She is not an investigator.

"what…"

Isabella couldn't help but curl the corners of her mouth, looking at the numbers that had stopped increasing and were even starting to slowly recede, revealing a somewhat strange smile.

"I thought... she couldn't do it."

……

clang--

Igris plunged her straight sword into the gears of the giant clock, causing the constantly ticking hands to come to a standstill and malfunction.

She hung in mid-air, gripping the straight sword tightly in her hand, her body swaying back and forth.

She had nowhere to put her footing, and her arm was in excruciating pain, as if it were being torn apart. If she let go, she would most likely fall hard.

But she still gripped the straight sword tightly, desperately trying to pry open the gear with all her might.

Boom!

A dull thud resounded, and the giant humanoid clock tower, which had been standing upright on the ground, slumped over and lost power.

Its time was cut off by Igris's blade, and its entire body crashed heavily to the ground. Igris, in turn, released the blade in her hand and rolled towards the street that was crashing towards her.

As its massive body collapsed, the clocks in its bell tower, driven by countless gears, were completely destroyed, with many gears even falling out and landing on the muddy ground.

Igris's body also sank into the mud, the powerful force causing her to roll countless times before finally crashing heavily into a nearby building and barely coming to a stop.

She coughed lightly, spitting out the muddy water mixed with blood from her mouth, and struggled to sit up. She ran quickly toward the now silent clock tower to retrieve her weapon.

But she only took two steps when a muffled thunderclap suddenly rang out in the air, and a pure white crack that looked even a little sharp appeared in front of Igris, blocking her way.

The clockmaker's body slowly emerged from the crack. He still had that old and kind look. Seeing Igris's disheveled appearance, soaked in mud and water, he slowly crawled out of the crack as well.

Igris then realized that his body was no longer his own, and his former appearance was beginning to break down and become incomplete.

His body was connected by a strange white substance that glowed, but it was not clearly visible; one could only see its pure white light and its supple, dancing motion.

His head and body are separated, with three distinct faces hanging on it, symbolizing childhood, adulthood, and old age respectively.

His childhood face was full of smiles, but the white substance swallowed up part of that face, making it look empty.

His middle-aged face was covered in blood, smeared with a scarlet color, and he was unsmiling, exuding a sense of crisis.

His aged face was covered with cracks, which made him look kind and gentle, but from within the cracks, countless strange and twisted black tentacles spread out.

He hovered in front of Igris like a giant worm, three completely different faces opened their mouths, and strange calls mixed with three different voices appeared in Igris's mind, constantly pounding on her almost disordered mind.

Gradually, everything before Igris' eyes began to change.

The muddy ground turned into a pool of blood mixed with countless blood and severed limbs, the surrounding buildings became huge bricks made of strange flesh and blood, and the clockmaker's figure changed from that strange insect into a pure black, unseen, and indescribable bizarre creature.

It twisted its body, moving irregularly, spreading its body while shrinking it.

Within that pure black body, specks of starlight appeared in Igris's eyes, drawing her to continue gazing.

It's like the stars at night, a reflection of the universe, or a special astronomical telescope that can see the surface of every planet.

It makes one yearn for those distant, elusive, and ancient knowledge.

The Gods' Fool - The Rainstorm: Chapter 54, Did You Return the Raven?

Her consciousness gradually faded, and her reason became a complete blur.

She could see her soul soaring through the Milky Way, drifting among the boundless stars, drawn by gravity, thrown out, aimlessly approaching the abyss further away.

But the next moment, a sharp pain shot through her body, instantly reviving her scattered mind and making her extremely excited.

She regained sensation in her limbs, and everything before her eyes returned to normal, but she was unaware that she had been enveloped by that indescribable white substance.

Crimson blood burst open on Igris's chest, staining her clothes and the spike piercing her body.

Igris began to struggle and resist, but the clockmaker, who was no longer human, spoke up again with great interest.

"As a human being, the fact that you've managed to hold on until now is truly beyond my expectations... but this is probably the end for you."

Three different voices intertwined, mocking Igris.

Her life would slowly ebb away with the loss of blood, and in the essence of that life, the strange, pure white substance that clung to Igris was constantly draining away the little time she had left.

The cracks began to spread again, and torrential rain surged down like a tidal wave, trying to crush everything in its path.

Tick.

The watch ticked again, and the watch in Igris's pocket began to reverse once more.

It is trying to reclaim the time that was taken from Igris, and is doing its best to maintain the stability and tranquility of this spacetime.

But it is ultimately just a watch.

Flames suddenly erupted from Igris's body, scorching her wounds and healing her injuries, but due to the erosion caused by time, her body began to decay visibly.

