Chapter 1395: Fractured Seconds

Ferrick looked up at the enormous sphere filling most of his vision.

He fell silent for two seconds.

This mechanical body probably wasn’t going to survive either.

But neither he nor Caldren had any intention of waiting to die.

Caldren pulled a delicate miniature clock from inside his armor. The hands were still ticking normally, and its internal gears made a faint grinding sound.

He pressed a switch on the side and tossed it into the air.

Click.

The hands paused for a beat.

Everything around them stopped as well.

But this wasn’t true time-stop.

The battlefield’s flow of time had been forcibly chopped into a series of disconnected fragments. The colossal purple-red sphere hung motionless in the air. The rain of light arrows froze against the spatial shield, and flames from the explosions held their expanding shapes.

Then time resumed.

Every attack advanced a short distance.

On the next beat, time stopped again.

Resumed.

Stopped.

Then resumed once more.

The entire battle could only progress in brief intervals, like a sequence of disconnected images.

Ferrick seized the first interval and recalled the spatial shield surrounding the mechanical pyramid.

Pale blue energy rushed back from the outer barrier and covered his mechanical body. Space folded inward beside him, and Ferrick crossed the distance between himself and Kaelira, reappearing directly above her.

He had evaded the colossal sphere bearing down on him.

But he and Caldren had both overlooked one thing.

Kaelira had never been fighting alone.

The first time the flow of time resumed, Seraphine released her bowstring.

Whoosh!

The death arrow flew.

Primordial Death Energy locked on to Ferrick’s position. Every stretch of space the arrow crossed was marked by a distinct black trail.

Time stopped again.

The death arrow froze in midair.

But the trail of Primordial Death Energy remained. It still pointed straight at Ferrick, clearly marking the path the arrow would follow when time resumed.

Time moved again.

The arrow raced along the black trail toward him.

At the same time, Ataneya’s twenty-four fox tails reached up from below.

During the first interval, they swept past Kaelira’s sides.

Time stopped.

During the second, the twenty-four tails split off in different directions and began sealing the space around Ferrick.

Another stop.

Another advance.

After several broken intervals, fox tails crisscrossed the sky to form a cage, blocking every possible escape route.

Ferrick sensed the danger and tried to call on his spatial power again.

Pale blue light had only just covered his mechanical body when the death arrow completed the last stretch of its black trail and struck him in the chest.

Bang!

Primordial Death Energy punched through his outer armor. The impact blasted Ferrick away from above Kaelira and through the cage of fox tails, sending him hurtling diagonally toward Caldren.

Caldren immediately extended both arms and caught him.

The mechanical clock could no longer withstand the strain of continuous operation.

A crack appeared across its face. The gears inside slipped out of alignment, and the device fell from the air as the fragmented flow of time finally ended.

Everything returned to normal.

"My lord!"

Caldren glanced at the spot where the death arrow had struck Ferrick’s chest and acted without hesitation.

His right arm detached at the shoulder.

Clack!

The entire mechanical limb disassembled in midair.

Its metal plating, drive mechanisms, and energy circuits separated into hundreds of precision components that whirled around Ferrick. The shoulder armor attached first, followed by plating over his chest and a set of thrusters across his back.

An energy core embedded itself into Ferrick’s body.

More components filled the damaged sections and reassembled in overlapping layers. Ferrick’s mechanical frame expanded. His shoulders broadened, his chest armor thickened, and several more thruster nozzles formed across his body.

His mechanical eye lit up again.

Ferrick and the now one-armed Caldren were clearly preparing for one final stand.

Everyone’s attention focused on the newly rebuilt Ferrick.

No one looked down.

An almost imperceptible wisp of cold air crept along the edge of the clouds. It slipped around the scattered gunfire and lingering energy from the attacks, then passed silently beneath Caldren’s feet.

Caldren looked down.

At some point, a layer of frost had formed beneath him.

The ice was extremely thin, spreading only across the bottom of his mechanical armor. It made no sound and gave off no noticeable energy fluctuations. Caldren didn’t realize anything was wrong until the cold seeped through the metal shell and his feet began responding more slowly.

He immediately activated his thrusters to pull back.

Not far away, a pair of dark blue eyes had already locked on to him.

Ferrick hadn’t noticed Caldren’s situation.

The colossal purple-red sphere Kaelira had launched now filled his entire field of view. Its massive body kept closing in, violent energy churning across its surface as it pushed out layer after layer of shock waves.

Black cracks had already appeared across the spatial shield surrounding the mechanical pyramid.

Ferrick’s reinforced body had only just finished reassembling when Andona beat her golden wings and rose higher.

She stopped above him and turned her blade downward.

Divine Power poured from its tip, spreading golden light across the clouds. An enormous divine array formed over Ferrick’s head, its intricate lines covering the sky as the runes within lit one by one.

The array descended.

Boom!

Several golden chains shot out from its patterns.

The first wrapped around Ferrick’s left arm. The second coiled around his waist. More chains followed, binding his legs, chest, and thrusters. They tightened the instant they touched his armor, golden runes lighting up along every link.

Ferrick tried to call on his spatial power.

The expected distortion never appeared.

The divine array had sealed the surrounding space, while the chains held his mechanical body in place. The blue flames blasting from his thrusters could only make him tremble slightly. He couldn’t break free.

Ferrick’s true judgment had finally arrived.

And at that exact moment, a weak, urgent voice came through the communications channel.

"My lord!"

Static crackled through the transmission.

"An outsider has entered the city!"

Ferrick’s mechanical core sank.

"Location?"

The other end went silent for a moment, apparently confirming the constantly changing surveillance data.

"He’s heading toward... the prison."

Ferrick was startled at first, then relaxed slightly.

The prison?

If that was where the intruder was headed, there was less reason to worry.

The things imprisoned there weren’t something just anyone could provoke.

Right now, abandoning this mechanical body mattered more.

As long as his soul escaped, he could use spatial power to return to the city. He would still have a chance to regain control of the situation.

Ferrick stopped struggling and lowered his voice.

"Caldren."

There was no response over the channel.

Ferrick waited a beat. The streams of data in his mechanical eye turned chaotic.

"Caldren?"

Only static answered him.

Then a cold, faintly amused voice came from the distance.

"Looking for him?"

Ferrick whipped his head around.

Elowen was standing behind the others.

No one had seen when she arrived. Her eyes had turned a deep, icy blue. Her gaze passed through the ceaseless explosions and settled calmly on Ferrick.

A small, crystal-clear sphere of ice rested in her palm.

She nudged it with one finger, letting it rotate slowly over her hand. A faint blue light was frozen inside. It was still pulsing weakly, but it couldn’t break free of the transparent ice.

Not far from her, Caldren hung motionless in the air.

His one-armed mechanical body was completely encased in thick ice. The gaps in his armor, his thruster nozzles, and his remaining mechanical arm were all frozen solid. Not a single part of him could move.

Elowen tilted her head.

"Hello, little War Machine."

Ferrick went rigid.

His mechanical eye widened rapidly, the dark blue light inside it flickering erratically.

"You..."

He looked at the frozen Caldren, then at the ice sphere in Elowen’s hand.

"What did you do to Caldren?"

Ferrick’s voice rose sharply.

"Answer me!"

Elowen tossed the ice sphere into the air.

It rose to eye level, then dropped neatly back into her palm.

"What did I do?"

She gave Ferrick an easy smile.

"I froze him, of course."

Her fingertip tapped lightly against the ice, making the blue light inside tremble.

"Nice and cool in there."

"Want to try it too?"