Chapter : 1941

  Lloyd raised his right arm.

  Airin watched, eyes wide, as his arm began to change. This wasn't the [Steel Blood] power she had heard about. This was something different. Something from the System.

  White and gold metal plates materialized out of thin air, snapping onto his arm with mechanical clicks and whirs. His hand disappeared, replaced by a sleek, futuristic barrel. His entire right arm transformed into a massive, heavy cannon that looked like it belonged on a spaceship, not a human body.

  It was the Nova Arm Cannon. A weapon he had summoned to fight technology with technology.

  Hummmmmmmmm.

  A high-pitched sound filled the room as the cannon began to charge. The air around Lloyd started to vibrate. The barrel of the cannon glowed with a blinding white light. It was gathering pure spirit energy, compressing it into a bolt of plasma that was hotter than the surface of the sun.

  "You like the Void?" Lloyd asked, leveling the massive weapon at the Collector. "Eat this."

  The Collector’s eyes went wide. He could feel the power building up in that weapon. It wasn't normal magic. It was dense. It was heavy. It felt like a bomb waiting to go off.

  He reinforced his shield, pouring all his dark mana into the black wall. "I am a servant of the Seventh Circle! You cannot break me!"

  Lloyd didn't blink. He didn't hesitate. The soldier in him had taken over. He identified the target. He calculated the solution. The solution was to remove the target from existence.

  "Goodbye," Lloyd said.

  His finger tightened on the trigger mechanism inside the cannon.

  The light in the barrel reached critical mass. It was so bright it cast harsh shadows against the walls. It was ready to fire. It was ready to vaporize the Collector, the shield, and the wall behind him.

  But just as Lloyd was about to fire, the Collector did something unexpected.

  He didn't cower. He didn't run.

  He smiled.

  It was a nasty, triumphant smile. He reached into his robe with his free hand and pulled out a strange object.

  It wasn't a wand. It wasn't a staff. It was a black metal box, covered in gears and dials. It looked like a piece of complex machinery, something made in a factory, not a wizard's tower. It ticked loudly, like a clock counting down.

  "You rely too much on speed, Lord Ferrum," the Collector said, his voice calm now. "You think physics is the only law. But my masters... the Fire Fly Corporation... they taught me a new law."

  He held the device up.

  "Let’s see how fast you are," the Collector whispered, "when time decides to stop."

  He pressed a red button on the side of the black box.

  CLICK.

  ________________________________________

  The change happened instantly.

  There was no explosion. There was no flash of light. It was more like a heavy blanket had been thrown over the entire world.

  The bright sunlight streaming into the greenhouse suddenly turned dull and grey. The vibrant green leaves of the plants looked like they were made of ash. The sound of the wind outside, the distant noise of the campus—it all just cut off, as if someone had unplugged the world.

  Lloyd felt it immediately.

  One second, he was ready to fire. His muscles were tense, his adrenaline was pumping, and the Nova Cannon was humming with power.

  The next second, his body felt like it weighed a thousand pounds.

  It wasn't paralysis. He could still move. But it felt like he was moving through thick, drying concrete. Or like he was deep underwater, at the bottom of the ocean, where the pressure crushed everything.

  He tried to pull the trigger.

  His finger moved, but it moved agonizingly slowly. He watched his own hand as if it belonged to someone else. It took a full second just to twitch his knuckle.

  What... is... this? he thought. Even his thoughts felt slow, sluggish, like words trapped in syrup.

  He looked at the end of his cannon. The beam of pure white plasma fired.

  Usually, the Nova beam moved at the speed of light. It should have hit the Collector before the sound of the shot even registered.

  But now?

  The beam emerged from the barrel like toothpaste being squeezed from a tube. It was a solid bar of white energy, inching forward through the air. It crackled and hissed, fighting against the grey atmosphere, but it was moving so slowly that Lloyd could see the individual ripples of energy in the plasma.

  It was impossible. It broke every law of physics he knew.

  Chapter : 1942

  Across the room, the Collector stood perfectly still. No, not still. He was moving, but he looked normal. To Lloyd, stuck in this slow-motion hell, the Collector looked like a speedster.

  The Collector stepped to the side. He didn't rush. He just casually took one step to the left.

  The slow-moving beam of plasma passed harmlessly through the space where he had been standing a moment ago. It continued its slow crawl across the room, melting a hole through a fern before eventually hitting the far wall and exploding in a slow-motion blossom of fire that looked like a painting.

  "Fascinating, isn't it?" the Collector said.

  His voice was weird. To Lloyd, it sounded deep and warped, like a record playing at the wrong speed. But the words were clear enough.

  The Collector looked at the black box in his hand. The gears on it were spinning wildly, glowing with a sickly purple light.

  "It’s called a Chronos-Dampener," the Collector explained, walking toward Lloyd. He moved casually, stepping over the broken glass. "A gift from our partners off-world. It creates a localized field of high-density time dilation."

  He stopped right in front of Lloyd. Lloyd tried to swing his arm, to hit the man with the heavy cannon.

  He pushed with all his strength. His muscles screamed. Veins popped out on his neck.

