NOVEL WEB Ch. 61
Chapter 61
The Time Witch and Genetic Resonance
轰! —
Olivia's vision suddenly plunged into darkness.
The previously writhing Bishop Woven and Lucy, who had been devoured by golden tentacles, all disappeared, replaced by a gigantic clock face that blotted out the sky.
The gray-black twin discs of sun and moon symbolized the alternation of day and night. The hour and minute hands froze like sculptures, while only the slender second hand continued its relentless motion.
Ka-cha…
Ka-cha…
Ka-cha…
Ka…
The ticking of the second hand sounded as clear as a heartbeat.
Just as the hand was about to cross the final mark, Olivia suddenly discovered that her palm could penetrate the clock face's glass.
Instinctively, she grabbed the trembling second hand and, using all her strength, pulled it counterclockwise—
The entire forest instantly froze, and then time began to flow backward.
The hunting viper recoiled, the hovering honeyeater flew backward into its nest, splashing droplets returned to the stream, and falling leaves floated back to the branches...
Everything began to reverse unnaturally, while Olivia remained unaffected, standing still.
She bent down to pick up the short-handled axe and, at the instant when time rewound to fifty-nine seconds earlier, struck hard at Bishop Woven’s forehead!
Dang!
Boom!
With a deafening clash of metal, the Molten Steel Torrent gushing from the Gear Staff once again engulfed the bishop’s entire head.
"In my Lord’s domain, all heretical witchcraft shall fail... where is my Saint Radiance mark?! Aaahhh!"
Woven’s scream was abruptly cut off.
The 25-degree magical energy jet not only melted the gold coin scepter but also burned his swollen, mutated body into charred remains.
When the brilliance of the high-temperature stream dissipated, only a headless corpse remained on the scene.
Lucy staggered and fell to the ground, dazedly looking around.
She distinctly remembered being entangled by tentacles and about to be dragged into the Lord of Golden Worship’s divine kingdom, yet she had returned to the previous scene.
"You reversed time?!"
Lucy widened her eyes.
She noticed that the burn marks on the surrounding trees were completely misaligned with her memories. The bushes that should have been destroyed by the tentacles remained intact, and even she herself was completely unscathed.
The law of time?!
Olivia trembled as she held the golden beetle pried from Woven's forehead.
"I don’t know, I just wanted to save you at that moment, then I saw the clock, and I turned the second hand back..."
After hearing the princess’s description, Lucy could roughly confirm that Olivia’s law-based talent had indeed awakened.
"Should I say, as expected of a witch, you can actually reverse time and space. Doesn’t that mean you could even bring the dead back to life?!"
Olivia glanced at her right hand.
"Probably not." She shook her head. "I can reverse time and space, but if someone dies under the normal flow of time, their soul returns to the law of life. Even if I rewind time, I cannot bring them back."
That was already very impressive.
Lucy thought to herself, then reached out to take the beetle for a closer look.
This strange beetle was composed of three parts: at the front was a head the size of an ant, with two tiny mandibles; in the middle were three pairs of hair-thin legs; the most striking part was the egg-sized abdomen upon which was etched the Saint Radiance mark of the Lord of Golden Worship.
A faint divine power reverberated on the Saint Radiance.
[Detected secondary divine carrier] [Immediate purification treatment recommended] [God of Wealth Divine Contamination Value: 58% (Critical Danger)]
After reading the system interface, Lucy, who was about to say something, suddenly collapsed.
Olivia hurriedly caught her. When she pulled open Lucy’s clothes to check, the golden patches on her shoulder had already spread to her chest, just half a palm's width away from the heart.
"What should I do?"
Lucy forced a grin. "Seems like there’s not much to be done."
There should be corresponding resistance potions for Divine Contamination Value, but it was too late now.
"But turning into a little golden figure doesn’t sound too bad either."
Having lived two lifetimes, Lucy was able to take it lightly.
"How can you still joke at a time like this!"
