Episode-974
Chapter : 1947
Lloyd’s muscles tightened. The gears in the ghostly dress behind him spun faster and faster, building up a charge of temporal energy. The sound was like a jet engine winding up. Whirrrrrrrrrrr.
"Time is up," Lloyd said.
And then, he moved. But he didn't run. He didn't jump. He simply decided to be somewhere else.
The world held its breath. The clock struck twelve. The strike was coming.
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The world inside the greenhouse was still stuck in that terrible, grey mud. To anyone looking from the outside, nothing was moving. The leaves of the tropical plants were frozen in the middle of a shiver. The dust motes floating in the sunbeams were stuck in place, like tiny stars trapped in amber.
The Collector, the man with the grey skin and the black box, thought he had won. He stood there with a smile on his face, tapping his finger against the machine that was slowing down time. He thought he was the king of this little frozen kingdom. He thought that because he held the remote control, no one could touch him.
But Lloyd Ferrum was done playing by the rules of physics.
Lloyd stood perfectly still. He wasn't fighting the heavy air anymore. He wasn't trying to push his muscles against the invisible weight that pressed down on him. Instead, he was focusing on the cold, heavy sensation in his hands.
The spirit behind him, Zafira, floated like a shadow. Her long black dress, made of smoke and old lace, drifted around Lloyd’s legs. The sound of gears grinding together—Click, Whirrr, Clunk—filled Lloyd’s ears. It wasn't a noise that came from the room; it was a noise that came from inside his own soul. It was the sound of a clock that governed the universe.
In his right hand, Lloyd held the Minute Blade.
It was a strange, beautiful weapon. It was a longsword, thin and elegant, shining with a bright silver light. It didn't look like it was made for hacking or chopping. It looked like a giant needle. It vibrated in his hand, humming with a high-pitched sound, like a mosquito flying right by your ear. It felt light, almost weightless, but it had an energy that wanted to go. It felt impatient. It wanted to move forward, to skip to the next moment.
In his left hand, he held the Hour Blade.
This one was different. It was a short sword, thick and dark, like a piece of rusted iron pulled from a shipwreck. It didn't hum. It didn't vibrate. It felt incredibly heavy. It felt like holding a stone anchor. It felt like the long, boring hours of a rainy afternoon when you are waiting for something that never happens. It was the weight of stopping.
Lloyd opened his eyes. The normal blue light of his special vision was gone. Now, his left eye was a spinning golden clock face. Tick. Tick. Tick.
He looked at the Collector. The man was still smiling, completely unaware that the game had changed. The Collector thought he was safe because Lloyd was far away, stuck in the slow-motion trap.
"You think distance matters," Lloyd said. His voice wasn't slow or warped anymore. It cut through the grey air like a bell ringing on a clear morning. "You think time matters. You think that for me to get to you, I have to cross the space between us."
The Collector’s smile faltered. He frowned, looking at the strange swords in Lloyd’s hands. "What are you talking about? You can't move. My machine says you can't move."
"That’s the problem with machines," Lloyd said calmly. "They only do what they are told. They don't know how to cheat."
Lloyd raised the long, silver Minute Blade. He pointed the tip directly at the Collector’s chest.
"First Form," Lloyd whispered.
The gears in the ghostly dress behind him spun faster. The sound rose to a whine, like a jet engine starting up.
"Accel."
Lloyd didn't run. He didn't jump. He didn't use his leg muscles to push off the ground.
Instead, he slashed the air in front of him with the silver sword.
It was a strange slash. He wasn't hitting anything. He was cutting the empty space between him and the Collector. But the blade didn't just cut the air; it cut the concept of the wait.
Chapter : 1948
In a normal world, if you want to walk ten feet, it takes time. Even if you are fast, it takes a second. You have to lift your foot, move it forward, put it down, and repeat. The air pushes against you. Gravity pulls you down. Friction holds you back.
The Minute Blade severed all of that. It cut the "lag." It deleted the time it took to travel.
ZING.
To Airin, who was watching from the side, frozen against the table, it looked like a glitch in reality. One moment, Lloyd was standing in the middle of the room, holding a silver sword.
There was no blur of motion. There was no wind. There was no sound of footsteps.
In the very next instant—literally zero seconds later—Lloyd was gone.
He simply vanished from where he was standing. The air rushed in to fill the empty space with a soft pop, like a bubble bursting.
The Collector blinked. He looked at the empty spot where Lloyd had been. His brain couldn't process it. His eyes hadn't seen movement. It was as if someone had taken a pair of scissors, cut Lloyd out of the picture, and pasted him somewhere else.
"Where..." the Collector started to say.
He didn't get to finish the word.
"Behind you," a voice whispered, right in his ear.
The Collector’s blood turned to ice. He spun around, clutching his black box to his chest.
Lloyd was standing right there, less than a foot away. He was perfectly still, as if he had been standing there for an hour. There was no sweat on his brow. He wasn't breathing hard. He hadn't "run" over there. He had simply skipped the part of the story where he moved.
The silver Minute Blade was humming, its tip hovering inches from the Collector’s throat.
"How?" the Collector gasped, stumbling backward. He tripped over his own robes in panic. "My dampener field... it stops velocity! You can't have velocity if time is slow!"
"I didn't use velocity," Lloyd said, his face blank and cold. "Velocity is distance divided by time. If I remove the time from the equation... then I'm just here. Instantly."
The Collector scrambled back, his arrogance completely shattered. He realized he wasn't fighting a man with a fast sword. He was fighting a man who could edit the scene.
Panic took over. The Collector knew he couldn't fight Lloyd hand-to-hand. Lloyd was a soldier; the Collector was just a man with a fancy toy. If Lloyd swung that sword again, the Collector’s head would be on the floor before his brain even knew he was dead.
"Stay back!" the Collector shrieked.
He raised his hands. He didn't try to use the black box this time. He knew it wouldn't work on Lloyd anymore. Instead, he reached for the dark magic of the Abyss.
"Open!" the Collector screamed. "Gate of the Black Dogs!"
The air behind the Collector ripped open. It sounded like thick fabric tearing. A hole appeared in reality—a swirling vortex of purple and black energy. It was a portal to the place where he kept his monsters.
From inside the portal, a terrible sound emerged. It was the howling of a hundred wolves, hungry and angry.
Lloyd watched calmly. He didn't attack the Collector. He let the man open the door.
"You rely on numbers," Lloyd noted. "You think if you throw enough monsters at me, I'll get tired. Or maybe you think I can't be everywhere at once."
Claws began to poke out of the purple rift. Long, shadowy limbs reached into the greenhouse, scratching at the stone floor. The Shadow-Stalkers were trying to push their way into the human world. There were dozens of them, a tidal wave of teeth and claws ready to flood the room.
The Collector laughed nervously. He thought he had found a way out. "You can be fast, Lord Ferrum! But can you kill a whole pack before they tear that girl apart?"
He pointed a shaking finger at Airin.
"Kill her!" the Collector ordered his monsters. "Ignore the man! Kill the girl!"
The first three wolves burst out of the portal, snarling. They turned their eyeless heads toward Airin.
Lloyd’s expression didn't change, but his eyes grew colder. The golden clock face in his left eye spun rapidly in reverse.
"You are making a mess," Lloyd said.
He let go of the silver Minute Blade with his right hand. The sword didn't fall. It just floated in the air beside him, suspended by the ghost of Zafira.