Cha Ming’s face darkened. “What have you done?”
Zhou Li shrugged. “It’s so difficult to predict a karmic anomaly’s actions, and almost impossible to kill you in a reasonable amount of time. The only way is to trap you. If you don’t fight, you’ll die, but if you fight, you’ll stay trapped. I’ve accounted for everything you’re capable of and more.”
Cha Ming, not resigned to his fate, continued beating the dragons around him. His qi reserves were deep, so he pushed them to their limits. He alternated between all five elements, pushing to find a weakness in the painting. He considered using the Space-Time Camera for a brief moment but discarded that thought. Zhou Li could easily deal with it, as he’d shown in the precious fight.
“I think you can break through, eventually,” Zhou Li said. “Fortunately, you don’t have enough time.”
Cha Ming knew this was true. During his battle, he’d kept an eye on the North’s battle formation. Their opponents were slowly but surely slaughtering their way to the center. It was no longer possible for them to flee, and he could see angels flying above them, ready to interfere if they absolutely had to. The ships had also mounted secondary cannons and began firing at their forces. They were losing men, and fast.
As Cha Ming fought the dragons, he let out his rage. He raged at Zhou Li, who’d defeated him time and time again. He’d predicted his every move and stopped his progress, and for what? Was it for spite? Zhou Li wasn’t much older than him, but his eyes were filled with vicissitudes Cha Ming couldn’t comprehend. And based on his words, he remembered many past lives. His plans were the work of many generations, while Cha Ming was only a fly trapped in his carefully woven net. The net hadn’t even been laid for him; he was incidental, a problem not worth mentioning. All hope seemed lost. As the sea turned increasingly red with blood, and the black ships approached, the North’s forces dwindled.
And then they felt it.
It was a subtle shift in the tides, a slight alteration in the waves. The ocean, which had been churning fiercely during their battle, suddenly grew calm. Moreover, it became deathly still, as though the waves didn’t dare upset its crystal-clear surface.
An object appeared between the black ships that fired on the formation of cultivators with impunity. It was small and thin, and it rose slowly. But as it did, everything seemed to freeze around it. The weapons, which had just been loaded and were in the process of firing, slowed down to a crawl. Their runes refused to shift, and their operators, who wanted to look around in confusion, could only stare dimly at their weapons.
The small object broke through the still ocean, creating not a single wave in the process. It rose higher and higher until finally, a much larger object poked out. It looked square, like a large block of smooth concrete one expected to find in a city center. It rose from the ocean, revealing a large semitransparent clock, whose every tick took an eternity to hear.
The moment it pierced the ocean’s surface, the ships around it were forced out of the way by something akin to waves of water. But they weren’t waves; waves were not permitted around the clock, only stillness. But these fresh gushes of water pushed the boats outward like they were nothing more than children’s toys. Most flipped over to their sides, but many were completely overturned.
The clock’s large body rose from the ocean, its entire structure covered in blue-and-gold runes. It rose higher and higher until finally, a figure emerged with it. Gong Shuren, who’d been attuning to the Sea God Clock Tower, finally rose from the deep. Her eyes were blue, and her white hair had also turned a light shade of gold. It complemented the blue-gold runes on her skin that pulsed with the inviolable might of a sea god.
“Stop right this instant,” she said in a voice that carried throughout the battlefield. It was a soft voice, but everyone heard it. Northern, Southern, and Sea God forces alike suddenly stopped what they were doing. It wasn’t that they wanted to—murder flashed in their eyes as they sought to slay their enemies—but that they couldn’t do otherwise. Time had frozen for them, and the fact that their minds could even register her words was impressive enough.
“Who gave you the courage to violate our ancestors’ directives?” she said, turning to the Sea God Emperor.
The Sea God Emperor gulped as he stared at the Sea God Clock Tower. Then, to everyone’s surprise, he fought its suppression and bent down on one knee of his own accord.
“This lowly one greets the Sea God Emissary,” he said, his voice filled with reverence.
“These lowly ones greet the Sea God Emissary,” the prime minister and grand marshal said, kneeling then kowtowing. The time-freezing field left the remaining Sea God’s forces, and they too kowtowed in her direction.
“It seems you all have some sense left,” she said, looking at them dispassionately. “For all the mistakes you’ve made.”
“We have erred,” the Sea God Emperor said with his head still bowed. “Please instruct us on how to proceed.”
Gong Shuren, the new Sea God Emissary, looked to the two figures beside him like a god amongst mortals. “Speak. You have something you wish to say.”
The prime minister trembled, then spoke. “Everything I have done was for the benefit of the kingdom,” he said. “The South—it’s far more powerful than you could imagine. Only by allying ourselves with them could we survive. Now that you control the Sea God Clock Tower, however, things are different. How could we possibly fear them?”
He stood up with a zealous look and overlooked those frozen mid-battle. Cha Ming was one of the few
