Chapter 125: Overloaded |
The screech of metal against metal tore through the air as Jonas' sword tip precisely severed the glowing blue energy conduit at Claude's neck. The gear assembly at the back of the mechanist's neck emitted an overloaded hum, dark red coolant fluid snaking down the blade before crystallizing into eerie formations on the ground.
"How could you..." Claude's throat produced a gear-grinding rasp as his mechanical fingers clicked ominously within their metal sleeves. His left eyepiece suddenly illuminated with data streams, densely packed codes forming a defensive matrix in the air that twisted and melted like wax under high heat the moment they touched Jonas' blade.
Jonas smirked, the silver wristband beneath his black cloak flashing with an eerie glow. It was the spacetime anchor device he'd retrieved from the depths of the Endless Night Corridor, now continuously draining energy from Claude's core. "When your mechanical spiders devoured half my heart in the Mirror Abyss," he whispered, pressing the blade another half-inch deeper, "you should have foreseen this day."
The bronze clock in the laboratory dome suddenly swung violently, its hands spinning counterclockwise as the resulting temporal turbulence shattered every test tube on the workbenches. Seventeen overlapping images reflected in Claude's pupils, each clone attempted to counterattack from different temporal nodes, only to disintegrate into data dust the instant they touched Jonas' cloak.
"The Clockwork Between's location is hidden within the harmonic resonance of the third gear assembly," Jonas tore the mechanical pocket watch from Claude's chest, its face unfolding into an intricate star chart, "And Veldeline's true identity is a living vessel you engineered using the genes of twelve generations of Time Priests." As his finger traced a flickering coordinate on the star chart, spiderweb cracks suddenly spread across the laboratory dome, revealing inverted mechanical stars beyond.
Claude suddenly erupted in maniacal laughter, steam erupting from his chest to form a misty curtain between them: "You think stopping me can alter destiny?" His mangled mechanical arm suddenly plunged into his own chest, retrieving a golden gear entwined with glowing runes, "Look at this, your so-called 'victory' is merely part of the Time Lord's script—"
Before he could finish, Jonas' blade pierced the ruby at the gear's center. The entire laboratory trembled violently, mechanical totems on the walls reversing their rotation. As Claude's body dissolved into data streams, his final image pointed behind Jonas—where an identically dressed silver-haired figure had appeared unnoticed, holding a crystal hourglass with silver sands identical to Jonas' own.
"The cycle...never ends..." Claude's voice mingled with the sound of shattering gears, echoing through the distorted spacetime. Jonas whirled around, but his sword only cleaved through an afterimage. The laboratory floor suddenly collapsed, revealing a bottomless abyss of interlocking gears below, countless mechanical arms extending from the darkness wrapped in chains carved with ancient deity runes.
Jonas tightened his grip on the sword hilt, the spacetime anchor beneath his cloak growing scalding hot. He finally understood Claude's dying madness—they were all merely puppets in some grander scheme, and the truth of the Clockwork Between was far darker than imagined. From the abyss came the thunderous sound of meshing gears—a new cycle had quietly begun.
His spacetime anchor suddenly emitted a piercing alarm as the air rippled around him. Countless "Jonas" manifestations emerged from the void—some drenched in blood, others already transformed into mechanical puppets. These phantoms spoke in unison: "There's no escape..." Jonas' pupils contracted as he realized he'd fallen into a temporal paradox trap. Just then, an enormous bronze disc rose from the abyss with a deafening gear-crunching roar, engraved with Veldeline's visage—her eyes now glowing with the same eerie blue light as Claude's mechanical eye.