The skill was a skin-tight cocoon. It stopped only Aaron in time and didn't affect his surroundings at all. It was powerful enough to almost overwhelm his Five Star Qi and freeze his mind in time despite his defenses.

Back in the caves, he hadn't been able to use his Tree Star Qi to counter even a mere Four Star Entropomancer's time-freezing skill. Even now, if it wasn't for the elemental tempering of his Qi on each level up — first Earth, then Wood, and this last time, Water — he wouldn't be able to do it either. Earth made his Qi harder to push against, Wood made it affect living beings more easily, him included, and Water made it flow better.

Those choices had been deliberate. He had focused on defense as he leveled up exactly because he understood that too many things could go wrong in a fight. He had to be prepared to survive the unexpected.

Usually, that preparation allowed him to take a lot of unforeseen damage and live to tell the tale. This time, it had allowed him to not have his mind frozen by a powerful surprise attack.

It took him a couple of minutes to find a weakness that was exploitable by low-level Arcane Energy, which was proof of that skill's outstanding quality. When he found it, he didn't immediately escape but waited for his captor to appear instead.

He could feel Alys was still standing on the fifth floor of the tower, which meant everything was alright in there. However, if he went to the "bunker floor" and forced the incoming fight to take place there, he might endanger the women.

Qi Manipulators had the high ground in a place like the sixth floor, where external energy couldn't be used, because the Physical Horizon Formation didn't take energy from the body. However, Five Star Entropomancers or stronger could also use internal skills to increase their speed, making them powerful foes.

The Time Energy holding Aaron was at the Champion level. Though he believed he would be a bit faster than a Champion Entropomancer if he used his absolute limit skill, it had a one-minute time limit. He wasn't sure for how long a Champion Entropomancer could keep themselves at top speed, but if it were even a few seconds more than a minute and Aaron failed to kill them within that time limit, fighting on the sixth floor would put his clanswomen in danger.

Moreover, allowing himself to stay frozen for now, thus pretending to be at his captor's mercy, might allow him to sneak attack them.

So, he waited for the mysterious new enemy on the outside.

The enemies — there were three of them — showed up not long after. They moved extremely fast as if they were in a movie being fast-forwarded. They were humanoids, technically beasts, of a kind he had seen before.

Mouth-Men.

All three of them were Champion Entropomancers wearing golden-trimmed white robes. By the speed they moved, taking no damage, Aaron could tell that their bodies were much more resistant and elastic than the last Mouth-Man he had fought. That one had injured himself by moving too fast.

Fortunately, they weren't interfering with Aaron's active perception like the human attackers had. Using it, he detected nothing that suggested their bodies were stronger than normal, merely more resistant. Not that they were weak — just swinging a sword much faster than normal would cause a lot more damage. Still, it was good to know they didn't have synergy between strength and speed going for them.

As soon as they appeared, Aaron felt Alys flee to the top floor. A wise woman, that one.

"You caught an interesting rat," one of them said while facing Aaron. The time cocoon around Aaron also stopped sound from going through, but he heard them thanks to his active perception. "To think that the responsible for saturation of Arcane Energy in the area would be the murderer that should be dead. As usual, the Thenor Empire has failed us."

Keeping his active perception going all the time came with a few risks, one of which was letting anyone with a good energy sense know there was a Three Star Arcanist around. He didn't much care though because the benefits outweighed the risks.

For instance, this time, the technique had turned him into a target, yes. It seemed they had even frozen him with no prior knowledge of who they were attacking. However, because it allowed him to listen to their conversation, it also just gave him knowledge. He now knew that the Mouth-Men wanted him dead — probably for killing one of them — and that the Thenor Empire made a deal with them. That information was much more important than his current inconvenient situation.

"I found the king," another Mouth-Man said, but the opening of his hood was facing the tower instead. "His time trail leads there, but I can't see inside the first or sixth floors. They are protected by patterns that warp the flow of time in a strange way."

