From the mont Undead Wildfire reappeared and introduced herself to her own student, Lightchaser had been holding back, waiting for them to finish.
When Wildfire started saying all that nonsense, Lightchaser had already been pushing her patience to the limit.
And what did she get in return?
"One burst and she’s done."
Lightchaser looked up at the sky and let out a long breath, silently warning herself.
From now on, whenever she saw that face, whether it was from Quiet Mountain, the Star Sea, or any other tiline, she would not go easy on her. Not even a little.
The elf flicked her dagger.
The glowing ti pointer that had been hovering beside her ear suddenly expanded, flattening across the entire clock arena.
A massive clock hand began rotating slowly beneath their feet.
Its glow was soft, almost gentle.
Yet impossible to ignore.
Without waiting for her student to finish explaining the rules to Wildfire, Lightchaser moved.
She rushed in.
Rita and Wildfire had just finished exchanging the key information.
But the mont the clock spread beneath them, their attention was pulled toward it.
Then, at the sa ti, they realized sothing was wrong.
Their sense of ti had slowed.
They reacted instantly.
Both used instant movent skills to disappear from their original positions.
Still, they were half a beat too late.
Lightchaser’s twin daggers crossed through the air.
Both of them took a hit.
Another ti ability?
And a large scale one at that.
Why didn’t Wildfire Reignite trigger?
While struggling to evade, Rita began breaking down everything about this ability.
Lightchaser had already used her divine talent on her.
From the start of the match until now, she had used ti related abilities far more than ten tis.
Acceleration.
Stealing a second from a successful attack.
And now this large scale ti flow distortion affecting both her and Wildfire.
So why had Rita not entered the second phase of Wildfire Reignite?
Was it because she had not said the activation line?
No.
That was not it.
In Quiet Mountain, the skill activated before she spoke.
And right now, the skill was clearly not active.
Lightchaser did not know the activation conditions.
The skill had not been sealed.
Eliminate everything else.
Only one possibility remained.
The number of ti abilities used was wrong.
Rita glanced again at the massive clock beneath her feet.
A thought flashed through her mind.
What if this was not a ti ability at all?
Who said anything related to clocks had to involve ti?
Hypnosis.
An old psychological thod from BS civilization.
Why had she assud Lightchaser’s clock could steal the second of a successful attack?
Because she saw it happen in Lightchaser’s fight against Cinders.
She asked about it.
And Lightchaser confird it.
But thinking carefully now.
Every ti her attack failed, had she always seen the clock?
And each ti, hadn’t she instinctively thought, not again, another second stolen?
And when the clock rotated counterclockwise, the ideas that flashed through her mind.
One of them had been:
"No way, she didn’t just seal all the skills I used in the past few minutes, right?"
And the five tis speed.
That had also co from her own assumption after seeing the rapidly spinning clock.
Once she saw through one part, everything connected.
The most critical piece fell into place.
At this stage, ti abilities should not even exist.
After the second bell, one ssage had been clear:
"The ti of the chaotic Star Sea has been further calibrated. The number of ti abilities usable per Star Sea day cannot exceed one hundred."
That was only after the second bell.
What about the third?
The fourth?
By the ti they faced Quiet Mountain, would ti abilities even still be usable?
In that case, why would Lynx Duke teach Lightchaser ti abilities?
During Divine Instruction, such a critical phase, no god had taught anything related to ti.
Not from what she had observed.
Not from what she had heard in the battlefield chat.
All of these thoughts flashed through her mind in seconds.
And in those sa seconds, sothing else annoyed her.
Lightchaser had been targeting only her the entire ti.
While thinking through counterasures, Rita scanned the battlefield for her teammate.
Where was she?
Wasn’t it supposed to be a one burst finish?
She had only been casually looking.
But after scanning the entire field and finding nothing, Lightchaser helpfully pointed upward.
"There."
High above, a faint blue fla drifted slowly upward like a balloon.
It had already floated up to the level of the spectator stands.
It flickered occasionally, as if it might be blown out by the high winds of the Star Sea at any mont.
Good news.
Her teammate was still in the instance.
Bad news.
Her teammate had left all the boss aggro on her.
Rita shot Undead Wildfire a glare.
She already understood.
This match was not going to force out Wildfire’s true ability.
Could Wildfire not handle this?
Maybe.
But more likely, she simply chose not to.
Wildfire was another version of herself.
Rita imdiately understood her thinking.
She had been suddenly summoned into another tiline.
Until she fully understood the situation, she would not interfere.
Even if the request ca from another version of herself.
They would not trust anyone.
Not even themselves.
Rita felt a bit regretful.
This Load ability sounded powerful, but it was extrely hard to use.
She knew better than anyone how annoying she could be.
For a brief mont, just a tiny bit, she almost understood Deceitful Bloom.
But beyond the regret, there was also excitent.
A sense of eting an equal.
Rita smiled and ended the Load.
The faint blue Wildfire dispersed into the wind.
Rita stopped thinking about the other tiline.
She focused fully on Lightchaser.
Her health had dropped below 150.
Lightchaser still had over 200.
But now that she had identified the ability as hypnosis rather than ti manipulation, she had more options.
First, she tried borrowing it with the SSS skill Repay.
It failed imdiately.
That likely explained why Legendary Prologue had also failed before.
"As long as the fla of your will has not gone out, you cannot be controlled or deceived by any ntal ability below SSS rank."
Lightchaser’s ability was a divine level skill.
Rita closed her eyes.
She emptied her thoughts.
Focused only on the fight.
But even with her eyes closed, the glowing clock still appeared faintly in her vision.
So she took it a step further.
Golden lightning ford into a ribbon and wrapped around her eyes.
The blinding gold completely cut off her sight.
And severed whatever subtle connection the hypnosis relied on.
For the first ti since the fight began, Lightchaser’s calm expression shifted into a smile.
"Not bad. My student indeed."
Rita: "......... Don’t talk."
Lightchaser: "???"
User Comments
0 comments from readers