The Invincible Full-Moon System

Chapter 2000: Meeting the Warden

Rex frowned.

He was quite sure about the System’s description, as it had never been wrong.

To pass through the translucent green barrier, one needed the power of time, which was solely exclusive to the Demigods who served the Weaver of Time. Overwhelming it with raw divinity was another way, but that required a depth of divine power Rex simply didn’t possess.

Nowhere near it.

Naturally, the sisters also didn’t have it.

Regardless of this strange phenomenon, it was a good thing for them.

Rex checked the place beyond for any trap with the System, and found nothing.

Just a normal, spacious chamber with a staircase leading to the top.

”Perhaps it’s because of the soul I devoured,” Lilliana said—as she poked her head inside, scanning the spacious chamber for anything that stood out. She only found about a dozen floating lanterns and eight pillars at the heart of the chamber that were positioned in a circular formation.

And within that circular formation, there was a staircase that spiralled up.

Presumably all the way to the top.

Rex was sure that the translucent barrier didn’t crumble because of the soul that she devoured.

Even if that soul contained the power of time, the barrier wouldn’t crumble.

Just that Lilliana would be the only one who could enter through the tower.

”It seemed safe enough,” Lilliana stated once she finished checking.

”It is safe,” Rex nodded and walked past her. ”Come on, let’s check whether there’s anyone inside.”

Though Rex said that, he could already tell that there was someone inside the tower. Not from scanning it with the System—that would’ve been too dangerous to do. But from the pressure of a strong presence that was coming from the very top.

Something his sixth sense had seized upon before his mind could confirm it.

Huh... People in the Mortal Realm would kill to be in this place.

Rex shook his head and walked toward the center.

Footsteps echoed through the vast chamber—bouncing from wall to wall before returning to them. As they neared the giant staircase, they stopped and looked up. A spiraling ascent greeted them—wreathed in a greenish, luminous fog.

Its architecture was sleek and impossibly clean, more modern than most buildings in Larta City.

Such a sight created this sacred and untouchable ambience.

And the long one stared at the top, the more it felt like time was taken away from them.

At the very top, Rex saw railings forged from the same pristine material as the obelisk, which made him even more certain that there was a room up there. One that would be where the guardian of this obelisk would spend its time.

Rex gave a short nod and started up the spiralling stairs.

Even though he had already said that the place was harmless, Davina and Lilliana were still alert.

Recalling the creatures from earlier and the glass prisms, it wasn’t surprising that they did.

From below, the obelisk’s summit seemed to sit somewhere around the two-hundredth floor—a staircase that seemed to climb past the sky. And yet, as they ascended at a steady medium pace, it felt far longer than any estimate.

Like they had been walking for hours, and still hadn’t arrived yet.

But Rex wasn’t worried.

He had been keeping his eyes on the time and made sure that they weren’t wasting time.

Only fifteen minutes passed despite feeling like it had been hours.

Rex was the first one to arrive at the top floor, and his head turned to look around the place, finding that the entire top floor was repurposed into some sort of working station. There were bookshelves filled to the brim with books and a few that were on the tables, but the writings here were fading.

Like an ancient book that had not been preserved for thousands of years.

Even so, Rex knew that it wasn’t the case.

At a glance, the writing seemed perfectly—and flawlessly legible. But the moment he really focused on the words, the ink smeared into indecipherable blurs. It no longer looked like script at all. Just shapeless marks on the page.

Some unknown power was guarding the contents of these books.

Or perhaps only those with the power of time could read them.

More floating lanterns decorated the airspace of the top floor.

On the far side of the chamber stood a massive hourglass, its lower chamber nearly a quarter full.

Across the staircase, there was a big circular window with an intricate steel network that outlined the center like a web. Right in front of it, there was a long hardwood desk with more books and papers laid on top, and surrounded by three glistening emerald rings of varying sizes that moved slowly—following their own designated paths.

”Is that the Warden?” Davina asked, pointing to the right side.

Rex turned to where she was pointing and noticed a man who was tidying up the bookshelves.

He was slightly hunched and was draped in an elegant, almost ethereal white robe outlined with emerald trims. On his wrists, there was a circular energy ring with unknown writings—or numbers that contained so much energy that looking at them hurt the eyes.

From his grey hair and beard, he should be an old man. Someone possibly older than time.

Resting on his hip is an emerald lance that pulsates with the same energy as the rings around his wrists.

Sensing their presence—the Warden set a few more books into place before his hand closed around the emerald lance to his side. A tool forged with condensed energy. He turned slowly—using the lance as a cane and fixed his gaze on the three unfamiliar figures.

People who aren’t from this realm.

But the moment he turned, Rex and the others recoiled almost instantly.

Not because his face was surprising, but because there was a vertical eye on his forehead.

Its eyeball was completely green, and within it lay something vast that none could really explain.

And the most disturbing part, this third eye moved independently.

