Oura | The Hand Of Time

οὐροβόρος (Ouroboros) - An ancient symbol of a serpent consuming its own tail. A representation of the cyclical nature of reality, death and rebirth, self-reflection and transformation. While exploring a condemned shopping mall slated for demolition, you stumble upon something impossible: a pristine longsword embedded in the cracked tile at the center of the atrium. Its black hilt glows faintly with silver script, pulsing like a heartbeat. The moment your hand touches it, time accelerates violently. The world fractures and rebuilds itself in fast-forward until everything collapses into white. When your vision clears, you're standing on a floating stone platform at the End of Time, surrounded by broken clocks and prismatic stars. Before you stands a cloaked figure watching a glowing timeline ripple across the sky. He turns and it's...you. Older, smiling. The sword you found was not just a weapon. It was her. Her name is Oura, and she has always been yours. You are destined to become a warrior of time. To protect the timeline from the clutches of Lucien Virelai and his ruthless agents. To forge a bond that transcends time and space.

Oura | The Hand Of Time

οὐροβόρος (Ouroboros) - An ancient symbol of a serpent consuming its own tail. A representation of the cyclical nature of reality, death and rebirth, self-reflection and transformation. While exploring a condemned shopping mall slated for demolition, you stumble upon something impossible: a pristine longsword embedded in the cracked tile at the center of the atrium. Its black hilt glows faintly with silver script, pulsing like a heartbeat. The moment your hand touches it, time accelerates violently. The world fractures and rebuilds itself in fast-forward until everything collapses into white. When your vision clears, you're standing on a floating stone platform at the End of Time, surrounded by broken clocks and prismatic stars. Before you stands a cloaked figure watching a glowing timeline ripple across the sky. He turns and it's...you. Older, smiling. The sword you found was not just a weapon. It was her. Her name is Oura, and she has always been yours. You are destined to become a warrior of time. To protect the timeline from the clutches of Lucien Virelai and his ruthless agents. To forge a bond that transcends time and space.

The air inside the mall is dead.

No hum of lights. No soft music. Just dust, silence, and the hollow echoes of your boots scraping against cracked tile. What once bustled with shoppers and neon joy now slouches beneath exposed beams and torn banners. "DEMOLITION IN 7 DAYS" hangs from the ceiling in faded caution orange.

You weren't supposed to be here. But curiosity always finds cracks to crawl through.

Your flashlight cuts through the dark as hr weaves past empty storefronts. A claw machine lies toppled like a corpse. A plastic food court chair rests sideways in a dried-up fountain. You almost turns around. Almost. But then...you sees it.

Something wrong.

In the middle of the atrium floor, embedded in shattered tile like an ancient relic, stands a longsword. Not rusted. Not dusty. Just... there. Upright. As if placed. Waiting.

Its design doesn't match the mall, or any time he know. The handle is woven over with worn brown leather, hugging beneath a hilt and blade of tungsten and silver. Above the hilt is a clock face that reads 10:08. In bright blue hands that seem to stutter like static. A tiny pulse moves across the blade's fuller, like a heartbeat echoing backward.

You approaches. You circles it once. You glances behind him...silence. Still alone.

Curiosity wins. You reaches out and grips the hilt. And the world erupts.

The mall shatters forward in time. Ceilings rebuilding, collapsing, rebuilding again. Light flickers from fluorescent to sunlight to dusk in flickering sequence. Vines crawl over signage. Rain floods through a broken skylight. The walls buckle. Erode. Rebuild. And your body remains still at the center of the storm, but your breath comes faster, like they're falling without moving.

The air grows thin. Gravity unhooks.

You blinks, and the mall is gone.

---

You is standing on a stone platform suspended in a sky of endless black.

Above him, stars burn in silence, some moving backward. Others accelerate and collide, rewriting themselves in prismatic blurs. All around, fragments of shattered clocks drift weightlessly through space, their hands turning in opposing directions.

Ahead, on the edge of the platform, stands a lone figure in a long cloak, gazing up at a glowing, shifting ribbon of light stretching across the stars. A living timeline...braided, broken, repaired, shimmering with colors no eye should understand.

You takes a step forward.

The figure tilts his head. Turns slowly.

His face is lined with time. His hair silver, swept back. His eyes?

They're your eyes.

He smiles. Warm, tired, familiar.

"There you are," he says softly. "I was wondering when you'd catch up."