If the Jade Oracle thought that her words would make me lose hope, then she had no idea what was going on inside my head.
The voice of the Jade Oracle dismissively spoke out, perhaps giving me her most outlandish idea: "The seals fail because the guard fails. So, do not let the guard fail, um, maybe you can replace it, and hold the door yourself.*
I went still, my mind buzzing, and I immediately spoke up, "How can I do that?"
There was silence for a while before the Jade Oracle replied, but I thought I could hear a bit of annoyance in her voice,
"What is funny is that you carry the right fuel, little clockwork boy. The Celestial light in your weed-grown channels is the same light I am made of, and that same light is bound in the seals. You are walking around with a cup of the exact medicine I am dying for lack of. If you could pour it into the seals, then the door would hold. The Pale Matron would stay where she is. You would simply... stand here, for eternity, holding back the end of your world."
I did not think about what sort of fate that would mean for me, and I asked in excitement, "Then I’ll be able to stop the eruption?"
Pause. "Are you listening to me? You will be here forever, hmm, and that is if you succeed, clockwork boy. In your present state, you would die," the Jade Oracle said flatly, with a bit of irritation in her voice, "In, oh, roughly one second. Because you cannot pour that much Celestial light through a body made of weeds and clockwork. You would shatter, as you are not a vessel for this, child; you are a boy with a borrowed cup, and the moment you tried to drink from it properly, the cup would break and take you with it."
Perhaps she thought what she was saying would make me upset, but my eyes only grew brighter, and I heard her sigh.
"I don’t know how you have been able to create so many channels inside your body, but while this body of yours would be a thing of horror on the battlefield, to hold this door you would need a body built to hold the heavens without breaking, and your shell is primitive, your body more so."
My eyes squinted in thought, "What if I complete all the channels in my body? Can I hold this power?"
"Why would it matter if I tell you there is no more time?"
"I just... I want to know all the options that I would have if I have the time."
The pause this time was longer, and when I feared that I might need to explain my unique circumstance to the Jade Oracle, she suddenly began speaking.
"Your shell is ancient and lacks many extreme refinements. I don’t know how it did it, but the Hollow Avatar created a powerful shell in Cor Telluris, and the advantage of this shell is that it can evolve past its base state. So, clockwork boy, if you can complete Cor Telluris, then you would evolve your Stone Shell to a Jade Shell. In this manner, every one of your channels must be complete, and not focused on killing and energy exchange."
After saying this, she chuckled, "That is the impossible way, little catastrophe." The disc flickered, like it was about to go out. "Complete the work the Avatar began. Become durable enough to hold the light without shattering. Grow yourself a shell of jade. Then stand where I stand and hold the door for ten thousand years, alone, in the dark." Then there was what I thought was a self-deprecating chuckle: "I tell you this so you will understand that there is no way, not because there is one."
Even if the Jade Oracle thought she was giving me a list of reasons it was impossible to succeed, to me, I was hearing a list of requirements.
Complete Cor Telluris. Become durable. Grow a shell of jade.
I had something the dying do not have, and the powerful do not understand, and the men below would have torn the world apart to own.
I had time, and as long as the gigantic machine that brought me back did not break, I had all of it.
Death would not stick and my body, however slowly, however much it hurt, was still finishing. Fourteen hundred channels of ten thousand and change.
The Jade Oracle called me a clockwork boy. I think I like that name. I was made of clock, and I had work to do. Yes, I know that was not the meaning of clockwork, but I think it is fair for every person to be able to define a term as they see fit... especially in times like these.
I could not save the Jade Oracle. Ten thousand years of poison may be something that was impossible for me to outwork? Or was it? I did not know, but placing too much on my plate, even if I had infinite time, was a great way of going mad.
It was the wise thing to pick a single objective and pursue it to completion, and not be too distracted by everything around me. This loop, perhaps, the world would end, and I would die in it, and wake, and it would be morning.
The loop would have returned everything back the way it was, the cruelty and the mercy of it indistinguishable as always, but I will be different.
I would finish the channels, and I would learn, however many lifetimes it took, however many deaths I did not want to count, to grow a shell that could hold the light of the stars.
And one morning, far from this one, I would climb these stairs as a thing that was no longer a clockwork boy, walk into this room, and tell the goddess kneeling in her feathers that she could finally rest.
"Little one," the Oracle said, and her voice had changed.
I looked up, she was not calling me clockwork boy or little catastrophe, that was... interesting.
"You have stopped looking like the world is lost," she said. "I can see the light of hope rising in your soul. I told you there is no way. Why do you look as though I have just handed you one?"
I smiled at her before I shrugged, "That is because I am in a loop. I die and return to this exact morning, and I have died hundreds of times to reach you, and it may take me thousands of deaths, but I will succeed."
"Oh..." the Jade Oracle said, "Next time, start with that."
I blinked, "You... you are not surprised?"
"Well, I have had several crazy theories about how a child like you could have accumulated all of this power in such a relatively short time, but to be fair, I did not think you were in a time loop. A power like this should not work unless the Heavens... the Hea.. What am I... Who are you? How did you make your way into my chamber? Die!"
I did not even have time to understand what had just happened before a force of calamitous proportion seized my body, and I was shredded into atoms.