Bronte

"Stasis!"

Dago extended his right hand toward the Grey Goat ahead, curling his fingers around empty air.

This grasp was no mere physical gesture, but a forced interlocking of his mental power and soul imprint.

In an instant, the free-floating, unattributed elemental particles around them were violently expelled, creating a zone utterly devoid of rules.

The Grey Goat, which had been rooting about with its head down, rose into the air in Dago's invisible grasp. Its entire body now resembled an image sealed inside a bright mirror.

This was the power of spatial stasis! The absolute domination a Second-Ring Wizard held over the rules governing lower-dimensional matter.

Its restraining force was even greater than the frost breath the Great Ice Serpent had unleashed earlier, because what it froze was not temperature, but the very concept of "spatial position."

And yet.

Crack—

An exceedingly faint crack rang out, resounding like thunder within Dago's mental space.

A distinct fracture abruptly appeared on the smooth metallic mirror. It came not from an external blow, but from the collapse of the rules within.

The imprisoned Grey Goat's eyes kept darting about. In those clearly defined black-and-white eyes, the simulated fear now held a trace of cunning and ferocity that no construct should possess, revealing its desperate struggle.

The five hearts inside its body were running beyond capacity. The grinding of meshing gears penetrated the spatial seal, transmitting a frictional vibration that set his teeth on edge.

"Hss—"

This time, Dago was genuinely shaken.

A flicker of something called "greed" crossed his eyes, which normally maintained their unbroken rationality and indifference.

Even the power of spatial stasis could not suppress this Grey Goat. What did that mean?

It meant that either the puppet's anti-magic coating or its internal power core involved energy rules of a