The Time Eater's skeletal fingers flexed, and the very air around them thickened with temporal energy. The trees withered and regrew in rapid cycles, the ground beneath their feet aging centuries in seconds.
Zhou Xuan and his disciples stumbled back, their faces ashen. Even after a century of survival, facing this monster still terrified them to the core.
Yun Lintian, however, remained unmoved. He studied the Time Eater with detached interest.
"You've lived here for millennia," Yun Lintian observed. "Yet you still haven't found a way out."
The Time Eater's jaw creaked in what might have been a smile. "Why leave when this place provides endless... sustenance?" He gestured to the emaciated figures surrounding him—clearly former cultivators he'd corrupted.
Mei Ling gagged. "You... you turned them into your puppets!"
"They're happier this way," the Time Eater crooned. "No more fear. No more pain. Just... eternal service."