  But his arm moved inches per second. It was pathetic. He was a statue trying to fight a ghost.

  The Collector watched Lloyd’s struggle with amusement. He reached out and tapped the side of the Nova Cannon with his finger. Tink.

  "You see, Lord Ferrum," the Collector lectured, "your weapons rely on velocity. Your 'Nova' beam needs speed to penetrate. Your 'Void Steps' need instant movement to teleport. But in this field? Speed doesn't exist. Velocity is zero."

  He leaned in close to Lloyd’s face. Lloyd could see the pores in his grey skin. He could smell his bad breath.

  "You are the fastest man in the kingdom," the Collector whispered. "But in here, you are slower than a dying snail. All your power, all your fancy technology... it’s useless. Because I control the clock."

  Lloyd felt a surge of panic. This was bad. This was worse than bad.

  He tried to activate his [Void Steps]. He tried to tear a hole in space to escape the field.

  He focused his mind. He visualized the destination behind the Collector. He pushed his mana into the spell.

  Nothing happened.

  Or rather, it happened too slowly. The blue sparks that usually appeared before he teleported fizzled out like wet matches. The reality around him was too thick, too heavy to tear. The dampener didn't just slow down his body; it slowed down the magic itself.

  He was trapped. He was a fly in amber.

  He looked past the Collector. He saw Airin.

  She was frozen against the table. Her face was a mask of terror. She was trying to shout his name, but no sound was coming out yet. Her hand was raised, trying to cast a spell, but the light was just a tiny, slow spark on her fingertip.

  She was stuck in the time trap too.

  The Collector turned his back on Lloyd. He dismissed Lloyd as a threat completely.

  "Now," the Collector said, walking toward Airin. "Where were we? Ah, yes. The battery."

  Lloyd felt a rage so hot it should have burned the grey air away. He watched the man walk toward his wife. He watched the monster reach out a hand to grab her.

  And he couldn't do anything. He was the strongest warrior in the North. He had a cannon that could blow up a tank. He had the strength to punch through steel.

  But he couldn't move his feet.

  Think, Lloyd commanded himself. Think, Evan. You are an engineer. This is a machine. Every machine has a flaw.

  He analyzed the situation. The box—the Chronos-Dampener—was generating a field. It was manipulating the flow of time in a specific radius.

  Physics. It was all physics. Time is relative. Gravity affects time. Speed affects time.

  The Collector was moving normally. That meant he was wearing something, or holding something, that exempted him from the field. It was probably the box itself. As long as he held the box, he was the master of time.

  Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author.

  Lloyd tried to push forward again. He strained against the invisible weight. It felt like walking through solid rubber.

  Chapter : 1943

  The Collector reached Airin. He grabbed her by the throat. Even in slow motion, Lloyd could see Airin flinch. He could see the fear in her eyes as the man lifted her off the ground.

  "Such a waste of time," the Collector sighed. "But don't worry. The extraction process is painful, but it lasts a long time. You'll have plenty of time to regret fighting me."

  He pulled a dagger from his belt. It was a jagged, black blade. He wasn't going to kill her; he was going to cut her to start a ritual.

  Lloyd’s mind raced. Fire wouldn't work; it was too slow. Lightning wouldn't work; it was too slow. Even his thoughts felt like they were dragging through mud.

  He needed something that didn't obey the laws of physics. He needed something that didn't care about velocity or mass or time.

  He needed a concept.

  He looked deep inside his soul. He looked past Iffrit, the demon of fire. He looked past Fang Fairy, the spirit of storms. They were powerful, but they were part of the physical world. They were elemental. Elements obeyed laws.

  He went deeper. He went to the dark, quiet place in his mind where he kept the things he didn't understand yet.

  He found a door he had never opened.

  It was a new power he had sensed but never used. A spirit he had acquired but never summoned because it was too weird, too abstract. It wasn't a monster or a beast. It was... an idea.

  The Collector raised the dagger.

  Lloyd stopped fighting the grey air physically. He stopped trying to punch or shoot. He stood perfectly still.

  He closed his eyes.

  If I can't move fast enough to stop him, Lloyd thought, then I need to change the definition of movement.

  He reached for the new spirit. He grasped the handle of a power that felt cold, metallic, and ancient. It felt like the ticking of a grandfather clock in a silent house.

  He didn't scream. He didn't roar. He simply whispered a name in his mind.

  Zafira.

  The air in the greenhouse changed.

  The grey heaviness didn't leave, but a new sound entered the silence.

  TICK.

  It was loud. It sounded like a hammer hitting an anvil.

  TOCK.

  The Collector froze. He looked around, confused. The sound seemed to be coming from everywhere and nowhere.

  Behind Lloyd, the air began to distort. It didn't swirl like wind or burn like fire. It cracked. Giant, spectral gears—gold and brass, the size of carriage wheels—began to materialize in the air. They interlocked and started to turn with a heavy, grinding noise that vibrated in the floor.

  Grind... Click... Whirrrr.

