Chapter 118: The Gift Beyond Speed

The fight tore through the House. Reya bent timelines. Twisted perception. Tried to rewrite the past where Liss never survived.

Phantom fell. Mirror cracked.

Elyse tried to hold Reya down with vines of memory, but Reya shattered them with a word:

"Forget."

Elyse collapsed. The House dimmed.

And Liss walked in. Alone. Quiet.

"You wanted to erase me."

Reya blinked.

"I already have."

"Then why am I still here?"

Reya screamed and attacked.

And Liss… reached into herself. Tore out a fragment of paradox. A sliver of void. A beat of the very first memory.

She turned to Elyse, who crawled to her knees.

"You believed in me before I believed in myself," Liss whispered. "Now I give you what I never had: a second ahead of time."

She pressed the fragment into Elyse's chest.

Time stopped.

The world paused.

And Elyse stood.

She was no longer bound by sequence. She moved before thought. Before light. Before memory.

She struck Reya before Reya existed in the moment.

Reya screamed—not in pain, but in confusion.

"How—how are you faster than time?"

Elyse whispered:

"Because love moves first."

And Reya shattered.