The melted wax had piled up, covering the dragon heads of the candlesticks.
Ji Li had returned to the very beginning. Standing at the edge of the prayer mat, he stared at the intermittently visible wedding dress, his heart beating restlessly.
Time had reached its final juncture, yet the situation seemed to have done nothing but worsen.
The hand behind him was cold as iron, making his body noticeably stiffer and forcing him into compliance.
This Wedding Garment he had been forced to change into was exceptionally heavy. His shattered shoulder bone had stained the entire garment with a haze of blood.
His gaze pierced through the false festivity and locked onto the front—there, a blurred, distorted shadow flickered within the swaying glow of the dragon-and-phoenix candles.
Time Ghost.
Three probes, three failures.
Kicking over the aluminum basin, tearing apart the paper figures, defying the master of ceremonies' orders—though the last attempt had clearly worked, it had still all come to nothing.
Yet Ji Li noticed one detail: the wax on the candlesticks had accumulated to nearly twice its original amount.
This was not a time reset...
What he feared most was Time Ghost using its Time Ability, an almost unsolvable method. But judging by the accumulated wax, this was not its doing.
"It's the barrier."
The entire main hall—or rather, this ritual itself—was a sealed Supernatural Barrier.
Struggling within the barrier's rules was like circling down the wrong path in a maze, only to be forcibly sent back to the starting point by the rules.
The paper figures still wore their painted grins, and the water in the aluminum basin trembled faintly... The ritual had not been interrupted, and the barrier seemed intact.
But there was now one variable: Time Ghost had revealed its blurred form.
"Loosened?"
Ji Li's