"That worm is incredibly tenacious. Even with a group of friends helping hunt it, it's very cunning. I'm a bit tired. Leaping through ti continuously is no simple task. I just ca to rest for a mont and make sure you're both safe. Don't worry, this will all be over soon."
Jenkins said, getting to his feet again, but the low ceiling of the carriage forced him to stoop.
"I'm going to continue the chase."
He took a single step out of the carriage and vanished into thin air. Miss Audrey glanced outside to make sure Jenkins wasn't coming back before closing the carriage door again.
"Teacher, so what do we do now?"
"Let's wait patiently," Miss Broniaons said, leaning back against the soft cushions. "I believe this matter is more or less over."
Just as Jenkins had predicted, it was the Difference Engine that was manipulating the power of the enigmatic Paradox Worm. It hadn't developed any new strategies; rather, it continued to hone its craft of chanical fabrication, and in doing so, had created the chanical Paradox Worm. This creature theoretically possessed all the abilities of a weakened version of the Paradox Worm, but because it was a creation of the Difference Engine, it also possessed many new powers related to machinery.
This made it impossible for the Ti Paradoxers to subdue the worm through normal ans, which was why they needed Jenkins to intervene.
The unsealed Paradox Worm theoretically exists at every point in ti, yet simultaneously exists at no point in ti. Only a few groups, like the Ti Paradoxers, can find it within ti and force it to manifest.
It took the combined effort of more than thirty Ti Paradoxers to allow Jenkins to borrow their power and leap through ti alongside them in this region.
The first ti they caught up to the creature on the vast plain, the chanical Paradox Worm gave everyone a nasty surprise. It first opened its enormous maw and spewed a torrent of tal scraps that looked like they'd been pulled from a junkyard. Then, under the influence of temporal power, the tal automatically assembled into various gear-driven chanical creations—replicas of Cursed Items forged with the Difference Engine's power.
These replicated Cursed Items each had their own abilities. Even when destroyed, they would regenerate almost instantly through the power of ti and machinery, achieving a state that was, in a sense, truly immortal.
The Ti Paradoxers suppressed the temporal power while Jenkins suppressed the chanical power, and only then could they barely manage to eliminate these things. But by then, the Paradox Worm had already fled to who-knows-where.
It was an arduous pursuit, a relentless cycle of chase, battle, and chase again. In these repeated encounters, Jenkins could feel the worm actually evolving, accumulating experience through constant battle. Even the chanical Cursed Item replicas it created were growing stronger.
But the Ti Paradoxers hadn't earned their reputation for nothing. Through repeated contact, they finally discovered a flaw in the chanical Paradox Worm's ti jumps. Its traversal of ti, unlike a true Paradox Worm, was not without its costs.
Relying on this knowledge, the Ti Paradoxers, together with Jenkins, finally located it again on the white, mist-shrouded plain. When it tried to pull the sa trick, a bronze-colored bird flew out from Jenkins's book. As a massive tal gear in Jenkins's eyes began to turn, driving a whole array of smaller gears, the chanical Paradox Worm actually froze for a split second.
"Now!"
An ethereal gray light radiated from the outstretched hands of the Ti Paradoxers, enveloping the chanical Paradox Worm. At that mont, Jenkins finally felt the wind, a sign that the linear flow of ti was being restored.
The chanical Paradox Worm, montarily controlled by the Principle of All Machines, certainly sensed the threat. It struggled violently, even attempting to crush the group before it with its body, the size of a small mountain.
But its chance was gone. As the gray light spread, its movents beca rigid once more, and for a short ti, it was unable to traverse ti again.
"It's up to you now," declared the man in the black formal suit beside Jenkins.
Jenkins nodded, drew his sword, and took two running steps before leaping high into the air. Like an agile cat, he scrambled up the massive chanical worm's body. Upon reaching its head, he pushed off forcefully, launching himself even higher, and the gleam of his sword spun as he slashed downward.
With a sound that set one's teeth on edge, the worm wasn't sliced into pieces, but a gaping hole appeared a third of the way down its body.
A brilliant, multicolored light burst from the hole in the chanical body. It was followed by an aura even more terrifying than the chanical Paradox Worm itself, one that made even Jenkins feel a bit uneasy. The source of this colored light was the core of the chanical beast—the very power of the Paradox Worm, whose origins were unknown.
Jenkins didn't dare touch that rainbow-hued light. He just stood on the chanical behemoth's head, using the power of the Principle of All Machines to restrain its movents.
The Ti Paradoxers also avoided direct contact with the light. Just as they had done at the hospital, they summoned a massive ring in the sky that seed to absorb all color. The multicolored light then dissolved into shimring motes and was drawn into the ring.
In the midst of this process, everything around them began to return to normal. While the lightless, empty plain remained the sa plain, the chaotic flow of ti had stabilized.
And without the power of the Paradox Worm, this chanical behemoth was nothing more than a large but ordinary chanical creation. With ease, he sliced it into three parts, which scattered across the plain.
He leaped down from the worm's remains. After reconfirming that the three tal cores integrated with miniaturized steam engines—located in the head, middle, and tail—had lost all power, he walked over to the Ti Paradoxers with his sword in hand.
"Thank you for your help. The fog is about to clear. Thank you for all your trouble this ti."
"No, the gratitude is ours, esteed one," the man in the black suit, who acted as the group's spokesman, said with humility. Their figures were already beginning to fade. After dealing with the matter here, they had other things to attend to. Across countless continuous tilines, the Paradox Worm is forever in a superposition of escaping its seal and not escaping its seal, and so the Ti Paradoxers' work is never done.
"We just discovered sothing very important. Ordinarily, we wouldn't be allowed to warn you, as it pertains to the End of the Era. But since you have helped us, we can share this information with you as a token of our gratitude."
He bowed slightly to Jenkins and spoke directly, without waiting for a question.
"We have discovered that it wasn't just the Paradox Worm's power that was stolen."
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