"Crush it," the first one said.

"What about the murderer?" the third one asked.

The first one kept silent for a few moments before replying. "The Cabal Leader ordered we dispose of him, but as Field Leader, I must overrule that order. He's too valuable to kill. Did you notice he's also protecting his mind from your time lock by using mere Five Star Qi? We'll take him with us instead. We can kill him after we learn all his secrets."

Meanwhile, the second Mouth-Man had created a huge time bubble around the entire tower and most of the surrounding clearing. Time started running faster inside it, making the severed heads in front of the tower decompose the equivalent of dozens of days within a couple of seconds. The Mouth-Man aimed to keep it like that until the tower crumbled from old age and lack of maintenance, likely the same as they had done to the palace.

But suddenly, the bubble popped, and the Mouth-Man who had created it fell to his knees.

"What happened?" the leader asked.

"The patterns!" the second one replied in fright. "They absorbed the Time Energy in the skill so quickly! I used more energy to keep it going, but it was all taken away too. My core is completely dry!"

He took a transparent crystal filled with Time Energy from a spatial treasure hidden by his robe. Once he touched it, he absorbed the energy at a quick rate, replenishing his dantian.

The leader thought for a few seconds, then said, "I'll accompany you inside, in case your skills also fail once there." They headed toward the tower. "Collar him and protect the area until we come back," he ordered the third guy.

"Yes, Field Leader," the third one replied, took a metallic black collar from his spatial treasure, and approached Aaron.

Aaron had seen that pinnacle mystic item before. It was a slave collar, a forbidden object in the Thenor Empire. It was brimming with Psychic Energy and would put the wearer under mind control.

It was useless against him and his ten-point willpower attribute, but he pretended to struggle against the cocoon — which they had named time lock — by running his Qi faster throughout his body.

The incoming Mouth-Man smiled sadistically when he noticed the struggle. Aaron, glad that his ruse had worked, waited for the Mouth-Man to get beside him, then attacked.

Arcane Energy left his dantian and hit the weak spots of the time lock, destroying it instantly. The rebound made the nearby Mouth-Man step back and wave his hands around dizzily as if trying to find something to hold on to support himself.

Aaron took advantage of it.

Qi Martial Arts: Thrust!

He used the same simple skill he had used against the fire elemental when he had been holding a tree branch. His blade moved in a straight, perfect line at the target's neck.

But while that Mouth-Man was stunned, the other two weren't. Well, the second one to speak didn't even realize something was wrong, the idiot that he was. The leader, however, immediately used another time lock on Aaron.

The skill came just like the one that had trapped Aaron before; it bypassed the spacetime continuum to appear around him out of nowhere, not giving him any chance to dodge. Fortunately, he had already analyzed that skill and it wouldn't work against him anymore. He had left a thin layer of Arcane Energy around his body, and it flared on the weak spots of the incoming time lock, destroying it before it completely formed around him.

The attempt didn't even slow him down. His sword entered the opening of the Mouth-Man's hood and went through his neck. Aaron followed the attack by swinging the sword to both sides, swiftly beheading the beast.

The second one finally realized something was wrong and turned to Aaron, who was already running at both Mouth-Men. Unfortunately, the leader erected a transparent time dome around them. Just as it had been with the time lock, Aaron couldn't immediately find an exploitable weakness in the dome and was forced to stop.

The Mouth-Men started discussing how to proceed. Aaron didn't pay them any attention, focusing instead on analyzing the dome in search of its vulnerabilities.

Soon, it became clear that though the dome was a good skill, it wasn't as good as the time lock. He found a way to break it in less than ten seconds, but the Mouth-Men were also done talking. The leader canceled the dome before Aaron could destroy it.

The second Mouth-Man immediately ran toward the tower. Aaron tried to run in his direction to stop him, but the leader interfered by setting up multiple time domes around Aaron.

So, Aaron tried to stop the Mouth-Man differently.

