"Hukkk—haaah!"
Max gasped awake, consciousness flooding back.
Once again, he stood in the entrance hall of the Chronokos's Tower, Audrey beside him with no memory of what had transpired.
"Are you out of your mind?! Do you have any idea what you've just done?"
Max quickly tried to recall things…
The worried expression on his face turned increasingly grim.
He felt as though his memory had become worse.
Indeed, he was trapped in a time loop.
One of the most dreadful scenarios to ever be stuck in.
And like every time loop story, there were rules to follow.
Rules he was only beginning to understand.
He already knew two rules: attempting to leave through the entrance triggered a reset. Meeting the time guardian was death.
What other actions might cause similar reactions?
What might break the loop entirely?
When he checked his status, the emergency quest notification confirmed his worst fears:
[EMERGENCY QUEST: ?????]
- Description: "The Chronovryn has iden███ you as a temp███ ████. Each l██p e███s a fr███ion of your exis███ce in th██ wor██."
- Objective: Survive as YOU
- Status: Timeline Integration: 87%
- Reward: ???
- Failure: YOU will cease to exist.
The percentage had dropped again.
Max broke out in crazed hollow laughter.
If that reaches zero. I'm not just going to die… am I? As it says here, erased from existence. Just like in those time travel stories.
"This is not funny!"
Audrey's voice cut through his broken laughter.
"Please listen to me seriously. We need to leave this place immediately!"
"We can't leave."
Max steadied his voice.
"We're trapped in a time loop, and something is happening to me with each reset. So unless you want to spend eternity greeting me in this hall while I slowly disappear, we need to figure out why this is happening and how to stop it."
Audrey stared at him for a long moment.
Confusion was completely written across her face.
Then came the awaited exclaim of surprise:
"What in the Mother's name are you talking about?!!"
Max took a deep breath.
"Haaah."
It was once again time for Max to convince her of their crazy situation.
"In short, we're fucked Audrey. Me especially. And I'm going to need your help."
***
Fourth Loop.
Max decided on a different approach.
"I need to test something."
They stood on the floor just before the control room entrance.
"This time, we are not going in."
"Not go in?"
Audrey glanced at the wooden doorway leading to the central chamber, then back at Max with skepticism still plain on her face.
"Isn't that where you said answers might be?"
She naturally was not against it.
That door was a place forbidden for even those people granted permission to enter the tower.
"Maybe. But it's also where that guardian appeared before. If we stay out here..."
He trailed off, gesturing to the area around them.
"Excuse me? We just wait?" Audrey sounded incredulous.
"Yeah." Max nodded, lowering himself to sit cross-legged on the floor.
"Time loops always have rules, patterns. I need to figure out what triggers the reset. If it's entering that room specifically, or if the Chronovryn appears at a certain time regardless of where we are."
"…"
Audrey felt something was off, but couldn't quite pin point it.
Max glanced discreetly at his status window. The urgent quest timer showed barely eight minutes remaining, still with that unnerving question mark. Time was running out both for his original quest and, potentially, for his continued existence in this world.
If I could just complete the original quest somehow, maybe the reward would help me deal with this time loop situation.
"So we just... sit here?" Audrey asked, hesitantly sitting beside him.
"We wait, and we look for another way out. There has to be one."
Reluctantly, Audrey agreed to his plan, though her eyes kept darting nervously toward the control room door and back to Max.
She spoke after a few minutes of silence.
"Theoretically… a structure like this should have multiple access points. Maybe somewhere on this floor?"
"Worth a look. Hadn't tried in previous loops. It would be great if there is a floor above this that doesn't require going through the control room."
"Previous loops," Audrey echoed, shaking her head in disbelief. "I still can't quite wrap my mind around this concept."
"Don't sweat it. Time travel stuff always have special knack for giving people a headache."
Max got up to his feet.
"Let's check if there's a way up past the control room."
