Aaron attacked as soon as he went through the portal.

Qi Martial Arts: Frontal Attack!

Mortal martial arts usually separated their techniques into categories. Fist techniques, footwork, sword mastery, and so on. Aaron's martial arts were for his own usage, thus he had categorized it in the way he found most useful for himself. Each technique was a perfect set with great flexibility that he could adapt to different situations.

His frontal attack improved his five senses, imbued Qi into his entire body to make him faster and stronger, and contained movements for attacking, defending, and preventing the enemy from escaping. Its variations ranged from fighting barehanded while wearing normal clothes to using long-range weapons while wearing heavy armor with little maneuverability.

Aaron's opening move was throwing four darts at the Mouth-Man and drawing his sword and dagger. He moved toward the carnifex, trying to close the fifteen feet between them as quickly as possible.

The Mouth-Man could only affect time in a region by using relatively big bubbles. That was the enemy's major weakness, which Aaron would exploit to achieve victory. After he got close enough, the Mouth-Man would be unable to stop Aaron in time without also stopping himself, thus forcing them into a fight.

Aaron felt Time Energy leave the Mouth-Man an instant before he was frozen in time. He had no way whatsoever to prevent that.

The fight now rested on his clan members doing what he had told them to do.

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The Patriarch attacked. The Mouth-Man easily dodged the darts, stopped Aaron in time, then looked at Alys.

The world changed.

It started moving slower. The whole world did. The Soul Machinist, Tia, and Lana were moving at a snail's pace.

Or rather, she was moving too fast, thus perceiving the world as too slow.

Alys' spatial blades were trapping the Mouth-Man together with the Patriarch, and the spell required a constant supply of energy to stay in place. The Mouth-Man couldn't just freeze her in time to stop the supply. If he did it, her spells would also be frozen in time, effectively strengthening them and making it even harder for the carnifex to escape.

The solution to that was making time move faster for her in an attempt to make her spend all her energy quickly.

That's how she found herself in an invisible time bubble that did just that. She felt like her energy expenditure was the same as before, but outside the bubble, Arcane Energy was flowing much faster into the spatial blades. Her spells were much more powerful because of the excess energy.

If she hadn't been warned about what to expect, her reaction would have been to decrease the energy she was streaming into the blades. That way, the spells would receive only the energy they needed, rendering the temporal acceleration useless.

However, the Patriarch had warned her against it. The Mouth-Man might notice her actions and change time inside her bubble to be slowed down instead of sped up. That, paired with her previous decrease of streamed energy, would make the spells lack fuel and become frail, easy to destroy.

Fortunately, the way to make the time bubble useless was the simplest possible. She just had to leave the bubble.

According to the Patriarch, Four Star Entropomancers were incapable of moving their time bubbles around after they set them up. That would force the Mouth-Man to spend more Time Energy to erect new bubbles while Alys kept leaving them

Alys would be the one forcing the carnifex to spend his energy, and she loved the feeling of giving him a taste of his own medicine.

She walked to the side to get out and suddenly felt dizzy, almost falling on the floor. It took a few seconds for her to understand that as soon as she emerged from the bubble, the Mouth-Man set up a new one where she stood. The successive change in the time flow confused her mind, causing vertigo.

Alys had to take a few deep breaths before moving to leave again. This time, just as she was coming out of the bubble, the Mouth-Man repeatedly modified the time flow. She did fall on the ground this time.

Still, she got up, steadied her heart, and moved again!

Theoretically, Space Energy and Time Energy were equally costly. However, Space Energy was easier to feel and understand than Time Energy, and therefore easier to manipulate. That made Time Energy impossible to use on small scales at lower levels. Large-scale spells were usually more expensive than small-scale spells, which made Time Energy effectively more costly than Space Energy.

The constant change of time speed inside the time bubbles and the creation of new bubbles were quickly depleting the Mouth-Man's Time Energy. He was losing energy at least as fast as Alys was losing Space Energy, despite the periods she spent in accelerated time!