His active perception was still on, and it acted as a sort of area of influence, a dominion of sorts — another one of its benefits. There wasn't a lot of Arcane Energy in the air, but still enough that he condensed a sizeable chunk of it into an arcane blade right in front of the running Mouth-Man's neck.

The Mouth-Man was too quick though. He easily dodged it and kept going.

Meanwhile, Aaron had been physically assaulting the time domes. By the time he destroyed them all, the target had already reached the tower. Destroying those skills didn't even give him an advantage over the leader, as the opponent suffered no rebound from having his skills destroyed. It was a sign of strong willpower.

"Don't worry!" the leader yelled with his shrill voice. "My brother will take good care of your women!"

The taunt was useless. Aaron knew he couldn't be everywhere, that's why he had ordered the bunker built in the first place. Alys and Lana needed to overcome obstacles to grow, and their current situation was one of the most advantageous they would ever be in. He was confident they could deal with a single Mouth-Man. It wouldn't be easy, but it was doable.

Despite being immune to the provocation, Aaron showed anger and ran at the Mouth-Man. The beast laughed victorious, believing his pathetic ploy had worked, and ran away from Aaron.

While still running, the enemy tried to freeze Aaron's internal organs, but Aaron's Qi easily protected him.

Aaron counter-attacked with Arcane skills, but the Mouth-Man erected protective barriers around himself. Aaron's skills could destroy the barriers, but it took them a few instants to do so, and that allowed the Mouth-Man to keep fleeing.

Aaron had trouble approaching for that same reason. Even when he used his elusive steps technique, barriers kept getting in his way. That was his best movement skill, so he had no other choice but to use his absolute limit if he wanted to approach.

However, he didn't want to use it unless he was close enough to be sure of his victory. The weakness that overcame him after the minute was up would be lethal otherwise.

So, he needed to bait the Mouth-Man into approaching him instead, and he knew exactly how to do it.

By the Mouth-Man's insistence on running and his lack of skill variety, all of them using almost no Time Energy, he was clearly just stalling for time. He probably wanted to give his companion time to kill the people in the tower and was unwilling to take Aaron alone. Aaron wasn't worried about his people at all, but the beast didn't know that. He would use that.

When another attempt to approach failed and the leader put extra distance between Aaron and himself, Aaron turned tail and ran to the tower instead.

The Mouth-Man used additional barriers to hinder Aaron's progress, but they didn't completely stop the former immortal. Unless he engaged Aaron personally, it would be just a matter of time until the human reached the tower.

Well, that, or he could use a different skill, and that's what he did.

"So you realized I was stalling," the Mouth-Man said right before changing his tactic. "I suppose even humans can be smart sometimes. Not that it matters."

Enormous amounts of Time Energy left his dantian and became a skill that stopped time for almost a quarter of the capital, Aaron included.

Not only was Aaron frozen, but the Arcane Energy outside him also was. If even his Five Star Qi had trouble resisting the Mouth-Men's time skills while inside his body — and thus supported by his soul's innate defenses — what chance did his Three Star Arcane Energy have of resisting?

Satisfied that Aaron had been immobilized again, the Mouth-Man took a new slave collar from his spatial artifact and approached cautiously. When he was close, he focused extra hard on Aaron's reactions while placing the collar around his neck.

Slowly but surely, he succeeded. The collar locked in place.

Aaron barely even felt when it attempted to control his mind, so easy that it was to resist. The collar was prepared for it and attempted to weaken his resolve by releasing a painful shock. Aaron used his Qi to resist that too.

Seeing that the collar didn't work, the Mouth-Man finally decided he had had enough.

"You are just like an annoying bug that refuses to enter a jar," he said angrily. "But if I can't have you, it's time for you to die!"

He took two axes from his spatial artifact. They were enchanted for extra resistance, likely to resist the impact when they were used at extreme speeds.

He swung both at Aaron's belly.