The female ox's tail swayed as she rose from her patch of grass, her udders moving with the motion—confirming her identity. This majestic ox had been a cow all along, her horns larger and more dominant than most.
Her eyes were mellow at first, then sharpened with ancient wisdom as she surveyed the frozen, static world.
Has a shaman come to exorcise me again?
How many times must I teach these fools their lesson?
She snorted, expecting the man before her to be nothing more than another village shaman.
The ox stamped her hooves into the ground.
Qiren stared at her powerful build as she began to charge.
He moved his scythe into a cleaving stance, his eyes turning cold."Come at me," he said. "If you want to taste my steel."
The ox mooed in response and charged with titanic force, her speed unbefitting her massive frame.
Qiren swung his blade.
"Mystic Compass Strike—Southwest to Northeast!"
A torrent of air tore toward her.
She opened her mouth wide.
"MOOOOOO!"
Her bellow collided with the slash, her throat releasing all the air stored within her lungs.
The shockwave rattled the ground. Four-foot-tall blades of grass erupted outward, fanning into sharpened tendrils.
"West to East."
Qiren spun, carving through the semi-illusory grass.
"This— isn't this similar to my Phantom Art—?!"
The grass dissolved into nothingness, but the ox had already crossed the distance, her horns aimed to impale him.
Qiren blitzed into motion, accelerating his personal time. He dodged the strike as days were stripped from his lifespan—not seconds.
He corrected the speed difference. Each slash carved into her hide.
!!!
The ox buckled, wrenching in pain. Translucent golden blood leaked from her wounds, glowing faintly as it spilled.
She built momentum again and charged, forcing Qiren to invoke the same chronomantic technique.
He pressed the pocket watch, speeding up once more."You're fast," he admitted, raising his weapon for a finishing blow.
His scythe came down in a one-handed swing—
Clink!
The vibration of metal striking something equally hard surged up his arm. The blade only tore through the surface of her skin, leaving a deep scar but failing to pierce her skull.
"So tough," Qiren muttered, leaping back as he returned to near-normal time. This was his first true battle manipulating time.
His sense of self-awareness kept him grounded, allowing him to maneuver the power to his needs.
After all, if one wished to deceive others into believing they were well-versed in a subject, they first needed confidence—confidence balanced on the edge of ignorance and understanding.
A man who doesn't know the equation but knows the answers is an incalculable danger.
That was what Qiren wanted to be.
His personal time slowed.
He drew back his scythe and slashed at the giant eye above him.
The moment the blade struck, he sped up the creatures time. Making it operate at the same speed he and the native cattle did.
All three were dragged into a clash of interests.
The eyeball shrieked as its iris was wounded.
"SKIIIII—!"
The split widened.
A deafening mental scramble slammed into both Qiren and the ox.
They froze, as if gravity itself had crushed them in place.
The eye sloshed as two figures—a man and a woman—emerged from the widening slit.
Eyes covered their bodies. They scanned everything: impurities, features, forms.
The man's skin rotted away in chunks, falling from his torso and cheeks. The woman's body warped, horns sprouting as her features grew cattle-like.
They slowly adopted the ox's likeness.
Qiren tried to move. He couldn't.
He cycled Qi through his limbs, fighting the telekinetic hold, but a spiritual pressure crushed his efforts.
The ox tore her gaze away from him and fixed it on the eye. Instinct told her that this was the culprit preventing her from goring the hooded man.
She inhaled deeply—
Then mooed.
Her bellow shook the ground. Pollinated flowers burst forth. Thick vines, fuzzy leaves, ginger roots, five-foot saplings, moss, and mushrooms erupted in a violent bloom.
The room drowned in greenery before the eye could stop her garden.
"MOO—!"
She raised a hoof and stomped on a flint rock.
!!!
Sparks flew, catching on the airborne pollen.
Qiren's eyes widened as his lifespan began draining faster.
1000×
He froze the blast before the fuse could ignite.
"She planned to blow us up the moment she was cornered," he realized.
"Smart girl," he added, feeling the eye's gaze loosen.
Remaining Time:
19 years, 256 days, 23 hours, 8 minutes, 14 seconds ↓↓↓
Two full years had been consumed by accelerating time a thousandfold.
He allowed the slowed region to catch up, extinguishing the flames. Drawing on the time he had gathered, he raised his scythe.
"Mystical Compress Strike: Chrono Slash!"
Remaining Time:
10 years, 74 days, 1 hour, 52 minutes, 60 seconds ↓↓↓
He had only expanded a few hours—but maintaining this speed had cost him nearly nine years.
Vwimmmm.
A pale green crescent blade tore through the ox and the eye.
Neither spirits could react.
The eye screamed as it split in half, while the ox endured the strike—her skin cleaved, bones shielding her vitals.
"SKREEE—! SKREEE—!"
The eye writhed, crashing from the ceiling before its transformation could complete.
The ox staggered back several meters, teeth clenched, golden blood dripping.
I underestimated this shaman…
He even stopped my garden from blooming.
She flicked her tail, then dug into the earth, unearthing ginseng. She devoured it, crunching the root, supplementing it with flowers and grass.
When she finished, she shook her body. The bleeding stopped.
"You…" she finally spoke. "I will defeat you."
She bellowed, and conjured trees shed their roots toward him.
Qiren sliced through several.
"I didn't expect you could speak," he admitted, moving toward the frozen rabbit.
He released it from slowed time and swung it by the head.
Its diced body stretched like a segmented whip. The disjointed pieces struck the roots, bursting into a confetti-like smoke that completely obscured him.
"Die!" the ox roared, stomping another rising flint.
"Exorcist Series: Thirty Talisman Bindings—Cherub Substitution."
Five cherubs burst from the smoke, grinning as they met the explosion head-on.
"Nine Golden Dawn: Abyssal-Dao Acupuncture."
Qiren's arm clenched.
"Inverted Flames."
The cherubs swallowed the blast, their bodies burning but holding their roles. Four absorbed the flames aimed at him. The last flew toward Missy's body.
Together, they mitigated the damage—heat flooding their lungs and stomachs until nothing remained.
Shuffle. Shuffle.
"Release."
Qiren's voice layered as he stood behind his marionette, the cross-brace hovering above his mad jester persona. Strings bound its limbs as it shuffled its cards.
Qiren stood behind it, scythe in one hand, the rabbit in the other. It shivered, confused by the marks on its face. Both he and the puppet smirked, impossible to tell which was real.
The cherubs' bloated forms emptied, faces scrunching as beams of concentrated heat fired out.
!!!
The ox braced her legs—
—but the searing beams lifted her off the ground.
BOOOOM!
She crashed through the building, walls shattering as she skidded out of the office.
The twisted room—once infinitely large and infinitely small—was gone.
When she rose, she saw the world beyond: a junkyard of scrap metal, rusted cars, oil, and decay.
She looked across the valley of scrap and up at the sky—
A beautiful blue sky stretching endlessly above.