The fifth time Alys was about to leave the bubble, the Mouth-Man changed time inside so many times she had to force the vomit back down her throat.

The sixth time she was about to leave, she noticed her spatial blades were almost fading! Her lack of concentration was almost freeing the Mouth-Man!

Her Space Energy had already fallen by two-thirds. She wanted to take more out of him, but her priority was to keep the blades active, so she had to stop.

It was time to put the second part of the plan into motion. She looked at Lana and nodded.

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Lana couldn't see the time bubbles, all she saw was Alys moving too fast or too slow and tripping randomly on her own foot.

It didn't last more than a minute, but the amount of Time Energy being used was so great that even she, who had almost no energy sensitivity at all, felt it in the air. The Patriarch's plan was working!

After making a vomit motion, Alys finally turned to Lana and nodded.

Lana did not think twice and murmured, "The Light illuminates my paths of justice. Shine in splendor—"

Before she could finish her chant, the Mouth-Man froze her in time.

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Tia saw everything happening and knew of Aaron's plan. She hadn't been included in it, nor did she want to save him, but she knew that if Aaron died, Alys and Lana would be next. Their relationship had turned a weird turn after the two joined the Ironblood clan, but she didn't wish for their death.

She would try to help, even if just out of spite for Aaron's mercilessness. And if the Mouth-Man or the Soul Machinist tried to kill her, she would run away.

She took a black crystal from her spatial ring and held it in her hand. Then, she also took her bow and a quiver from it. The quiver appeared already at her waist and the bow on the hand not holding the crystal. She took an arrow with the hand that held the crystal, nocked it to the bowstring, and pulled.

By keeping the crystal in hand, she felt safe enough to get away in time even if the Mouth-Man somehow broke free and appeared beside her brandishing the ax! She just needed to break the crystal, something simple for a One Star Qi Manipulator, and she would be instantly teleported away.

She took a deep breath and shot the arrow...

...and it hit something invisible midway to the Mouth-Man.

It fell harmless on the ground, causing no visible damage to whatever it had struck. Her natural reaction would be to give up on her attacks, for she was against a mighty Four Star Entropomancer. However, she had heard Aaron's briefing for his battle. She knew the Mouth-Man was trying to preserve energy by not freezing her in time, and that he couldn't move whatever skill he had used to stop her arrow.

So she just changed position and nocked another arrow in the bow, to make the Mouth-Man pay dearly to defend himself.

She was frozen in time.

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The Mouth Man was playing with the Sorceress, trying to force her to make a mistake.

The little rat was good, but not perfect. She was almost losing control over her spatial blades when she stopped trying to leave the bubble and focused on keeping the spell stable instead. Then she nodded to the Priestess.

The girl tried to chant a spell against him. Defending against it would be too costly. He just froze her in time before she finished her chant.

Following that, the redhead seemed intent on raining arrows at him from different directions, and he froze her too.

When the last person in the group froze, he found himself in a difficult situation. Keeping three people frozen and one in accelerated time in different bubbles wasn't a long-term solution. In a few moments, he would find himself out of Time Energy.

He looked at the Soul Machinist and pleaded, "Help me!"

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The Mouth-Man's plea made the Soul Machinist widen his eyes in amazement.

Entropomancers had a high status in the world for good reason. It was common knowledge that the only way to win against Entropomancers was by using a trap made either of Time or Mind Energy of a higher level than them. Only then could the trap go past their innate defenses and deal with them.

But four people, only one of them at the Four Star level, had forced a Four Star Entropomancer to beg for help to survive!

And in less than two minutes!

The Soul Machinist himself had no confidence in defeating the Mouth-Man. He now understood why the king would rather lose such a powerful pawn than offend the Herald of Light even more.

Well, to be honest, he cared little for the herald himself, who had gotten himself frozen in time like an idiot, but the Four Star Sorceress was a fearsome, a clearly experienced fighter who knew what she was doing. She was on the herald's side though, so the Soul Machinist had to appease the herald.

