Eighty-Two Seconds
Yuria regarded Wayne through half-lidded eyes.
"You're not going to save him?"
Wayne looked down at Rolph's corpse with empty eyes.
"I judged it more efficient to step in and fight myself than to waste power reversing Rolph's time."
"You could have stepped in sooner."
"I've never had much confidence in direct combat. And fighting you would have cost me at least thirty years of lifespan — that much was obvious."
"So you wanted to conserve your years. Thirty wouldn't have been nearly enough to beat me."
"I won't argue that. But it doesn't matter."
Wayne reached into the air. He slipped his hand into a fissure in space and drew something out — a sphere glowing with rainbow light.
"This is the first time I've taken this out in front of anyone."
"…A relic."
"A gift from Leoshio. It can store a hundred years of lifespan. Shame it's single-use — but you're not the kind of opponent I can afford to hold back against. My remaining surplus lifespan is a hundred and fifty years total. Time enough."
Wayne grinned, popped the sphere into his mouth, and swallowed.
His long blond hair whipped in a sudden wind. Yuria felt the colossal surge of negative mana pouring off him. It gathered behind his back and took shape.
A vast purple skeleton. A crimson clock was embedded in its brow, and blue flames burned in its hollow sockets. The Demon of Time — Mupapa.
"Mupapa. It's been a while. Take my lifespan!"
The purple skull's jaw yawned open.
Something pale and smoky peeled free of Wayne's body and vanished into Mupapa's maw.
"This omnipotence… never gets old."
A look of pure satisfaction crossed his face. That sensation of time and space answering like limbs of his own body… nothing else compared. Anyone who had never felt it could never understand.
"Pity I can't hold this state for long."
In this condition, a week of lifespan burned away every second. Linger too long, drunk on the power, and he would die.
"I'll start light and clean — twenty years."
A low, resonant hum rolled outward. An invisible transparent wave radiated from Wayne in every direction, knitting itself into a barrier.
He was not stopping the world's time. He first shaped a suitable barrier, then locked the space inside it completely. Crude if you looked closely — but to everyone trapped within, time had simply stopped.
"It's over."
In the frozen space, only Wayne moved. Intoxicated by his own strength, he strolled at his leisure even knowing his lifespan was bleeding away with every second.
A blade formed in his hand, forged from the power of time itself — a sword into which he had poured a full ten years of life.
The Sword of Time can kill even a dragon. That's thirty years gone in a flash.
He felt no regret.
She was stronger than anyone he had ever faced. The woman who had toyed with Rolph, the Demon of Lightning. He had to kill her with everything he had while the chance still existed.
Wayne swung the Sword of Time — a clean cut from above, meant to split Yuria's body precisely in half. But her body slipped backward by a hair's breadth and the blade whispered past.
He stared in shock. She had seen the sword and dodged it. In a world where time itself had stopped, she had moved.
"How… how are you moving?!"
"I've watched time reverse more than two hundred times. Thanks to that, I managed to grasp a certain concept of time."
"……So killing Rolph over and over wasn't simply to exhaust me…. No. Don't bluff. Witnessing the power of time doesn't mean you comprehend the concept of time. You only watched."
"I caught the thread around the thirtieth time, and by the hundredth I was certain. Believe me or don't — I have no particular need for your trust."
"……I'll believe you. I nearly made a fatal mistake. You're the monster who killed Rolph two hundred and seventy-two times. I won't be foolish enough to expect common sense from a monster like that. Instead of doubting you, I'll kill you with everything I have. You're far too dangerous."
"I see. That swift, cold judgment is your greatest strength."
A dagger had already appeared in Yuria's right hand.
While speaking with Wayne, she had been trying to wield the power of time — to reverse it, or to wind it forward. For Yuria, who was no demon, manipulating time the way Mupapa the Demon of Time did was impossible. Even her overwhelming talent could not imitate a demon's authority. That was a matter of an entirely different order, unrelated to talent.
But she had not come away empty-handed. Having grasped the concept of time, she could move within stopped time. In other words, she had acquired resistance to time itself.
"I'll kill you at the speed of a god."
Wayne vanished from in front of her and reappeared at her back, already swinging the Sword of Time. Yuria slipped behind him with a shadow-step. Wayne's face hardened as he spun around.
"The speed of a god…. For such grand words, that was nothing special. You simply accelerated your body's time. That's all."
"You can react to this speed…?! Damn it. Age! Die of old age!"
