I ran like a man who was entirely out of time, mostly because I was.
The metronome wasn't just ticking anymore; it was practically vibrating inside the walls, a frantic tick-tick-tick-tick that perfectly matched my racing heartbeat. The black seawater in the corridors had risen drastically in just the last few minutes. What started as ankle-deep was now swirling violently around my knees.
I didn't bother trying to wade through it. I kept my Cenotaph's power flooding through my legs, maintaining the inverted gravity so I could practically skate over the surface of the freezing water. My boots barely made a splash as I shot past the peeling red velvet walls, desperate to reach my starting room.
The whole clocktower was groaning around me. It was a deep, terrifying sound of ancient iron bending under the weight of an entire ocean. The stained-glass windows in the hallway were spiderwebbing with cracks, threatening to burst and drown us all in a matter of seconds.
"Come on, come on," I hissed, rounding the final corner and sliding to a halt in front of room one.
The heavy oak door was still splintered and hanging off its bottom hinge. I shoved past it and stepped back into the VIP opera box. The sickly-green gas lamp was sputtering, barely fighting off the damp dark. I waded over to the wall and wrapped my hand around the cold, rusted iron of Lever I.
My chest was heaving. The royal blue Ether danced across my knuckles, anxious and pissed off. My Pride absolutely loathed this. I was a Tier 2 Awakened, the ruler of the Throne of Glass, and here I was, standing in a flooded closet waiting for a delusional fraud to give me a cue.
I closed my eyes and tuned out the frantic metronome. Through the thick, rotting walls, the acoustics of the opera house carried voices surprisingly well.
"To your stations, you spineless dogs!" That was King Charles, his voice booming from the central antechamber down the hall. "The Emperor commands it! Grasp the mechanisms!"
"Yes, Your Majesty!" one of the guards yelled, his voice trembling. I heard the squeal of rusted metal as they presumably grabbed levers III, IV, and V.
There was a brief pause. I pictured Raphael standing in room II, perfectly dry, probably checking his pocket watch with a bored smirk.
"Now!" Charles roared, his unstable Tier 5 aura flaring so hard I could actually feel the faint, sickening pressure of it through the walls. "Let the gates of my victory open before me! PULL!"
I yanked Lever I downward with all my strength.
It was stiff, the rusted gears fighting me for a second before they finally gave way with a loud, heavy CLUNK.
For two agonizing seconds, nothing happened. The metronome kept ticking. The water kept rising. I actually braced myself for the sickening SNAP of the time loop resetting.
But then... the ticking stopped.
It didn't fade out. It just cut off abruptly, leaving a sudden, ringing silence in its wake. The distorted opera waltz that had been haunting the halls groaned to a halt. A massive, deep rumbling shook the floorboards.
I let go of the lever and rushed out of the VIP box, splashing down the corridor. The water wasn't rising anymore. In fact, it was draining rapidly through large iron grates in the floor that had just snapped open.
When I reached the balcony overlooking the central room, I saw it. The giant gear-gate had split down the middle and folded backward. Beyond it was a grand, sweeping staircase made of pristine white marble, completely untouched by the black water. It spiraled upward into the dark.
King Charles was standing at the base of the stairs, looking incredibly pleased with himself.
"Behold!" Charles laughed. "The sheer force of my royal command has broken the seal! Even the mechanisms of this world bow to my aura!"
I jumped down from the balcony, using a quick burst of inverted gravity to land with a soft splash right behind his exhausted guards. A second later, Raphael strolled out from his corridor. He looked perfectly dry and infuriatingly calm.
King Charles turned around. His golden, greed-clouded eyes locked onto Raphael, and his arrogant Emperor facade slipped for just a second.
"Azarias," the King gasped. "You made it. And you kept the boy alive."
"Of course, Your Majesty," Raphael said smoothly, giving a crisp bow that looked entirely mocking to me. "I told you I would ensure your safe passage through the rift. Did the mud ritual hold up against the dimension's pressure?"
"It's tearing at me," Charles gritted his teeth, clutching his chest. His aura flickered chaotically. "The mud foundation is cracking, just like you warned it would in London. The stabilization core better be at the top of this damn tower, Azarias. If I don't merge with it soon, my soul will completely collapse."
"It is waiting for you, Charles. Exactly as we planned," Raphael reassured him warmly.
I just stood there, my mind racing. This guy was a total psychopath. A monster playing chess with empires, and I was just a pawn he brought along for the ride.
