---
The Chrono Forge loomed in the void, resurrected as a black hole haloed by dying stars. Its anvils pulsed with primordial timefire, and rivers of molten chronology snaked through its obsidian ribs. Elias led the team through the shifting labyrinth, his chrono-glass blade humming with unstable energy.
"Stay close," he warned. "The Forge reshapes itself around intruders. One misstep, and you'll live the same second forever."
Zara's echo flickered at Lila's side, her form now intertwined with the Chrono Compass. "The Weaver's here. I can feel it… knitting itself into the Forge."
Jax eyed a river of liquid time, its surface reflecting his younger self—whole, unbroken, ignorant of the wars to come. "Keep moving," he growled. "Before I drown us all."
---
The Weaver awaited them at the Forge's heart, its body a tapestry of every fallen foe: Nyx's mosaic claws, Arius's spiral armor, the Core's void eyes.
"You return to die," it intoned, threads coiling around the team. "As you always do. As you always will."
Lila raised the Compass. "We break the cycle. Today."
The Weaver laughed, its voice fracturing into echoes of Elias, Zara, Elara. "You are the cycle. Every victory, every sacrifice—it feeds me. You cannot kill time… you can only become it."
Elias charged, his blade slicing threads that reknit instantly. "Then we'll try something new!"
---
Zara's echo surged into the Forge's core, her paradox energy clashing with the Weaver's threads. "Lila! Rewind the Compass to its first frequency—the moment Elias created it!"
"That'll erase its entire history!" Lila protested.
"Exactly," Zara said, her form unraveling. "Do it!"
The Compass whirred, timelines screeching as it reset. The Weaver recoiled, threads snapping.
"You… erase yourself…," it hissed.
Zara smiled. "I've been dead for centuries."
Elias grappled with the Weaver, his blade shattering as he drove it into the tapestry. "I've lived a thousand lives," he snarled. "And I'll die a thousand more to end you!"
The Weaver's threads pierced his chest, siphoning his memories—Lila's laughter in a dead timeline, Elara's last breath, Zara's scream in the loop.
"Your pain sustains me," the Weaver gloated.
"Then starve," Elias whispered, and detonated his chrono-glass blade.
---
The blast consumed the Forge, timelines dissolving into stardust. Lila clung to the Compass, its light fading as Zara's echo vanished. Jax dragged Elias's limp body from the inferno, the Weaver's final scream echoing:
"I… AM… FOREVER!"
But the threads were silent.
---
Neo-Pandora awoke to a sky free of fractures. The Godforge's rubble had become a monument, its spire a skeletal reminder. Lila stood at its base, the Compass inert in her hands.
"He's gone," Jax said, voice hollow. "Both of them."
"Not gone," Wren said, pointing to a flicker in the crowd—a child with Elias's eyes, building a chrono-toy from scrap. "Just… reset."
Zara's voice whispered through the Compass one last time: "Thank you."
---
In the ashes of the Forge, a single thread glowed—a paradox even the Weaver couldn't weave. Lila knelt, gathering it into a new Compass.
"What now?" Jax asked.
"We rebuild," she said. "And this time… we choose our own time."
The thread pulsed, its light painting the horizon with uncharted dawn.
THE END…?
---