Emma's words barely left her lips before they echoed, stretching across the vastness of this unknown place, reverberating like whispers trapped in a void.
"What is this place?"
The question felt small against the sheer enormity of what surrounded her.
She stood at the center of a world unlike anything she had ever seen, or even imagined. The sky was a dark, vibrant mix of green, shifting between shades like a breathing entity. A vast nothingness stretched endlessly in all directions, yet it was not empty. Floating above were colossal clocks, their immense gears turning with a slow, intentional rhythm, their hands ticking forward at erratic speeds. Some moved in a continuous, steady motion, while others jerked forward in unpredictable increments, some even ticked backward, defying any logic she could grasp.
And the ground beneath her... if it could even be called that, was composed of box-like tiles, each one pulsing with a faint glow. Some flickered softly, as if breathing, while others dimmed and brightened in irregular intervals, their light throbbing like the weak heartbeat of something ancient. The very air carried a strange weight, thick with the unseen presence of something that did not belong to the world she knew.
Emma had no time to think further.
The deer-like beast she held tightly had abruptly accelerated, its already unnatural speed increasing as if the very fabric of time warped around it.
Emma barely had a moment to react before it pivoted sharply, a movement too sudden, too precise, and with a force that sent her hurling into the air.
Her body twisted mid-flight, instinct taking over as she adjusted herself, rotating with the momentum. The disorienting rush of motion blurred everything, but she was quick to react, her feet found the ground, her body landing lightly onto the shifting tile-like floor. A soft thud resonated beneath her, the impact absorbed by the strange, pulsating terrain.
Her grip tightened around the Sword of Fate, its eternal glow humming with an almost expectant energy, radiating a pristine light that seemed to cut through the unnatural hues of this world.
She shut her eyes.
That was all she needed.
With her eyes closed, the world of light and color faded away, replaced by the strings of fate, the intricate, unseen threads that governed all things.
And she saw them.
The three strings that belonged to the deer-like beast in front of her.
But...
Something was wrong.
There were other strings, behind her.
Emma's breath steadied as realization settled in. She had assumed she was alone with the creature, she was wrong.
There were five more.
Five more deer-like beasts, standing behind her, silent, motionless, their presence heavy.
But it wasn’t their numbers that unsettled her.
It was their fate.
Each one of them, every single one possessed infinite strings of fate.
Not three. Not ten. Not even a countable number.
Infinite.
Their fates stretched endlessly, growing, multiplying, shifting in ways she couldn't begin to comprehend. The concept itself sent a cold shiver through her, an understanding that went beyond mere power, this was something entirely outside of reason.
And then..
The beast she had just ridden, the one whose fate she had a thought of severing moments ago.
It changed.
Emma felt it instantly. The moment the realization struck her, the strings shifted, twisted, expanded until they, too, became infinite.
The sixth beast had joined them.
Emma's fingers clenched tighter around the Sword of Fate.
Her eyes remained closed, but she could see it all, the entangled, unending strings, the sheer magnitude of what stood before her.
Six deer-like beasts.
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Six entities of infinite fate.
A presence beyond reason.
In that moment..
One of them moved.
Emma sensed the shift before it happened.
The strings tensed, unraveling in a way that betrayed its intention.
One of the beasts opened its mouth.
A beam, not light, not energy, but absence itself erupted from its maw, surging straight for her.
Emma moved instantly.
Her body tilted just enough, the attack missing by a hair's breadth, passing through where she had just been. The air itself distorted from the sheer force of the attack, the space around it seeming to cease to exist for a fraction of a second before returning to normal.
She landed smoothly, her breathing calm, already aware of the next movement.
Because before she knew it...
The other five had begun attacking as well.
Boom!
A deafening explosion erupted as four absence beams converged from all sides, their sheer force warping the very air around them. They streaked through the strange, pulsating world, aimed directly at Emma.. an inescapable barrage meant to erase her completely.
But she was already moving.
Her body dropped instantly, almost unnaturally fast, allowing the beams to collide above her. The moment they made contact, an overwhelming shockwave pulsed through the space, sending out spiraling distortions as if the world itself shuddered under the force.
