Huang Zhong stood atop a floe, his gray-white hair and beard motionless in the sea breeze. Only his aged eyes, sharp as a hawk's, reflected the figure leaping nimbly ahead. The power of the Dialga Fruit had quietly spread, subtly altering the flow of time across the sea for hundreds of meters around him. The rise and fall of the waves, the spray of ice chips, even the drifting dust in the air grew slow and deliberate, as though the entire world had sunk into a waking nightmare.
Manmaiya Diliya's eyes were fathomless. Her toes tapped lightly against the ice, each movement carrying a strange rhythm, as though she were gliding through a viscous slurry of time. The silver long gun in her hands, the Fate Spindle, was engraved with intricate patterns and moved like a living creature, its muzzle occasionally flashing with an ominous glow.
"Interesting... No wonder you drew out our Holy Knights. But, old man, your 'time' is nothing but a rusty gear. It can only delay death." Manmaiya chuckled, her voice carrying a magnetism that seemed to penetrate time. She raised the muzzle, aiming not at Huang Zhong but seemingly at random toward the empty sky above and to one side. "Fate Mark: Infallible Bullet!"
Bang!
Flame flashed from the muzzle, but the bullet did not fly toward Huang Zhong. Instead, it vanished into the air. The next second, his pupils contracted slightly, and he turned sideways within barely a thousandth of a second. A specially made Seastone Bullet wreathed in spiraling air appeared out of nowhere where his heart had been, grazing his arm guard in a trail of sparks! The bullet had not crossed space. Rather, it seemed to travel along a predetermined "course of fate," ignoring the effects of slowed time!
Then the