Chapter 280 - 281: Broken Time

Chapter 280: Chapter 281: Broken Time

The moment the twentieth person sat, the tower’s low hum deepened into something heavy and wrong.

It was not a gradual change. One heartbeat the clearing was still. In the next second a bone-vibrating resonance slammed through the stone like a hammer blow from inside the earth. Teeth rattled. Lungs stuttered. The air itself seemed to thicken and press against every eardrum.

Several of the seated people tensed at once.

Wukong’s golden eyes snapped toward the tower. "Something’s coming."

Soren Vale’s thin fingers tightened in his lap. ’That resonance is not normal. The Trial is about to start.’

Sylphy’s silver markings flickered. "Everyone stay in your circles."

Then a sudden shockwave exploded outward.

It came from the twenty circles at once, a violent ring of force that ripped across the platform. Everyone who was not seated was blasted off the stone like leaves in a storm.

Pirate underlings screamed as their bodies were thrown into the living forest. Late arrivals who had just stepped onto the edge were hurled violently backwards, slamming into trunks and roots. Curses and panicked shouts filled the air as people tumbled through the trees, some crashing hard enough to smash through multiple layers of trees.

From inside the circles the seated watched it happen in a flash.

Wukong winced. "Ooh. That had to hurt."

Finn muttered, "Better them than us."

Darius’s permanent scowl deepened. "The ruin just cleaned house."

Lyra Solenne’s voice stayed calm inside her group’s net. "Unwanted people removed. Expected. Stay focused."

Soren watched a screaming underling vanish into the trees and thought, No second chances from the very first second. This place is exactly as ruthless as the stories claimed.

Inside the circles there was no time to react further.

Time suddenly started to misbehave.

It did not misbehave the same way for everyone.

For some, time lurched forward. Skin tightened. Hair whitened at the roots. Joints ached as if decades were being crushed into seconds. Heartbeats raced until they felt like they would tear free of the chest.

While for others, time ran backward. Memories frayed at the edges. The sense of self thinned like smoke. Cultivation bases wavered as if the years of hard work were being unwound.

And finally a few were caught in violent back-and-forth fluctuations—aging one moment, reversing the next, the body and mind pulled in opposite directions until it felt like something inside was tearing.

A low roaring filled every ear. Under it came the sound of something thin and important ripping. Heartbeats sped up or slowed until they were almost gone.

Shock and panic hit the seated at the same moment.

"What the hell is this?!" Wukong shouted, chaotic energy already flaring.

Sylphy’s eyes widened. "They didn’t even give us a warning!"

Soren’s scholarly face went tight. Time distortion. Immediate. No announcement. The test started the second the last seat filled.

One of Lyra’s followers gasped, "Why am I aging?! My hands—"

Darius gritted his teeth as gray streaks appeared at his temples. "Forward time. Fight it!"

Finn’s voice was strained. "Mine’s going backward. Memories are slipping. Anchor now!"

Almost every survivor reached for their runes at the same instant, instinct and and billions of years of experience slamming together under pure survival pressure.

Wukong was one of the ones who struggled hardest at the start.

Chaotic runic energy flared wildly around him as he tried to pin his own timeline down. His face twisted with effort. "Shit—shit—what the hell is this?!" He cursed loudly, golden eyes wide, fingers digging into the stone of his circle as the pressure tried to age him and reverse him at the same time.

Runar noticed at once.

Through the spirit link his voice came calm and precise, cutting through the chaos.

"Don’t fight the whole thing at once. Find the runes that are forcing the forward pull. There—left side of your circle, the ones that look like they’re spiraling outward. Anchor them with a simple stability structure. Same one we used on the shifting paths in the outer forest. Do it now."

Wukong gritted his teeth and followed. Sweat beaded on his forehead. The chaotic energy around him bucked and fought, but slowly, piece by piece, he forced the spiraling runes to lock. The worst of the forward aging eased. He was still under pressure, still cursing under his breath, but he was no longer being dragged apart.

"Keep going," Runar said. "Now the reverse threads. They’re thinner. Treat them like the false paths. Cut the connection, don’t try to overpower them."

Wukong’s reply was a strained growl, but he obeyed. Bit by bit his timeline stopped swinging forward so violently.

