Free Web NovelChapter 231: The Victor Timely Anomaly
The golden light of the interface pulsed, shedding a warm, ethereal glow over the dark velvet of the four-poster bed.
Orion waited, his heart hammering a steady, anticipating rhythm against his ribs. The first two Tier 3 rewards had fundamentally altered his tactical capabilities. The Lord’s Ambition granted him unparalleled psychological dominance; the Reflection Clone gave him omnipresence.
"What is the third, Sparkle?" Orion pressed, leaning closer to the screen.
"The third one’s triggering was... a bit different," Sparkle began, her digital voice losing its usual buoyant tone, replaced by a serious, almost clinical cadence. "It wasn’t awarded for a specific, localized action like securing a medal or manipulating a politician. It is the cumulative result of you essentially carpet-bombing the entire canon timeline."
A new notification box materialized, its borders jagged and crackling with a strange, silvery energy instead of the usual gold.
[ ACHIEVEMENT UNLOCKED! ]
Tier: 3 (Ultimate)
Name: TVA Alert: Branch Growing Exponentially
Description: You broke the script. Major Enemies are now out of Azkaban and going to create lots of actions that were never meant to be. The butterfly effect is no longer a flutter; it is a hurricane. Now, very few things will happen within the established timeline’s framework. You have forced a massive divergence, and you must now navigate a path that you can no longer predict with 100% accuracy.
Reward: Time (Active Skill).
Orion stared at the single word of the reward. Time.
"The System recognizes that you have removed your primary advantage: absolute foreknowledge," Sparkle explained, the waveform spiking sharply. "You will need to be alert. More importantly, you will need to be able to act fast when the unpredictable inevitably occurs. So, the System has pushed this reward to assist you in managing the resulting chaos. Sometimes, a strategist just needs a moment to think."
"Time," Orion repeated, his voice barely a whisper. "Explain the parameters. Is it a Time-Turner effect? Reversal?"
"No. That creates paradoxes," Sparkle corrected. "This is a localized temporal halt. When activated, you are able to stop time completely for a maximum duration of two minutes."
Orion’s breath caught in his throat. "I can freeze time."
"Yes," Sparkle confirmed. "The cooldown ratio is 1:30. For every one minute of frozen time utilized, you incur a thirty-minute cooldown period. The maximum allowable pause is two consecutive minutes, which requires a full hour of cooldown before the skill can be activated again."
She projected a small, shifting clock face onto the screen.
"Within the time stop, the physical laws of your immediate vicinity adapt to you. You will be able to breathe naturally—the air molecules around you will not be frozen solid. You can move, observe, and interact with objects without any detrimental physical effects on your own body. However, interacting with frozen matter requires significant kinetic force, as you are essentially fighting absolute inertia."
Orion listened, his mind struggling to process the sheer, god-like magnitude of the ability.
He could freeze reality.
A slow, incredulous smile began to spread across his face, eventually breaking into a quiet, breathless laugh.
"Wait," Orion chuckled, running a hand through his hair, the absolute absurdity of his arsenal finally hitting him. "Time. I have power over time itself. I can pause the world."
"Two minutes isn’t an eternity," Sparkle cautioned, though she sounded quite pleased with herself. "And the cooldown means you can’t just spam it in a prolonged fight."
"Two minutes is an eternity in a duel, Sparkle," Orion countered, his eyes blazing with indigo fire. "Two minutes is enough time to walk across a room, disarm an opponent, tie their shoelaces together, and pour a potion down their throat. While the cooldown can be a strategic issue, two minutes will be more than enough to finish off whatever immediate crisis I find myself in."
He looked around the enclosed space of his bed. He needed to test it. He needed to feel it.
He reached under the nearest pillow, his fingers brushing against soft, warm fur. He grabbed Robin by the scruff of the neck and pulled the disgruntled Niffler out.
"Hey! Was sleeping on shiny!" Robin squeaked indignantly.
"Sorry, Robin. For science," Orion murmured.
He tossed the Niffler lightly into the air. Robin tumbled upward, a small, black ball of fur and confusion.
As the Niffler reached the apex of the toss, Orion raised his right hand and snapped his fingers.
The snap was entirely unnecessary—the skill activated via mental command—but Orion did it anyway, simply because the sheer, theatrical flex of it felt appropriate for the moment.
The world stopped. frёewebnoѵēl.com
There was no sound. The faint, rhythmic air movement around the room vanished instantly.
Orion took stock of his surroundings. He took a breath. The air tasted slightly stale, heavy, but he could draw it into his lungs without resistance. He moved his arm; there was a slight, viscous drag against his movements, like moving his hand through water, but it was easily manageable.
He looked up.
Robin the Niffler was literally floating in mid-air, suspended perfectly in space about two feet above the mattress. The creature’s limbs were splayed out, its beady black eyes wide open and frozen in an expression of comical, mid-tumble bewilderment.
"Fascinating," Orion whispered. His voice didn’t echo; the sound waves died inches from his mouth, unable to travel through the frozen air.
He reached out, his hand cutting through the temporal stasis, and grabbed the floating Niffler. The creature felt completely rigid, like a furry statue. He carefully pulled Robin out of the air and placed him gently on the surface of the bed.
He mentally calculated how much time must have passed. He had stopped time for roughly forty-five seconds.
Orion raised his hand again and snapped his fingers, releasing the hold on reality.
The world crashed back into motion. The sound of the wind returned.
Robin, whose brain was still processing the trajectory of falling, suddenly found himself planted firmly on the duvet. The Niffler stumbled forward, looking wildly around the bed.
"Huh?" Robin chirped, shaking his head. "Where shiny go?"
With a frustrated squeak, the Niffler immediately dove back under the pillow, deciding the physics of the outside world were entirely too stressful.
Orion sat back against his headboard, analyzing the rush of power.
He had stopped time for nearly a minute. Which meant he needed to wait roughly thirty minutes before he could trigger the ability again. The physical sensation was strange—the slight drag on his movements, the deadening of sound—but the tactical advantage was absolute.
He looked at his hands, the power of Time resting beneath his fingertips.
"This," Orion said softly, a dark, thrilled smirk curving his lips, "just made everything so much easier."
He lay back, closing his eyes.
"I can now conquer Za Warudo."
