Chapter 839: The World: Inverted, Time Stop Resistance
The Anchor of Causality...
Fanmos made no effort to conceal the item, displaying its details directly before everyone's gaze. The Reincarnators who read the description widened their eyes in disbelief.
Anchoring space-time and causality, granting the ability to rewind reality at will within five minutes—a rewind capable of purging nearly all anomalous afflictions, even reversing death itself.
This artifact was not merely an instrument of resurrection; under specific circumstances, it could serve as a decisive trump card to overturn an entire losing board.
Due to its sheer potency, this [Anchor of Causality] boasted staggering versatility. In the hands of Reincarnators of differing builds and operational tiers, it yielded extraordinary results:
Weaker Reincarnators could use it to evade mortality, securing a second chance to re-evaluate their survival choices from the brink of doom;
Formidable powerhouses would gain total margin for error, making it the premier tool for testing an adversary's hidden trump cards and rehearsing fatal clashes;
Strategists and masterminds could employ it as an engine to force critical bifurcations, fundamentally altering the trajectory of an entire world.
No one truly knew what horrors Pandora's box held until it was pried open, but with this artifact in hand, anyone could afford to open it once just to see.
That was the absolute brilliance of the [Anchor of Causality].
Fanmos observed the reactions of the surrounding crowd, yet kept his pride in check. His ultimate mark—the Monster King of the East District, Lord Mercenary Tao—wore no distinct expression.
Beneath that bizarre, crimson avatar, the man merely studied the item and... Fanmos himself.
Even across the system barriers of the Space, Fanmos could distinctly feel Mercenary Tao's gaze boring into him—a look laden with cold evaluation and clinical scrutiny.
Sensing that Lord Mercenary Tao had not taken the bait, Black Butler immediately brought forth additional listings.
Among them were ninja scrolls like the [Flying Thunder God Technique], as well as a specialized construct named the [Skeleton Key]. That artifact possessed the conceptual authority to unlock any door.
It could even force open the doors of the heart, previously celebrated by top-tier Reincarnators as a lethal countermeasure against the [AT Field]. Black Butler's intention in securing it was simple: they had witnessed His Lordship deploy the AT Field.
Items of this nature were extraordinarily scarce; every copy they secured was one fewer in the hands of potential adversaries.
To Black Butler, an all-out war between the East and West Districts was an inevitability. Setting aside Mercenary Tao's savage temperament and his unquenchable lust for battle—which would never permit him to pass on an opponent of Yoko's caliber—even the Queen of the West, judging by the intelligence pouring in, was unlikely to abandon her conquest of the East.
She was an ambitious monarch who genuinely seemed to harbor the grand design of unifying the entire Infinite Dimensional Space, incomprehensible though that ambition was to Black Butler.
A clash between the two was preordained; sooner or later, a total confrontation would erupt.
This was precisely why the Paradise's analytical cadre believed it necessary to trade with the top-tier assemblies of the North and South, actively intervening in the skirmishes against Avalon.
It was not merely providing relief to the North and South; it was a dress rehearsal for the final war, an opportunity to blunt Avalon's forward momentum.
Even though the [Paradise] was expanding at exponential speed, drawing in squads and lone operatives by the day, it still lagged far behind Avalon in sheer cohesion.
The Paradise was so decentralized it scarcely resembled an organized syndicate.
Moreover, Avalon had not only unified nearly every top-tier operative across the West, but was now aggressively absorbing the apex talents of the North and South.
The Paradise had to demonstrate its iron will before the window closed.
Kaito Shirogane merely glanced across the assortment of items before turning his eyes away in boredom.
He saw nothing he truly craved.
Even Father Pucci's material from JoJo and the Anchor of Causality were merely functional tools to him, not core necessities.
Whitesnake's conceptual theft appeared lethal on paper, but Kaito already wielded conceptual-tier strikes. Whether in the King of Wrath stance or under the Martial God's Ultimate Intent, his offensive coverage was vast.
Elemental lifeforms, energy constructs, and even conceptual targets could all be struck down by his fists.
That was without even factoring in the [Lock of Destiny] granted by the opposing Stairway of Miracles and Destiny, which equipped him to land decisive blows against any entity.
And once Kaito engaged all his core trump cards simultaneously, he commanded the raw power to crush most adversaries through absolute force.