Olivia had already burst into tears from anxiety.
A single tear happened to fall onto the golden patch on Lucy’s shoulder. As a puff of white mist rose, the golden patch actually receded slightly.
"Your tears can neutralize divine contamination!"
A witch’s physique was inherently the purest planar anchor and law, while contamination was essentially the invasion of a secondary plane deity. The two naturally counteracted each other.
"Cry, quickly!" Lucy said weakly.
"I... I’m trying!"
Having found a way to save her, Olivia blinked desperately, but no matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t squeeze out any tears due to nervousness.
Seeing the golden patch start spreading again, Olivia panicked, pacing anxiously in circles. "Wha... what should I do?!"
Lucy rolled her eyes. If this continued, she really was going to die.
Forget it.
Using the last of her strength, she flipped herself up, grabbed the princess, pressed her over her own knee, and raised her palm to land a heavy smack on Olivia’s buttocks.
"You!"
Olivia’s face flushed red, but tears truly burst from her eyes.
As expected, the princess’s butt was indeed a sensitive spot, Lucy thought to herself.
As more tears dripped into Lucy’s wound, both of them froze almost simultaneously a certain bond far deeper than physical intimacy was forming.
Lucy immediately summoned the system interface and saw the screen refreshing wildly.
[God of Wealth Divine Contamination Value: 52%]
[God of Wealth Divine Contamination Value: 45%]
[God of Wealth Divine Contamination Value: 31%]
[...]
[Detected massive Time Witch genetic resonance]
[Fusing Time Law power]
[Establishing deep spiritual link with gene body]
A massive flood of knowledge about the law of time poured into Lucy’s mind.
At the same time, an unfamiliar scene appeared in Olivia’s vision.
Streams of traffic in a steel jungle, scalpels flashing on an operating table, and blue characters flickering across the retina...
"You’re from... the Earth Plane?!" The princess widened her eyes.
Lucy, who also saw Olivia’s childhood memories, gave a bitter smile and shook her head. Her biggest secret could no longer be kept.
However, a certain link had already formed between them. Though they still didn’t know what effect this so-called "deeper bond beyond physical intimacy" would have, one thing was certain: from now on, they had become a kind of shared destiny.
Just as Lucy was about to explain something, the morning sun on the horizon was suddenly engulfed by black specks. Swarms of bats pressed forward like dark clouds, accompanied by a chilling low-frequency screech.
Lucy threw the beetle into the herb box, her expression extremely grim.
She and Olivia were both completely unable to fight any longer.
As she was pondering how to escape, a familiar cawing sound came from the other side of the forest.
Caw! Caw! Caw!
Huge mechanical iron crows swooped overhead.
The two groups of "birds" confronted each other in the sky. Among the bats, one of the smallest suddenly transformed into Raphael’s figure. Following him, over a dozen black-robed apprentices of Eternal Silence Blackthorn also shifted into human form.
From the dense forest on the other side, two more figures stepped out: Lilith and another peak apprentice of the Tower of the Four Sages Hyde Isaac.
Raphael’s gaze swept over the two powerful opponents and then over the battered Lucy and Olivia, secretly calculating his side’s odds.
According to the Star Law Institute’s rules, unless two wizard factions formally declared a "Tower War," formal wizards were forbidden to act.
Under these rules, peak apprentices were the strongest combatants each faction could send.
Raphael couldn’t even defeat Lilith alone, let alone take on both of them. As for the senior apprentices behind him… they might be able to assist, but to face a peak apprentice one-on-one was pure fantasy.
Realizing he had no chance of victory, this peak apprentice of Eternal Silence Blackthorn chose to retreat for now, leaving only a cold remark:
"See you at the Tri-Tower Tournament."
Only after the small bat Raphael led the senior apprentices of Eternal Silence Blackthorn and the "bloodline constructs" into the distance did Lucy finally collapse completely to the ground.
At last, they were safe.