The battle raged on, reality unraveling around them as timelines collided, shattered, and fused. Alastor moved with precision, every step measured, every death carefully calculated. With each clash of their blades, he rewound moments, learned from mistakes, and adjusted his strategy. Lucius fought with mastery—an assassin who had spent lifetimes bending time and death to his will. But Alastor knew something Lucius did not: the limits of arrogance.

  Lucius had lived so many lives, manipulated so many people, that he believed himself invincible. He had always been the master. He had never known what it was like to lose control—not truly. And that was where Alastor found his opening.

  The Codex whispered secrets into Alastor’s mind, showing him the fractures in Lucius’s power—the subtle cracks hidden beneath centuries of dominance. Lucius had grown overconfident, blind to the possibility that someone might beat him at his own game.

  Alastor stepped into that crack.

  In a blur of movement, he rewound time just enough to position himself inside one of Lucius’s attacks. As Lucius’s shadow blade sliced through the air, Alastor twisted through the moment, catching Lucius off-balance for the first time in centuries. The Eye of Ra burned in his hand, filling the space with golden light.

  Lucius staggered, surprise flickering across his face for the briefest instant. He hadn’t seen it coming. And in that instant, Alastor knew—this was the moment.

  He surged forward, his mind perfectly aligned with the knowledge of the Codex of Eternity, every possible outcome branching before him like the veins of a shattered mirror. This wasn’t just about defeating Lucius. This was about imprisoning him in his own game.

  Alastor activated the Eye of Ra, channeling its power through the Codex, and felt the timelines coil around him—tangled threads of every failure Lucius had ever experienced, every misstep hidden beneath his victories, every moment of weakness buried under his pride.

  Lucius’s eyes widened as he felt the energy shift—for the first time in centuries, the flow of time was no longer his to control.

  This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.

  "What are you doing?" Lucius snarled, lunging forward in desperation.

  Alastor’s smile was cold. "You taught me well, Lucius. But you forgot one thing."

  He twisted the Eye of Ra, and the chamber flooded with golden light—reality bending, folding, and snapping shut around Lucius’s timeline like a steel trap.

  Suddenly, Lucius was falling through moments that weren’t his to command.

  He landed in a broken timeline—a moment from long ago, where he had once failed to claim power over the Pyramid. The faces of ancient allies turned enemies surrounded him, their betrayal slicing through him like a dagger. He tried to rewind, to escape the moment— but the timeline snapped back around him, trapping him inside the failure.

  Then the scene shifted. Lucius was standing in the aftermath of another battle—one he should have won, but didn’t. Every choice, every mistake that had cost him control unfolded before him again, dragging him into memories he had buried.

  He tried to fight against the loop, to claw his way back to the present— but every path led him back to failure, back to moments where his power slipped through his fingers.

  This was his eternity now.

  In the fractured chamber, Alastor stood over Lucius’s collapsing form, watching as the ancient assassin writhed, caught in the grip of his own nightmare. The loop bound him tighter with every passing second, forcing him to relive his losses endlessly.

  Lucius’s eyes blazed with fury, his voice twisting into a snarl of rage. "You can’t do this to me!" he screamed, his form flickering between lifetimes—victorious one moment, broken the next.

  He lunged toward Alastor, but the loop pulled him back—dragging him into another failure, another betrayal, another moment where he lost everything.

  "No more control," Alastor whispered, his voice cold as steel. "No more gods. Just you... and every mistake you’ve ever made."

  Lucius’s screams echoed through the chamber, filled with fury and disbelief. "I am the master of time!" he roared, fighting against the loop with every ounce of power he had left. But it was no use. Every time he clawed toward freedom, the loop dragged him back—again, and again, and again.

  Alastor knelt beside Lucius, the glow of the Eye casting flickering shadows across his face. "This is your eternity," he whispered, his voice soft but final. "No escape. No rewinding. Just you and your failures—forever."

  Lucius screamed in fury, his rage filling the collapsing chamber as the loop locked into place, binding him in a prison of his own making.