Story Title :- idle guy
Chapter 7: The Thing That Devours Tomorrow
The Rift Reaper stood tall over the shattered skyline of Elarin.
It was not a beast in the traditional sense. It was wrongness made flesh. Shaped like a thousand tendrils of void stitched around a core that pulsed with dying stars. Reality bent in waves around its body. With every movement, it consumed not just space—but future.
Where its claws touched, people were erased from time. Buildings decayed into rust. Air froze mid-breath.
Kael stared up at it, the Nullsong Blade humming in his hand.
Lira stood beside him, eyes wide with awe and terror. “We’re not ready for this. That thing’s a walking paradox.”
“I don’t think we’ll ever be ready,” Kael replied, gripping the blade tighter. “But we’ve got one shot.”
From the sky, the remaining Riftspawn circled the Reaper like black vultures. The summoning pillars that birthed the monster still pulsed with power—eight of them positioned in a perfect ley-grid across the ruins.
Lira looked at Kael. “If we break the pillars, it’ll weaken the Reaper’s connection to the Rift.”
Kael nodded. “Then we split up.”
“No,” she said firmly. “We go together. You might be carrying the only thing in this world that can actually kill that thing.”
The Hunt Begins
They moved fast, slipping through the broken city under cover of warped magic. The Nullsong Blade carved through Riftspawn like paper—its edge deleting creatures from time entirely.
At each summoning pillar, Kael slammed his gauntlet into the base and overloaded the sigils with counter-code. The gauntlet spoke in ancient language as it worked:
"Resonance break initiated. Countdown: 10 seconds."
One by one, the pillars fell.
But the Reaper noticed.
After the fifth pillar, it screamed.
Not a sound—a force. A pressure that collapsed a city block and ripped memories from the minds of those nearby. Kael felt blood trickle from his ears. Lira stumbled, whispering a name she hadn't spoken since she was a child—her mother’s name, forgotten until now.
“That thing is reaching into us,” Kael said, eyes glowing. “It's feeding on what makes us human.”
The Reaper Descends
With three pillars left, the Rift Reaper descended from the sky, crashing into the ground like a meteor. Its mouth—a spiraling hole of endless eyes—opened wide.
Kael stood his ground.
The Nullsong flared.
He lunged.
The blade collided with the Reaper’s core—and the world exploded in silence.
Kael found himself flung through a broken moment—time slowing as he floated backward. He saw Lira screaming his name. He saw memories from other lives—him as a scholar, a tyrant, a ghost.
He landed hard, breath gone, blood in his mouth.
The Reaper was wounded. But not dead.
It was evolving.
The Final Pillar
Lira made it there first.
The last pillar stood at the heart of the old Elarin sanctuary—a temple long swallowed by dust and ash. She ran inside, dodging Riftspawn, and found the core sigil glowing with unstable energy.
As she reached out to disable it, a hand grabbed her wrist.
A familiar voice spoke.
“You shouldn't be here.”
It was Kael’s father.
Or rather—a version of him. One pulled from another timeline. His eyes were cold. Calculating.
“You break this pillar, you doom thousands in another stream. You don’t understand the layers at play.”
Lira stared. “You’re not real.”
“I’m real enough,” the man said, pushing her back. “Kael was never meant to carry the Nullsong. That blade was mine.”
Before he could move again, a slash of red-light carved through his chest.
Kael had arrived.
“That’s not my father,” he said. “That’s a mimic—one Ashivar sent to slow us down.”
Kael slammed the gauntlet into the final sigil.
"All anchors severed."
"Temporal Rift destabilizing."
The Rift Reaper screamed again—this time in fear.
One Final Strike
The sky split as the Reaper began to collapse. Its form flickered between realities, shrinking, convulsing.
Kael leapt skyward, Lira behind him, the Nullsong now a beacon of pure anti-reality.
With a final shout, Kael drove the blade straight through the Reaper’s heart.
Light and shadow imploded.
The Rift snapped shut.
And silence fell.
Aftermath
Elarin burned still. But the sky was no longer screaming.
Kael knelt where the Reaper had died. Lira sat beside him, both too tired to speak.
In the silence, Kael activated the memory core the Echo Blade had given him.
A hologram played.
It showed him. In a future not far from now.
Wearing a crown of circuits. Standing over mountains of corpses.
And smiling.
End of Chapter 7
