The crescent arc of incinerating pinkish-red flames sliced through the beam of darkness, reaching Amelia and striking her spear.
Unable to get out of the way in time, her spear shattered, allowing the arc to connect with her shoulder next.
Fortunately, her sturdy armor tanked the full force of Lucas’ attack, not letting it harm her, yet the impact flung her several meters back.
Lucas showed no mercy. He raised his hand skyward and summoned five blazing lances forged entirely from immolating crimson flames.
Amelia gritted her teeth, groaning as she got up. Chanting a wind barrier spell, she braced herself as the lances rained down upon her, triggering a chain of mushroom cloud explosions.
Kaboooom—!!!
Lucas half-covered his eyes from the flying debris, waiting for the dust to settle. When it finally did, he saw the spiraling tornado of flames before him.
Slowly, the flames subsided, revealing Amelia’s battered frame. She was able to cast the wind barrier spell, but it couldn’t protect her completely. Half of her armor was broken, and her dress burnt in several spots, exposing scalded lacerations on her once flawless skin.
Disheveled hair and clenched teeth, she bit her lower lip in pain, barely holding back agonizing grunts. With trembling hands, she summoned a yumi bow in her grasp and knocked an arrow into it.
Despite knowing that she could be a traitor, seeing her in this state tugged at Lucas’ heart. He felt an aching sting in his chest.
Yet, Lucas callously summoned another volley of his fiery lances. Without hesitation, he sent them hurtling forward like a salvo of missiles.
Amelia widened her eyes and started running in a futile attempt to dodge the flaming lances.
She managed to evade the first two or three, which missed her and struck nearby buildings instead, but the last one found its mark.
Kabooom—!!
Once again, a colossal mushroom cloud explosion bloomed, adding to the chaotic destruction in the surroundings.
When the flames dissipated and the dust settled, Lucas saw Amelia down on one knee, huffing and puffing, painfully taking quick gasps of flaring air, adding to the agony of her burning lungs. Her armor was in shards, broken beyond use, just like her bow.
Lucas waited for a few seconds before approaching her, his steps tracing through the smoldering ashes.
Coming to stand in front of her, he looked down at the black-haired beauty with cold indifference and said, “I will give you one last chance now. Try to convince me not to kill you–”
But before Lucas could complete his sentence, Amelia summoned a round, intricate pocket watch in her hand and pressed the button on its top.
And the second she did that… a high-pitched sound echoed throughout the world, and Lucas sensed a sudden freeze. His feet became anchored to the ground, and his muscles stubbornly refused to respond.
In fact, everything around him halted the moment Amelia pressed that mysterious pocket watch – the Cadets in the distance, the drifting clouds in the sky, the wind, the shadows, the fire, everything stood frozen with tracing outlines of red and blue as if the whole world was glitching!
In this glitched world, only Amelia seemed free to move at will. Finally catching her breath, she rose to her feet, pain etched across her face as she locked eyes with Lucas. She looked… sad for some inexplicable reason.
With an oddly wistful expression, she said, “Sorry, I had no choice but to stop you this way.”
Lucas, however, remained relentless. He summoned every bit of strength left in him and compelled himself to move. Despite his efforts, he could only manage to barely part his lips.
“Wh-What have… you… do-done?”
Amelia’s eyes widened at the unexpected turn of events as if he was doing something he shouldn’t be able to. But in the next moment, an understanding look washed over her face as she nodded.
“Right,” she sighed. “You were formerly a heavenly being. There’s no way time would be able to constrain you when even fate couldn’t.”
Lucas was perplexed. He couldn’t even begin to start making sense of what Amelia was trying to say, let alone understand the meaning behind her unfathomable words.
Observing the perplexed expression on his face, Amelia sighed and gently caressed the side of his cheek.
“I’m not your enemy, Lucas. I know you know this deep down. So, come talk to me when you’ve finally calmed down. I can’t keep time frozen for long.”
As soon as she uttered those words, Amelia once again pressed the button on top of her pocket watch. At that moment, the world returned to normal.
Lucas gasped, falling to his knees. A wave of weakness washed over him. And when he looked up, Amelia was nowhere in sight.
In the distance, the mountain of rubble stirred once more, and a young girl with silver hair and crimson-red eyes cautiously poked her head out.
Struggling, she managed to extract her little body, rolling on the collapsed chunks of the building before steadying herself and weakly walking toward Lucas.
“Pa… the time… it stopped just now…”
Lucas stared at Sera in astonishment. So, she felt it, too? It was unequivocally the time that stopped. Not just a concept, but the actual, palpable flow of time itself! It actually stopped!
Amelia… Did she really have the power to stop the very flow of time itself?
Her pocket watch seemed to have that ability. Was it a relic? But could a relic even have such power?
Most importantly, she had nothing like that in the novel… right?
Wait, she could stop time… is it possible that she could rewind it? Was she the reason for those eighteen different timelines?
Lucas felt as if he was going out on a limb. However, stopping time should be impossible even with magic. It required affecting the fourth dimension, which in turn would require the caster to channel a godly amount of mana.
No one could channel that much mana. No relic, no man or woman, and certainly no Cadet with barely a gold-ranked mana core.
But if Amelia just now did the impossible. And if she could do that, who’s to say she can’t rewind the time?
But then, why wasn’t he himself affected by the ceased flow of time? Amelia called him a former heavenly being. What does that mean?
Lucas didn’t know. But he understood one thing – Amelia knew more than he did.