Slowly, the flames on her body went out, and the strange, pure white substance instantly shook off Igris, who was almost completely exhausted, and slammed her heavily to the ground. Then it picked up her pocket watch that had fallen to the ground.

The moment those substances touched the pocket watch, a strange surge began to spread through time and rippled into the distance.

But the watchmaker seemed unconcerned. He simply picked up the pocket watch, held it up, and came to Igris, slowly bending down.

"You did let me get this watch after all, but unfortunately... I no longer need it... And if I destroy it now, you will no longer be able to stop me from opening the rift in time, nor will you be able to stop the rainstorm from being born."

He brought his aged face close to Igris's and chuckled softly.

“I gave you a chance to stop me, but you didn’t seem to seize that opportunity, so I’m sorry, you couldn’t convince me, and you couldn’t fight for your future to the very end.”

boom!

A gunshot suddenly rang out, and a strange bullet with blue patterns carved on it grazed his cheek, even freezing his movements in place.

With a hoarse voice, Igris used all her strength to stubbornly hold up the pistol in her hand, firing the few remaining bullets in the chamber.

There wasn't much she could do at this point, but she also knew that her limit was probably just this far.

In fact, the moment she chose to fight was already ridiculous enough.

Igris is a human being, a genuine human being, with the mind, thoughts, knowledge, and everything she loves and hates as an ordinary person.

She would be willing to explore the world more comprehensively, to seek it out, and to have the highest expectations for it.

This is the only commendable quality she possessed as a human being.

But what about her opponents?

Her adversary was the clockmaker, who glimpsed the ultimate end of time, understood truths that were difficult for humans to comprehend, and even abandoned his own human consciousness and body, transforming into a real being who was physiologically a dimension higher than Igris.

All the flaws and weaknesses were, from the very beginning, a gift given to Igris by the other party—an opportunity for her to save everything.

In this choice, Igris's task is simple: to prove to him that what he is doing is wrong, incorrect, unfortunate for development and for humanity itself, and an atrocity that stifles all human hope.

But she couldn't do it, because she couldn't get the other person to believe her, or to believe everyone.

Despair? Not quite.

Perhaps, from the very beginning, Igris never had any hope of winning.

With her? Are you kidding me?

But when it all actually happened, Igris couldn't help but feel a pang of bitterness welling up inside her.

But then, the downpour came.

It soaked Igris's body, soaked the pistol she gripped tightly, soaked the watchmaker's strange figure, and soaked the pocket watch she held that still hadn't stopped spinning.

As the rain obscured the view, the surrounding scenery began to become blurry.

Slowly, she heard something.

That was the sound of bells, the ancient and historical chimes of the clock tower in Molkens.

The muddy road beneath them had been paved with stone slabs, and the clock tower in the distance, which should have collapsed, still stood majestically.

The familiar surroundings even made Igris feel disoriented for a moment, until—

The bells rang again.

The rain suddenly stopped.

At this moment, the pocket watch in the watchmaker's hand emitted a broken and mournful cry, but its hour hand began to reverse at an alarmingly rapid pace.

The torrential rain hung suspended in the air, and everything around seemed exceptionally quiet.

Slowly, a ray of sunlight shone down, filtering through the clouds and falling on the raindrops suspended in mid-air, making them sparkle.

The watchmaker suddenly crushed the pocket watch in his hand, the mechanical parts flying off, and the broken, creaking sound finally stopped.

But the ticking of the second hand never stopped.

Even though the pocket watch was completely broken, its power was still in effect.

That's its true purpose.

That's why Nyarlathotep told Igris that her time was running out.

A pocket watch can stop a downpour, but the downpour will eventually come down again.

And this period of time... was probably her last chance to say goodbye to this world.

"trap?"

The watchmaker's voice drifted from afar, and he looked toward the utterly powerless Igris.

Even so... you still seem powerless.

"..."

Igris didn't speak, but simply raised her pistol again.

The next moment, accompanied by the sound of gears turning, a blue bullet flew straight towards the watchmaker's body, but he didn't care at all, casually wriggling that strange white substance to block the bullet.

But at the very moment of impact—

A petal burst open from the bullet, followed by countless petals fluttering down, obscuring the watchmaker's view.

As Igris watched the red petals fall from the sky, before she could even process when her pistol had unlocked this function, a shadow silently approached her and gently lifted her from the ground.

"Honestly... I never expected you to come back, but welcome home."

Looking at that familiar face with a hint of smugness, Igris remained silent for a moment before asking in a low voice.

"Did you return the crow...?"