From the shadows came another being. Only this time, it was not a crawler. It was a young woman with brown hair streaked with black streaks all throughout it. Her eyes were completely black from the whites to the iris.

Her fair skin had veins of black going all throughout it. She was no longer a human at all, but a flesh puppet that had been corrupted by Raven.

Stanley wondered if this was supposed to be another person he recognized that he would be too sentimental to fight. But, he simply didn’t know who she was. Maybe it was better this way. He could kill her before he found out who she was exactly.

Time slowed down around him at that exact moment and he moved, charging through the newly arrived woman to kill her in a single shot.

However, just as his sword got close to her, Stanley saw a vision of the future where the woman not only ducked but attacked in return as well.

Stanley immediately changed direction, dodging the woman’s attack. She had nearly had him.

Stanley stopped some distance away, time still slowed down by a hundred-fold and looked toward the woman who had moved. How had she moved when time was slowed down this much?

The woman turned around and put on a grin. Her lips moved at first, saying something, and a few moments later the sound arrived at Stanley’s ears.

"Impressive, isn’t she?" Raven, spoke through the woman’s voice. "My finest addition to my collection, you know." 𝙛𝒓𝒆𝙚𝒘𝒆𝓫𝙣𝓸𝙫𝓮𝒍.𝒄𝒐𝓶

Stanley frowned. Who was this woman? What was going on? How was she dodging his attacks?

The woman moved at the same time, arriving closer to Stanley to deliver a punch.

Stanley saw the future that was going to happen and swung his sword toward her. And yet, the woman managed to dodge at the last moment, almost inhumanly.

She flew through the air, floating in the air for a brief period before disappearing into the shadow beneath her.

Stanley was taken aback, when he felt danger behind him and ducked as the woman reappeared, nearly punching past his head. He moved at the same time, swinging his sword at her.

Because she was flying and couldn’t control her body, Stanley managed to hit her. And yet, he felt as though he was hitting an iron wall with a wooden stick. Even though his sword was sharp, it was still a sword with thickness. As he cut through what he only later saw was the woman’s arm, the sword began slowing down its momentum.

Stanley managed to cut through her entire arm, but by the time he had cut it, the woman had twisted herself away from the blade, dodging it. She landed in the distance and Stanley could already see her cut arm wriggling as it began growing back slowly.

It appeared slow because time itself was slowed right now, but if he were the drop the slowed down time, he couldn’t imagine how quickly her arm was regrowing back.

It probably wouldn’t even take a single second for her to gain back her destroyed arm.

’She is different from the other crawlers,’ Stanley thought. ’Who is she?’

The woman grinned, revealing perfect rows of teeth that were now completely marked with black tendrils that seemed to grow out of her gums. She looked horrifying.

The woman’s lips moved again and it took a few seconds for the sound to reach him. "You can see the future quite well, can’t you?" she asked.

Stanley didn’t answer.

"I wonder," the woman’s voice came again. "Can you see the future when you can’t see at all?"

Stanley lost all sight of the future. It was all darkness for him in the future. He didn’t sense any danger, so he wasn’t sure what had happened. Had Raven just cut off his ability to see the future?

The answer came immediately. It wasn’t that he could no longer see the future. That darkness, as it turned out, was the future. As the darkness enveloped him, he heard just two words.

"Shadow World."

It was as though night had fallen and Stanley stood in a place with no light. The stars were not out that day and the moon was not in the sky.

All there was for him to see was darkness itself. He tried to look around, trying to find flickers of light or anything, but he saw nothing. He couldn’t even tell if he was in the same location or not. The ground felt flat instead of rocky like it was outside.

Stanley suddenly dodged, feeling the danger sense that told him to move. He dodged the attack, only to have his danger sense tell him he was being attacked from another direction.

Stanley was certain that he was still in slow time, so the fact that he was being attacked this quickly was that it was the woman who was doing it.

But the directions she was attacking from clearly didn’t make any sense to him at all. How was she attacking from multiple directions consecutively when she—

Stanley froze as he realized the answer. ’Teleportation!’ he thought.

The damn woman was teleporting around in the shadows thanks to Raven’s powers. Hell, this entire world was nothing but shadows, so she could appear from wherever she wanted to.

Stanley chopped in the direction of where he felt the danger coming from and cut through something. And yet at the next moment, another attack came from somewhere else.

Stanley was in trouble. If this went on for too long, he might actually end up dead earlier than he might have expected.

’No, I can’t die,’ he thought. ’Not until she dies first.’

No matter how many wounds he had to take for that. No matter how much he had to push himself.

No matter how many times he had to fight the same battle over and over.

Raven had used her powers to trap him? So what? He was going to do the same as well.

"Time Loop: Activate!"