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🕳️ Location: The Depth of Silence
Kairen stood before a black stone pool, buried beneath the ruins of a church long swallowed by time.
No water. No echo. No reflection.
Only the smell of rust, salt… and forgotten prayers.
Safaa stood beside him, silent. Her fingers trembled slightly over her sketchbook.
"This is where the Cult erases its past…" she whispered.
"Where you must forget… in order to remember."
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🩸 The Test
The voice returned —
The same one from the Watchmaker's Invitation.
"To ascend, child of clocks… you must be baptized by memory in reverse."
"What you love most… must be cast away. And what you fear most… shall be embraced."
A gear spun. A circle formed in the pool — not of water, but pure memory ink.
---
Suddenly, the air snapped —
and Kairen saw himself:
Holding a child under a blood moon.
Watching Safaa fade from the world like light from glass.
A vision: Minu's face — confused, innocent, forgotten.
---
"You must choose…"
"Which memory will you offer for erasure?"
Kairen closed his eyes.
His lips moved softly:
"Erase the day I first cried for her."
The memory of Minu—the purest one—burned like sunlight through frost.
It didn't vanish.
It scarred the inside of the pool like a seal.
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🌊 Baptism Begins
He stepped into the black.
It wasn't liquid — it was thought, looping, crushing, holy.
"He who walks backwards into godhood must wear his sins like a crown."
His lungs filled with silence.
Every heartbeat played like a clock chime.
He saw:
The day he was named Noorain by a whispering hand.
The moment Safaa was drawn into existence by divine accident.
The forbidden word:
"Al-Dawla" — the one who was almost born instead of him.
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⚙️ System Update
âś… Reverse Baptism Passed
🔓 Sequence Advanced: Clockborne – Sequence 7
🧠Ability Gained: Mirrored Mercy
→ Temporarily switch emotional states with someone once per lunar cycle.
Use: Intimidation, deception, or mercy
Cost: You forget one reason you ever loved anything.
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🕯️ Aftermath
Kairen rose from the black pool.
His eyes flickered.
Safaa caught him — tears building at the edge of her calm face.
"What did you give up…?"
she asked softly.
He looked at her with cold clarity.
"Enough to move forward.
But not enough to stop missing the warmth."
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Suddenly —
a new voice echoed from the shadows:
"So, Brother… you've chosen the Baptism."
"Pity. I chose Divine Execution instead."
From the dark —
stepped a boy with Kairen's same eyes.
Same hair.
But twisted. Beautiful. Sharp.
"I am Al-Dawla.
The timeline you erased."
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⚔️ To Be Continued…
Next: Chapter 8 – The Dead Do Speak
Al-Dawla was not born…
But in the depths of forgotten timelines, he lived anyway.
Now he hunts the Fragments — not to protect time…
but to end it.