What he lacked was authentic, transcendent might.
While the Anchor of Causality remained moderately useful—granting him a risk-free attempt to challenge transcendent entities like Son Goku or Saitama without permanent consequences—it could also serve as an anchor to re-engage all his trump cards immediately after the Key of Miracles expired.
After all, the Anchor of Causality fixed space-time and causality unconditionally; upon rewinding, even if his existence had unraveled in the preceding timeline, he would return to the baseline state before activating those self-destructive cards.
Just as Kaito was about to delegate the negotiation of both trades to Black Butler, his senses stirred.
The sky above the East District's public sector shifted once more. The instant night fell, a stream of radiant light broke from the west, streaking across the celestial dome like pure illumination, slicing through the dark firmament and the stellar rivers.
White light washed outward in concentric ripples, igniting the entire vault of heaven.
[Special Unit: Heaven's Pilgrimage has entered the plaza.]
The system prompt flashed across every interface. The crowd froze, save for Kaito Shirogane, whose lips parted into an amused grin as he gazed toward the far edge of the white jade plaza.
A column of figures manifested in unison. Leading the vanguard was a woman whose golden hair cascaded down her back from beneath a heavy white collar, pinned in an elegant chignon. Her emerald eyes gazed straight ahead. She bore no weapons, yet her mere manifestation in the public hub commanded an oppressive, unshakeable gravity.
It was an authentic presence—a weight so dense it commanded recognition without the crutch of active abilities. Back in the material world, she was undoubtedly an entity whose mere arrival warped physical matter.
Flanking her side, beyond the tall woman codenamed [Echo]—who had previously visited the East District to trade the Demi-Human lineage and the Kaio-Ken with Kaito—the remaining escorts wore uniform silver armor and heavy mantles beneath featureless masks.
Their designs carried subtle variations, yet their unified aesthetic was unmistakable.
Kaito observed the most formidable strike force in Avalon, the [Round Table], whose ranks were rumored to be comprised entirely of top-tier Reincarnators.
Most had once reigned as sovereigns or guildmasters across the West, only to swear fealty beneath Yoko's banner following their defeat.
That encroaching pressure plunged the Reincarnators crowding the East District's market stalls into a stifling silence.
The name Yoko Ekaterina had long ceased being mere gossip among the apex tier. Spurred by terrifying battle records that read like urban legends and sweeping campaigns across the real world, the Queen of the West was a name that inspired awe even among Second Step operatives in the East.
"Mercenary Tao. I wish to make a trade with you."
Yoko's arrival did not merely place the East District on high alert. Fanmos, who had looked so composed moments before, and Aradu of the North tensed instinctively.
The sheer scale of the Round Table filled them with quiet dread. Factoring in the dozen-plus operatives currently conducting suppression campaigns across the North and South, did Avalon's roster of top-tier combatants exceed twenty?
And the pedigree of those operatives was undeniably richer than the top-tier rosters of their own home districts.
Even Sovereign Monarch Hill and the former Sovereign [Mist] served merely as standard members of the Round Table.
"Sir Morse, bring forth the item."
The renowned intelligence broker of the West, [Morse], had long since enlisted within Avalon. Casting aside all pretense of concealment, he emerged from the ranks and opened his empty hands.
Nothing was visible to the naked eye, yet an unmistakable presence rested there. Kaito could sense the spectral outline of a severed forearm.
Fortunately, the Space interface registered the item immediately:
[Material: Fractured World]
[Quality: World's Rarity]
[Description: A unique Stand born of a certain universe. Though damaged, it retains localized space-time authority.]
[Effect: Upon smelting, grants one of the following traits:]
[A: The World · Inverted (World's Rarity) — Grants additional Time Stop resistance, bestowing the trait of brief immunity while caught within stopped time. The duration of immunity scales with the attribute disparity between combatants. Simultaneously, activating this trait grants an instantaneous displacement recognized as stopped time, with the distance scaling with personal attributes.]
[B: Undisclosed]
[C: Undisclosed]
The invisible relic was unmistakably a Stand—specifically, a severed fragment of the renowned Stand, The World.
A "Fractured World" was literally a fragment of that Stand.
This was the second JoJo-related material Kaito had encountered in succession. While that universe's baseline energy density was modest, it boasted exceptionally bizarre conceptual rules, lacking neither temporal nor causal authorities.
