The Hero is An Academy Librarian

Zaran turned sharply to see what had grabbed him, and he was greeted with the sight of a skeletal creature with glowing golden eyes and obsidian bones that made it look like it had been burned in fire for all eternity! The creature pulled half its body out from the magical tear and grabbed Zaran’s leg with both hands before it opened its dark, cavernous mouth and let out an ungodly screech!

SCREEECHHH!!!

"ARRRRGHHH!"

A terrifying sound unlike anything Viva had ever heard in her life tore across the region, and Viva felt a surge of fear shoot through her heart! But Viva’s fear was nothing compared to the sheer terror that passed through Zaran at that moment! Zaran screamed at the top of his lungs, and he began trying to kick the beasts away from him!

"NO! NO! NO!"

Zaran turned and began pulling himself forward like a damned man trying to escape from hell, and Viva watched with wide eyes as the tear widened and more of the skeletal beasts began to pull themselves forward to grab Zaran’s body! The creatures all let out terrifying screeches that shook Viva to her very core, and it was only Percy’s hand on her collar that prevented her from turning and running away in fear! It felt like Viva was looking at something beyond this realm! Something that mortals should never get to see in their lifetime!

At this point, the skeletal creatures had grabbed every part of Zaran’s body, and Zaran’s mouth was opened wide in a continuous scream as he struggled to get away from the beasts! But all of his struggles were in vain, and Viva’s face paled when she noticed that the skeletal creatures were dragging something out of Zaran! A golden dust was flowing away from Zaran’s body, and into the golden eyes of the skeletons! As a result of that, Zaran’s body was slowly starting to turn pale and old! Zaran’s cheeks sank inwards, and his hair turned white and began to fall out!

’He’s aging rapidly! They’re taking his time away from him! These are the Time Wraiths!’

Viva came to a sudden realization once she saw what was happening, and all the conversations that Viva had with Percy about what the Time Wraiths could do and how the timelines were secured by them came back to her in full force! Now Viva understood why Percy told her that he couldn’t mess with time even if he wanted to! If this is the result of messing with time, then no one in their right mind would ever want to do it!

The Time Wraiths continued to take the time away from Zaran, and it wasn’t until Zaran was no longer moving that they finally released their hold on him and began to move back into the tear! But Viva’s heart skipped a beat as she noticed a massive Time Wraith that was larger than all the others coming through the tear! The sight of the Time Wraith in all its glory almost broke Viva’s mind!

The creature stood at more than eight feet, and its obsidian bones seemed to suck in every bit of light that dared to come close to it! The creature was hunched over, like it had been carrying the weight of the world on its shoulders for all its life, and now that it was standing so close, Viva realized that its eyes were actually formed from millions of golden sand grains that were swirling in a constant spiral!

The Sands of Time!

The creature locked its golden gaze onto Percy and Viva, and Viva struggled slightly against Percy’s hold as her body instinctively told her to get as far away from that thing as possible! But Percy held her down easily, and the Time Wraith spoke in a high-pitched, scratchy voice that made Viva put her hands to her ears in pain!



Percy hummed while waving his hand to shoo the Time Wraith away.

"I didn’t do anything. He’s the culprit, and you have him now, so leave."

The Time Wraith narrowed its golden eyes at Verati, and for a moment, Viva was worried that they would get attacked by the giant skeleton. But the skeleton finally nodded once, and it left a few parting words while turning away.



The Time Wraith walked past Zaran’s emaciated and dried-up body before moving towards the rip in space and gently walking into it! Once it passed through, the rip sealed closed like someone had zipped it up, and the world around them suddenly began to move again as time returned to its regular flow and the grey bled away to normal color!

Percy waved his hand and got rid of the magical shield that had been protecting them, and he put Viva back on the ground like a stray cat! The moment her feet touched the ground, Viva’s legs gave out, and she fell to her knees and nearly collapsed from exhaustion! Viva hadn’t done anything at all, but just being so close to creatures that transcended the realm of mortals made her feel like she had run ten marathons at the same time!

There was no way Viva could explain the sheer power that she felt from the Time Wraiths because there was no ’magic realm’ that could classify it! The Time Wraiths just felt like they had powers that went beyond normal, and Viva knew that she would have nightmares about that creature for the rest of her life!

Percy walked up to the body of Zaran, and he crouched beside it and threw the pendant that he had swiped back on the dead body. Viva was confused when she saw this, and she immediately asked Percy what he was doing!

"That pendant is dangerous! Shouldn’t we take it with us? Why are you leaving it?"

"We can’t take it with us. It doesn’t belong in our time."

Viva looked at the pendant again, and she could only imagine all the trouble that this small piece of jewelry had caused them in the past few days.

"So, you’re just going to leave it here? Isn’t someone else going to pick it up and use it for their own greedy ambitions?"

Percy shrugged.

"That’s none of my business. Let the Time Wraiths deal with that. No one from this time knows what happened here, so we don’t have to worry about it."

Percy stood up as he said this, and he put his hands in his coat pocket as he watched Zaran for a few long seconds. Percy knew that even if he took this pendant, there were far too many of them in existence for him to ever stop people from finding it again. Someone else from somewhere else would find another pendant and this whole cycle would repeat itself again. It was a brutal cycle, and somewhere deep down, Percy had a feeling the Time Wraiths were allowing all of this to happen on purpose.

The Time Wraiths were responsible for taking the time away from anyone who tried to manipulate time, and in order to do this, the Time Wraiths needed people to find the pendant and use it to go forward or backwards through time! That was the only way they would have a constant supply of time to absorb!

But none of that mattered to Percy. The only thing Percy could do was to make sure people couldn’t permanently alter timelines by holding onto the Key!

....

A/N: Please vote with GT!