Wolvin immediately turned toward his husband as the slave collar was gone from the boy's neck.
"I have already removed it, Darling!"
The purple-haired youth nodded in understanding, then focused all his concentration on the body still held tightly by Eralio.
"Reversion!"
Instantly, a dark purple glow illuminated the base of the severed boy's neck.
Thump!
Calian's heart pounded violently, as if an invisible sledgehammer had just struck his chest.
The moment the 'Reversion' authority of his [Time Loop] blessing touched the lifeless body, Calian felt his physical energy and stamina drain out in massive amounts.
Before Eralio and Wolvin's eyes, a phenomenon completely defying the laws of the universe began to unfold.
The boy's head, which had previously hovered stiffly in the air, slowly began to shake, then moved backward. The movement happened precisely like a reversed film roll. The tissues of skin, muscle, nerves, and blood vessels that had been severed by Wolvin's sword were now weaving and fusing back together, defying gravity and rejecting death itself.
Eralio, still frozen in the shackles of stasis, could only widen his eyes to their absolute limit. The same went for Wolvin, who stood watching the phenomenon. Both were too astonished to speak. For the very first time in their lives, they witnessed with their own eyes how a severed head could be pulled backward to fuse seamlessly back onto its original body.
However, behind the breathtaking sight for the two of them, the exact opposite was being felt and endured by Calian.
The purple-haired youth's body began to tremble faintly. His energy and stamina drained at a terrifying speed, far exceeding the exhaustion and pain he felt when healing Wolvin's severe injuries in the past after his spouse fought three giant Ogres alone.
Of course, this was different. The wound caused by an Ogre was merely physical damage to a living body. Meanwhile, right now, Calian was attempting to stitch back a life that had just been severed.
Technically, the boy should have already died when Wolvin's sword slashed his neck. But now, Calian stood arrogantly defying the absolute laws of the universe concerning human life and death.
Moreover, the burden he bore now was doubled. Calian not only had to maintain the Reversion authority to reverse time on that fatal wound, but he also had to sustain the massive Stasis authority locking down the flow of time within the room. The combination of these two absolute powers was like a black hole greedily devouring his remaining stamina.
Cold sweat began to soak his forehead and neck, seeping through his clothes. Calian's breathing, previously steady, now sounded heavy and ragged.
I never expected that restoring a body that should already be dead would strain my body and mind to this extent! Calian screamed inwardly, his teeth gritted tightly to endure the pain shooting through his nerves. It feels as though... my soul is also being dragged away into the afterlife alongside this man's soul!
An invisible yet profoundly real tug-of-war force was at play. The world seemed to fiercely reject the departed soul from being forced back into its mortal vessel. The pull was so strong that Calian felt his vision blurring, slowly dragged toward darkness.
Yet, Calian refused to surrender to the fierce resistance he was experiencing. He was well aware that if he lost his focus, or if his Stasis authority suddenly shattered mid-process, the poor man would truly die.
Come back! Return! Don't fight back! Calian thought, forcing his remaining consciousness to stay awake. I only want to save you from the agony of that slavery! Come back!
Calian kept fighting desperately to rewind time, forcing every nerve cell on the brown-haired boy's neck to merge as they originally were, even though his physical limits and exhaustion had reached a breaking point.
Seeing his husband's face slowly turning pale, Wolvin's expression of awe instantly shifted. The Night Wolf youth grew deeply anxious, gripped by a suffocating fear as he watched Calian's condition, which looked as though he were carrying the weight of a mountain on his shoulders.
Darling... Wolvin whimpered in his heart, his gaze overflowing with anguish.
Yet, Wolvin knew full well he could do nothing. Touching or disturbing his husband right now would prove fatal. All he could do was stand frozen in his spot, biting his lip, praying that the person he loved most would be all right.
Resistance after resistance from the laws of nature persisted. Calian continued to pour his remaining stamina into pulling back a soul stubbornly determined to abandon its mortal shell.
Until finally, the frustration and exhaustion peaked.
"Come back!"
Spontaneously, Calian shouted aloud in a hoarse voice, channeling all his remaining energy and stamina into a single, ultimate burst.
The roaring shout escaping his lips successfully startled both Wolvin and Eralio.
Noticing the Prince's face turning deathly pale with sweat pouring down, Eralio, still affected by the Stasis effect, arrived at a logical conclusion from his perspective. He firmly believed Calian was currently burning through a massive reserve of mana to maintain his [Time Loop] blessing authority.
Yet, unbeknownst to Eralio, Calian was not using mana at all.
The purple-haired youth was born without a mana core. He was purely risking his physical energy, stamina, and mental endurance to bend space and time.
On the other side of the room, the tug-of-war between Calian's willpower and the law of death for the brown-haired boy continued in a suffocating silence.
One minute passed. The muscles in Calian's neck tightened rigidly.
Two minutes. The scar line on the boy's neck began to fade.
Three minutes. Calian braced his knees to keep from buckling and collapsing to the floor.
He kept trying, ignoring the pain tearing through his body, to reunite the severed head just as it had been.
And finally, after four minutes of a silent struggle that felt like an eternity, the dark purple glow around the boy's neck dimmed. His muscle and skin tissues had fused back together without leaving a single trace of a scar. His soul had anchored back to its rightful place.
Calian succeeded!
"Hahhh... hahhh... hahhh..." Calian panted heavily. "Finally... it's all over."
His thoroughly exhausted body finally yielded to gravity. The purple-haired youth staggered backward and collapsed limply onto the sofa behind him.
Though fatigue weighed heavily on his body, a profound expression of relief clearly radiated across his face.
The exact moment his body touched the sofa, the stasis authority binding the flow of time within the room instantly released.
Wolvin, consumed by worry, immediately rushed over to his husband slumped limply on the sofa.
Simultaneously, Eralio, having just regained control over his body, lost his balance entirely. His muscles, tensed from being frozen, instantly went slack. The man stumbled backward and slumped down abruptly onto the floor, his breathing ragged from shock and the mental strain he had just endured.
Meanwhile, in Eralio's hands, the brown-haired boy whose thighs were still held tightly by the man suddenly blinked.
The boy turned his head, staring around with a countenance filled with genuine confusion. He had no understanding of why he was suddenly in an unfamiliar room rather than his own bedroom.