When Gear Heavenly God's finger came down, it was as if a switch had been flipped within everyone, and at that instant, the stop button on their lives was pressed.
Everything—humans, demons, chaos, even the wind, flowers, and grass—came to a standstill.
As if time itself had stopped.
When Gear Heavenly God's finger moved again, the process even began reversing...
All things flowed backward!
But at that moment, the Xuanji Ruler, which had already become useless, suddenly gave off a glimmer of light.
Though it was only a tiny gleam, Gear Heavenly God's finger froze.
Then, a flower bloomed from the Xuanji Ruler.
The flower opened.
Within its blossom, a figure slowly appeared.
Ning Ye.
Standing atop the flower, Ning Ye looked up at the heavens. Then he extended a finger as well and gave it a slight shake. "You are not her."
Gear Heavenly God merely looked at him without speaking.
Ning Ye smiled. "And you are not him."
The gears turned once more. First came an ear-piercing screech of metal grinding against metal, followed by a thunderous roar.
At last, Gear Heavenly God spoke. "You are not him either."
"None of us are. That's fair." Ning Ye raised his hand again. "I know you are not particularly willing, but that is the condition."
As he spoke, he abruptly lifted his hand. Within the gray haze, those enormous eyes appeared once more.
Gear Heavenly God suddenly split apart, transforming into countless gears of every size that flew and danced through the air.
Those eyes turned toward the gears. Vast numbers of them rusted away in that instant, as though they had suffered the erosion of time, before crumbling directly into drifting ash.
Yet a small number of gears still flew higher.
The enormous circular object in the void gradually