witnessed – fell in a gruesome harvest, their armor shattered, limbs twisted at unnatural angles.

This wasn't just combat; it was a butchery fueled by some horrifying, temporal distortion – a relentless, time-warped barrage that left trails of lingering agony in its wake.

I could feel the sickening tremor of the displaced time, a physical pressure in my chest.

My muscles screamed in protest as I pushed myself upright, the cold stone floor biting into my skin.

A jolt of adrenaline, raw and bitter, flooded my system.

The System notification – a brief, cold flash of text – was a blessed reprieve: Time Spell Manipulation effect terminated.

> Time Manipulation Spell diminished!

 > You can use Active Spell!

The temporal distortion collapsed, a sickening crack echoing in the cavernous Clock Tower dungeon, but the respite was a fleeting phantom.

My invisibility, a fragile shield, still held, leaving me a silent witness to Stella and her team desperate, chaotic ballet of rage and thwarted ambition.

The stench of sweat and fear clung to the air, thick and cloying as the sounds of clashing steel – a symphony of failure – reverberated around me.

They were puppets, dancing on strings of their own deluded hopes, their eyes glazed with a manic hunger for glory, for riches, for escape from the crushing weight of their mediocrity.

Their battle, fueled by manipulated memories and fractured timelines, was a grotesque spectacle.

The information they sought – the path to the *Hideous Dungeon* – remained mystery.

The wind itself screamed a warning – a razor-sharp whistle that heralded Stella's arrow.

The impact on my magical barrier wasn't a mere scratch; it was a rending, a tearing sound like silk shredding on jagged rock.

My invisibility flickered, disintegrating like smoke, revealing me in a flash of agonizing light.

Stella's gaze, hollow and burning with a self-righteous fury, pinned me.

Her eyes weren't just seeing me; they devoured me, each Knight Invader a reflection of her warped ambition.

"You!" she shrieked, the sound a broken mirror shattering. "You, the blight on my destiny! I am Stella! S-rank… *S-rank*… I will be remembered! They will *know* my name!" Her voice was a hysterical mantra, a prayer to a nonexistent god, echoing the desperate hollowness of her soul.

Her words were less an accusation and more a confession of her own pathetic longing.

Her fellow Knights, a chorus of mirroring desperation, echoed her hollow pronouncements, each a broken echo of a shattered dream, each a testament to the spell's insidious manipulation.

Was this another twist of the time-weaver's cruel hand?

The question was silenced as time itself froze.

An icy paralysis gripped the dungeon.

Motion ceased.

Breath stopped.

Even the flickering candle flames were suspended in mid-air.

It wasn't a freeze; it was a stillness, a suffocating, absolute absence of life.

A chilling tableau.

Then, a crackle.

Black fire erupted, coalescing into a skeletal form, draped in the remnants of a sorcerer's robe.

Its eyes, twin pools of glacial blue, were devoid of emotion, yet carried the chilling weight of centuries.

Zeta Maurer.

"Alstair, my dear apprentice," Zeta rasped, his skeletal grin a rictus of bone and shadow. "...have you grown so impatient for the Quest of my System?" His laughter echoed, a rattling cacophony that scraped against my sanity.

"What in the hells are you doing here? Another illusion?" I snarled, my eyes narrowed, the taste of bitter bile rising in my throat.

The familiar dizziness, the sickening lurch of temporal manipulation, threatened to overwhelm me.

"A more…suitable venue, wouldn't you agree?" Zeta snapped his fingers.

The crumbling Clock Tower Dungeon dissolved, replaced by an infinite, star-strewn void.

Below, a landscape of devastation stretched endlessly – a charred wasteland littered with the broken bodies of monsters, a crimson tide staining the ravaged earth.

The air vibrated with the stench of blood and burning flesh.

From the ruins, a cacophony of guttural cheers rose, a tide of sound that washed over me.

Elves, orcs, goblins, dwarves, witches, sorcerers – a grotesque coalition of monstrous races, their eyes shining with fervent adoration, their voices a maddening chorus of praise.

