The Book Of Origin: Codex Architectus

Chapter 62: Time CONT'D

FATHER TIME
(eyes narrowing, voice shifting like a thousand ticking clocks slowing at once)
"This… this is not how it has ever been. Time is to be observed, endured, measured. Not… restructured."

THE ARCHITECT
(walking forward, hands weaving through the glowing blueprint, his fingers touching threads of past and future like an artist refining a masterpiece)
"Not restructured. Refined. You, of all forces, should know—time was never rigid. Humans shaped it into seconds, minutes, hours. But before that? It was only motion. It was only change."

Father Time watches as the Architect moves through time itself, not bound by its rules but treating it as material—a canvas, not a constraint.

FATHER TIME
"You presume to teach me what I am?"

The air ripples, centuries compressing into single moments, history bending inward. A wave of raw time energy surges toward the Architect—an age’s worth of wisdom, destruction, renewal, entropy all at once.

But the Architect does not resist.

Instead, he moves through it, adjusts, and emerges untouched, as if time itself could not find a way to mark him.

Father Time stares.

For the first time in eternity—he hesitates.

THE ARCHITECT
(softly, yet with unshakable certainty)
"You are time. But I am the one who asks—what else could time be?"

A silence heavier than any that has ever existed falls between them.

Then, a chuckle.

A low, ancient, knowing chuckle.

Father Time… smiles.

Not in defeat.

But in recognition.

FATHER TIME
"I see now… you are not here to break me. You are here to challenge me. To… evolve me."

The Architect simply smiles back.

Because he already knew.