The crescent arc of incinerating pinkish-red flas sliced through the beam of darkness, reaching Alia and striking her spear.
Unable to get out of the way in ti, her spear shattered, allowing the arc to connect with her shoulder next.
Fortunately, her sturdy armor tanked the full force of Lucas’ attack, not letting it harm her, yet the impact flung her several ters back.
Lucas showed no rcy. He raised his hand skyward and summoned five blazing lances forged entirely from immolating crimson flas.
Alia gritted her teeth, groaning as she got up. Chanting a wind barrier spell, she braced herself as the lances rained down upon her, triggering a chain of mushroom cloud explosions.
Kaboooom—!!!
Lucas half-covered his eyes from the flying debris, waiting for the dust to settle. When it finally did, he saw the spiraling tornado of flas before him.
Slowly, the flas subsided, revealing Alia’s battered fra. She was able to cast the wind barrier spell, but it couldn’t protect her completely. Half of her armor was broken, and her dress burnt in several spots, exposing scalded lacerations on her once flawless skin.
Disheveled hair and clenched teeth, she bit her lower lip in pain, barely holding back agonizing grunts. With trembling hands, she summoned a yumi bow in her grasp and knocked an arrow into it.
Despite knowing that she could be a traitor, seeing her in this state tugged at Lucas’ heart. He felt an aching sting in his chest.
Yet, Lucas callously summoned another volley of his fiery lances. Without hesitation, he sent them hurtling forward like a salvo of missiles.
Alia widened her eyes and started running in a futile attempt to dodge the flaming lances.
She managed to evade the first two or three, which missed her and struck nearby buildings instead, but the last one found its mark.
Kabooom—!!
Once again, a colossal mushroom cloud explosion blood, adding to the chaotic destruction in the surroundings.
When the flas dissipated and the dust settled, Lucas saw Alia down on one knee, huffing and puffing, painfully taking quick gasps of flaring air, adding to the agony of her burning lungs. Her armor was in shards, broken beyond use, just like her bow.
Lucas waited for a few seconds before approaching her, his steps tracing through the smoldering ashes.
Coming to stand in front of her, he looked down at the black-haired beauty with cold indifference and said, "I will give you one last chance now. Try to convince not to kill you–"
But before Lucas could complete his sentence, Alia summoned a round, intricate pocket watch in her hand and pressed the button on its top.
And the second she did that… a high-pitched sound echoed throughout the world, and Lucas sensed a sudden freeze. His feet beca anchored to the ground, and his muscles stubbornly refused to respond.
In fact, everything around him halted the mont Alia pressed that mysterious pocket watch – the Cadets in the distance, the drifting clouds in the sky, the wind, the shadows, the fire, everything stood frozen with tracing outlines of red and blue as if the whole world was glitching!
In this glitched world, only Alia seed free to move at will. Finally catching her breath, she rose to her feet, pain etched across her face as she locked eyes with Lucas. She looked… sad for so inexplicable reason.
With an oddly wistful expression, she said, "Sorry, I had no choice but to stop you this way."
Lucas, however, remained relentless. He summoned every bit of strength left in him and compelled himself to move. Despite his efforts, he could only manage to barely part his lips.
"Wh-What have… you… do-done?"
Alia’s eyes widened at the unexpected turn of events as if he was doing sothing he shouldn’t be able to. But in the next mont, an understanding look washed over her face as she nodded.
"Right," she sighed. "You were forrly a heavenly being. There’s no way ti would be able to constrain you when even fate couldn’t."
Lucas was perplexed. He couldn’t even begin to start making sense of what Alia was trying to say, let alone understand the aning behind her unfathomable words.
Observing the perplexed expression on his face, Alia sighed and gently caressed the side of his cheek.
"I’m not your enemy, Lucas. I know you know this deep down. So, co talk to when you’ve finally cald down. I can’t keep ti frozen for long."
As soon as she uttered those words, Alia once again pressed the button on top of her pocket watch. At that mont, the world returned to normal.
Lucas gasped, falling to his knees. A wave of weakness washed over him. And when he looked up, Alia was nowhere in sight.
In the distance, the mountain of rubble stirred once more, and a young girl with silver hair and crimson-red eyes cautiously poked her head out.
Struggling, she managed to extract her little body, rolling on the collapsed chunks of the building before steadying herself and weakly walking toward Lucas.
"Pa… the ti… it stopped just now…"
Lucas stared at Sera in astonishnt. So, she felt it, too? It was unequivocally the ti that stopped. Not just a concept, but the actual, palpable flow of ti itself! It actually stopped!
Alia… Did she really have the power to stop the very flow of ti itself?
Her pocket watch seed to have that ability. Was it a relic? But could a relic even have such power?
Most importantly, she had nothing like that in the novel… right?
Wait, she could stop ti… is it possible that she could rewind it? Was she the reason for those eighteen different tilines?
Lucas felt as if he was going out on a limb. However, stopping ti should be impossible even with magic. It required affecting the fourth dinsion, which in turn would require the caster to channel a godly amount of mana.
No one could channel that much mana. No relic, no man or woman, and certainly no Cadet with barely a gold-ranked mana core.
But if Alia just now did the impossible. And if she could do that, who’s to say she can’t rewind the ti?
But then, why wasn’t he himself affected by the ceased flow of ti? Alia called him a forr heavenly being. What does that an?
Lucas didn’t know. But he understood one thing – Alia knew more than he did.
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