The battlefield was quiet now, almost unnervingly so. Snow melted into rivers, ice receded from the trees, and the air smelled faintly of ozone where Guguro's flames lingered. Summons moved again, stretching their limbs, shaking off the residual frost like animals waking from a nightmare.
Rocky allowed himself a breath—but before he could even release it fully, the air around them warped.
Not with wind.
Not with pressure.
Time itself bent.
The sun paused mid-sky. Birds hung frozen, wings outstretched in mid-flight. The Guardian Wolf blinked, and for a single, dizzying moment, Rocky realized that he was frozen too. But inside him—somewhere deep in his aura—movement still ticked. His system flared.
WARNING: TEMPORAL DISTORTION DETECTED
SOURCE: UNKNOWN CONCEPT
The world split open with a soundless vibration. Shadows stretched long, then folded in on themselves. Seconds stretched into minutes, and minutes collapsed into fractions of a heartbeat.
A figure stepped through the temporal storm.
He was tall, impossibly thin, and wrapped in a cloak that shimmered like the midnight sky. Every step he took bent light around him, every breath rippled the air like clock hands striking simultaneously. He didn't move so much as exist—and where he existed, time obeyed him.
"Rocky the Summoner," he said, his voice echoing in every direction at once, yet coming from nowhere. "I am Arcus. I am the Concept of Time. And I have come to test whether your kind can stand against inevitability itself."
Sylvia tightened her grip on her sword. Even Risha and Guguro paused, sensing a force unlike anything they had faced. Even Yura's frost bent unnaturally around this man, freezing, thawing, and freezing again in an endless cycle.
Rocky's summons tensed, instincts screaming. Slimes shifted faster than light, elementals hovered with tense anticipation, and the Guardian Wolf's fur bristled—but all of them felt the impossible weight of every moment stacked into one.
"Concept of Time?" Rocky muttered under his breath. "Then… this is why the Seven exist."
Arcus raised a hand, and the battlefield responded instantly. Every motion halted except for him. Even Rocky's own aura slowed, flickering in stutters as if it were a flawed projection. The Frost Cutter, Yura, felt a tug on his very essence, forcing him to relive centuries of frozen solitude all at once.
"Time is impartial," Arcus continued. "It cares not for love, for war, for mercy. It flows, and all that stands against it crumbles."
Rocky's eyes glimmered. "I don't fight against time. I fight to protect motion. To let life move, even when it hurts."
Arcus's eyes widened, the first hint of surprise crossing his timeless features. Then a slow, almost imperceptible smile formed.
"Very well, Summoner," he said. "Let us see if your motion can withstand the endless weight of moments. Let us see if your summons—the creatures you call family—can survive when time itself becomes your enemy."
With a subtle gesture, Arcus flicked his fingers, and reality stuttered.
The Guardian Wolf lunged—and froze mid-air, teeth inches from a shadowy wraith.
Slimes rippled forward—and crystallized in motionless shapes, their form half-stretched across past and future.
Risha's claws tore through the frozen air—and the wind bent, refusing to carry her strike.
Only Rocky's aura moved freely, copying, adapting, bending, as it always did.
But the system warned relentlessly:
WARNING: CONCEPTUAL OVERRIDE DETECTED
TEMPORAL INTERFERENCE: EXTREME
SUMMON LINKS AT RISK
Arcus laughed, a sound that existed both now and a hundred years from now, a sound that made Sylvia stumble in place.
"You survive so far, Summoner," he said. "But survival is not mastery. Time tests everything. Even gods fall. Even the strongest armies dissolve to dust when moments pile infinitely."
Rocky clenched his fists. His gaze swept across his frozen summons. Yura, Guguro, even Happy—each of them stopped mid-action, waiting for a signal.
"I don't need to master time," Rocky said, voice low but unwavering. "I need to protect what matters within it. That's enough."
Arcus's smile deepened. He raised both hands now, and the world shivered, caught between moving forward and being stuck forever.
And in that frozen instant, the hunt for the Seven Katana Terrorists became something far greater.
It was no longer just a test of strength.
It was a battle against existence itself.
The seconds cracked.
And the clash began.