”I have not received a visitor in more years than you can imagine. The solitude is vast—a quiet stretch beyond lonely. But that does not mean I appreciate company. Not many are welcomed here.” He set the emerald lance before him and rested both hands upon its pommel. ”Who are you? And what brings you to the Weaver’s dominion?”

”Searching for someone,” Rex answered and took a step forward. ”Are you a Warden?”

Silence stretched between them.

A frown crept to Rex’s face as he waited for this old man to answer, but he didn’t.

Instead, he kept staring.

”Let me ask you again,” the Warden repeated. ”Who are you? And what brings you here?”

Rex and Davina blinked their eyes rapidly when suddenly, the Warden disappeared from where he was.

No movement. Not turning invisible. No ripple of teleportation.

One heartbeat he stood across from them, and the next, the space he had occupied was empty.

But when they heard the words, the two snapped their heads to the side—realizing that the Warden was already right beside them. He was standing right in front of Lilliana, to be exact, staring into her pearly eyes with a demand for answers.

How did he...? Time skip? I can’t react to him at all.

Rex blinked his eyes again and only now realized that the Warden was asking Lilliana, not him.

I’m the one who answered him, and yet he’s ignoring me?

Considering that he had been the one to answer the Warden’s questions, it should be more than obvious that he was the leader of this group. He was the one who had planned their entry into the Sundial Arch, not Lilliana.

And yet, the Warden’s attention had passed over him entirely and fixed on her alone.

”You’re asking me?” Lilliana pointed at herself.

She was also as confused as Rex and Davina.

No matter where one looked at the group, it was obvious that Rex was the leader, not her.

”Am I looking at anyone else?” the Warden asked back.

”I’m the one who brought us here,” Rex intervened. ”And I can answer your que—”

”You’re noisy.”

Swish—!

Nonchalantly, the Warden flicked his hand. The space around Rex shattered with a sound like breaking glass, and before he could even draw breath to react—the ground beneath him was gone. He plummeted into a desolate void.

It was endless, silent, and stained with a magical greenish hue.

Rex gritted his teeth and stared upward at the breaking space.

A clean-cut wound in reality that was shrinking fast. Through the collapsing rift, he saw Davina’s head lean over the edge, her face pale—and her voice was a distant yell that barely reached him. ”Rex!” Her hand stretched toward him, but the gap was already a chasm. ”Rex!!”

At her second calling, someone grabbed her shoulder and pulled her out.

It was done right as the rift sealed with a sound like grinding glass.

A notification flickered across his vision.

Rex read the notification and pivoted in the air.

He saw the stone ground rush up to meet him, but he was ready, landing hard on his feet. The impact spread web-like cracks beneath his feet. Once the dust settled, he straightened and looked around—only to see high walls of grey stone that rose on all sides.

Each stretched into an endless maze that twisted and branched with no visible logic.

Above, the sky was not a sky.

It was the void from earlier, black and depthless, and tinged with a magical green hue.

Rex inhaled and felt the air was still. Dead. He couldn’t breathe.

His jaw tightened at the confusion about the reasoning behind the Warden’s relentless focus on Lilliana. He hadn’t understood why, but now the pieces clicked into place. The translucent barrier that should’ve held them back had crumbled on its own.

Not broken. Just crumbled.

As it turns out, the Warden opened it for Lilliana, and the others with her were simply obstacles.

Dead weight.

Rex clicked his tongue in displeasure, ”So be it, you cursed old man.”

Swish—!

Something embedded in the back of his right hand stirred. He tapped into it, and the response from it was almost immediate and overwhelming. Deep blue, spectacular and blinding energy burst from the back of his right hand and raced up his arm in a torrent.

It sheathed his limb in writhing azure light, power far greater than anything Rex could generate.

Energy that hummed with a frequency that made the labyrinth walls tremble.

Rex elongated his fingernails into claws, and focused the deep blue energy on them.

And then he raked the space before him.

Crack—!

Instantly, the air screamed. The dimensional fabric of the Temporal Labyrinth realm split open entirely like parchment, five glowing blue lines carved across the face of reality. The energy then spread rapidly like wildfire.

It explosively raced outward from the wound in a cataclysmic wave.

It crawled up the walls, across the void-sky, and into every branch and corridor and dead end.

Rex watched as the labyrinth drowned in it—every inch of its existence saturated with that searing light.

And then, it shattered.

Before his very eyes, the Temporal Labyrinth broke apart into a thousand shards of fractured space.

Each one spun away into the green void like mirrors struck by a hammer. The stone floor beneath Rex’s feet dissolved. The walls collapsed. The entire realm came undone in a single, violent convulsion, and an invisible hand seized him and wrenched him upward.

Like the space around him itself was vomiting him out.

Rex landed exactly where he had been standing before the rift took him. Standing on the same top floor of the Obelisk of Arching Time. He rose to his feet without hurry, rolled his shoulders once, and patted the dust from his chest and shoulders.

Beside him, the others stared at him in surprise.

And the Warden, for the first time, finally met his eyes directly.

”That’s not nice...”