Vark handled the attack in a completely different way.

He did not simply resist. The cold around him deepened until the air near his circle looked almost frosted. Runes formed at his fingertips—sharp, destructive, and precise. Instead of anchoring or blocking, he reached into the time distortion itself and annihilated the runes that powered it. The time flow around him did not slow or stabilize. It collapsed and died. The distortion simply ceased to exist in a clean radius around his body. Watching it was terrifying. Efficient. Absolute.

---

The mysterious woman did nothing visible at all.

No bloodline light flared. No runes formed around her hands. She simply sat, posture perfect, and the time attack bent around her body as if it could not find purchase. The distortion slid past her and failed to take hold. Her breathing never changed. Her expression never shifted.

Almost everyone who could still think clearly had the same thought.

That is one woman you don’t want to mess with.

Who and What the hell is she?

That kind of resistance isn’t normal.

Soren Vale’s scholarly face was tight with concentration. Sweat appeared on his brow for the first time since entering the ruin. He worked with precise, careful structures, building layer after layer of anchoring runes the way he might construct an argument in an old text. The time pressure still pushed at him, but he held. No warning. No preparation time. Pure measurement of foundation under sudden stress. Clever and cruel.

Sylphy’s silver bloodline markings blazed. She combined the bloodline power with dense rune work, silver light flaring hard around her circle as she forced the distortion to stabilize. Her jaw was set. They threw us straight into it. Fine. I will not fail here.

Lyra Solenne’s group fought as a unit. Their linked auras shared the load, but some members still struggled more than others. One of the followers trembled visibly, face pale, while Lyra’s own control remained steady and cold. She adjusted the net without speaking, pulling more of the pressure onto herself. Sudden activation. Expected from a Paragon ruin. Hold the line.

Darius and Finn sat side by side, both silent, both grim. The effort showed in the veins standing out on Darius’s neck and the tight line of Finn’s mouth. Whatever hidden depth of foundation they had been keeping quiet was being forced into the open now. They held, but it cost them.

Runar himself remained the calmest of all. Well except for that lady.

The Eye of Myriad Truths was fully open. Golden-white light spilled across the runes of his circle as he read the time structures faster than anyone else. He did not merely anchor. He rewrote. Where the distortion tried to age him, he altered the command. Where it tried to reverse him, he severed the thread. His breathing stayed even. His posture never shifted. To the others it looked almost effortless, but the speed of his reading was anything but.

Some hours passed and three of the twenty participants couldn’t hold on anymore and failed completely.

The first was a strong independent who had sat with confidence only hours earlier. Forward time crushed him without mercy. His skin wrinkled and tightened in seconds. Hair went white, then fell out. He screamed as his body aged into dust, the sound cutting off only when his throat collapsed into ash. The particles that had been a living man drifted upward and joined the earlier remains.

The second was caught in pure reverse flow. His eyes went wide with confusion as memories began unraveling. He clawed at his own head, shouting fragments of words that no longer made sense. His sense of self thinned until nothing coherent remained. One moment he was a person. The next he was an empty shell that simply stopped moving, then crumbled into the same drifting script particles.

The third was trapped in violent fluctuation. Time slammed him forward, then yanked him backward, over and over. His body could not take the strain. He came apart in pieces—first an arm, then part of his torso—each fragment aging or reversing independently until nothing solid was left. His final sound was a wet, broken cry that ended mid-note.

Only seventeen remained.

While the trial raged, more entrants from the outer forest reached the edge of the clearing. They could only watch. Faces went pale. Some took instinctive steps back. Others stared in open horror as three people died in ways no normal battle had ever shown them. The living forest behind them seemed to lean inward, as if even the trees were paying attention.

A tall man with a half-healed burn across his cheek whispered, "Thank the multiverse I didn’t get a circle. I almost ran for one when I saw the empty seats."

A woman beside him swallowed hard. "Yeah. Our so-called infinite lives wouldn’t stay infinite if we sat down in that."

Another late arrival, still breathing hard from the forest, muttered, "Did you see that guy turn to dust? He aged Decillions of years in just a few seconds. What kind of test is this?"

Someone further back cursed under their breath. "I thought the forest was the hard part. This is pure slaughter. No warning. No mercy."

