"As planned, we need to finish everything within two seconds once we appear in front of him. You have ten seconds to prepare." I said to Lyrate.
Lyrate straightened at once.
Her usual lazy expression vanished, replaced by something focused and cold. She brought both hands up in front of her chest, palms facing each other, fingers slowly curling inward until they formed a loose lotus shape. Her breathing slowed. Her eyes dimmed, then deepened, their red color reflecting the power gathering within her.
"I will begin." she said.
I felt it then.
Her Law of Creation stirred. There was no flare or announcement. It was subtle, almost humble. That was what made it terrifying. Creation didn’t need to shout.
I extended my control outward immediately, wrapping the pocket space tighter, reinforcing every boundary. No ripple. No Essence leak. No hint of fluctuation was allowed to escape. Even Saleos, whose attention was already locked in my direction, would sense nothing more than the same background noise he had been feeling since the break began.
Lyrate’s hands moved closer.
Between her palms, something began to form.
At first it was just a shadow, a distortion where light bent the wrong way. Then color appeared, dark brown, almost black, with faint lines running across its surface like veins in old wood. The shape condensed slowly, until a small seed floated between her hands, no larger than a coin.
It felt heavy.
"I’m ready," Lyrate repeated, her voice steady now.
I nodded once.
I lowered my gaze to my palm and took a slow breath.
To handle Saleos and stop him from acting out, I needed to lock him down completely. There was no room for half measures. If he moved freely even for a moment, the damage he could cause would be disastrous. He was not someone I could afford to underestimate.
I did have an easy option. My domain.
If I released it, Saleos would be locked instantly. His movements, his Essence, even his laws would be dragged into my control. But the cost of doing that was too high. The moment my domain manifested, it would scream my presence across the battlefield. Demons will notice, and I didn’t care about that. But the Eternal would notice. That was something I absolutely could not allow.
The Eternal was watching this rift. Maybe not directly, maybe not all the time, but the moment a foreign domain interfered at this level, his attention would snap here like a blade.
I needed something quieter. Something precise.
Something made exactly for moments like this.
I reached inward toward a law construct I had shaped for control rather than domination. My Essence flowed smoothly, as I summoned it.
A small cube formed above my palm.
The Oblivion Cube.
It was no larger than my palm, its surface smooth and dark, edges perfectly defined. On one of its faces, a faint clock was embedded, marked with subtle runes. Its ticking matched the rhythm of my heartbeat.
Tick.
Tick.
Tick.
The Oblivion Cube was meant to overpower everything around it. It had my strongest laws. And yesterday, I had upgraded my comprehension of my major Law of Time exactly for this situation.
Time. Space. Motion. All of it could be folded inward, sealed into a controlled pocket where resistance became meaningless. Not frozen completely, but slowed, layered, and suppressed just enough to give me control without alerting anyone beyond its range.
I closed my fingers around the cube briefly, feeling its weight settle into my palm. This was the right tool. If Saleos resisted, this would hold him long enough. And if he didn’t... then it would still make sure he couldn’t change his mind.
"Let’s go," I said.
Space folded.
The pocket space vanished.
We appeared directly in front of Saleos and Phegor. One instant the void was empty. The next, we were there.
Saleos’s eyes sharpened immediately. He was not shocked. He just became more focused. He was expecting me. His Essence surged on instinct, reacting before thought could fully catch up. Phegor’s body tensed beside him, his eyes beginning to widen, his hand already moving toward a weapon that never finished forming.
I didn’t give them the time.
The Oblivion Cube vanished from my palm and reappeared behind them, unfolding as it moved. Its shape stretched, edges separating, faces rotating outward until it became something else entirely.
A door.
Tall. Black. Silent. And it released a zone that surrounded all five of us.
The dial embedded in it slowed.
Tick.
Tick...
Tick...
Time buckled around us.
The space around the five of us thickened, like air turning to syrup. Motion dragged. Sound dulled. Essence flows stretched and slowed until they felt like heavy currents instead of living force.
I felt my own thoughts threatening to freeze.
Veins rose along my temples. My jaw clenched as I forced control, locking the effect tightly around Saleos and Phegor while carving out a moving pocket for myself, Knight, and Lyrate. The construct didn’t care about sides. It didn’t understand allies.
It only understood rules.
And I was bending them.
Space locked.
Time slowed to a crawl.
My vision sharpened painfully as my Psynapse worked overtime to keep everything separated. Sweat broke across my back as my Essence began to drain in a steady, brutal stream.
"Lyrate," I muttered.
She moved instantly.
The seed shot forward from her hand like a bullet and struck Phegor square in the chest. There was no impact sound. The seed simply bloomed.
Wood burst outward, in tightly packed layers that grew faster than thought. Thin strands formed first, weaving over each other with impossible speed, guided by the Law of Creation. They braided together, compressed again and again, until the wood became so dense it no longer looked natural.
It was no longer wood as forests knew it.
It looked like solid panels carved from a single block, smooth and dark brown, etched with faint natural patterns that carried law within them. Layer after layer wrapped around Phegor, locking his limbs, sealing his torso, snapping shut around his head.
The cocoon finished forming in less than a heartbeat. It was creation pushed to an extreme, wood refined until it became a prison. And Phegor was sealed inside it completely.
The next instant Knight moved.
He placed one hand against the cocoon, shadows pouring from his fingers like liquid night. They wrapped around the structure, sinking into it, binding it further, completely sealing Phegor away. We had to take that extreme action with him because he carried the deathmist rune and I wanted no risk.
Phegor never screamed. He couldn’t.
And so I began to move toward the next phase.