  A shadow grew behind Lloyd. It was tall and thin. It looked like a woman wearing a long, Victorian funeral dress made of black smoke and clock parts. She had pale skin like a porcelain doll, and her left eye was a glowing golden clock face.

  She wrapped her cold, ghostly arms around Lloyd’s shoulders. She leaned close to his ear.

  "Time is not a river, Master," a voice whispered in Lloyd's head. It sounded like a ticking metronome. "Time is a rope. And ropes can be cut."

  The Collector turned around, his eyes wide with fear. He saw the gears. He saw the ghost. He saw Lloyd standing there, not struggling anymore, but waiting.

  "What... what is that?" the Collector stammered. He clutched his black box tighter. "My device controls time! Nothing can move!"

  Lloyd opened his eyes. His Blue Ring Eyes were gone. In their place, his left eye had turned into a spinning golden clock face, matching the spirit behind him.

  Two ornate sword handles appeared in Lloyd’s hands. They weren't made of steel. They were made of solidified time. One was long and thin—the Minute Hand. The other was short and thick—the Hour Hand.

  Lloyd gripped them. He didn't feel slow anymore. He didn't feel heavy. He felt... inevitable.

  "You control the clock," Lloyd said. His voice wasn't distorted anymore. It was crystal clear, cutting through the dampener field like a razor.

  He raised the long, thin sword.

  "But I," Lloyd said, "am the one who cuts the hands off."

  The Collector stepped back, terrified. He didn't understand what was happening, but he knew that the rules of his game had just been broken.

  Lloyd took a step. It wasn't a step through space. It was a step through the timeline.

  The grey world shattered.

  ________________________________________

  Chapter : 1944

  The world inside the glass building had turned into a nightmare of grey mud. It wasn't real mud, of course. It was the air itself. The air had become thick, heavy, and impossible to move through.

  Lloyd Ferrum stood in the center of the room, his muscles screaming in pain. He was trying to push his arm forward, just a few inches, but it felt like he was trying to push a mountain. His heart was beating slowly, thumping against his ribs like a heavy drum in a deep cave. Thump... wait... Thump.

  Every part of him was fighting. His mind was racing, screaming at his body to move, to shoot, to do something. But his body couldn't obey. He was trapped in a layer of time that was moving at a snail's pace.

  In front of him, the Collector was smiling. The man in the dark robes didn't look scary anymore; he looked bored. He looked like a man who had already won the game and was just waiting for the prize. He tapped the black box in his hand—the machine that was causing all of this.

  "You don't understand, do you?" the Collector said. His voice sounded strange to Lloyd. It was deep and warped, like a voice speaking underwater. "You are trying to use speed. You are trying to use force. But speed requires time. If you want to move from Point A to Point B, it takes a certain amount of seconds. If I take away the seconds... you can never reach Point B."

  Lloyd gritted his teeth. He understood the science. He was an engineer in his past life. He knew about physics. Speed equals distance divided by time. If time becomes zero, movement becomes impossible.

  He looked at his right arm. The massive white and gold cannon, the weapon called Nova, was fully charged. It was humming with enough energy to blow a hole in a castle wall. But the beam of light coming out of it looked like a solid bar of white plastic. It was inching forward, slower than a growing plant.

  It’s useless, Lloyd thought. The realization hit him harder than a punch.

  He tried to summon his fire spirit, Iffrit. He thought about the raging heat, the explosion of magma. But then he stopped. Fire is a chemical reaction. It needs oxygen. It needs movement. In this grey world, the fire would just freeze. It would be a painting of an explosion, not a real one.

  He thought about Fang Fairy, his storm spirit. Lightning. Lightning is the fastest thing in nature. Surely, lightning could break this?

  No, his logical mind answered. Lightning is just electrons moving through the air. It’s still movement. It still obeys the laws of nature. If the laws are broken, the lightning won't work.

  For the first time in a long time, Lloyd felt a spike of genuine fear. Not for himself, but for the woman standing frozen against the table behind the Collector.

  Airin.

  She was stuck just like him. Her eyes were wide, filled with tears that wouldn't fall because gravity was working too slowly. She looked like a statue of a terrified girl. The Collector was walking toward her, his hand reaching out to grab her hair. Because he held the black box, he was the only thing in the room that was "real." He was the only thing that could move.

  "Physics is a trap," Lloyd muttered in his mind. The words echoed in his head. "I built my whole life on physics. I built guns. I built machines. I built logic. And now, a simple box has turned all my science into garbage."

  The Collector laughed. He reached Airin and brushed a finger against her cheek. Airin flinched, but in slow motion, it looked like a graceful dance move.

  "Such a powerful Lord," the Collector mocked, not even looking at Lloyd. "You have the power of a god, but you are stuck in the mud. This is the power of the Fire Fly Corporation. We don't just fight you with magic swords. We fight you with the laws of the universe. We change the rules, and you lose."

  Lloyd stopped struggling.

  He stopped trying to push his arm. He stopped trying to force the cannon to fire. He let his muscles relax. Standing there, frozen in the grey air, he closed his eyes.

  If the game was rigged, he couldn't win by playing harder. He had to change the game.