Time rifts in the void gaped like abyssal mouths as Alison gripped the self-destruct rune dagger left by her grandmother, black blood trickling along its blade to resonate with her cursed chains. Sebastian advanced at the head of a mirror army, each replica wielding a scalpel embedded with a time core, their gemstone left eyes glowing scarlet in the rift's blue light.
"Time is running out," Sebastian's voice echoed through the multi-dimensional space. "Dual-core fusion is the only solution, and we both know it. Surrender your core, let me complete the ritual, and the curse will end. You... will become the family's eternal queen."
Half of Alison's chest was eroded by black blood runes, her mechanical heart resonating with pocket watch shards in a dying hum. She suddenly recalled blurred words in her grandmother's diary: Self-destruct runes require dual-core resonance collapse... Curses surfaced on the dagger's hilt, revealing a cruel truth: The fused core could only trigger collapse through the host's voluntary self-destruction, not external force.
Mirrors swarmed, scalpels piercing her ravaged body as time dust gushed from each wound. Alison drove the dagger into her own heart, screaming in agony as the mechanical core and rune chains began to merge, black blood and blue light exploding in her veins to form twisted chaotic energy. Sebastian's pupils constricted: "You're committing suicide?! The ritual requires both cores to coexist!"
"Coexist?" She coughed up time dust, her laughter grinding like mechanical gears. "You've lied to me for five hundred years, Sebastian. Grandmother's diary says: Dual-core hosts must voluntarily collapse to sever the pact. And your core... has been in me all along."
She slashed the dagger across Sebastian's neck. His scalpel clattered to the ground, revealing a mechanical chest structure identical to hers beneath his robe—their father's core had been transplanted there long ago. All mirrors disintegrated in the core resonance, crumbling into alchemical sigil ashes.
"When did you..." Sebastian staggered back, his gemstone eye cracking. Alison's fused core burst with ultimate blue light, the void's floor splitting to reveal a real projection of Winston Manor's basement—the blood-red moonlight of the full moon pierced the rift, leaving only 10 minutes on the countdown.
"When I fell into the mercury pool in the autopsy room." She stepped over mirror remains, dagger aimed at Sebastian's heart. "The cursed potion your scalpel mixed injected into my blood during my first time jump. Father's core... you stripped it from me."
Sebastian roared, a mix of metal and flesh, as his robe dissolved into liquid mercury enveloping his body. They clashed in a storm of blue light and black blood, each strike detonating time rifts. Alison's mechanical heart slowed, realizing the collapse ritual needed a final trigger of will—both cores must annihilate in voluntary sacrifice.
"You still chose Winston's memories," Sebastian impaled her left shoulder, mercury corroding her skin. "But the family curse won't vanish. It will only transfer... to the next host!"
With her last strength, Alison drove the dagger into the junction of their fused cores. A collapse black hole erupted, swallowing their bodies. In the instant of annihilation, she saw countless versions of herself and Sebastian mirrors dissipate across time, the full text of her grandmother's diary emerging— the final line of blood words clear: Dual cores self-destruct to sever the pact, but hosts will turn to time dust, never to be reborn.
The collapse's aftershock swept through the void, Winston Manor's basement collapsing in the real world as the full moon's bloodlust faded. When silence reigned, only a bloodstained time pocket watch shard remained, refracting a faint light in the ruins...