They began exploring the periphery of the landing, looking for staircases or ladders that might lead higher. But unfortunately, the existence of that door was there for a reason. Things couldn't be that convenient.
It seemed that the only ways out was the floor above the control room, which likely lead to the top of the tower.
And the entrance of the tower.
During this loop, they'd discovered that sound didn't travel through the tower's entrance.
No matter how loudly they shouted, no one outside could hear them. Neither did it seem that they could see them either.
For the initially confused Audrey who had just entered in, Max had to physically restrain her to stop her from walking out, begging her as his physical strength… was weaker than hers.
Fwssh!
The air between them suddenly shimmered.
Reality rippled like disturbed water directly in front of them, midway up the landing.
"Shit!"
Max cursed, tripping backward and nearly knocking Audrey down.
"This guy really wants to claim my head, huh?"
From within the distortion, emerged the crystalline serpent.
"By the Mother's light," Audrey whispered, pressing her back against the wall.
"So I can't seem to wait it out either," Max muttered, his heart hammering in his chest.
The Chronovryn blocked the path downwards while its tail-like appendage had already coiled around the other side of the floor. They were trapped between segments of its long, crystalline body.
"Ugh I don't get it."
Those words were said more to himself than to Audrey.
"We avoided the control room. We barely even touched anything."
The Chronovryn's faceless head tilted, as if considering his words.
Yet, one crystalline limb extended toward him, same as before.
Max activated his robe, speeding away.
He managed to avoid it for a few moments before the same inevitable outcome happened again.
"Hey, could you go easy on me this time? That shit really hurts like hell you know?"
"Max!"
Audrey reached for him.
But it was too late.
The crystalline limb touched his face, and once more came that terrible sensation of being pulled apart, his consciousness fragmenting, his existence scattering across countless moments.
***
For the fourth time, Max gasped awake in the entrance hall, Audrey beside him with no memory of their previous attempts.
It wasn't just entering the control room that triggered it. The guardian appears regardless of where we are.
Audrey began her now-familiar scolding, but Max barely heard her words. His thoughts were whizzing around, trying to understand the pattern.
Why would the Chronovryn pursue him regardless of his actions?
What was it about his presence that the guardian found so threatening that would make it ignore the future Saintess?
"—listening to me?" Audrey's voice cut through his thoughts.
"Sorry, what?" Max blinked.focusing on her again.
"I said, we need to leave immediately. This place is dangerous!"
"Yeah, you're right about that," Max agreed, though he knew leaving wasn't an option. "Listen, I know you won't believe me, but we're trapped in a time loop. This is the damn fifth loop, and I'm trying to figure out how to break the cycle."
As they began retracing the familiar path up the tower's spiral staircase, Max decided to focus on investigating the research notes more thoroughly.
Perhaps there were clues he'd missed in his previous hasty examinations.
They reached the research station on the first landing, and Max carefully began going through the papers scattered across the small table.
"The ink is still fresh. Whoever was working here must have left in a hurry," Audrey said.
Max absently, flipped through the notes
"For the welcoming ceremony, probably. That's my guess too."
The research materials were extensive but contained little he hadn't already see.
Nothing that explained a deeper story to why the door had been left unlocked or how to escape a time loop.
"What would cause a researcher to leave the tower in such a hurry?" Max said in a formal, strained manner entirely unlike his usual speech. "Perhaps there was an emergency that required immediate attention."
Audrey gave him an odd look.
"Are you feeling well? You sound... different. And you're saying this after just claiming it was for the welcoming ceremony?"
Max paused, sweating.
For those few seconds, he hadn't felt like himself at all. He'd felt like the vague, generic "extra" persona he'd been transplanted into.
The timeline integration percentage flashed in his mind: it was 81% now.
Was it already affecting his personality?
"I'm fine," he said quickly, his voice returning to normal. "Just... thinking out loud."
Audrey looked at him with concern, not believing him.
This is bad. Really bad.
Suddenly, a faint sound echoed up from below—
Voices.