Click.
The sound hit like God snapping His fingers—lazy, oily, rust-flavored.
When the final drop of deep-purple mercury sank into the third axis, the grating dry-metal whine died. The entire celestial orrery stopped sounding like a dying asthmatic and started breathing like a lunatic who could run forty kilometers without breaking stride.
"Ready, alchemist!"
Isabella knelt on the freezing marble, long wrench jammed against a verdigris-crusted catch. Sweat glued stray hair to her face, but her gray eyes burned bright enough to hurt.
"Three, two, one… turn!"
Elian gritted his teeth and threw everything into it. The bracer mainspring sang taut.
Next second, the silver machine that stood for cosmic order began its first full-speed狂转 since the curse.
No "divine rhythm" the Church loved to chant about. Not a shred of holiness. To them it was torque, velocity, angles meshing perfectly. Brass gears ground hot; the air warped; the dim star chart bloomed dark red, like a branding iron fresh from the fire.
"There," Isabella whispered, voice shaking like she'd found pirate gold.
At the orrery's heart, a lead-sealed brass compartment slid open.
No philosopher's stone. No oracle. Just a sheet of near-transparent vellum, pinned beneath a cylinder carved with endless numbers.
Elian reached. The instant his fingertips grazed it, sharp paralysis exploded up his arm—like a thousand needles at once.
"Don't touch it bare!" Too late.
The black ink bled away under moonlight, replaced by flowing fluorescent trails, like a swarm of glowing insects. Not Latin. Not Greek. A riot of leaping equations weaving themselves midair into a shrinking, spinning geometric solid.
"This is…" Elian froze. The air stank of post-thunder ozone, thick enough to gag on.
"The parameters of the world." Isabella's notebook flew open; her pen nearly tore the page. "The aether didn't vanish. It's cooling—freezing from wild magic into something eternal, ice-cold, mathematical."
Too fucking romantic.
In the roar of machinery, in a night strangled by religion, a clockmaker's son and a duke's daughter were peeking at the script God left behind when He walked offstage.
BOOM—!
Romance shredded.
The corridor door exploded inward. Splinters and scorched sulfur everywhere. A dozen Ember Knights in black cloaks stormed through, crimson crosses blazing like fresh burns.
Behind them, a tall figure stepped slowly into the line where firelight met moonlight.
Inquisitor Malak.
Slender rapier hung at his side, tip scraping stone, throwing sparks like a promise. Hood hid most of his face; only a bloodless jaw showed, lips curved in something almost tender.
"Such a touching seminar." His voice was soft, yet it drilled into your spine like ice picks. "My lady, your father's chosen fiancé waits in the banquet hall, while you… keep company with a slum-stinking heretic, dismantling God's clock?"
"This isn't a clock." Isabella rose. Her voice shook, but her stare was a nail. "It's truth. And truth belongs to no one."
Malak gave a low laugh. The rapier quivered; dark-red runes lit along the blade. The air turned furnace-hot, like a red-hot plate shoved against your face.
"Truth belongs to whoever's still breathing at dawn." His left hand rose—the execution signal.
Elian stepped in front of Isabella, fingers closing on the orange vial at his belt. Undiluted fire-oil essence. Enough to turn the corridor into a crematorium.
"Looks like geometry class ends early." He threw her a look, wildness blazing in his eyes. "Miss, what are the odds we make that jump to the opposite roof?"
Isabella gripped the vellum like it was life itself. Her mouth curved into the same mad grin.
"Given your weight, wind direction, current height… assuming you're not scared of heights—eighty-two percent."
"Enough." Elian popped the stopper. Crimson liquid surged, hissing with tiny bubbles. "The remaining eighteen percent—"
He paused, baring teeth in a grin.
Isabella finished it, voice low and vicious:
"—we leave to alchemy."