The purple skeleton at Wayne's back opened its jaws and exhaled time. A wind of years swept through Yuria's body. The temporal gale that could turn even an infant into a dying elder was, to her, nothing more than ordinary wind. Direct temporal manipulation no longer worked on someone who had gained resistance to time.
"There's nothing left worth seeing. Die with that demon of yours."
Darkness unfurled from Yuria in every direction. The frozen space was swallowed whole by the dark.
Wayne's legs buckled. He could see nothing. He could feel nothing. It was as if he alone had been left in a void of pure nothingness. Trembling with a terror rising from the deepest part of his heart, he slashed the Sword of Time wildly in every direction.
Something whispered across his right arm. A wet thud — and searing agony flared through his forearm. The arm was gone.
…My legs are gone too. My body is falling. …Damn it, my mouth won't open. My neck suddenly hurts. Has my throat been cut as well?
Wayne recognized his own death.
But he felt neither rage nor sorrow. He knew time would reverse.
The chance will come. If I endure, I win.
He had already confirmed that her stamina and mana were not infinite. Wayne waited for the counterattack that would inevitably arrive.
The darkness lifted.
The world brightened once more.
Wayne was on his feet, and Yuria stood a short distance in front of him. She was tidying her slightly disheveled hair, a faint trace of fatigue on her face.
"I take it the thrashing is over. Now it's my turn to attack."
Yuria's blue eyes fixed on Wayne.
"With that body?"
"What?"
Wayne looked down at the back of his hand a beat too late.
Wrinkled. Hideous.
In horror he clawed at his own face. Beneath his palms he felt a landscape of deep creases. The golden hair that had once shone with brilliant color had turned pure white — a dull, lifeless white.
"Impossi… impossible…!"
The voice that left his mouth was an old man's.
Reeling from the unthinkable, Wayne spun around. The Demon of Time, Mupapa, was shattered. Half the skull was simply gone; the remaining half was webbed with cracks. The blue flame in the right eye socket flickered no stronger than a candle.
"Wayne…. I need a fresh sacrifice…."
Mupapa's jawbones clacked as it spoke.
"What the hell. What the hell happened?! Not even ten seconds could have passed after the space went dark! So why—?!"
"Eighty-two seconds passed. In that time, I killed you and the demon a combined three hundred and eleven times."
"You expect me to—"
"Roughly seventy of those seconds, you had no consciousness. That was the time you spent dead. More precisely, I killed you over and over before time could reverse and restore you. It's been a long while since I moved at full power against anyone…. My shoulders are a little stiff."
Wayne knew her words were entirely true. She had no reason to lie, and Mupapa's dying state was proof enough.
A thin, rising whine filled the air.
Stopped time began to flow again. Wayne whipped his gaze toward Mupapa. The demon dropped limp to the ground. With a sharp crack, the skull shattered like glass.
Wayne's knees hit the floor.
"What the hell are you…!"
"A maid."
A colossal beast's head surged up from the shadows, crushed Wayne's skull between its jaws, and vanished.
Yuria turned her gaze on the only one left — Bezel. The girl was trembling pitifully, like an abandoned cat. At her feet sat a black cat with three eyes. Levus, the Demon of Dreams.
"L-Levus! Run! Let's run! Get me out of here right now!!"
"…Meow."
Levus shook its head. Some unknown force was interfering with spatial transfer.
"Did you think I'd let you slip away like last time? The moment I confirmed your face, I erected a barrier to block spatial movement."
"A-Are you going to kill me too?"
"I'd like to. But if you die and the Dream World closes, that would be inconvenient. So why don't you and I have a little talk."
Yuria flicked her fingers. Hundreds of torture implements burst from her shadow and filled the space. Bezel's face went deathly pale.
"Your adorable little demon can join us."
"……Meow."
Levus tried to dive into Bezel's body, but shadows erupted and seized them both.
Forced into a torture chair, Bezel wept freely. Hot liquid streamed down between her legs. Yuria crooked a finger. A small, wickedly sharp knife rose into the air.
"S-Spare me. I'll tell you everything. This is about what happened at the Academy, right? I was wrong back then. I was only following Wayne's orders — I had no choice. I'm begging you! If you want me to lick your feet, I'll lick them! Just please, anything but torture…!"
"I still remember the moment my Master vanished into the Dream World. The loss and the rage of that day were beyond words. Bezel — I am truly delighted to meet you again."
"Eeeek! I-I'm sorry! I'm so sorry! Please spare me! Just this once, please! I'll do anything!"
"It's all right. I won't kill you."