Stepping through the portal, Daric, Kaelen, and the buff goat landed with a jarring thud on an impossibly cracked marble surface.
The world around them shimmered and warped.
Mountains floated upside down. Rivers flowed backward. Trees grew and grew within seconds.
Above them, a shattered sky revealed glimpses of a thousand possible futures—and none of them looked particularly inviting.
The system chimed:
[Welcome to the Realm of Broken Time.]
[Warning: Temporal Stability: 18%.]
[Objective: Repair the Chronoheart.]
[Penalty for Failure: Permanent Temporal Dislocation (a.k.a. "Being very confused forever.")]
Daric groaned.
"Oh good," he muttered. "We're officially time tourists now."
Kaelen peered at a nearby clock tower that ticked backward, then sideways, then let out a polite "meow."
"I already regret this," Kaelen said.
The buff goat merely flexed in slow motion.
—
Status Update:
Name: DaricClass: Primal Hunter (Legendary)Titles: Chickenbane, Monarch Slayer, Brunchbreaker, Stuffing Slayer, Realmwalker, The Ridiculous One, Mirror Breaker, Skybreaker, Breaker of MasksEssence Total: 595,000Primary Weapon: Shovel of Destiny (Enhanced)Secondary Weapon: Fancy Cane of DiplomacyLevel: 53Ascended Realms: 8Ascension Authority: 40%Companions: Kaelen (Frying Pan Crusader), Buff Goat (Lord of Gains)
—
Every few steps, the landscape shifted.
Sometimes they aged forward, their beards growing instantaneously before snapping back.
Other times, gravity flickered, sending them floating momentarily into the sky.
Kaelen, to Daric's eternal horror, briefly became a talking sandwich.
[Temporary Polymorph Status: Delicious Hero]
Daric smacked Kaelen back to normal with the Fancy Cane.
"Nope. Not dealing with edible Kaelen."
—
Their first obstacle came in the form of a time-echo beast: a colossal wolf stitched together from fragmented moments.
[Field Boss: Temporal Fang]
[Abilities: Phase-Shift Bite, Reverse Howl, Glitch Step]
Temporal Fang attacked unpredictably, appearing both behind and ahead of Daric at once.
Kaelen fought smart, tossing pebbles to track where the creature would glitch next.
The buff goat, naturally immune to the very concept of time, just charged straight through the paradox, slamming into the beast with sheer goat stubbornness.
Daric waited, shovel ready.
When Temporal Fang phased into three versions of itself, Daric activated his new Moonveil skill, blanketing the battlefield in blinding silver light.
The beast roared—then stabilized just long enough.
Kaelen hurled his frying pan.
Daric leaped forward, shovel swinging.
A final blow cracked the beast's core, shattering it into a rain of fractured seconds.
System notification flashed:
[Field Boss Defeated: Temporal Fang]
[Essence Gained: 50,000]
[Item Obtained: Time-Twister Lens]
[Skill Upgrade: Fancy Cane of Diplomacy --> Fancy Cane of Timekeeping (+10% Timeline Stability)]
—
Beyond the battlefield, the terrain grew even stranger.
Past versions of themselves flickered in and out.
Daric watched a ghostly image of himself trip over a root, then glared accusingly at the future.
"Mood," Kaelen said.
Following a barely visible silver thread across shifting plains, they finally reached the center: the Chronoheart.
It was a massive crystalline engine, cracked and sputtering temporal sparks.
At its base stood the final guardian: a hooded figure wrapped in torn clock faces, wielding a staff made of melted hourglasses.
[Boss Encounter: The Chrono Warden]
[Warning: Temporal Erosion Imminent.]
Daric squared his shoulders.
"Alright," he said. "Let's punch Father Time in the face."
—
The Chrono Warden attacked with devastating clock magic.
Each strike threatened to rewind or fast-forward sections of reality.
Daric fought carefully, dodging time-blasts and launching shovel strikes in carefully timed windows.
Kaelen, ever the chaos agent, weaponized time glitches—throwing his frying pan into the past, letting it hit the Warden before he'd even moved.
The buff goat, true to form, simply endured. No timeline could break a creature fueled purely by gains.
When the Warden tried to entrap Daric in a loop of failure, replaying his past defeats, Daric snarled.
"I'm not defined by my mistakes!"
He broke the loop with a vicious uppercut, cane glowing with temporal magic.
Kaelen followed up, slamming the frying pan across the Warden's head so hard it desynchronized him.
Daric finished it with the Shovel of Destiny, driving it into the Warden's unstable core.
Time itself shuddered.
The Warden screamed—then dissolved into drifting sands.
—
System notifications exploded:
[Boss Defeated: The Chrono Warden]
[Essence Gained: 100,000]
[Ascension Authority Increased to 45%!]
[Chronoheart Repaired.]
[New Ability Unlocked: Time Step — Temporarily rewind 5 seconds once per battle.]
Daric stood panting.
The Chronoheart pulsed brightly, stabilizing the world around them.
The river flowed correctly.
Mountains stayed upright.
Kaelen no longer looked edible.
Victories all around.
—
A new portal shimmered open atop the Chronoheart.
Daric turned to Kaelen and the buff goat.
"Next stop?"
Kaelen grinned. "Hopefully somewhere without existential terror."
The buff goat bleated what Daric assumed was "Bring it on."
Together, they stepped forward into the unknown.
Because time might break.
Worlds might crumble.
But Daric and his companions?
They were only just getting started.