Anyway, his curiosity had been sated. He didn't need to see anything more than that. He especially didn't want to imagine how far he could fare against the Sorceress, no matter how many golems he had in the room with him.

His response to the Mouth-Man's request for help wasn't what the beast wanted to hear.

"The king orders you to give your life to the Herald of Life right now!"

"No!" shouted the Mouth-Man in despair, but he could only obey.

The mind control forced the beast to remove the temporal freeze on the Herald of Light, who continued his advance with an arrogant smile, as if he hadn't just been saved by his woman.

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All Aaron saw was that in one moment he had been approaching the Mouth-Man right after throwing his darts, and in the next instant, his darts had disappeared from the air. Another change was that the Mouth-Man's mouth was visible, and he was screaming "No."

Out of the corner of his eye, he noticed Lana and Tia frozen in time, and Alys inside another time bubble.

He had expected Tia to act; she had a fire inside her, that one. He even admired it up to the point it was eclipsed by her naivety. He hadn't expected the Mouth-Man to have so much Time Energy remaining in his beast core though.

Aaron estimated the carnifex to still have enough Time Energy to keep Aaron and the others contained for at least twenty more seconds. Instead, he had made himself vulnerable by unfreezing Aaron and was screaming in fury and despair. The conclusion was obvious: he had been ordered to surrender and couldn't go against the order. He was a slave under the king's mind-control.

Aaron didn't forgive his attackers just because they were being mind-controlled though. That would be too easy a way out, a loophole for his enemies to exploit and keep attacking him ceaselessly. Even mind-controlled beings could sacrifice their lives to refuse an order if they wanted. However, the Mouth-Man had preferred to attack Aaron rather than killing itself.

If the best valued its life more than his, he would do the same to it!

If you're willing to attempt to kill someone to save yourself, it was only fair if you were killed in return!

Besides, the Mouth-Man was a carnifex, and while carnifexes could change, Aaron doubted he was being forced to kill against his wishes. The mind-control likely served merely to send the beast at a target and let him do what he enjoyed. He hadn't been going against his will when it tried to kill Aaron!

Therefore, today, the Mouth-Man would die.

Aaron kept advancing as he had been before he was frozen in time. But suddenly, the Time Energy inside the Mouth-Man's core went through a qualitative change, and a wall of Time Energy appeared in front of Aaron.

The Mouth-Man had just leveled up and broken free from the king's mind-control.

That wouldn't be enough. Aaron struck the five weak points he felt in the time wall, and it shattered like glass. He kept approaching the carnifex.

"No!" shouted the Mouth-Man again, desperate. "Hells, no!"

Aaron had to admit that the Mouth-Man was a genius. Beasts received instinctual knowledge on how to use their energy after leveling up, but that usually took some time, days at best. The carnifex had developed a new skill, the time wall, mere instants after leveling up.

Hopefully, that would be the extent of his ingenuity.

Aaron continued with his offensive. He reached his target. His sword cut through the air, aiming for the Mouth-Man's neck in a perfect, deadly line.

He was too fast, there was nothing the Mouth-Man could do. Even if he froze Aaron in time again with the last of his remaining energy, it would only delay his death for a few seconds!

Or at least, that would be the outcome if Aaron had been facing any other beast.

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As the blade approached, the Mouth-Man suddenly understood something so basic he felt ashamed for not having understood it before.

He controlled the Time inside him! Why not use it to make himself, and only himself, faster? He didn't need any time bubbles!

He was a Five Star Entropomancer!

He could do it!

He would do it!

He squeezed all his potential, used all his understanding over Time, compressed it all into a tiny seed of hope that bloomed into a wonderful new skill.

Fifth Grade Time Skill: Personal Acceleration!

His head moved too fast to the side. The stupid human was nowhere near fast enough to correct the weapon's path in time.

The sword missed.

The Mouth-Man smiled widely and took his ax from his innate storage skill.