Chapter 110: Cruise Ship (8)
Originally, after the monsters on the Golden Anchor leapt into the sea, they should have quickly scattered, swimming into the deep ocean or other waters.
However, before they could escape, someone had already activated the “time loop.” Everly wasn’t certain whether the creatures trapped inside could freely move in and out of the loop’s coverage once it was formed, but she suspected they could not. Otherwise, the whole purpose of creating the time loop would be meaningless.
Once activated, the “time loop” acted like an invisible prison, enclosing a vast area of the sea centered on the Golden Anchor and confining all the mutated monsters within a limited space. It caused the monsters to be forgotten by time alongside the cruise ship, trapped in a continuous cycle. For the next thirteen years, they endlessly repeated the process of “sacrifice—mutation—jump into the sea—wandering,” until thirteen years later, the Mary Jane inadvertently entered this frozen-time zone.
“As far as I know, the ‘time loop’ involves the power of space and time. It’s an extremely complex and difficult spell. Throughout history, very few people have been able to teach themselves spacetime magic. But besides self-study, there’s another kind of person—someone born under the favor of nature, naturally capable of manipulating the forces of space and time. These people are called ‘spacetime witches.’”
“A witch! The letter in the captain’s cabin mentioned that there’s a witch on the Golden Anchor!”
The clues all connected, and the group, realizing the truth, couldn’t help but shiver.
Everly nodded. “Exactly. I suspect that the one who activated the time loop on the cruise ship was a rare spacetime witch.”
Such witches are extraordinarily rare, even among the witch community. It’s said that a single spacetime witch might only appear once every several generations.
Moreover, because the power of space and time is so overwhelmingly strong, even a spacetime witch favored by nature would find using it extremely difficult. Typically, they can only manage minor feats—like “restoring a withering flower to full bloom” or “returning an aging self to youth.” But something like drawing a time loop to trap an entire massive cruise ship? That was unheard of, never seen before.