We agreed to set sail, so you'd become the ruler of the deep sea?

Chapter 477 [The Time Witch]

"go!"

The Black Swan seized the opportunity to break through the encirclement and sped towards the White Tower.

As they approached their destination, the fog gradually thinned, and the dilapidated white tower was finally fully revealed to everyone.

The tower is made of some kind of white stone, and its surface is covered with cracks and moss. The top has collapsed.

Even so, it still exudes an ancient and mysterious aura.

"That is the Tower of Time..."

Youxing murmured, "The legendary abode of the Time Witch."

Xia En sheathed his longsword and stared at the tower: "Prepare to land. Remain vigilant."

The Black Swan slowly landed on an open area in front of the tower.

The group stepped onto the soft soil, and the surroundings were unusually quiet; not even the wind could be heard.

"The flow of time here... is so strange."

Joey frowned and said, "My senses have become very dull."

"Indeed."

Xia En also felt a strange sense of sluggishness, as if his movements had slowed down.

"Be careful, don't get separated."

He reminded them and led the way toward the tower gate.

The tower gate had long since decayed, leaving only a dark, gaping entrance.

But as soon as they entered the tower, a thick fog began to spread through the hall in front of them.

Visibility decreased rapidly.

Xia En immediately spoke up: "Everyone come to my side, make sure at least three of you are within my sight!"

Joey and the others immediately did as instructed.

Suddenly, several figures appeared in the fog ahead.

"That is……?"

Xian Ge squinted his eyes.

The figures gradually became clearer—they were several children from the Night Clan, running and laughing in the tower, seemingly completely unaffected by the mist of time.

"impossible……"

Youxing's voice rang out, filled with shock: "Those children... are the missing members of our clan from the [Nightfall Secret Realm]!"

Shane immediately realized something was wrong: "It's an illusion! Don't be fooled!"

However, the children suddenly stopped and all looked in the direction of Shane and the others.

Their eyes were completely black, with no whites, and their mouths were stretched into an unbelievable arc.

"Stay...and play with us..."

The eerie voice resounded directly in everyone's minds.

Vivian groaned, a flicker of pain flashing in her heterochromatic eyes: "They're attacking my mind..."

With a furious roar, Xuan Ge unleashed his dragon might: "Get out of my way!"

As the golden-red dragon flames swept across, the children's figures vanished like bubbles.

But then, even more figures emerged from the fog—

There were crew members familiar to Shane, enemies he had seen before, and even...

"Father?"

Xia En's pupils contracted slightly as he looked at the tall figure standing in the mist.

The figure had a kind and gentle face and was smiling as it reached out its hand to him.

"Shane, my child, you did a great job..."

"Come home with me."

Xia En's emotions were stirred.

Because... that wasn't Xia En's father in the Seven Seas World, but his father from Earth before he transmigrated.

Shane's breathing almost stopped, and his heart pounded violently in his chest.

That familiar figure, that face he thought he would never see again, now stood in the mist, reaching out his hand to him.

"dad……?"

His voice trembled slightly, and he took a step forward almost uncontrollably.

But that's why.

Xia Encai suddenly realized that it was all an illusion.

He gritted his teeth, forced himself to stop, clenched his fists, and his nails dug deep into his palms.

The intense pain brought him back to his senses.

"No...you're not real."

Xia En's voice was low and firm: "My father... is not here."

The figure's smile gradually twisted, and finally it turned into a wisp of black smoke and dissipated.

The surrounding fog began to churn violently, as if it had been enraged.

"Everyone, be careful!"

Shaun warned loudly, "These mists will read our memories and create hallucinations!"

"Concentrate and don't be misled!"

The crew members responded in unison, each regaining their composure.

A sharp glint flashed in Joey's red eyes as she quickly approached Shane: "Captain, we need to find Lyra's trail as soon as possible and get out of here!"

Xia En nodded and took out the [Fleeting Moment].

The compass needle spun wildly, eventually pointing to a spiral staircase deep within the hall.

"Upstairs!"

As Shane and the others climbed the spiral staircase, the surrounding purple mist grew thicker, and the sense of disorder in the flow of time became more pronounced.

Each step felt like traversing different dimensions of time, leaving one dizzy and disoriented.

Suddenly, Joey, who was walking at the front, stopped abruptly, her red eyes narrowing.

