I PICKED UP A CHILD IN A DUMPSTER

Chapter 183 183: TIME!? SLOWED?! WHAT!??

"And I always mean it," Si Hon said, and started walking toward the fight.

He stood there for a second, looking at his own hands, and then at the dragon, and then back at his hands.

And… the thing is… the dragon was large. His hands were normal sized human hands with no weapon in them and no particular plan attached to them. He turned this information over for a moment.

"ಠ_ಠ… Wait." he said quietly. "I don't even have a weapon. What am I gonna do. Punch it to death?"

A laugh came from behind him.

Not a polite one. Jisoo was laughing aggressively, shoulders moving, the specific quality of someone who had been waiting for this exact realization to arrive and was deeply satisfied that it finally had.

"Acting all cool just now," she said, still laughing.

"Whahahahah. Dipshit." She walked past him while still laughing under her breath, then smacked the back of his head on the way by with zero warning. "Go think of something useful. I'll show you something cool."

"Why do you keep hitting me."

"Builds character."

"That doesn't even mean anything."

Si Hon stood there and watched her go.

Toward the fight.

The wind caught the edge of her uniform jacket as she stepped across broken concrete and scattered debris without hesitation, expression flattening little by little the closer she got to the dragon. The joking disappeared first. Then the amusement. Then even the casualness left her posture entirely.

And for the first time since Si Hon met her—

Jisoo Park looked serious.

The dragon swept one massive wing across the rooftop hard enough to crack the surface beneath it, forcing Aeloria and two others backward while Seong's threads snapped away from the pressure wave before they could tangle around the scales.

Aeloria raised both hands immediately.

Ice erupted upward in overlapping formations— spears, chains, frozen arcs of condensed mana— all of it aimed toward the dragon's neck while freezing mist exploded across the rooftop in white clouds.

The dragon moved faster.

Its head twisted sideways.

Its wings flexed.

Everything Aeloria created shattered apart before impact from the heat rolling off its scales.

Then Jisoo lifted one hand.

And pointed.

Nothing exploded.

No giant beam. No dramatic magic circle. No glowing runes spreading across the sky. No EXXAGERATED etc etc.

Reality just…

Stopped moving.

The dragon froze mid motion.

Not completely still. Not truly frozen. But slowed in a way that made the world around it feel wrong, like something had grabbed hold of time itself and forced it into thick heavy syrup.

The creature's wing remained suspended halfway through movement while dust and shattered debris drifted lazily around its scales, each fragment hanging in the air just a little too long before falling. Even the heat rolling off its body seemed delayed somehow, the distortion around it bending unnaturally as reality struggled to decide whether the dragon was still moving or not.

The rooftop went silent for exactly one second.

Aeloria blinked.

Seong stared.

Even the dragon's roar distorted strangely, stretched unnaturally long as if the sound itself was struggling to move forward.

Jisoo's voice cut through the rooftop calmly.

"Move NOW."

Aeloria reacted instantly.

Ice formations exploded upward again, but this time they didn't melt. They didn't shatter apart before impact. The slowed heat around the dragon couldn't update fast enough to erase them.

For the first time—

The attacks landed precisely.

CRACK.

A massive spear of ice punched directly between two scale plates near the dragon's shoulder, sending frozen fractures racing outward while the creature's slowed body struggled to react.

Seong moved next.

Threads shot outward from both her hands, wrapping around broken rooftop railings and exposed steel beams before pulling her forward in a sharp burst of speed. She landed directly against the dragon's partially slowed neck—

Then paused.

Her eyes widened slightly.

"It's not hot?"

Even she sounded confused.

Usually the heat rolling off the dragon was enough to melt skin from bone at close range, but now it felt dulled. Delayed. Like the temperature itself hadn't caught up yet.

SEONG!" Aeloria shouted.

Seong reacted immediately, planting both feet against the dragon's scales while her threads wrapped around Aeloria's waist.

Then she launched her.

Aeloria shot upward above the dragon's head in a burst of tension and momentum while freezing wind spiraled violently around both her arms.

The mana gathering around her this time was different from before— denser, sharper, compressed hard enough that frost spread visibly through the air itself.

Then—

She released it.

A colossal spike of ice slammed downward directly into the back of the dragon's neck.

BOOOOOOM.

The impact shook the entire rooftop.

Frozen fractures exploded outward across black scales while the dragon's body jerked violently for the first time since the battle started, a deep distorted roar ripping from its throat as chunks of shattered ice and scale rained across the rooftop.

Si Hon stood near the rooftop entrance watching all of it happen. "ಠ⁠_⁠ಠ..." he muttered softly. "Haha... of course she's overpowered."

"And wow..." His eyes stayed on Jisoo. "Actually seeing it... Temporal Lock really is beautiful."

Jisoo stood near the center of the rooftop with one arm still extended toward the dragon, fingers slightly curled now from the strain. Thin veins of silver light flickered briefly around her wrist before disappearing again beneath her skin.

Si Hon narrowed his eyes slightly.

(In the comic her ability could only catch a fraction of something,) he thought, watching frost continue spreading across the dragon's locked scales. (A corner of a movement. A half second of time. Why is she this strong? Is it the loops? Did 'four thousand eight hundred twenty one' repetitions of the same day do something to her power that the…) He paused. (Didn't the comic ends at eight hundred loop?)

He looked at Jisoo.

Watched her hold both hands steady, the slight tension in her shoulders the only indication that maintaining Temporal Lock on something the size of a building was costing her anything at all.

Then jisoo glanced sideway.

Directly at him.

And smirked.