The Price

Volume: 2

Title: Chapter 106: The Price

“Is this… time stop?”

No, it wasn’t a full time stop, but time had indeed been significantly slowed.

Soon, Ewan understood the essence of this power from the changes around him.

The Eternal Clock was a nascent artificial authority, painstakingly crafted by Teacher Mera over a millennium to control the laws of time. Ewan wasn’t surprised by its miraculous abilities.

He had simply not anticipated that the very first inscription of its second phase could achieve such a profound effect.

Everything around him seemed to move at a glacial pace. Judging by the falling water droplets, time had slowed by at least several dozen times.

How terrifying would this power become once Teacher Mera’s grand design was fully realized?

Would it then possess the true might to rewind time itself?

‘If I possessed such power…’

For some unknown reason, Ewan’s mind drifted back to that beautiful face, which had bloomed as fleetingly as an epiphyllum.

****

‘I feel like if I don’t do something in this situation, I’ll be betraying my identity as a scoundrel, won’t I?’

Amidst the slowly floating water droplets and petals, Ewan gazed at Teacher Mera, whose frozen expression made her appear adorably dazed. Her plump cheeks, so fair and tender, made him yearn to pinch them.

Suddenly, a mischievous thought sparked in his mind, and his courage veered towards daring.

‘Just one touch, I’ll just touch her once!’

‘A legal loli’s cheek isn’t something you can just touch whenever you want!’

‘This is my chance!’

The distance between them wasn’t great. While Ewan’s movements were greatly hampered by the protracted time, his full-speed actions still far outpaced the languid objects around him.

Closer! Closer!

Ewan’s finger slowly approached Teacher Mera. As it drew nearer to her fair, soft cheek, Ewan’s heart quickened with excited anticipation.

However, just as Ewan’s finger was about to make contact, he was horrified to see Teacher Mera’s amber-red eyes, previously fixed in a daze, suddenly dart with agile awareness.

It was as if the girl in a photograph had abruptly broken through dimensional constraints, casting a meaningful gaze upon Ewan.

“Your audacity never ceases to amaze me, boy.

Both in what you think and what you do.”

Ewan’s expression slowly, slowly stiffened.

Yet, in his own sluggish movements, he watched Teacher Mera’s body tremble slightly. Then, as if completely unshackled from time’s grasp, she moved with nimble grace.

“Any last words?” Teacher Mera blinked, her adorable face uttering terrifying words.

“Teach—er—Me—ra—I—am—sor—ry—”

Ewan’s voice stretched out, long and drawn-out. Before he could finish, Teacher Mera’s expression had already turned impatient.

“It seems not. Go cool your head in the sky.”

Teacher Mera gave a light clap.

With a whoosh, the scoundrel’s head, like a second-stage rocket, smoothly detached from his neck. It shot into the sky at supersonic speed, performed various high-difficulty aerial maneuvers, and then successfully landed face-first.

The time dilation had returned to normal at some unknown point. Pure water droplets, spilling from the watering can, reflected a faint rainbow in the air.

Teacher Mera cradled Ewan’s head, her eyes twinkling mischievously as she stared at his pale face. “How do you feel?” she asked.

“I… I’m out of the capsule, and… I feel good.”

‘Good, my foot!’ Ewan’s vision was filled with stars, and he felt as though his brains had been thoroughly scrambled.

“Excellent. You’ll feel even better soon.”

Teacher Mera flashed a wicked smile, her knowing expression instantly making every hair on Ewan’s body stand on end. He wailed in terror, “Wait, Teacher Mera, it’s not that serious, is it? I was just joking!”

“This isn’t my punishment for you. This is the price you were always meant to pay.”

“The price?”

Before Ewan could comprehend, he watched Teacher Mera hold his head and reattach it to his body’s neck.

In an instant, his senses reset.

An indescribable agony surged through him.

At that moment, Ewan felt as though he heard tendons tearing and bones cracking. Then, a series of crackling sounds, like popping beans, erupted from his joints.

His skin turned faintly red, but it wasn’t a healthy flush. Instead, it was due to countless capillaries beneath his skin rupturing, causing streaks of blood to seep through the surface.

Before Ewan could react to his current state, he felt all his strength drain from his body. He immediately collapsed to the ground, a boneless, pathetic heap.

“Cough, cough… What, what’s going on?”

Ewan opened his mouth in confusion, coughing up several clots of blood mixed with bits of flesh. Clearly, his internal organs had sustained considerable damage.

“I told you, this is the price you must pay.”

Teacher Mera looked down at Ewan, a hint of schadenfreude in her eyes. “Did you truly think the power of the Eternal Clock was so easily controlled?”

“But why must the price be paid this way? Can’t I just give you money?” Ewan shouted indignantly.

“Though we call it a price, the root cause is simply that your physical body is too weak.”

Teacher Mera rolled her eyes. “The Eternal Clock, which has a preliminary connection with you, can extend your time, but it cannot strengthen your physical body.”

“In other words…” Ewan suddenly understood.

“Precisely. Because time was stretched, you overexerted your body without even realizing it.”

Teacher Mera clasped her hands behind her back, pacing around Ewan as she explained, “Generally, humans find it difficult to exert their full strength because the body has a protective mechanism. This mechanism ensures we don’t harm ourselves when using force.

However, when time is slowed, this protective mechanism struggles to function. As for why…”

“Because in that state, my brain perceived my movements as being very slow,” Ewan recalled his actions when he had tried to pinch Teacher Mera’s cheek.

Believing his movements were too sluggish, he had desperately tried to go faster, even faster.

But that slowness in the time-dilated state… in the true flow of time…

“…had already broken through my own limits.”

“Exactly, that’s it.”

Teacher Mera snapped her fingers, nodding in satisfaction that her foolish disciple wasn’t entirely beyond hope. “This is precisely due to the body’s limitations. Even if your consciousness clearly feels time slowing down, your physical body still can’t keep up.

The Eternal Clock can only affect time; it cannot affect anything else.”

“But I feel like the price is more than just that,” Ewan said with a bitter smile. Red flames flickered around his body, but they were faint, making the healing of his injuries very slow.

“I feel utterly drained, even though I only used it for such a short time.”

“Of course. What do you think you were influencing? It was time itself, something even gods cannot fully control.”

Teacher Mera stood with her hands behind her back, her gaze sweeping over the sea of flowers and into the distance.

A hint of cold pride, utterly incongruous with her delicate appearance, emanated from her small figure.

Yet, this cold pride struck Ewan as entirely natural.

Compared to the artificial authority of the Eternal Clock, perhaps Teacher Mera, who created it, was even more unfathomable.