Time Paradox and the Fanatics' End

The London Sanctum, this ancient building, was trembling violently. Kaecilius and his fanatics drew upon power from the Dark Dimension, forcibly warping the spatial structure around the Sanctum in an attempt to breach its defenses and seize the tomes containing forbidden knowledge. The Sanctum's guardians had already been wounded in the fierce battle, and the golden magical barrier flickered unsteadily, on the verge of collapse.

Kaecilius wore a fanatical, twisted smile as he swung a blade condensed from dark energy. Every slash left cracks in space as though it were glass. "Feel the eternal void! Ancient One deceived us! Only by embracing darkness can we transcend the shackles of time!"

Just as the Sanctum's barrier was about to shatter completely, a voice so calm it was nearly cold rang clearly in everyone's ears across the battlefield, as if it had sounded directly within their minds:

"Transcend time? With your... crude imitation?"

The moment the words fell, an azure portal unfolded steadily in the center of the Sanctum's main hall. Li Wei stepped out, still dressed in an immaculate suit. Startrail on his right arm glimmered faintly, while his gaze, like an ageless glacier, swept over every fanatic present.

Kaecilius's pupils contracted. From this suddenly appearing stranger, he sensed an utterly different aura, one that made his heart tremble—not the chaos and dead silence of the Dark Dimension, but a deeper, more ordered... majesty.

"Who are you? How dare you stand in our way as we pursue truth?" Kaecilius demanded sharply.

"Who I am isn't important," Li Wei said indifferently. "What matters is that your understanding of 'time' is laughably shallow. Today, I'll teach you a lesson—what it truly means to control time."

First lesson: Temporal Mark Prediction—absolute insight.

Several fanatics roared and charged Li Wei from different directions, brandishing dark blades. Their movements were as swift as lightning, carrying the force to tear space apart.

Li Wei did not even look at them. He merely raised his left hand casually.

Within his [Temporal Mark Prediction] vision, the trajectories of their attacks were as clear as slow-motion footage. His left fingers moved lightly like a conductor's, and several minute yet incomparably condensed telekinetic bolts shot out with perfect precision—

"Pfft!" "Pfft!" "Pfft!"

The telekinesis did not strike their bodies. Instead, a hundredth of a second in advance, it struck precisely at the most crucial muscle nodes for exerting force and the core channels through which their energy circulated—as though cutting the strings controlling puppets.

The result was that the fanatics charging Li Wei seemed to suffer seizures all at once. Some abruptly lost their forward momentum and fell to the ground, some had their power inexplicably dissipate halfway through a move, and others had their dark blades backlash directly upon them after their energy circuits were disrupted, injuring themselves!

They had not even touched the hem of Li Wei's clothes before they were already utterly routed! Every attack had been "predicted" and "deconstructed" before it was even launched!

"How is that possible?!" Kaecilius stared in disbelief. This method of fighting was completely beyond his understanding.

Second lesson: Instant Spellcasting—absolute speed.

Realizing that close combat was ineffective, Kaecilius roared and gathered a massive sphere of dark energy between his hands, one that devoured light itself. This was one of the strongest spells he could cast and required a brief period of channeling.

"Darkness Devourer..."

He had barely uttered the first two words of the incantation when he saw Li Wei casually raise his right hand.

There were no hand seals, no chanting, not even any process of gathering energy!

Bzzzt—!

A white spear of light formed entirely from Vishanti's holy energy, condensed to the utmost limit and no thicker than a finger, appeared instantly before Kaecilius as though it had broken free of time's constraints! [Instant Spellcasting—Vishanti Holy Sword (Maximum Compression Version)]!

"No!!" Kaecilius only had time to turn his head aside before the light spear pierced his shoulder in an instant. Holy energy clashed violently with the darkness within him, making him release a shrill scream, while the half-formed sphere of dark energy collapsed with a bang.

Third lesson (ultimate lesson): time loop—absolute despair.

Li Wei looked at Kaecilius, whose face was twisted by pain and disbelief, then at the terrified fanatics around him, and decided to deliver the final blow.

He did not use the Eye of Agamotto. Instead, he activated his highly unstable Phantom Time Core and, combining it with the knowledge of time laws he had just stolen, traced an incomparably complex rune shimmering with green light before his chest.

"Didn't you crave transcending time and embracing eternity?" Li Wei's voice carried a trace of icy mockery. "Then I shall grant you... an eternal ten seconds."

[False · Time Rift—Group Time Loop (Miniature)]!

With his current abilities, he could not create a large-scale loop. However, he could barely manage to envelop Kaecilius and several core fanatics within five meters of him inside an extremely small loop lasting only ten seconds!

In an instant, Kaecilius and the others felt everything around them vanish. They were trapped within a constantly repeating ten-second fragment of time and space where only the few of them existed!

Within this loop:

They tried to attack, but every attack was reset halfway through.

They tried to escape, but the moment ten seconds passed, they returned to their starting point.

They tried to cast spells, but the energy returned to stillness the instant they began mobilizing it.

They could clearly feel time passing, as well as the crushing despair that came with every reset!

Ten seconds passed in the blink of an eye in the real world. Yet in Kaecilius and the others' perception, those ten seconds were stretched infinitely, repeated hundreds, thousands of times! Their minds rapidly collapsed within that absolute, unbreakable loop. Their gazes changed from fanaticism to blankness, then from blankness to utter madness and terror!

When Li Wei withdrew the loop, only a few seconds had passed outside. Yet Kaecilius and those fanatics looked as if they had endured centuries of imprisonment, sprawled limply on the ground with vacant eyes and drool flowing from their mouths. They could only mutter unconsciously, "Time... loop... eternity..." Their minds had completely shattered.

Li Wei walked up to the limp Kaecilius and looked down at him as though he were a failed experiment.

"Do you understand now?" Li Wei's voice was like a final judgment. "Time is not a tool for you to escape death. It is law, order, the foundation that bears all things. Trying to wield order through chaos will only result in being utterly crushed by order itself."

He raised a hand and drove a rune containing order magic into Kaecilius's body, temporarily sealing his connection to the Dark Dimension and preserving his life as well—after all, a living research specimen was more valuable than a dead one.

The surviving fanatics who had not been drawn into the loop had already been frightened out of their wits by these godlike methods. They threw down their weapons and scattered in all directions.

The crisis at the London Sanctum was resolved in an absolutely overwhelming, almost artistic manner.

The Sanctum's guardian struggled to his feet, his gaze toward Li Wei filled with awe and gratitude. "Th-thank you for your help, sir. You are...?"

Li Wei did not answer. He simply raised a hand to repair the Sanctum's damaged barrier, then opened a portal.

"Tell Ancient One," he said, leaving behind one final sentence before stepping into the portal, "I've collected the tuition for her. Let her handle the remaining 'cleanup' herself."

As the light faded, only the surviving guardians and a group of mentally broken captives remained in the London Sanctum. The name "Li Wei," along with his godlike figure capable of controlling time, would be branded like a nightmare into the depths of every Dark Dimension follower's soul.

This time, he had not merely crushed his enemies. He had also established, in the minds of all who knew of it, the image of an invincible, unfathomable "space-time mage."