The return portal spat them out like it was disgusted.
Ne Job hit the marble floor of the Rebirth Bureau with a full-body splat, limbs flailing.
Yue landed with considerably more grace—but still clutching the frozen, glowing, absolutely furious pizza box like it was a divine bomb.
The portal snapped shut behind them.
Silence swallowed the room.
But something was wrong.
Very wrong.
The Bureau—usually alive with flickering scrolls, floating memos, and screaming clerks—was frozen.
Literally frozen.
A shimmering film of temporal frost coated every surface. A memo bird hung mid-flight, wings stopped mid-flap. A clerk was frozen in the middle of a horrified gasp. Dreivery Spirit Bao was mid-run, suspended in the air with a delivery crate.
Time had stopped.
Except for Yue.
And for Ne Job.
And for the horrifyingly unstable pizza box glowing in Yue's hands.
Ne Job swallowed. "Okay… question."
"Ask," Yue said, scanning the room with tight, controlled movements.
"What did we miss while grabbing the pizza?! Because this is not normal."
Yue's eyes narrowed. "Not normal even by your standards."
That hurt.
A little.
---
The Bureau in Stasis
Yue walked between the frozen clerks, her steps careful and light. She brought her hand close to the temporal frost—just close enough to feel the hum of the timestop.
"This isn't natural stasis," she murmured. "This is conducted stasis."
"Meaning… someone did this on purpose?"
"Or something."
Ne Job shuddered. "The pizza box didn't do this, right?"
"No," Yue said. "The box is dangerous but not on a Bureau-wide scale."
"Comforting," he grumbled.
She ignored him and analyzed the air, tracing faint kinetic distortions with her glowing manual.
"Temporal vectors converging from all directions," she muttered. "Someone froze the entire building to isolate a single event."
Ne Job blinked. "…Us?"
"Yes. We are the only dynamic elements in the Bureau right now. Whatever did this is either waiting for us—or responding to us."
Ne Job nodded slowly.
"So… good news?"
"No."
"Bad news?"
"Yes."
---
The Pizza Box Starts Waking Up
The chrono-sticker Yue slapped onto the cursed box pulsed once.
Twice.
Then dimmed.
Ne Job stiffened. "…Yue?"
She tilted the box. "Five minutes of stability left."
"Oh terrific. The pizza grows angrier every chapter."
She gave him a look sharp enough to file paperwork with.
"We need to reach Lord Xian's sanctum. He has containment fields strong enough to handle temporal anomalies."
"Are we sure he's not frozen?"
"No."
"Are we sure the sanctum isn't frozen?"
"No."
"Do we have any plan besides 'run'?"
"No."
He pointed. "Perfect. Let's go."
---
Traversing the Frozen Bureau
They moved quickly through the offices—past the frozen interns, frozen forms, frozen chaos.
Ne Job paused when they passed the Café of Infinite Coffee, staring at a floating cup mid-pour.
Yue grabbed his collar. "Do not try to drink the timestopped coffee."
"But it's RIGHT THERE—"
"No."
"Just a little sip—"
"No."
He sighed. "You're no fun."
She gave him a tiny smile.
"You'd be dead."
"Okay, fair."
They continued down the hall, where the stasis thickened, becoming almost glass-like. Ne Job had to push through it like wading through jelly.
"Yue," he said, straining. "Whatever froze this place… it was strong."
"Yes."
"Like, 'ancient-old-Heaven-level' strong?"
"Yes."
"Like, 'the kind of entity your manual says gives bad performance reviews to gods' strong?"
"Yes."
"Yue, please tell me we're not walking toward something that wants to kill me."
She did not answer.
Which was answer enough.
---
Lord Xian's Door
They reached the massive doors to the High Director's Sanctum.
Yue placed her palm on the seal.
It didn't glow.
It didn't respond.
It didn't do anything.
Yue frowned. "It's frozen too."
Ne Job stepped up. "Let me try."