"careful!"

Before the words were finished, several dark figures rushed out from the mist above the stairs—these were the [Shadows of Time] cursed by time.

But this time, their forms were even more distorted, and their limbs were covered with ominous black patterns.

"Take action!"

At Shane's command, the crew quickly launched a counterattack.

Various secret techniques and dragon flames intertwined to form a net, but these [Shadows of Time] moved at varying speeds, easily dodging most of the attacks.

"Their movements are becoming even more bizarre!"

String Song gritted his teeth and said, as golden-red dragon flames condensed in his palm.

Xia En squinted, carefully observing the enemies.

Suddenly, he noticed a detail: the black patterns on those [Shadows of Time] carried a familiar, foul, and mysterious power!

Xia En's expression immediately changed.

"[Hirthy Siming]!?"

He truly hadn't expected that the [Filthy Fate] had already gotten its hands on the [Eternal Darkness Secret Realm]?
"They have been corrupted by the [Fiendish Fate]!"

Xia En shouted a warning: "Don't touch those black patterns!"

As if to confirm his words, a [Shadow of Time] broke through the defenses and rushed straight towards Vivian.

She quickly raised her hand, unleashing the power of [Annihilation] to repel the monster.

However, the black patterns on its body spread like a living thing, actually trying to backfire by following the energy!

"Damn it!"

Vivian's expression changed, and a hint of pain flashed in her heterochromatic eyes.

Xia En acted decisively, condensing his void power into a longsword and severing the connection of the black patterns with a single strike.

The severed part twisted like a living thing before finally turning into black smoke and dissipating.

Their weakness is their head!

Youxing suddenly exclaimed, "Youyue and I once read in an ancient book that the core of the [Shadow of Time] is located between the eyebrows!"

Upon hearing this, Xia En immediately adjusted his tactics: "Concentrate your firepower on the head!"

The crew quickly changed tactics.

Joey's red eyes locked onto their targets, and the spell precisely pierced the forehead of a [Shadow of Time]; String Song's dragonfire transformed into a slender fire spear, piercing through the head of another monster.

As each [Shadow of Time] fell, Shane noticed that before they dissipated, the black lines in their eyes would struggle violently, as if they had a sense of self.

What's even more unsettling is that the black smoke didn't completely disappear; instead, it slowly blended into the surrounding fog.

"Something's wrong..."

Alarm bells rang in Xia En's mind: "This pollution is spreading!"

Just then, the spiral staircase suddenly shook violently, and the ancient bricks on the walls crumbled away.

A huge black shadow slowly descended from above—it was a deformed monster that had merged with dozens of [Shadows of Time], its body covered with countless eyes that all gleamed with an eerie black light.

"It's a [aggregate]!"

Youyue exclaimed in surprise, "They can actually fuse?!"

The monster let out a piercing scream, its voice mixed with the wails of countless people.

"It absorbed all the lives that died in the tower..."

The dragon scales of the stringed instrument stood up in anger.

The monster's enormous body almost filled the entire stairwell. It wielded tentacles made of countless twisted limbs, and each attack was accompanied by fluctuations of time disorder.

Youyue was accidentally grazed, and her arm instantly aged decades!
Fortunately, the next moment.

Starlight shone from within Youyue's body, seemingly using the power of the stars to forcibly eliminate the effects of the [Shadow of Time].

This allowed his arm to fully recover.

"Back off!"

Xia En shouted loudly, fully activating the secret power of the void.

The dark blade flashed and crisscrossed, severing the attacking tentacles.

However, after the severed limbs hit the ground, they transformed into small [Shadows of Time] and pounced again.

"This will never end!"

Joey shouted as he cast the spell, "We must find the core!"

Xia En's eyes flashed like lightning as he suddenly noticed an unusually thick black spot on the monster's chest—that was the source of the [Filthy Fate] pollution!

He instantly understood that this "aggregate" was a monster forcibly created by pollution.

"cover me!"

Shane leaped into the air and, under the cover of his crew's secret techniques, charged straight at the monster's chest.

at the same time.

Several laws within him were activated simultaneously, wrapping around the long blade in the void, and stabbed fiercely into the black spot.

"Roar--!"

The monster let out a deafening roar, causing the entire Tower of Time to tremble.

The black spots struggled and writhed like living things, trying to erode Shane's arm.