"Zeta! You are our savior!"

"Long live the Supreme Sorcerer!"

Their voices were a physical assault, a wave of ecstatic fervor that pounded against my ears.

A horrifying symphony of gratitude, so overwhelmingly intense, it physically vibrated my chest cavity.

Then, silence.

Absolute, chilling silence.

Zeta had frozen time, the world held suspended in a grotesque tableau.

"The Supreme Sorcerer," he began, his voice dripping with cruel irony, "is no easy crown, Alstair. A life choked by hellish obstacles, each breath a fight for survival, each moment a dance with death. A path that forces even the strongest to crave a miracle." His words were a venomous injection. "Initially, I deemed you a pathetic human, drowning in misery, attempting a futile 'rescue' I neither desired nor needed," Zeta continued, jabbing a bony finger into my chest. The touch burned like ice. "Yet, you persist. You have proven…resilient in this infernal game."

"Resilient? Hellish system? You call this a game, you twisted cadaver?" My voice cracked with barely suppressed fury. "No sane man would willingly embrace this path unless forced. I do it for survival, to restore my family. That's it. And even then, the path only grows more treacherous, more complicated."

My clenched fists ached with the force of my suppressed rage. "Your family? Perhaps. But I sense more, Alstair," Zeta said, his gaze piercing. "A brutal, untamed ambition you carefully conceal from the weak, yet it screams to those with the sharpest instincts."

His words echoed the unsettling clarity with which Stella and her team had found me, even cloaked in my most potent concealment spells.

A chill ran down my spine.

Did I possess some kind of…aura?

A brutal instinct that betrayed my presence, a raw, untamed power that screamed my existence to the perceptive?

"Admit it, Alstair. The bloodlust thrums in your veins, a primal scream demanding the slaughter of any who dare obstruct your path. It's not mere survival; it's conquest, a ravenous hunger to dominate, to crush anything that stands between you and absolute power.", Zeta's skeletal hand, cold as death, closes around mine, the Sorcerer's Bracelet—a burning brand on my soul—searing its icy grip into my flesh.

The Supreme Sorcerer System pulses within me, a malevolent heart beating with its own dark rhythm. "You revel in this, Alstair! This hellish path is your destiny! The taste of their blood, the screams of the vanquished… you crave it!" Zeta's laughter echoes, a rattling cacophony that chills me to the bone.

I gasp, struggling to comprehend the horrifying truth Zeta, or this ghastly parody of him, spews forth.

It echoes Rhaegar's promises of power, but this is something far more sinister, a twisted perversion of ambition.

This isn't strength; it's supremacy, the cold, calculated annihilation of all who oppose Zeta's ascension.

A thrill, a sickening exhilaration, courses through me, the seductive whisper of the System's dark quest.

But this… this is a precipice of unimaginable horror.

With a snap of Zeta's bony fingers, the world twists.

I stand in the heart of the city, a concrete jungle teeming with life, now frozen in a tableau of terrified faces.

The stench of exhaust fumes and fear hangs heavy in the air, a suffocating blanket.

Zeta points a skeletal finger at the sky, his voice a booming command that shakes the very foundations of the city: "To be Supreme Sorcerer, you must transcend heaven and earth! Raise your scepter, Alstair! Burn this cursed city to ashes! Make it your pyre to ascend!"

My own hand rises, involuntary, as if possessed.

The Imperial Scepter materializes, its obsidian surface shimmering with malevolent energy.

A wave of nausea washes over me; the magical magnification is overwhelming, a raw power that feels alien yet intimately familiar.

I'm not in control.

The System is hijacking me.

"Zeta! What infernal sorcery is this?!" I scream, my voice ragged, lost in the echoing roar of the city.

But he merely cackles, a sound as dry as bone dust.

"Burn it, Alstair! Everything! Let their ashes pave your path to the heavens!" The words reverberate, a horrifying symphony of destruction.

