"Feeling limber," Zarek said with a smile, snatching a convenient reward out of the air.
Now that the Lurker was dead, his reward obviously came with it. It was the real reason he had done everything.
Like he had said before, if he had had the crystal to use back then, he would have been able to trade for an item that would allow him to keep the Godsfall Tear stored away for personal use.
And now that item was here.
—
[You have received: {Crystal Hourglass Shard}]
—
'Perfect.'
An hourglass appeared in Zarek's hand, but as the name suggested, it wasn't complete. But it was particularly… oddly shaped.
The hourglass shard looked as though it was roughly split right down the middle, but only so for its upper half. The bottom half was perfectly whole, carrying what looked like delicate, twinkling beads of silvery-blue sand.
If Zarek tipped it over, these delicate beads would easily spill out.
All things considered, it looked like a completely worthless hourglass, and it definitely didn't look like it had any attacking features.
There was a rumble as creatures on the outside of the mesh smashed against the dome of Lurker's Godsfall, but Zarek ignored them, only casually dodging when more bone arrows came his way.
He flickered a glance toward where Malik and Qiqi were coming from as well before looking away, his intent focusing on the hourglass once more.
After some rough estimates based on what he was seeing around him, he felt that it would be fairly easy to finish up in time.
Crystal Hourglasses contained a bit of the Godsfall everyone was obsessed with.
Time.
But what was special about them was their ability to trap, control, and ensnare Time Godsfall.
When it came to Timed Godsfall Tears like the one underground, Crystal Hourglasses were especially effective. This was because the energy coming from this Crystal Hourglass Shard could easily trap the Godsfall Tear within it.
Had it been a complete Crystal Hourglass, Zarek could do this indefinitely. Given the Class of Hub this one had come from, and its degree of damage, Zarek bet that he could get a few months out of it.
But what he needed wasn't a few months. Instead, he wanted something else.
He closed his eyes in concentration.
There was a slight shift in the crystalline silver-blue sand. They shifted, moving and swirling for a moment as though agitated by something.
The movement looked as though the beads were metallic and a magnet was running across their surface—just strong enough to make them jump, but not strong enough to make them catch the magnet's surface.
And then Zarek suddenly turned the hourglass upside down.
However, just as it seemed the beads would fall out, they swirled around the now top half, spinning around its insides again and again.
Each one of those beads was like an inferior version of Priya's Time Fractal, carrying a dense amount of Time Godsfall.
Zarek didn't have a Talent or Intent of Time, but what he did have was a shocking affinity for it—as did every Rebirther. A single SSS+ Talent could change a person's entire fate…
So what about three of them?
When it came to every other Godsfall Intent Type, Zarek was practically a fowl stumbling through a meadow.
But Time?
He was untouchable.
…
Down below, the Violet Enchantress floated in wisps of purple and lavender Godsfall, a crown of amethyst hanging above her head.
The last time Zarek met her, she looked like a malignant creature, a scourge. Now, though she had no form or substance, she carried the slender form of a graceful woman, at least in part.
She had no real face to match.
Sitting on a throne of earth, large plumes of Godsfall came from the Godsfall Tear near her. Her improvement was shocking, and day by day, she grew closer and closer to that shocking Named Turned that ruled a corner of the world.
—
Name: [???]
Role: [N/A]
Core Stats:
[Strength: N/A]
[Dexterity: N/A]
[Intelligence: C]
[Endurance: N/A]
[Charisma: CC]
Talents:
…
—
There was a vacancy in the Violet Enchantress' eyes, as though she was more focused on something far away from her than the scene right before her. Reflections of Zarek pulsed in her eyes, and she struggled with frowns that manifested more like stormy swirls of energy where her expression should have been.
And then there was the fear. Deep-seated, hard to control. This was the man who had almost ended her life and yet let her go for reasons she still couldn't comprehend.
A man who was a complete enigma.
Logically, that Lurker should have been able to slaughter him ten times over. She had watched every intricate detail of the battle, and then even re-ran it in her mind only to come to the same conclusion.
It was entirely unreplicable.
There was a certain timing and flow to how Zarek did things that was somehow both chaotic, and yet measured—such that one action seamlessly flowed into the next without bloating.
An undefeatable, unpredictable opponent that couldn't be measured by his stats alone.
She looked at Zarek's status screen once, and then twice, and then thrice. But no matter how she turned it, flipped it, and reworded it in her mind, she couldn't find anything special enough to warrant any of this.
Because of Zarek, she had even given up her body, hoping that it would make her safer. But somehow, seeing him now, she didn't believe that she would have even a modicum of peace.
There was no peace to be had if he was hunting her. She had to run.
No, she had to get rid of him.
No, she had to run.
The thoughts swirled in her mind like walls of endless chaos smashing against one another.
And then it happened.
She watched as Zarek tipped over the hourglass, and suddenly the stable pool of Godsfall coming from behind her came to a stop.
And the moment her head shot back toward the Godsfall Tear that had been her foundation for the last several weeks, it suddenly trembled—
and then shot up through the ground.