1772 The Clockwork Tower.

'The Indomitable will of a mountain...' Felix murmured as he floated slowly towards Demeter.

He was still petrified in stone, but he no longer needed to keep wasting his black flames on his eye after the process ended.

Understanding that Uranus and Eris must have left wisps within Demeter's mind made him prioritize getting rid of them.

When he reached Demeter's chained-up body, he gave her one last look and immediately commanded Asna's core to start the devouring process!

'Paragon! Hold it right there!' Uranus shouted telepathically with a heated tone.

To see one of his companions get devoured right before his eyes was a reflection of his own failure. It didn't sit well with him at all.

Alas, Felix had no reason to care about his emotions.

'Make me.'

Felix mocked him with a faint snicker as he watched Asna's core merge with Demeter's core. Before Uranus or Eris could say anything, the process was instantly finalized!

Without a unigin to resist Asna's core, unigins cores seemed more welcoming to the consideration of becoming one with it.

After the process finished, Felix was given the authority to shut down her consciousness for eternity. Instead, he brought his eye closer to Demeter's face until it was the only thing shown in her consciousness space's sky.

Just like an ominous blood moon cast above their heads, Eris and Uranus bathed under the crimson light of Felix's eye.

'Don't leave the tower...' Felix declared with an emotionless tone, 'You're next in line.'

His threatening deep voice resounded once in the Demeter's consciousness space before everything came crashing down on Eris and Uranus.

Rumble Rumble!!

The consciousness ocean went rogue while the soul barrier cracked and started falling apart above their heads.

Yet, none of them moved an inch...They kept staring at Felix's retreating massive crimson eye, each having multiple thoughts coursing their minds.

'I will do everything in my power to kill you, even if it's the last thing I do in this existence...Enjoy your peace while it lasts, Paragon.' Uranus said, narrowing his bloodshot eyes.'Time and time again, you prove that I have made the right decision.'Meanwhile, Eris cracked a faint smile for a moment before her expression turned carefree again, 'Maybe, maybe, you are the one to find the truth out of the univ...'

Before she could finish her sentence, the soul barrier collapsed at once, causing the consciousness ocean to wash them away.

Demeter had died for the first and the last time...

****

One Month Later...

The Echoing Tower was engulfed in a sea of serenity at last after the last surviving squad had made out in one piece.

It was none other than the squad of Chronowalkers...The Chaosians managed to escape as none of them were caught up in the unigin drama, which allowed them to jump inside the first exit point in sight.

The Chronowalkers' leader Tempus Vey turned his head to glance at the tower one last time.

'Map or no map, I am never stepping here again...Never!'

He gulped a mouthful and flew into the distance with his squad behind him, seemingly running from the worst possible experience in their lives.

Luckily for them, the curse of darkness wasn't permanent...Otherwise, they would have been turned blind for eternity as there was no one capable of removing it besides its owner.

Meanwhile, the rest of the squads either ended up perishing on a lower floor or got caught by Eris and Uranus.

The 70th floor was a place of sacrifice, which had only one condition to pass it...Each wanderer needed to Sacrifice one intelligent life form to continue his descent.lightsnovel

Thus, they kidnapped two natives with them and used them as a sacrifice to pass the 70th floor.

From then on, it was a smooth journey to the 20th floor...They chose this floor for the same reason Felix was gunning for it, helping them speed up their punishment.

Since Uranus had three chains and Eris two, it implied that he had three million years to serve while she had two million...A relatively short duration for unigins.

Right now, they were entering a massive clockwork tower that resembled the Big Ben in London.

The clock on the tower had peculiar hands. Usually, there was an hour hand, a minute hand, and a second hand for a standard clock...But here, there were nine hands!

"What a mysterious place."

Eris expressed intrigue as she roamed inside the clockwork tower. There was nothing in it but cogs, and small rooms with miniature clocks on the doors.

"If the map's details are correct, then, we can take a room each and speed up the time to our decided target," Uranus replied calmly.

lightsΝοvεl ƈοm "It's too risky, don't forget about the clockwork's engineer." Eris shook her head, "We can't get caught inside the rooms at the same time. Otherwise, he will disrupt with the chosen period and we will have no idea about it."

The Clockwork Tower wasn't without any dangers.

On this floor, everyone could enter and leave the Clockwork Tower without limitations or conditions...They were also allowed to manipulate time to their advantage in one of those rooms.

The only problem was the Clockwork Tower's Engineer. No one knew about the time of his maintenance shifts and the map didn't mention it either.

If he clocked in his shift, he would go through room by room and either reset the miniature clocks on the rooms' doors or change the time of the massive clock.

In both case scenarios, if Eris and Uranus were caught in the temporal shift, they wouldn't even feel it inside their rooms.

There was no need to explain why that would suck for them.

"Even if one of us stayed behind, we can't do anything to stop him." Uranus responded calmly, "He isn't just immune to all laws, he is also moving through the fabric of time alone, making it near impossible to catch him."

With laws' immunity and movement through the fabric of time, even Eris would be hopeless against him...Especially, now that her powers were sealed.

"Still, I prefer if one of us guarded the door." Eris replied, "We can alert each other and leave before we get caught in a temporal whirlpool."

"I guess that works." Uranus wasn't in the mood for needless arguments and agreed at once.

Ever since their failure to capture Felix on the silent library floor, his mood was always in the gutter.

While they had eliminated Apollo and had his ex-wife thrown into the unknown, he didn't feel victorious at all.

He already knew that light Apollo had no core in him, which was the reason that pushed him to abuse his laws in the first place.

If he had his core and was genuinely gunning to kill him through Matter Execution, the universe wouldn't have been too lenient with its punishment.

He would have gotten twenty chains+ just like Demeter.

As for his ex-wife? She was nothing but a bug that needed to be crushed to teach her a lesson for standing up against him.

Felix, only Felix mattered in his eyes, and his failure to catch him multiple times would never set well in his heart.

"After you regain your power, is there any way to catch him in the void?" Uranus inquired with a sinister tone, "In his current form, he will be akin to a lamb to the slaughter."

"Unfortunately, no." Eris shook her head before gazing through a glass window, "The only way for him to leave the void is to wait patiently for twelve million years until his chains are cut off."

"Twelve million years in the tower's void with Lilith's core, Hephastus's core, Zeus' core, Poseidon's core, and Demeter's core." Uranus snickered, "With such conflicting laws within him, we might not need to do anything."

"He will go insane before he gets freed from his chains."