The Scepter hums, a prelude to devastation.

A Fire Storm gathers, a maelstrom of incandescent fury poised to engulf the city, to reduce these petrified souls to dust.

The terror of it all is paralyzing.

A single command, a single motion... and I will be drenched in the blood and ashes of innocents.

"Zeta! You son of a bitch, what are you doing?!" The roar ripped from my throat, a raw, guttural sound swallowed by the incandescent fury blooming around me.

The spell – a maelstrom of searing heat and crackling energy – throbbed in my veins, a malevolent heartbeat threatening to shatter my bones.

I fought it, every fiber of my being screaming in defiance, but the infernal tide surged relentlessly.

"Why shouldn't I?" Zeta's laughter, a venomous serpent slithering through my mind, echoed the infernal blaze. "I commanded you, fool! Eradicate them – humans, monsters, everything! Your family's safety? A pathetic illusion! Only through ascension, through the incineration of the weak, will you reach the heavens! Become a god, Alstair! The Supreme Sorcerer! *Ha! Ha! HA!*"

The heat scorched my lungs, the stench of burning flesh and sulfur thick in the air, a visceral assault that clawed at my senses.

The Magical Magnification… a sickening twist of power.

The Fire Storm wasn't just consuming the intended targets; it was a wildfire, devouring buildings, turning innocent lives to ash.

God, the screams… My body, a puppet on strings, writhed.

Helpless.

Trapped.

"Let go, Alstair! Embrace the ambition! Burn it all! To the heavens!" Zeta's cruel laughter was a physical blow.

My breath hitched, a desperate gasp for control.

Only my left hand remained that I can control… for now.

With a frantic, desperate surge of will, I summoned the Black Dagger from my System's Inventory.

The cold steel a stark contrast to the fiery inferno raging around me.

Zeta's laughter ceased, replaced by a startled, almost… concerned? expression.

"That… weak dagger, Alstair?!" His voice cracked, laced with genuine fear.

His panic was a lifeline.

The Black Dagger – the key.

"Ambition? Supreme Sorcerer? Lies!" My voice was ragged, laced with venom.

"You're a parasite, a shadow mimicking Zeta Maurer! A twisted mockery of my friend!" I plunged the dagger into my own flesh.

The agony was exquisite, a counterpoint to the searing heat of the spell, but it began to chip away at his control, severing the vile tendrils binding my will.

"You idiot! Moronic! Sacrificing yourself for ungrateful worms! You think they'll mourn you? Your family will be ruined!" Zeta's rage was palpable, a desperate, fractured sound.

"Perhaps," I gasped, pain lancing through me. "But how can I face them with pride, with dignity, if I slaughter innocents to climb your twisted ladder to some pseudo-heaven?"

As the agonizing pain ebbed, the control flooded back.

My right hand obeyed, the Imperial Scepter twisting from its hellish aim.

The Fire Storm sputtered, died.

My rage, sharpened by agony and righteous fury, coalesced into a single, terrifying point: I aimed the Scepter not at the heavens, but at the phantom Zeta, as I summoned the Raging Tempest, a storm of pure, untamed power, ready to obliterate him from my world.

"Wait! You-"

Zeta never saw it coming.

My Raging Tempest, a maelstrom of razor-edged wind, ripped through him before he could twitch a muscle.

The shriek of tearing flesh was swallowed by the howl of the storm as his body exploded – a grotesque fountain of bone shards and shredded sorcerer's robes, crimson staining the swirling vortex.

His illusion, a pathetic mockery of reality, shattered like brittle glass.

The gaudy, fabricated world crumbled, revealing the cold, damp stone of the Clock Tower Dungeon, my prison, my sanctuary.

Stella and her battered Knight Invaders lay scattered before me, drained, broken. Their faces, ashen and slick with sweat, spoke volumes of the brutal toll exacted by the time-lock.

Their eyes, though dull with exhaustion, held a flicker of defiant light.

Fools.