Novel Full Chapter 1770: Pendulum
Chapter 1770: Pendulum
Villain Ch 1770. Pendulum
Bella didn’t stop running as she leapt over the downed automaton and casually dropped a fireball into its open chest cavity. The detonation was quick, contained, and left nothing but twitching gears and the faint smell of burning cloth.
Two more came from the side hall, swinging jagged arm-blades.
Alice hit the first with a Shadow Bind, the inky tendrils pulling it back against the wall while
Jane’s undead tore into it, wrenching its head clean off in a spray of sparks.
The second lunged for Shea, but the siren vaulted back, feathers flashing as she loosed a volley of blade-feathers into its joints. It froze mid-lunge, joints locking, before collapsing with a hollow clang.
“Three down,” Allen called, his voice calm even as he sliced the last one in his path cleanly in half. “Two left.”
Zoe didn’t even answer—she was already on them, tentacles slamming the first into the floor so hard its torso crumpled inward like a crushed can.
The last puppet froze for a moment, tilting its head as if calculating the odds, before Allen was simply there—stepping into its space, blade cutting through its spine in one smooth, surgical motion.
It dropped, body spasming before falling still.
For a moment, there was only the sound of their own breathing.
Then—
From the twitching head of the last one—
Static.
A voice, distorted, crawling up through the broken speaker hidden behind its jaw.
“…You move like a player, Emperor.”
Allen’s eyes narrowed.
“…You are a player. But who are you…? Let’s continue the test.”
The voice dissolved into a garbled, metallic laugh before cutting out entirely.
“That’s not creepy at all,” Bella muttered.
Allen’s grip tightened on his sword. “They know what I am. That’s… inconvenient.”
“They know what I am too,” Larissa said softly, her smile faint but sharp.
“Doesn’t mean they’ll live long enough to tell anyone,” Kafra hissed in displeasure.
They moved on.
The next chamber was wider—at least twenty meters across—but warped. Allen could feel it in the way the geometry tilted, the floor sinking unevenly in places as though the room was folding in on itself.
The light came from nowhere and everywhere, casting long, impossible shadows that stretched and shrank at will.
And in the center, the first pendulum swung.
A massive blade, curved and gleaming, its edge stained with something dark. It hung from a thick chain above and swung in a lazy arc across the walkway ahead, cutting a deep groove into the metal floor with each pass.
Beyond it, more.
A dozen pendulums of different sizes, all swinging in chaotic patterns. Some fast, some slow. Some in sync, others deliberately mismatched. A few had hooks instead of blades. One had serrated gears spinning along the edge, spraying flecks of oil as it moved.
“They’re not automated randomly,” Alice said, narrowing her eyes. “They’re reacting to us.”
“They’re reacting to movement,” Shea corrected. Her gaze flicked to Allen. “So how do you want to play it?”
Allen stepped forward, eyes scanning the arcs and rhythms. “We split. Fastest through first. Break their sync before they adjust.”
“Or we just break them,” Bella said, her hands already glowing with fire.
“Try it,” Allen said.
Bella grinned and hurled a fireball at the nearest pendulum. The explosion rattled the chain, rocking it violently—but the blade didn’t break. Instead, it hissed, venting steam, and the speed of its arc doubled.
“…Okay,” Bella admitted. “I like it less now.”
Allen’s smile was faint. “Then we adapt.”
Vivian went first, whip lashing out to hook a chain mid-swing, yanking herself across as the blade swept just behind her. She landed in a crouch, hair swaying, and blew a kiss over her shoulder. “One.”
Shea took to the air, wings tight against her back to make herself a smaller target, weaving between three pendulums before landing beside Vivian. “Two.”
Zoe gripped the floor with her tentacles, timing each swing before slingshotting herself forward, her momentum carrying her between two blades that crossed barely a breath behind her. “Three.”
Allen moved next.
He didn’t run. Didn’t rush.
He stepped forward like he owned the space, his eyes reading the patterns, his timing perfect. The first blade passed centimeters from his shoulder. The second swept just above his head as he ducked. The third he simply broke, his sword cleaving through the chain in a single upward arc. The severed blade crashed into the floor, embedding itself deep into the metal.
Jane and Alice followed, Jane using summoned bone walls to block a few pendulums just long enough for them to cross. Bella went last, darting through gaps with bursts of flame to propel herself past the faster arcs.
They regrouped on the far side.
Behind them, the pendulums began to shift again—speeding up, swinging wider, chains groaning as if straining against the ceiling mounts.
“They wanted to slow us down,” Larissa murmured.
“They failed,” Allen said.
From somewhere deep in the factory, the static voice laughed again—faint but unmistakable.
“…Better. Let’s see how far you’ll go before you break.”
Allen turned his head toward the sound, the faintest of smirks tugging at his mouth.
“Let’s find out.”
And they moved on, deeper into the mechanical heart of the factory—
Where the real traps waited.
The air grew hotter the further they went, as if the factory itself was breathing down their necks. The floor was no longer smooth grating but a patchwork of metal plates, each one a different texture—some slick with oil, others rough and ridged, a few still slick with melted frost from what this place had been before. Overhead, gears turned in open cavities, their teeth meshing with a sound that was almost hypnotic.
It wasn’t random. Allen noticed that. The rhythm of the gears matched the faint mechanical heartbeat he’d felt since they entered. Every turn was deliberate. Every hiss of steam came at a calculated moment, like the place itself was trying to set the tempo for their steps.
Vivian glanced around, whip ready. “It’s too quiet. Even for a trap zone.”
“That’s what bothers me,” Alice said. “It’s not dead quiet. It’s… waiting.”