Kaito found it curious. While the material was respectable, its rarity was hardly extraordinary enough to warrant an operative of Yoko's caliber arriving in person, projecting complete certainty that a deal would be struck.
Yoko fixed her gaze on Kaito, stating plainly: "Take this material, Mercenary Tao."
"In the days ahead, you will have need of it."
Her words carried veiled weight, and Kaito caught her meaning instantly.
Among all the adversaries he had crossed paths with to date, only one had wielded a time-stop ability capable of exerting genuine influence upon him.
Though he had bypassed that temporal freeze under the Sixteen-Fold Kaio-Ken, the [King of Rats] he faced back then was likely merely an avatar or a localized space-time variant.
Slaying the creature had yielded zero rewards or kill prompts, and the old monster had continued to surface unhindered afterward.
Reflecting upon the mechanics of the [Lock of Destiny], Kaito had long since discarded the theory that it was a standard clone.
Yoko's words practically declared that the [King of Destiny] was playing an insidious role across both the real world and the Space.
And from Yoko's perspective, she assumed Kaito would inevitably stand as an enemy to that King of Destiny, just as she did.
Thus, she had delivered this Fractured World material specifically to arm him with hard resistance against time stops.
Yet Kaito's eyes flickered with deeper realization. He possessed a very unique [Card]:
[Tarot: The World · Inverted (XXI)]
That card had long been bound to his soul, yet its sequence trial had never triggered. The Tarot sequence strictly demanded that the bearer hold the identity of a [Chosen One].
And Kaito was no Chosen One.
He possessed the standing to bind the card, but lacked the key to activate its trials.
Other cards, even the [God King], had unlocked their sequence trials smoothly under his touch.
The World · Inverted...
The moment Kaito learned that the Tarot sequence was bound to the Chosen Ones, he had deduced that the sequence belonged squarely to the destiny-side power system.
In other words, it was the native domain governed by that King of Destiny.
Holding The World Inverted carried profound implications of its own.
"What do you want in exchange?"
Kaito spoke, sending a wave of panic through Fanmos and Aradu.
Having recognized Avalon's terrifying momentum, both understood that the top-tier operatives of their respective sectors could never hold the line—not even their Sovereign Monarchs.
The Monster King of the East was their final hope. To think Yoko would arrive on his doorstep seeking a trade defied all strategic logic. Were these two not preordained to be mortal enemies?
For two inevitable adversaries to trade core materials, artifacts, and abilities—doing nothing but making things harder for their future selves—what possible benefit could that bring? Were Yoko and Mercenary Tao truly so shortsighted?!
Yet neither Black Butler, nor Fanmos, nor the gathered crowd of East District operatives, nor even the elite Knights of the Round Table could fathom the perspective shared by Yoko and Kaito.
Neither individual gave a damn about a petty turf war across the four districts.
Yoko's ambition to unify the sectors meant nothing to Kaito Shirogane.
He was merely waiting for the day she finally unsealed her genuine, unvarnished power.
And before that day arrived, both had a shared prerequisite to fulfill: ensuring the world became sufficiently durable so that it wouldn't be pulverized by the mere aftershocks of their duel.
"The trade... give me that man's Whitesnake."
Yoko casually swept her eyes across the nearby stalls, settling on the priest's material offered by Aradu.
Aradu looked stunned, his expression quickly contorting into indignation.
He had brought that relic across districts specifically to buy Mercenary Tao's intervention against Avalon's crusade.
Now, the master of Avalon was casually laying claim to his collateral.
It was an insult, layered with visceral dread.
Kaito glanced at Aradu, then nodded in agreement.
"Agreed. But you'll need to sweeten the pot."
Morse could not fathom the calculations running between the two sovereigns; a trade that seemed impossible on every level was being finalized between them.
Aradu opened his mouth, retaining the technical right of refusal. Yet with a single glance, he met Mercenary Tao's eyes.
It was an expression of absolute, detached condescension.
The message woven into that stare was unmistakable:
Refuse this trade, and the Paradise joins the crusade against your home.
Only now did Aradu remember that the Monster King was a bearer of the Crimson Great Sin—the most savage, bloodthirsty curse in the entire Space!
Aradu's shoulders slumped, his spine slowly curving downward in defeat.