A younger Multiversal with shaking hands stared at the drifting particles. "I’m never sitting in one of those circles. Not for any treasure. Not for any reward. I’d rather stay on the first floor forever."

A scarred veteran near the front spoke quietly to his partner. "Remember this. If we ever get another chance at those seats, we walk away. Infinite life means nothing if the ruin erases you in a heartbeat."

The group of watchers stayed frozen at the edge, voices low and shaken, none of them daring to step any closer while the time distortion still twisted the air above the remaining seventeen.

Then the time distortion finally stabilized and faded.

The seventeen survivors sat breathing hard. Some were unsteady even while still seated. Sweat, blood from bitten lips, and trembling hands marked the cost.

A portal door of pure script opened on the side of the tower. It was tall, narrow, and filled with slowly turning layers of language that hurt to look at for too long.

Then a systematic and emotionless voice rang out across the clearing. It came from everywhere and nowhere at once.

[Congratulations. You have passed the first trial.]

[Proceed through the door to undertake the second trial.]

[If you wish to stop here, you will receive a reward and may continue exploring the first floor of the Reliquary.]

[The circles will reset for the next batch of challengers.]

The seventeen survivors began to stand.

Many were still unsteady. Sweat, trembling hands, and rough breathing marked the cost of what they had just endured.

Wukong was the first to speak, voice rough and annoyed.

"Now you can talk? Where the hell were you before? A little warning would’ve been nice."

Soren Vale wiped sweat from his brow and muttered, "It waited until after people died to explain the rules. Classic Paragon-level design. Cruel and efficient."

One of Sylphy’s Experts let out a short, bitter laugh. "The voice shows up after the slaughter. Perfect timing."

Finn shook his head while helping Darius steady himself. "Next time the ruin decides to break time, maybe it can send a message first. Just a thought."

Sylphy’s expression stayed cold, but her words carried clear irritation. "No announcement. No preparation. Just instant trial. This place really doesn’t care if you live or die."

Even Lyra Solenne’s usually composed voice held a sharp edge when she spoke inside her group’s net. "The system only speaks after the filter is finished. Remember that for whatever comes next."

Wukong glanced at Runar and added through the spirit link, still sounding put out, "Seriously. It couldn’t have said ’time test starting in three seconds’ or something? Rude."

Runar’s reply was calm as always. "Paragon ruins rarely explain anything in advance. The lack of warning is part of the test. Expected the Unexpected."

Around the circle, more tired voices rose in agreement. The survivors had passed, but none of them looked happy about how the first trial had been delivered.

Many were unsteady. Wukong rose with a low groan, still rolling one shoulder as if the time pressure had left an ache behind. He glanced at Runar and gave a short, rough nod of thanks through the link—no jokes this time, just acknowledgment.

Soren Vale stood carefully, already evaluating. The first filter was time itself. The next will be probably worse. But turning back now would waste everything.

Sylphy checked her four Experts with quick, sharp looks. Two of them were pale but upright. She spoke quietly. "We continue. Staying on the first floor after this would be admitting defeat." They nodded.

Vark was already walking toward the portal without a word. The cold around him had not lessened. He did not look at anyone.

The mysterious woman rose gracefully, still completely composed. Not a strand of hair was out of place. She moved toward the door as if the trial had been nothing more than a mild inconvenience. Several of the survivors watched her go and quietly decided they would not stand in her path for any reason.

Darius and Finn exchanged a long look. The kind of look that said they could no longer pretend their foundations were ordinary. Finn broke the silence first.

"We’re going."

Darius nodded once. "Yeah."

Runar stood last among the central group, calm as ever. He studied the portal for a moment longer, the Eye of Myriad Truths still open, reading the layers of script that formed the doorway. Then he looked at Wukong.

"Ready?"

Wukong let out a breath and managed a crooked half-smile. "Do I have a choice? Let’s go before I start thinking too hard about what almost happened."

One by one the strong ones moved toward the portal of pure script.

Behind them, the twenty circles slowly dimmed and began to reset, the stone cooling, the runes returning to their locked, silent state. Ready for the next batch of challengers who would not know what was coming.

The living forest continued to watch as the first group of true contenders stepped toward the second trial.

The Myriad Script Reliquary had only just begun to open its real doors.