She raised an eyebrow. "With what authority?"
"I have chaos."
"That is the opposite of authority."
He pressed his palm to the door anyway.
THRUM.
The Chaos Spark inside his chest reacted with a violent surge. The stasis film over the door cracked—splintering like frozen lightning.
Yue jumped back. "Ne Job—!"
He pushed—
And the doors shattered open.
Inside—
They froze.
Not from stasis.
From sheer shock.
---
The Sanctum
Lord Xian stood in the center.
Unmoving.
Not frozen in time.
Frozen in protocol.
His body was wrapped in glowing blue chains—each one humming the language of the Old Codifiers. His eyes were open but empty, swirling with rapidly cycling script.
Ne Job whispered, "Oh no."
Yue's breath trembled. "…This is worse than I feared."
The chains tightened around Lord Xian's chest, each link embedding deeper into glowing sigils.
"What did this?" Ne Job whispered.
Yue stepped closer, analyzing the chains.
"This is Codifier script," she said softly. "Not modern Codifiers. Older. Much older."
Ne Job tensed. "The ones the First Intern warned us about."
"Yes."
"So they WERE involved in my memory wipe."
"Yes."
"So they want me dead."
"It is highly probable."
"Well," Ne Job muttered darkly. "That's rude."
---
When the Box Reacts
Suddenly—
The pizza box twitched.
Not subtly.
Violently.
It jolted in Yue's hands like something inside was hammering the lid.
The chrono-sticker peeled halfway off.
Ne Job screamed. "NO NO NO NONONONO PLEASE KEEP THAT LID SHUT—"
The box bucked again.
A growling rumble echoed from within.
Yue grabbed the sticker, pressing it down with brute force. "It's destabilizing. The Codifier trap is interfering with the time lock!"
Ne Job panicked. "We can't fight a Codifier construct AND a possessed demonic pizza!"
Yue's voice was sharp. "Focus! Help me hold the sticker—"
Before she could finish, the chains around Lord Xian reacted.
They shifted.
Contracted.
Pulled tight.
And the sigils on his chest flared.
BOOOOM.
A shockwave burst outward, knocking Yue and Ne Job backward.
The pizza box flew out of Yue's grip—
spinning—
cracking open—
and landing directly on the sanctum floor.
The lid flapped open.
Ne Job screamed, "NO—!!"
Something crawled out.
Not a monster.
Not a demon.
Not a mutant slice.
A sphere.
A small sphere of molten, writhing, shifting time and cheese—pulsating like a living, sentient anomaly.
The Temporal Pizza Core.
Yue whispered, horrified:
"…It isn't a pizza. It's a sealed chronal seed."
Ne Job blinked rapidly. "A WHAT NOW?!"
She grabbed his sleeve. "A chronal seed is a miniature time singularity with a food-based anchor. Someone disguised it as a pizza to smuggle it past divine detection."
Ne Job stared in existential dread. "Someone weaponized PIZZA?!"
The chronal core floated.
Turned.
Looked at them.
Its voice was layered—ancient, echoing, oily with cosmic static:
"IDENTITY CONFIRMED."
Yue stepped in front of Ne Job. "Stay back."
The core rotated.
"INTERN ANCHOR LOCATED."
Ne Job whispered. "…Me?"
Yue whispered back. "Yes. Do not run."
"I WAS GOING TO RUN."
The core rose higher, vibrating with power.
The Codifier chains around Lord Xian rattled in response, as though awakening.
A silvery voice echoed from the shadows, ancient and cold:
"Protocol Delta-Null. Completion sequence initiated."
Yue stiffened. Ne Job felt his heart drop.
The same words spoken in the First Fragment Room.
The chronal core glowed brighter.
Then—
Everything in the Bureau began to unfreeze.
Time cracked. Light tore through the office in jagged beams. The singularity pulsed harder—
And the chapter ends here.
---
END OF CHAPTER 150 — "Return to a Frozen Office (With a Very Angry Pizza Box)"