Damien's body felt heavy as he slowly came to his senses. The moment his vision cleared, he found himself standing in an entirely different place. Gone was the forest that had surrounded him. Instead, he was now in a vast, open space, surrounded by swirling, ethereal mist. The air itself felt charged with power, like an invisible weight pressing against him from all sides.
The distorted sense of time still lingered in the air, the threads of reality trembling under an unseen force. It was as if the very space he stood in was not quite fixed, like something about it was suspended, hanging between moments.
"So, this is where you have ended up," the Fatekeeper's voice echoed through the still air.
Damien looked around, his slime form still flickering with faint, ethereal light. He hadn't quite mastered his new form, but it allowed him to exist in this strange space without dissolving into nothingness. He turned to face the Fatekeeper, who had materialized once again in front of him.
The Fatekeeper's glowing eyes regarded him with a cold intensity, its presence as heavy as the air around them.
"You've disrupted the flow of time, Entity," the Fatekeeper said, its voice neither angry nor condescending—just factual. "The threads of fate are now in flux. The world is no longer on the course it once was."
Damien tried to steady himself, still reeling from the encounter with the Marauders. They had almost torn him apart, and yet somehow, he had escaped. But escaping was not the same as surviving, and now the consequences of his actions were clear: Time was unraveling around him.
"I didn't mean for any of this to happen," Damien thought, but he wasn't sure whether the Fatekeeper would even hear his thoughts.
The Fatekeeper didn't respond to his internal musings. Instead, it stepped forward, its silver cloak swirling like a living thing. "You have already made the first mistake, Entity. You did not understand the power you have claimed, nor the cost of it."
Damien's mind raced. "I didn't choose any of this. I didn't ask for these abilities."
"You didn't choose, but now you are bound to this fate. You will have to deal with the consequences," the Fatekeeper continued. Its voice was softer now, almost a whisper. "Your actions have created more than a simple rift. You have opened a gateway to forces beyond your comprehension."
The air around them crackled, and Damien could feel it—the edges of reality fraying. The threads of time pulled in every direction, each one twitching and vibrating as if it was trying to break free of the pattern it had followed for eons.
"I can feel it," Damien said aloud, his voice a mixture of awe and fear. "The world is changing… breaking."
The Fatekeeper's eyes glowed brighter. "Not just the world, Entity. You have upset the entire structure of time. And that… will not go unchallenged."
Damien's slime body pulsed with discomfort as the realization hit him. The world he was in—the one he thought he knew—was now uncertain. Fate, something he had only read about in stories, was real. And it was fighting back.
"You must fix what you've broken," the Fatekeeper said, its form flickering slightly. "You cannot reverse what has been done, but you can restore balance. Only then can you be free from the consequences of your actions."
"Fix it? But how? How do I fix fate?!" Damien thought, but the Fatekeeper didn't answer. It didn't need to.
There was nothing simple about the task at hand. Damien had no idea where to begin. How could he possibly restore balance to something so fragile? Time was not something that could be mended with ease, and his power was far too unstable to trust. If anything, he felt like a ticking time bomb.
"Your first step will be to understand the true nature of your power," the Fatekeeper said, its voice resonating in the stillness. "The Temporal Rift within you is not just a tool—it is a key. It can open doors, but it can also shatter everything."
Damien felt the weight of the words like an anchor dragging him down. He couldn't afford to make another mistake. Whatever the Fatekeeper wanted him to do, he had to figure it out—and fast.
As if sensing Damien's growing anxiety, the Fatekeeper gestured with a gloved hand. "There is one who can help you. A being who has seen the threads of time more clearly than anyone else. Seek them out. But be warned, they are not easily found, nor easily approached."
Damien tilted his slimy head, a wave of confusion washing over him. "Who? What do you mean?"
The Fatekeeper's eyes shimmered with an unreadable expression. "You will know when the time comes. For now, you must tread carefully. I am not the only one who has sensed the changes you have made."
And with that, the Fatekeeper turned, its figure dissolving into a mist of glowing particles. Damien was left alone in the vast expanse of shifting time, his mind racing with questions he had no answers for.
The threads of fate were already beginning to pull at him again, and he could feel the ripples of his earlier disturbance starting to reach the farthest corners of the world.
---
The world outside was already reacting to the growing rift Damien had caused. Unseen forces—ancient powers that had slumbered for millennia—were beginning to stir, drawn by the disruptions in time.
But Damien had no way of knowing that. All he could do was try to follow the Fatekeeper's cryptic instructions and hope that he could somehow, miraculously, set things right.
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