When Tepid Scholar heard Black Chain's reply, he knew that the Dao Lord of the Four Directions Sect was about to deny what he did. But instead of getting angry, Tepid Scholar began to laugh. "Hahaha!"
As he laughed, he said, "Well done. I should have known. But I still fell for it. You successfully fooled me. You're really impressive."
Meanwhile, Loki was moving backwards. This started after he set the end point for the time loop and activated the Time Loop Metac.
After the second anchor was set up in the river of time, the power of the Time Loop Metac sent him back to the first anchor. So he was immobile in space. All of his motion was in time.
His consciousness was jumping from one version of himself to the other. The direction of the travel was into the past. So it looked as if he was moving backwards through space.
As time unwound around him, scenes of everything that had just happened flashed past him. Everything was happening in reverse.
