I didn't even wait for the green gas lamp to fully stop flickering this time.
The second the vertigo faded and I was back in the freezing ankle-deep water, I slammed my hand onto the heavy iron gear-lock. Event Horizon. The metal shrieked, folded inward, and shattered. I kicked the oak door so hard it actually tore off its bottom hinge, hitting the flooded hallway with a loud splash.
"Let's get this over with," I muttered, my boots sloshing heavily as I sprinted out of the VIP box.
The metronome was already ticking. Tick... Tock... It felt like it was hammering directly against the inside of my skull. That creepy, distorted opera waltz was playing again, echoing through the peeling red velvet corridors. I hated this place. I hated the smell of ozone and rotting wood, and I really, really hated time magic.
I didn't even slow down for the first trap. I channeled my Cenotaph's power, inverted my gravity, and basically ran along the wall right past the sweeping red light of the mechanical gargoyle. I dropped back into the water on the other side just as the iron bolts fired uselessly into the floor behind me.
"You're getting faster," a smooth voice called out.
Raphael was waiting for me at the exact same spot on the balcony overlooking the submerged theater. He looked completely relaxed, his dark coat perfectly dry while the freezing seawater evaporated around his boots. He was playing with a small crimson flame between his fingers.
"I'm motivated," I snapped, brushing past him. "Where is he?"
"Eastern corridor," Raphael replied, falling into step beside me. For a guy who was supposedly just a hunter, he moved with terrifying grace. He wasn't even splashing the water. "If we follow the balcony around the main stage, we should be able to look down on his path before he reaches the pendulum traps."
We moved quickly. The clocktower groaned around us, the massive iron gears grinding in the walls as the dark ocean outside pushed against the stained-glass windows. The water level was already rising, creeping closer to my knees. We only had ten minutes before the whole place crushed us, assuming the King didn't get us killed first.
We rounded a curve in the balcony and stopped. Below us was a wide, flooded corridor leading toward a set of heavy iron gates. And marching right down the middle of it, making as much noise as humanly possible, was King Charles IV.
He was flanked by his two Royal Guards, who looked absolutely terrified. The water was up to their waists down there, but Charles didn't seem to care. His Tier 5 aura was flaring outward in a chaotic, messy wave, pushing the water away from his body like a cheap parlor trick.
"I AM THE EMPEROR!" Charles boomed, his voice echoing off the rotting walls. "OUT OF MY WAY, YOU MECHANICAL TRASH!"
I gritted my teeth. The absolute arrogance of this guy. He didn't even realize he was a rat in a maze. He thought he could just yell at the dimension until it gave him what he wanted.
"Look," Raphael whispered, pointing a perfectly manicured finger toward the ceiling just ahead of the King.
Hanging directly over the corridor was another brass gargoyle. Its red spotlight was sweeping back and forth across the black water. Charles was walking straight toward it, completely blind to the danger above him.
"Your Majesty, wait! The red light—!" one of the guards yelled, splashing forward to grab Charles's arm.
"Silence! I yield to nothing!" Charles roared, violently shoving the guard away. He took another step forward, his foot landing right on the edge of where the red beam was about to sweep.
"My turn," I whispered.
I didn't have my cane, so I couldn't cast my magic perfectly over long distances, but I didn't need to be perfect. I just needed to be heavy. I held my right hand out, aiming my palm directly at the brass gargoyle hanging thirty feet away.
King's Aura. I condensed a massive pocket of gravity right above the mechanical beast. The space distorted, rippling like heat off a highway, and then the invisible weight slammed down.
CRUNCH.
The brass gargoyle didn't even have time to unhinge its jaw. The gravity crushed it flat against the ceiling. The red light flickered and died instantly, and the sparking, flattened remains of the trap plummeted into the water with a loud splash, missing the King by inches.
Charles stopped. He looked at the crushed mechanical trap sinking into the dark water, and then he looked at his own hands.
A sickeningly smug smile spread across his face.
"You see?!" Charles laughed loudly, turning back to his terrified guards. "My very presence crushes the defenses of this pitiful dimension! The aura of a true Emperor cannot be stopped! Forward!"
Up on the balcony, I felt a physical pain in my chest. My constraint—the Sin of Pride—was actively warring against what I had just done. I had just used my power to make a fraud look like a god. The royal blue Ether in my veins felt hot and agitated, completely rejecting the idea of playing the secret servant.
"Breathe, Lucian," Raphael chuckled, clearly noticing my expression. He sounded like he was holding back a fit of laughter. "Don't pop a blood vessel. It's for the greater good."
"I am going to enjoy watching you kill him," I muttered, shaking my head and moving along the balcony to keep pace with them.
"Oh, you have no idea," Raphael purred.
We followed them from the shadows above. It was the most frustrating escort mission of my life. A minute later, Charles reached the pendulum room. Massive, razor-sharp blades were swinging back and forth across a narrow stone bridge, perfectly timed to the haunting waltz music.
Charles didn't even pause. He just started walking across the bridge.
"Raphael," I hissed. I couldn't use gravity to stop five swinging blades at once without crushing the bridge too.
"I have it," Raphael said casually. He didn't even raise his hand. He just looked at the massive iron hinges holding the pendulums to the ceiling.
A split second before the first blade was about to slice the King in half, the iron hinges completely melted. There was no fire, no explosion. The metal simply turned to glowing orange liquid. The giant blades detached and splashed harmlessly into the deep water below the bridge.
Charles paused on the bridge, looking at the melted hinges.
"Even the iron melts before my absolute heat!" Charles boasted, striking a heroic pose. "The dimension fears me!"
I actually had to cover my face with my hand. It was physically painful to watch. The guards just looked confused, but they were too scared of him to argue, so they just hurried across the bridge behind him.
"We are getting close," Raphael noted, completely ignoring the King's delusion. "The central gate is just ahead. I can see the other lever rooms from here."
He was right. At the end of the King's corridor was a massive, circular antechamber. Five heavy iron doors lined the walls, each marked with a Roman numeral from I to V. In the center of the room was a giant, intricate gear-gate that led to a grand staircase going up.
"Alright," I said, my boots squelching on the damp marble as we stopped above the antechamber. "The King and his guards will probably take rooms three, four, and five. You take two. I'll sprint back to room one. We wait for the idiot to yell something dramatic, and then we all pull the levers."
"A solid plan," Raphael smiled, turning to look at me. The green gaslight caught his crimson eyes, making them look demonic for just a fraction of a second. "Hurry back to your room, Gravity User. The metronome is getting fast. We only have about two minutes left before the water crushes this entire tower."
I didn't waste time arguing. I turned around and sprinted back the way we came, using inverted gravity to glide over the flooded floorboards. My pride was bruised, my boots were soaked, and my head was pounding.
But as the heavy ticking of the metronome echoed around me, I knew one thing for sure. Once that central gate opened and we cleared this puzzle... the real violence was finally going to start.