Part 5: The Darkness in the Dial

The antique clock lay silent in the Forbidden Room of the Clockmakers' Guild. Under the flickering light of oil lamps, its silver dial seemed to tremble—almost like it was breathing. Lyn stood before it, her hands shaking as she slid a tiny brass key into the lock at the back.

"This is it," Du Hao said quietly. "The last clock your father ever touched."

She didn’t respond. Fleeting memories flared in her mind like fractured light. Images of her father—thin, with dark circles under his eyes from sleepless nights, and a gentle smile when he said: “Time is not the enemy... if you know how to listen to it.”

As the minute hand creaked forward—slow and heavy—a click echoed like the unlocking of a sealed moment in time. A gust of cold air spilled from the clock’s core, scattering papers and snuffing out the oil lamps. The room plunged into darkness.

But from within that darkness, a crimson light began to glow from the dial.

“Lyn,” Du Hao gripped her hand, “are you sure? What’s inside isn’t just memory.”

“I know,” she said, eyes fixed on the clock. “It’s… an unfinished past.”

A whisper rose from the dial—clear, chilling, echoing from the depths of time itself. “What did you sacrifice… to save just one?”

Then a figure stepped out of the red light: a man—half-transparent, with gears and coiled springs embedded in his chest. His eyes were spinning clock faces, moving backward.

“Father…” Lyn stepped back, a blend of fear and hope in her voice. But she knew—it was no longer him. What stood before her was a warped fragment of time—a traveler trapped in reverse, stuck between irregular heartbeats.

“Lyn, I’ve seen futures you were never meant to know,” he said, voice ticking like clashing gears. “And you… are the one who breaks everything.”

Du Hao immediately pulled out a strange pocket watch—known as The Final Second Fortress, a device capable of sealing unstable time fragments.

“We have to lock him away, before the rupture spreads,” Du Hao shouted.

“No,” Lyn whispered. “If I seal him… I’ll never know why it all began.”

The second hand started spinning backward, and the world around them trembled. Clocks on the wall exploded, time in the room reversing: the oil lamps reignited, papers flew back to the table. Reality itself surged toward a singular, origin moment.

“Choose, Lyn!” Du Hao’s voice fought against the terrifying ticking.

She looked at her father, then at her companion. In that instant, she understood: Sometimes, to fix a clock, you have to tear it apart—without knowing if it can ever be put back together again.

And Lyn reached out toward the crimson light...