As the final syllable fell, she slowly raised her hand.
Her fingertip gently pointed forward.
Buzz—
A strange vibration, capable of shaking the very soul, radiated from her fingertip, instantly sweeping across the entire space.
Beside her, a Desert Thistle, long withered and charred black by the encroaching Abyss Power, its uppermost withered twig visibly shed its char, briefly regaining a faint, long-lost hint of green.
In the very next moment, it completely disintegrated into ash—as if having experienced a fleeting, imperceptible cycle of life and death, a fleeting samsara.
Alice, standing closest to the source, felt her lively, bouncing strand of hair momentarily stutter as it brushed against her cheek, like a skipping frame in an old film projector.
The frantically swirling points of light on Barbeloth's Astrolabe momentarily reversed their illogical trajectories.
Even the Abyss Rift itself—its edges writhing with a terrifying, lifelike hunger—briefly stilled, as if encased in invisible amber.
"Act now!"
Barbeloth's icy voice signaled the attack.
The Astrolabe in her hands erupted with an unprecedented brilliance, transforming into billions of Starlight Chains, pure strands woven from celestial Hydro energy.
These chains, woven directly from flowing stellar orbits and Laws runes, pulsed with the gravitational force of countless stars and the supple, binding essence of the Hydro Element.
The billions of Starlight Chains emitted a melodious, resounding hum, ignoring spatial barriers as they precisely coiled around the darkness at the fissure's edge—briefly slowed by Witch N's Power of Time.
Rather than brute force, the chains moved like living tendrils, infiltrating the Abyss Power's corrosive pathways and slipping through the chaotic spatial coordinates' seams, "seeping" deep within.
Like mercury seeping into the ground, they left no gap unpenetrated.
"My turn! Watch this!"
Alice thrust her hands wide, her ten fingers dancing with dizzying speed, tracing scorching crimson Alchemical Matrixes in the air.
Before her, space was no longer an unyielding backdrop but rather like pliable clay, violently stretched, folded, and twisted by her will and magic!
Countless semi-transparent crimson threads, composed of pure spatial energy, materialized from thin air.
These threads formed dizzyingly complex topological structures, bearing Alice's unmistakable style—wild, bizarre, and brimming with explosive tension.
Sizzle—!
The ear-piercing sound of forcibly sutured space echoed incessantly.
Wherever the crimson threads passed, the churning darkness was forcibly "stitched" back into the fabric of reality.
This seal wasn't so much stabilizing space as it was setting layer upon layer of extremely dangerous, hair-trigger spatial bomb traps over the Abyss's wounds, using violent "chaos" to forcibly suppress the Abyss's own "chaos."
At the heart of it all—the Abyss rift core, forcibly constrained, compressed by threefold power, yet still instinctively struggling with frenzied energy—
Witch N remained perfectly still.
Her extended hand remained suspended, but her slender fingers began to slowly, very slowly, curl inward.
As Witch N's fingers curled inward, a "Law" beyond mortal comprehension—one capable of freezing souls—was forcibly invoked.
Starting from the "ice crystal" pattern first traced by her fingertips, a layer of bizarre "ice," visible to the naked eye and seemingly formed from absolute zero-degree condensed time, began to spread slowly but inexorably across the compressed Abyss Rift.
Where the ice covered, the tearing hum of space vanished completely. Barbeloth's Starlight Chains froze mid-flow, their radiant glow solidifying, while Alice's wildly dancing Spatial Threads stiffened mid-air.
Even the churning darkness at the rift's edge froze in a snarling, roaring pose, as if sealed within a colossal, transparent block of Shippo.
Absolute silence descended.
Only the slow, deliberate movement of Witch N's closing fingers remained as the sole motion in this utterly frozen world.
"Eternal Stillness Ice Coffin."
The ice completely engulfed the last vestige of struggling darkness.
Simultaneously, every rune on Barbeloth's billions of Starlight Chains blazed to their maximum intensity.
