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THE LORD BLACK DRAGON
Chapter VI — The Detective of Lost Time

(or: The Man Who Returned a Year Before the End)

The universe hasn't ended.
Not yet.
Tsuki stopped him—at a price only he understood.

The Spheres of Chaos, the Relics, and the Neon Clock had merged with his soul.
And when he activated the Clock on the Throne of Fire, he didn't destroy the cosmos; rather, he bent it.

Time has been reversed.
A silent turn, an invisible fold.
And when Tsuki opened her eyes, the universe had regressed by a single year.

One year before the collapse.
One year before the deaths.
One year before the end.

1\. The Man Who Knew Too Much

He woke up in a vibrant city.
The buildings breathed; the people smiled.
Nobody remembered the apocalypse, in which nobody, except him, was present.
Now, Tsuki knew who would betray her, who would die, and which worlds would crumble.
He knew the villains' secrets, the sects' plans, the gods' lies, but there was a price:
Each time he remembered, time devoured him from the inside, as if the cosmos itself were trying to erase him.

To hide, he adopted a new identity.
Tsuki Kael , private detective in the City of Dead Echoes.

"I investigate what people forget."
And what time tries to hide.”

2\. The Case of the Woman Who Dreamed of the Future

It was on a rainy afternoon that she appeared, a woman with amber eyes and an impossible smile.
Her name was Elara.
She said she dreamed of a man watching her from among the stars, and that every time he appeared, time would break apart.

Tsuki recognized her.
In the previous timeline, Elara had died, sacrificed by the Sons of the Serpent.

Now, alive, she was searching for him, saying:

You are the man of my dreams.
I am the man from your nightmares.

She didn't know it, but inside her was a fragment, the eighth Sphere, the only one Tsuki hadn't yet recovered.

3\. The Cult of the Awakened Dragon

Meanwhile, the Sons of the Serpent were gathering again.
This time, however, they didn't want him dead.
They wanted to train him.

They believed that Tsuki was the Dragon incarnate, the chosen deity to bring balance to the universe.
The sect expanded across planets, temples, and parallel realities.
Priests and scientists studied his energy, seeking to understand how a man could become the very axis of time.

But Tsuki knew the danger of that.

"No one should control time. Not even the one who saved it."

4\. The Game of Echoes

The world seemed the same, but there were subtle differences, with streets that ended in non-existent alleys, and people who spoke in phrases he remembered from dreams.
The past and the future were intertwined, where fragments of relics—now within him—manifested themselves in dreams and lapses of reality.
One night, Tsuki found himself facing a future version of himself with silver eyes, who said to him:

You can't stop the end.
I already stopped him.
And that's why it will never end.

The paradox echoed like a distant laugh, in which the mirror shattered.

5\. The Prophet and the Detective

As the weeks passed, rumors spread.
There was a detective who solved crimes before they happened.
which predicted the fate of victims and murderers?
who dreamed of the future and woke up with blood on his hands?

Some called him a prophet.
Others, cursed.
But those who knew what truly moved through time called it:

"The Dragon That Walks Between Days."

Tsuki, however, only wanted peace.
But each case he solved brought him closer to the cult —
And Elara, who was beginning to remember something she had never experienced.

6\. Elara's Revelation

On a night when time folded in on itself,
Tsuki and Elara became trapped in a time loop.
Every hour, the clock would turn back, and the same conversation would repeat itself.
Finally, on the thirteenth repetition, Elara looked him in the eyes and said:

You lied to me.
— About what?
— About the future. I saw it. I die.
— Not this time.
— You've said this before, haven't you?

She began to remember —
of the deaths, of the sacrifice, of the old timeline.
The memories tore through the space like a slit of light.

The neon clock, fused to Tsuki's chest, began to pulse.
And the universe trembled once more.

7\. The Last Secret

Tsuki then understood what the Dragon had whispered at the beginning:

"Time cannot be saved."
"Just retold."

He was neither a hero nor a god.
He was an accountant — the chronicler who kept the universe coherent.

And, disguised as a detective, he would continue writing about the days,
Correcting the flaws, and living a thousand lives in one,
While the gods hunted him, and time tried to forget him.

The following morning, he opened the newspaper and read the headline:

"Prophet detective predicts catastrophe — and disappears."

He smiled, put his watch in his pocket, and murmured:

"I don't disappear. I start over."
THE LORD BLACK DRAGON
Chapter VIII — The Rebirth and the Last Artifact

Elara was not human.
It never had been.
She had been moulded in human form — the perfect vessel for a living relic.
His body was an illusion; his soul, the essence of the lost artifact.

The ancient priestess had called it The Seed of Eternal Return.
The artifact capable of uniting or tearing time apart.

Tsuki, now one with the Dragon, understood.
In all timelines, Elara died.
It was the inevitable sacrifice, the heart that sealed the cycle.
But this time, he wouldn't let it happen the same way.

1\. The Return to the Original Moment

He's back.
Not years, not months — it returned to the moment.
The point where it all began.
The first sound of the rupture.
The first echo of the fall.

The world seemed suspended.
Reality, frozen between being and ceasing to be.
Tsuki crossed the threshold with Elara in her arms, now reduced to a form of pure light, contained within a crystal.

"No longer as a sacrifice," he murmured, "but as a part of me."

The merger is complete.
The artifact became the center of his soul.
The Dragon roared within him — and the universe breathed, restarting.

2\. The Rebirth

The cosmos spun.
The constellations rearranged themselves.
Time folded back on itself.

And when everything quieted down, Tsuki opened her eyes to a world remade —
a year and six months earlier, again.
But now, without the cracks, without the echo of the collapse.
The universe was clean.

The relics, which were previously scattered, now rested under his dominion.
Each one silent, each one purified.
The cycle had been rewritten.
He managed to go to each of the places he had been before everything collapsed, to each of the places he had been at that time, where he had taken each of the artifacts, since he knew their weak points, he took them with him.
3\. The Allies

The ancient enemies, the witches and goddesses who once fought amongst themselves, were now reunited.
As much as Circe, Medea, the Dragon Woman, the Princesses of the Lost Stars, and the Guardian of the Abyss.

They no longer fought each other.