Yet fate, that little bitch, seemed to be especially fond of that tired old trope of sparing someone at the last moment.
Just as Rimuru caught the weakened Red Fox, who had reverted to human form, and sent him into the sky with black mist, chains that Rimuru found incomparably familiar broke through space and time and pierced this world.
In that instant, the sound of wind stopped. The shouts and wails of the crowds outside, the distant hum of spaceship engines, the explosions—all of it vanished.
This world was completely anchored by the chains of the Void Unifier, as though an anchor had been dropped into the river of time, leaving it utterly still. The entire space also seemed thoroughly bound by chains; raindrops no longer fell, and spaceships no longer sailed.
Elsewhere, apart from Ye Xiaoqian, who noticed something was wrong while racing toward Rimuru through the shadows and plunged headfirst into the depths of the Shadow World to evade this move, even Kihara Tsumiki, Yuki Onna, Zhang Yutong, and Ruksinth, who had gone off alone to the far corners of the world, were instantly frozen in place.
This world had been paused.
Lilith's pupils contracted in shock. Her red eyes suddenly turned toward Rimuru, and without another word, she abandoned the two bruised and battered brothers and flew toward Rimuru and Nine Tails.
Another demigod—no... a god had interfered?!
The Unifier...
The moment he saw those familiar void chains and sensed that aura, Rimuru immediately understood who had come. His movements slowed slightly, and he stopped devouring—
If Phoenix alone had arrived, Rimuru might have played a few tricks, such as accidentally failing to stop in time. But since The Unifier had come as well, whether for Nine Tails's sake or because of his own attitude toward