Alice's countless Spatial Threads snapped taut, and the nested Alchemical Matrices erupted in blinding crimson light, forming layers of violent spatial folds that pressed inward, sealing everything shut!
Witch N's ice layers thickened instantaneously, entombing the Sealing Core and the last vestiges of the Abyss's "vitality" in an eternal "now"!
The blinding light illuminated the entire desert before instantly retracting and vanishing.
In its place, the Abyss Rift that had devoured all and defied even the Gods had vanished without a trace.
Instead, a peculiar obelisk stood, forged from the perfect fusion of three primordial forces.
The obelisk radiated a paradoxical aura: heavy, stable, yet seething with latent explosive power, suppressing the completely sealed rift beneath.
Deathly silence descended.
Only the desert's scorching winds resumed their mournful howl, swirling fine sand that lashed against the obelisk's frigid base.
Barbatos, Morax, Rukkhadevata, and the others stared, transfixed, at the Sealing Obelisk—a monument to the convergence of three supreme Laws, radiating an oppressive, godlike pressure.
-
"All done!" Alice exclaimed, clapping her hands together with pure, radiant triumph.
Now she could report to Klee that she had given the Abyss a thorough thrashing. Little Klee would be overjoyed!
She even pulled out another shimmering candy from who-knows-where, casually peeled off the wrapper, and crunched it down with a satisfying crack. The rich, fruity aroma once again filled the air, utterly out of place.
"Hmm! That's much better! Though the colors could still be a bit more vibrant... Next time, I'll try adding a rainbow balloon?"
Barbeloth's Astrolabe, its radiant glow completely extinguished, reverted to its physical form—an ancient instrument crafted from unknown metals and gems.
She lowered her head slightly, the shadow cast by her hood deepening as if she were making a final check of the seal's stability.
After a moment, she nodded almost imperceptibly. Her figure began to fade, like a reflection in water dissolving into ripples. Countless tiny starlight particles streamed from her body, silently merging into the surrounding space and vanishing without a trace.
Without a farewell, just as she had arrived.
Alice, accustomed to this, merely shrugged and turned to Witch N. "Hey, N, wanna head back and have a tea party? I just got my hands on a batch of Void Pop Berries—they say the flavor's so intense, it'll send your tongue soaring through the Star Sea!"
Witch N remained motionless, her long, gray-white robes hanging perfectly still in the hot wind.
Just as Alice was about to give up on getting a response, Witch N's head tilted imperceptibly, just a fraction of a degree.
A voice echoed once more.
This time, it was no longer the emotionless pronouncement of a wound.
Now, the strange voice, layered with countless temporal echoes, carried for the first time a clear note of... icy, inhuman... warning.
"They... have seen."
The moment the words faded, Witch N's figure vanished without a trace, as if erased from the spot by a giant rubber.
-
Within the System Space, Jiang Mumu had been watching everything unfold, never once looking away.
The two great Laws of Time and Space... Tsk tsk, are the Hexenzirkel truly this powerful?
No, they shouldn't possess such capabilities. Could it be that the "others" who rarely intervene have finally taken action?
Istaroth, the Ruler of Time, and Asmoday, the Ruler of Space...
For some reason, Jiang Mumu couldn't help but think of a certain emergency food item with an insatiable appetite.
This time, the Ruler of Death didn't directly intervene, but Jiang Mumu could sense her presence, watching from the shadows. She noticed that Ronova seemed to be affected when Witch N used the Law of Time.
Could it be that after I glared at Ronova last time, she went to complain to the others?
In the desert, Alice's radiant smile froze mid-laugh, as if someone had pressed the pause button on her face. The cloyingly sweet taste of the melting candy on her tongue seemed to solidify, leaving only a sudden, jarring coldness.
"...Ha?" she blurted out, a short, bewildered syllable tinged with an almost imperceptible tension.