The Damned Demon

Chapter 920: Getting Erased Together

The Time Wraith slowly turned, her movements deliberate, her posture rigid. Her eyes narrowed into burning slits of white light, and her face hardened until it was nothing but cold authority.

“You…” Her voice was quiet but carried through the air, layered like echoes, “I was wondering when you were going to show up. To think you actually had the confidence to come all the way here despite knowing how it’s going to end. In some ways, you are just like him.”

Aira’s steps were slow and uneven, a limping approach that seemed fragile but deliberate. She didn’t lower her gaze, even as the Wraith’s aura seemed to engulf her from every side.

“I know you don’t consider yourself as who you were once,” she said softly. “But I know that you love him. Isn’t that right?”

On the ground, Asher stirred. Every muscle ached, his body screaming in pain as he tried to push himself upright. The air was suffocating under the Chronophage’s presence; his regeneration, usually unstoppable, was sluggish and incomplete. The world felt heavier here, the ground itself trying to pin him down. Even though the hands of the clock were frozen just shy of midnight, it was still sapping away at him with every second.

His voice was a hoarse rasp. “Aira… get back…”

The Wraith barely spared him a glance before returning her eyes to Aira. She scoffed, her tone dripping with contempt.

“Of course I do,” she replied sharply. “Why do you think I am doing all this? How dare you even ask me that?”

“If you truly love him, then you know this isn’t the right way to save him,” Aira pressed, her limp bringing her closer. “I know what you’re afraid of, but he’s stronger than you think. What you fear doesn’t have to come true.”

The Wraith tilted her head slightly, her eyes narrowing further. “You of all people should understand me. But you don’t. You’re nothing more than a weak variant of myself. You never experienced what I had to endure to save him. You only carry the memories of the variants who died before you. You don’t have the right to tell me how I should save him. You’ve done nothing but prolong his suffering without him even knowing it… until it’s too late.”

Aira slowly nodded, but her voice stayed calm. “You might be right. But do you really think you could live without him? Not even you would remember him anymore. Erasing him means erasing yourself. That’s the price of using the Chronophage. You never would have obtained it without his existence.”

The Wraith’s eyes flickered for the briefest moment, but then her lips curled into a faint, cold smile. “Do you think I did all this without knowing that? So what if I get erased? At least it will be with him. Even if we can’t be together in death.”

“Erasure isn’t togetherness,” Aira said. “It’s nothing. And nothing will remember you being a part of him.”

Behind them, the Chronophage loomed like an executioner’s altar, its immense hands poised near midnight. The air was heavy, each breath tasting like iron. The shards of broken timelines circling its dial reflected infinite deaths, infinite ends. Even paused, it radiated the crushing inevitability of an ending that was already written.

“What if it doesn’t have to come to that?” Aira asked. She stepped into the very edge of the Wraith’s aura, her body seemingly trembling under its force. Gently, she placed her hand on the Wraith’s arm. “You’ve given yourself so many chances to save him the right way. I’m begging you—give yourself one more chance. Together… we can make him live without suffering. Don’t lose whatever hope is left in you. You might not see yourself as the woman who once had the hope to save him, but your soul is still the same. Don’t let this thing destroy what’s left of it.”

The Wraith’s gaze locked with hers, and for a moment, the air felt still. Her eyes softened ever so slightly. From where he lay, Asher saw it — and for the first time, felt the faintest thread of hope.

Then Aira’s voice slipped into his mind, steady and direct. “Use the key to seal it, Asher…”

His brow furrowed. She couldn’t mean the Void Reaver. No — his mind flashed back to the dull silver dagger he had claimed in the Tower of Hell’s sixth floor trial. The Gatekeeper’s Key.

His trembling hand manifested it, closing around the dagger’s handle. He glanced at the Chronophage’s dial. Was it really just a matter of stabbing it? Could it possibly be that simple?

But before the thought could settle, his instincts screamed. His eyes went wide.

“NO!!” he shouted.

Aira’s gaze shifted downward slowly, her mouth opened slightly as if she gasped. The Time Wraith’s pale hand was buried in her chest, fingers closing around her heart.

“You think I’m a fool to fall for your attempt to patronize me?” the Wraith said coldly. “For millions of years I’ve waited for this moment. I will not stop now, when I am so close to finishing what I started.”

She pulled her hand free. Aira gasped, blood spilling down her gown as she crumpled to the ground, eyes dimming but still fixed on the Wraith.

“AIRA!!!” Asher’s roar tore his throat raw.

Something inside him snapped. With a surge of will that felt like tearing his own body apart, he threw himself forward toward the Chronophage. The air inside its shadow burned like molten steel. His flesh blistered instantly, the smell of scorched skin mixing with the metallic tang in his mouth. His regeneration could not keep up — the damage returned faster than it could be undone.

Step after step, every movement shredded his body further. Skin peeled, muscle tore, bone cracked. His eyes ruptured in their sockets, his vision dissolving into light and shadow. His organs were reduced to slurry inside him, but he didn’t stop.

The base of the dial loomed closer. His hands shook violently, the dagger barely staying in his grip. The shards of fractured timelines reflected his death in endless ways, taunting him.

“YAARGHH!”

He slammed forward with the last of his strength, ramming the Gatekeeper’s Key into the seam of the Chronophage’s dial.

The dagger sank in with a jolt. For a split second, the Chronophage shuddered, the mirror shards vibrating around it.

“Impressive,” the Wraith’s voice came, sharp and final. “But you’re a little too late for that, my love. Didn’t you hear it? The clock already struck midnight.”

Asher’s breath caught. His head snapped up — the hands were perfectly aligned at the top of the dial.

A deep, resonant hum built inside the Chronophage, its pale body trembling with power. Then the glow began — radiant white, impossibly bright, bursting from every seam. It wasn’t light meant to illuminate. It was light meant to erase.

The air erupted with force, reality buckling outward. The glow engulfed Asher instantly, searing through him not with heat, but with an obliterating touch that stripped away his very existence.

His body disintegrated from the edges inward, flaking away into countless radiant white particles that shimmered like dust in a sunbeam. His arm, still gripping the dagger, vanished into glittering fragments. His torso followed, the green fire of his immortal form snuffed out without a trace.

The Chronophage’s light swelled further, the world vanishing under its brilliance.