But Shane gritted his teeth and poured all his strength into the blade.

"Break it for me!"

With a furious shout, the black spot exploded!
Countless black lines burst forth from the monster's body like a spider web, then quickly turned to ashes.

The massive aggregate finally collapsed, dissipating into countless points of light.

However, before everyone could breathe a sigh of relief, the entire tower suddenly began to shake violently!
Cracks in the walls spread rapidly, and the ceiling continued to peel away.

"The tower is about to collapse!"

Jane warned loudly.

"keep going!"

Xia En made a quick decision: "The clue to Leila is right there!"

The group sprinted upwards, braving the falling rocks.

At the end of the spiral staircase, they finally arrived at a circular room at the top of the tower.

This appears to be the only part of the entire Tower of Time that has not been damaged.

Inside the circular room, time seemed to stand still.

The purple mist condensed into a tangible form here, drifting slowly through the air like flowing silk.

A huge hourglass floated in the center of the room, but the sand inside remained eerily still.

The moment Xia En stepped into the circular room, the surrounding purple mist suddenly solidified, turning into countless crystalline fragments that floated in the air.

The huge hourglass in the center of the room trembled slightly, and the still sand began to flow slowly.

As the sand moved, the scene in the room began to distort and change—

Countless blurry phantoms appeared throughout the room, like historical fragments frozen in time.

Those phantom figures were all the same person: Lyra.

Xia En's expression immediately brightened.

But soon he discovered that the Lyra in front of him was not the Lyra he remembered.

In these illusory figures, Lyra's expression is indifferent, her long silver hair falls to her ankles, and her eyes reflect the flow of time.

She wore an ancient gray-white robe, surrounded by mysterious time runes.

Even the obvious elven features seemed to have been erased!
In fact.

Apart from her appearance, the Lyra in these images bears almost no resemblance to the Lyra in Shane's memory.

Xia En felt a pang of pain in his heart.

He knew that Lyra had laid down a plan powerful enough to kill the Great Sin Apostles in order to save the Seven Seas World.

Unable to resist making a deal with the indescribable "God of Blind Folly," she was split into three, becoming Vivian and Anne, and thus losing her memories.

The woman in front of him could be described as Leila, or she could be described as a complete stranger.

Vivian and Anne, standing nearby, also wore complicated expressions.

As the sand flowed, the illusory figures gradually became clearer, like memories being awakened, unfolding one by one before everyone's eyes—

In the first illusory image, Lyra stands alone at the top of the Tower of Time, her long silver hair fluttering in the eternally dark wind.

Her eyes were as deep as the starry sky, and she held an ancient bronze book in her hands, its pages inscribed with script that did not belong to any known civilization.

Her fingertips gently traced the words, each touch causing the pages to gleam with an eerie light.

Suddenly, she paused, looked up at the distant sky.

There, a dark filth spread like a plague, corroding and distorting even time itself.

"[Hirthy Siming]..."

Lyra murmured softly in the phantom image, but her expression remained completely calm.

……

……

The second afterimage appeared, and the scene inside the tower had changed drastically.

The purple mist of time was stained with ominous black veins, and the runes on the walls extinguished one by one.

Lyra stood in the center of the circular room, her hands forming complex hand seals, and countless threads of time extended from her body, winding around the giant hourglass.

The sand in the hourglass begins to flow backward, and time inside the tower reverses accordingly.

The broken bricks were rebuilt, and the extinguished runes lit up again.

But the black pollution stubbornly persists, and even spreads further as time flows backward.

"it's useless……"

In the illusory image, weariness appeared on Lyra's face for the first time: "Time cannot purify them."

……

……

The third illusory image is the most bizarre.

Lyra knelt before the hourglass, her eyes closed, her lips moving constantly as if she were conversing with some unseen being.

Her expression shifted between pain, confusion, and a strange smile.

In the corner of the room, shadows writhed like living things, gradually coalescing into a blurry outline.

It was an existence that could not be described in words; merely glimpsing its phantom made one feel as if their reason was on the verge of collapse.

Then, Lyra stood up, the river of time in her eyes dried up, leaving only an empty indifference.

She mechanically walked to the tower window and reached out to touch the polluted mist of time.

What's truly chilling is...

The black mist, powerful enough to corrode everything, obediently coiled around her fingertips, like a tamed pet.

(End of this chapter)