Chapter 4: The Gear-Pupil

The moment the clock tower's gears engaged with the thirteenth lunar phase,the golden light in Lila's eyes had already spread to her hair tips.The diving ravens turned into a pile of bronze parts the instant they touched her fingertips,clattering down onto the pendulum.The clockwork gears in my left eye began to rotate in reverse,and the pocket watch chain,at some point,had wrapped around our wrists.

"Hold on tight!"I wrapped my arm around Lila's waist and leaped off the clock tower.The moment the night wind filled our robes,the seventeen mechanical ravens exploded into brilliant fireworks behind us.As gear fragments grazed my cheek,I caught the scent of cedar ink unique to my father's study—these killing machines were made from the parchment of the family's account books.

Lila suddenly began to cough violently in my arms,and the blood droplets seeping through her fingers coalesced into tiny clocks.When the blood droplets hit the tip of the sword on the plaza's statue,the entire Starlight Kingdom suddenly resounded with a deafening gear roar.The stone slabs where we landed flipped open to reveal a secret passage inscribed with shadow runes.

"Mother's handwriting..."Lila traced the fluorescent etchings on the damp stone wall,and where her fingers passed,the mildew faded to reveal the emerald family motto.It was then that I realized the so-called secret passage was nothing but a replica of the underground altar of the Black ancestral home.

The foul wind from the underground river lifted Lila's skirt,and she suddenly pressed the Holy Spirit Flower into my bleeding palm.The moment the petals touched my skin,memories pierced my temples like poisoned arrows—

I was ten years old,cowering in the corner of the altar,watching my father inject a needle full of green liquid into Lila's neck.My mother's white dress bloomed with blood under the moonlight,and the mouth movement she made before dying was not"run away,"but"the key is in the gear."

From the end of the underground river came the sound of iron chains breaking,and through the rift between reality and memory,corpses entwined with aquatic plants were crawling out of the altar.They wore the copper nameplates of the Black family's servants around their necks,and raven feathers were inserted into their hollow eye sockets.

"Back off!"I snapped the pocket watch chain and threw it into the air,and the light and dark elements along the gilded chain links exploded into a blazing fire net.The foremost corpse suddenly spoke,emitting Roger's sneer:"My dear brother,do you think reincarnation can change..."

Lila's wand pierced the corpse's throat faster than my light blade.Black blood splashed onto the altar's inscription,etching out the latter half of the prayer we had never seen before:"When the dual-moon gears overlap,the Godslayer shall drink the blood of time."

The underground river suddenly boiled like lava,and countless bronze arms burst out of the water.I recognized the family rings on those mechanical fingers—the thirteen elders who had"died accidentally"three months ago were now surrounding us in a half-human,half-mechanical form.

"Do not look into their eyes!"I spun around to shield Lila under my cloak,but I heard her gasp.The hourglass of time in the center of the altar had somehow flipped over,and what flowed out was not sand,but blood mixed with gears.

The mechanical elders'chests popped open compartments,shooting out gear darts coated with dragon's tongue poison.I caught the first three that came flying,and the burning sensation in my palm was identical to the poison outbreak in my previous life.Lila suddenly bit her fingertip and drew a blood rune on the back of my hand,and the spinning gear darts actually turned around and pierced the energy core of the attacker.

"Brother's blood..."She licked the blood from the corner of her mouth,her pupils completely turning into rotating golden gears,"is guiding the flow of time."

The altar dome collapsed with a roar,and the moonlight mixed with the blood of the underground river formed a vortex.As seventeen dark figures swooped down on bronze giant eagles,I finally saw the crest on the leader's mask—the raven pierced by a gear was exactly the same shape as the blood curse Lila had coughed up.

"Mr.Godslayer,"the masked man's voice was like the friction of rusty gears,"the Council invites you to a feast of time."The mechanical wings spread out behind him were embedded with the emerald brooch that my mother had lost.

I crushed the memory core extracted from the mechanical elder,and the image refracted by the crystal chip made Lila scream in horror:Mother on the hospital bed was being injected with some kind of fluorescent green liquid,and the bulging movement on her swollen belly was in the shape of gears.

The blood waves of the underground river suddenly rose ten meters high,turning into countless bronze chains that wrapped around our ankles.The masked man shot the brooch from his hand,and the emerald light illuminated the bottom of the altar—inside the transparent coffin lay my mother's body,her chest cavity transformed into a clockwork structure.

"No!"Lila's wand burst out a black-gold beam,and the gear in my left eye flew out of its socket uncontrollably.As the gear embedded itself into the coffin's keyhole,the entire underground space began to tremble violently.My mother's eyelashes suddenly fluttered,and her mechanized right hand was slowly raising,with fingertips condensing the same light and dark dual elements as mine.