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Have you ever heard of the Tyndall effect?
It's like on a clear morning, sunlight shines through the gap in the curtains, forming a clearly visible light beam in the air with fine dust; or, for example, in the thick fog of winter, the car's high beams rarely appear as a clear golden beam across the milky white fog…
However, now that the conditions for the Tyndall effect are clearly not present, the overflowing colors flowing around the pocket watch are transforming into several dazzling beams of light in a similar manner, radiating towards the surroundings.
Even without using Truth Vision, but as half the owner of the Moon Clock, Asakura can still perceive that those beams are not real lasers or Magic rays, but things that the time turbulence has materialized.
"Scale—!"
Asakura activated the Magic residing on his left arm, putting an invisible Scale armor on Asagumo Chihaya.
As early as the beginning, the Scale Magic had already proven that it has good resistance to attacks of 'time'. Its only shortcoming is probably that it can only select one target each time it is activated.
When Asakura was preparing to stack an armor on himself, the streamer overflowing from the pocket watch flashed past.
In the next moment, Asakura felt his left hand lighten.
No, what was lightened was not the left hand, but his left hand was cut off from a point slightly above the elbow.
To be precise, it was not a physical cut. When the flash-like time turbulence swept across Asakura's left arm, the thin part that was swept, less than a millimeter, was dragged into 'other time'.
The flesh in 'other time' cannot be connected to the current body. Even if the body's strength far exceeds steel, no matter how excellent the defense is, it is meaningless under this kind of time attack. In the end, the external manifestation is that half of Asakura's arm was instantly cut off by the light without any delay.
This also means that it is impossible to approach the pocket watch at will. Once you get close to a certain extent, you will be cut into several pieces by the surrounding time turbulence.
"Asakura-kun…" Asagumo Chihaya incredulously hugged Asakura's severed arm. The still warm blood splattered on her face, making the girl's expression dull: "Your hand…"
"Back off!" Asakura shouted sharply, "I'm fine!"
Magic is sensitive. Asakura already knew this when his own Magic betrayed him and ran to reside in his arm. Therefore, the first target of the Moon Clock, or rather, the Magic's essence after going berserk, is undoubtedly Asagumo Chihaya, the holder of the Magic.
If Asakura hadn't decisively put a Scale on the girl, temporarily isolating the Moon Clock's induction of Asagumo Chihaya, I'm afraid it wouldn't have been his arm that was cut off just now, but the girl herself.
But the problem is that the current Scale Magic has become precarious—not to say that there is a problem with the defense, but that the Scale Magic is residing on Asakura's left arm. Now that the left arm has been cut off, he has temporarily lost control of the Scale.
So now Asagumo Chihaya had better not approach the Moon Clock, at least until the Moon Clock's rampage stops, the farther away the better.
A burning sensation came from the severed arm. Thanks to adrenaline, I can't feel the pain yet.
If Scale can't be used, should I use Snake on the Moon Clock? Or, as a step back, turn the time turbulence around it into a Snake? Can that thing really be turned? Rather, now that my Magic is running out, wouldn't using 'time' as the casting object backfire because of insufficient Magic?
I don't know if it's a side effect of blood loss, but Asakura felt that his brain was also running a little sluggishly, and even making judgments was not as decisive as usual.
It was precisely because of this that he didn't notice that the initially chaotic girl's eyes had become clear and firm again when she saw him resolutely standing in front of her.
'There's no other way; I can only force a try, otherwise, if this thing goes out of control, heaven knows what problems will arise...' Asakura made up his mind.
However, at this instant, Asagumo Chihaya, who was still holding his arm, ran out from behind Asakura.
It was clear that the girl wasn't particularly good at sports; her running speed wasn't fast, but relying on the layer of "Scale" on her body and the remaining Magic from Asakura's arm, she managed to push through the chaotic time flow and reach the pocket watch.
Asakura wanted to stop her, but having lost one hand, his balance was off, and he stumbled as he ran, not even as fast as Asagumo Chihaya.
The girl tightly gripped a fruit knife—Asakura recognized it as the one he had used to cut her palm earlier—and with all her strength, she plunged it into the center of the pocket watch!
Just like a video paused, the pocket watch's rampage abruptly stopped.
However, the pocket watch immediately shattered, forming a distorted, black hole-like void in the center, which began to indiscriminately pull and absorb everything around it.
"Asagumo Chihaya, what are you doing!" Asakura barely managed to control his body from being sucked away.
"I'm sorry, Asakura-kun, it seems this time it failed..." Standing in the swirling wind, the girl's face showed a helpless smile, her brown hair flying with the increasingly strong wind: "But it doesn't matter; as long as the pocket watch is destroyed, I can go back to the past and start over..."
"Don't be ridiculous, your body can't handle another rewind!" Asakura said irritably.
"About that, Asakura-kun, what if you just give up on me?"
The girl reached up to brush her hair from her face, her expression turning into a slightly self-deprecating smile: "It's all my fault that things turned out this way, and I even caused Asakura-kun to lose an arm. If this continues, everyone will be in trouble. Rather than that, it's better to cut off the chain of disaster right here with me."
"I can't give you the pocket watch and my body for research as we agreed, I'm sorry... But this way, at least when Asakura-kun goes back to the past, your hand can return to normal... Also, if possible, please tell my parents that I love them very much... I'm truly sorry..."
"I'm not interested in being a messenger; go tell them yourself!" Asakura said stubbornly.
"I'm sorry, truly sorry." The girl just apologized over and over again. She watched as cracks gradually appeared in the space around her body, a premonition of the "Scale" shattering: "What will become of me...?"
Asakura suddenly felt a sense of incongruity.
He remembered that in the previous loop, as soon as the girl smashed the pocket watch, time immediately began to rewind with almost no delay.
But this time was different; although the girl's figure indeed began to gradually fade as the "Scale" shattered, she didn't disappear immediately, and time didn't begin to rewind.
Furthermore, although everything around them was being pulled by that hole—which looked like a black hole but was actually something else—if one looked closely, they would notice that the Moon Clock's wreckage lay quietly on the ground beneath the black hole, completely unaffected.
So that's how it is, there's still a chance!
"Give me your hand!" Asakura struggled to stand firm in the wind and shouted at the girl.
"But, a bad child like me..."
"Stop talking nonsense, give me your hand!" Asakura shouted again.
Asagumo Chihaya hesitated for a moment, then reached out her hand to Asakura.
"No, I mean, give me my hand." Asakura corrected her.
"Oh, oh..." Realizing her mistake, the girl nervously returned his arm to Asakura.
After getting his left hand back, Asakura checked and, as expected, found that the Magic "Scale" could be used again.
"Scale"!
There was no time to hesitate; Asakura directly wrapped the Moon Clock's wreckage with "Scale," then, without further thought, threw it into the black hole, and immediately sealed the opening with "Scale."
Just as the girl said, cause and effect severed.
Since everything originated from the 'pocket watch,' if the pocket watch disappeared, could the temporal chaos be forcibly stopped?
The next moment, the black hole suddenly collapsed.
The wind and waves subsided.
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