"Good. Let's move," Charles ordered, turning his back to us and marching up the marble staircase.
Raphael walked past me and gave me a tiny, sharp wink. I felt a chill run down my spine, but I just pushed the annoyance down. I don't care about their politics, I told myself. I just want my loot.
We followed the King up the stairs. The air grew drier and colder. We pushed through a set of torn red velvet curtains and stepped onto the Grand Stage.
It was massive. At the very back of the wooden stage sat a colossal pipe organ, and standing right in front of it was the boss.
It was fifteen feet tall—a grotesque fusion of a human skeleton and a grandfather clock. Its ribcage was made of curved glass, exposing a violently ticking golden heart-gear. It had four long arms, each gripping a razor-sharp conductor's baton. Its face was a blank, white porcelain mask with a painted-on smile.
[System Scan Complete]
[Monster: The Clockwork Conductor]
[Tier: 4 (Boss)]
"The core!" Charles yelled, his eyes locking onto the golden ticking heart. "It's mine!"
He didn't even wait for his guards. He launched himself forward, swinging his silver scepter to unleash a massive wave of raw Ether. But Charles was too unstable. The moment he exerted that much power, he coughed up a mouthful of dark blood. His aura dropped entirely for a split second.
The Conductor didn't hesitate. It moved with terrifying mechanical precision. Its batons blurred, slicing right through the King's weakened attack and slashing a deep, jagged X across Charles's chest.
The King screamed, stumbling backward and collapsing onto the floorboards. The two guards rushed forward to protect him, but the Conductor just swiped its lower arms, decapitating both of them before they could even draw their swords. Two bodies hit the floor with a heavy thud.
"Raphael!" Charles shrieked, clutching his bleeding chest. "Help me! The mud ritual... I can't hold my power! Kill it and give me the core!"
I dropped my stance, royal blue gravity coating my arms, ready to step in. But Raphael held up a hand, stopping me.
"Relax, Lucian," Raphael whispered. "The play is over."
He walked casually past me, stepping right over the bleeding corpses of the guards. He stopped directly in front of the towering Clockwork Conductor. The machine raised its bladed batons to impale him.
Raphael sighed. "Boring."
He snapped his fingers.
A pillar of absolute, blinding crimson fire erupted from the floorboards directly beneath the machine. The heat sucked the oxygen right out of my lungs, forcing me to step back. The Tier 4 Boss didn't even burn—it instantly melted into a puddle of glowing slag. The golden heart-gear dropped into the molten metal and melted away to nothing.
Charles lay on the floor, gasping for air, staring at the melted boss in absolute shock.
"You... you destroyed it," Charles wheezed, panic filling his eyes. "Raphael, what did you do?! The stabilization core! How am I supposed to fix my soul now?!"
Raphael stood over the bleeding King. The warm advisor persona melted away, leaving nothing but terrifying, ancient malice in his crimson eyes.
"There is no stabilization core, Charles," Raphael said, his voice dropping to a demonic purr. "It doesn't exist. I made it up."
Charles froze. "W-what?"
"I lied to you," Raphael smiled. "I gave you the flawed mud ritual. I watched you burn your own capital to use it. And then I lured you into this sealed dimension where no one in the outside world could hear you scream."
"But why?!" Charles sobbed, spitting up dark blood. "I trusted you! We were allies!"
"Because you were an annoying, loud liability," Raphael said, sounding genuinely bored. "You thought skipping to Tier 5 made you a player in the grand game. I just wanted a quiet place to execute you. And honestly? I wanted to see if a mud-tier fraud would actually walk into his own grave if I held the door open."
Before Charles could scream for mercy, Raphael drove his burning hand directly into the center of the King's chest. The flesh cauterized instantly. Charles's body went completely rigid, blinding light pouring from his eyes and mouth as Raphael flooded his unstable soul with pure, Angelic fire.
In three seconds, the Emperor of London crumbled into a pile of fine white ash.
Raphael stood up, dusting off his coat. In his right hand, he held a pulsing, glowing crystal the size of an apple—the condensed essence of a Tier 5 soul merged with the energy of a Tier 4 dimension.
I let out a slow breath, forcing my heart to stop hammering. I walked up to him, my boots crunching on the ash of the dead King. I didn't care about the betrayal or Charles's stupidity.
"Clean," I said flatly, holding out my hand and locking eyes with the monster disguised as a man. "Now give me my payment."