Without hesitation, Emma pivoted left, her boots skimming the shifting tile floor as she pushed forward, her form a dark blur against the vibrant green hue of the realm. Her target loomed ahead, one of the giant deer-like beasts, its infinite strings of fate still twisting, shifting.
It saw her approach.
The creature lunged, its movements fast, yet its fate was already written in the unseen threads.
Emma raised the Sword of Fate, its pristine glow humming with silent anticipation, the very fabric of reality trembling as the blade aimed straight for the beast
BAM!
A crushing force struck her from behind.
The second deer had attacked.
Or so it thought.
STAB!
A sudden, destructive pierce carved through its body, unexpected, precise, ruthless.
The beast staggered, confusion flickering in its glowing eyes. It hadn’t hit Emma. Not really.
It had struck an aftereffect, a mere shadow of her movement.
And the real Emma now stood atop its broad, mist-covered back, her breath steady as she exhaled.
The blade in her grip trembled with restrained power, the cut she had delivered tearing through not just flesh, but something deeper.. something more fundamental.
Slash. Slash.
Without hesitation, she raised her sword again, her movements calm, measured. The Sword of Fate sang through the air, carving into the infinite strings that wove the beast’s existence.
The sheer impossibility of it all did not deter her.
She kept cutting, each slice severing strands that should have been beyond reach.
The battle was chaos, yet Emma’s mind remained still. Calculating. Assessing the battle, weighing the chances of victory against the ever-growing threat of the beasts.
Then...
Another beam of absence tore toward her.
She moved.
Her body twisted, narrowly dodging the consuming force of the attack. Her eyes remained shut, yet she saw everything.. the subtle shifts in the strings of fate, the way they tightened before an attack, the way they unraveled in reaction to movement.
She landed with a dull thud, her boots skidding against the floor of box-like tiles. A sharp exhale.
The infinite strings…
They were a problem.
Emma pressed her lips together, a flicker of frustration flashing in her mind. Cutting them one by one was too slow.
But then something happened..
Her lips parted slightly as realization struck.
The strings she had cut, they did not heal.
A cold, creeping darkness spread through the severed threads, like frost inching over a frozen lake, consuming, devouring.
Emma’s grip tightened.
She had tested it. A fleeting thought, a theory born in the midst of battle, what if she imbued her dark frost into the Sword of Fate? Would it work?
And now.
It was working.
The deer-like beast let out a deep, guttural roar, its voice vibrating through the warped space as it realized some of its fate could no longer mend.
The darkness she had introduced.. it lingered, an affliction that even infinite fate could not erase.
A smirk tugged at the corner of Emma’s lips.
This could work.
She could keep going...
But…
No.
An eternity.
That was how long it would take to cut all their strings like this.
She needed more. Something greater.
Emma’s breath steadied.
She had known this moment would come.
She had waited for it.
Her decision was made.
It was time to use it..
Exhaling slightly as a calm silence stretched out for a fleeting moment...
She spoke.
The words slipped from her lips, unbidden, yet natural. A chant.
"Devour the light,"
Crack!
A pulse rippled through the air behind her.
A darkness began to form... slow, insidious. It spread like smoke, twisting unnaturally, its shape shifting, writhing into something more, something unraveling from the very fabric of the world.
"Consume the darkness… fall the infinite skies."
Crack!
The black smoke created cocoon behind her began to crack, its surface shattering as though breaking through the constraints of reality itself.
Emma’s body shuddered, a strange sensation flooding through her as something changed.
Her ears twitched.
Her hands trembled.
Her breath.. deeper, more controlled.
Her hair shifted, the faintest flicker of cat-like ears growing atop her head.
And her eyes..
She opened them.
No longer the soft, unique white of before.
Gold.
Burning, slit-like pupils piercing through the world like a predator watching its prey.
"A being from nothing, a being of absence…"
The air vibrated around her.
Reality itself trembled.
"I summon you."
A hush fell.
Then...
A name.
A name that did not belong to this world. A name that when called by mere mortals make them mad just by the spelling of it...
This was it..
"MATANA!"
And at that moment..
Time itself trembled in fear at the sight of the devourer of all things....
Matana has been summoned, but not as an otherworldly being, no... But as Emma's Sentinel...