Chapter 431: Zaphkiel and the spirit of time
Tokisaki Kurumi is so happy she could go mad.
Every spirit comes equipped with an astral dress and an angel that corresponds to their identity. Tohka's purple astral dress is the Spirit Dress of God's Authority, number 10. Her Angel is her large sword named Sandalphon. Meanwhile, Tokisaki Kurumi's astral dress is the Spirit Dress of God's Authority, number 3. Her angel's name is Zaphkiel.
Zaphkiel is essentially a large clock, the musket gun would represent the minute hand of the clock while the flintlock is the hour hand. Zaphkiel possesses the ability to infuse the power of time into bullets which Tokisaki Kurumi fires with a different effect depending on the type of bullets.
She's a spirit of time with the ability to manipulate time.
It's a very powerful ability for sure, in a way, she's stronger than Accelerator who has control over vector quantities. However, because the angel is so strong, the cost of using her power is great as well.
To manipulate time Tokisaki Kurumi must pay with time either from her own, spirit power or time from someone else. In order to protect herself from dying to Zaphkiel's effect, she would consume other people's time to substitute for her own. Anyone in her City of Devouring Time is going to have their time taken away and stored by Kurumi until she wants to use it.
Each of the hour on the clock designates a specific ability, the different abilities cost different amount of time. The 12th bullet consumes the most time and a single bullet requires all of a spirit's power so Kurumi hadn't fired one of these bullets yet.
Her objective at the moment is to gather more time and use the 12th bullet to go back in time to 30 years ago in order to kill the first spirit. By doing this, she hopes to make it so that there are no spirits on this world. Spirits won't be hunted down and humans won't be harmed by spacequakes, this is a lonesome goal for her.
But, to fire the twelth bullet requires immense sacrifice to the tune of a spirit's life, if she used it like this she would only go back in time and die immediately or be rendered so helpless that she can't finish her goal. In the original work, Kurumi wanted to eat Shido because he had the power of 3 spirits sealed within him.
However, the Shido in the original work is not in here. Wu Yan is dubbed Shido by Kotori while the original main character had her gender transformed into female, namely, Itsuka Shiori.
Shiori has the power to contain the power of spirits but she didn't have any spiritual power sealed within her due to Wu Yan and Ratatoskr's intervention.
Without being able to boost her time storage by consuming Shido, Kurumi can only rely on slowly consuming human lives until she can fire her twelfth bullet. At least, that was her plan until now...
She saw Wu Yan's power. Her ability to consume other people's time in order to pay for her own Angel's ability necessitates that she be able to measure other people's time.
She's in a frenzy because she can feel that this man before her is a man of literally unlimited time. She went after him like a mad piranha, she didn't even waste more time in talking.
Infinite time, that is to say this guy is immortal.
Even if humanity goes to hell, this man will be around. Even when all life on earth goes extinct, this guy will probably be kicking a stone somewhere. He has all the time in the world and then some.
What does that mean?
This means that if she consumed him, she can fire her twelfth bullet whenever she damn well pleases. Go back 30 years today, no problem, just let her prepare the bullet. Her ability to manipulate time will no longer have any downside to it.
Wu Yan is like a priceless treasure to her.
The thought of finishing her goal by just simply consuming this man is giving her the elation of a lifetime. She just couldn't remain calm.
Wu Yan thought she's just here to replenish some time for her angel. He didn't expect her to be this manic...
He frowned at the sight of the hands popping out of the ground.
If at all possible Wu Yan didn't want to fight her. She's kind but there are some screws loose in her head. If she's really crazy, she wouldn't continue on her quest to nip the source of the problem at its root.
Tohka also said that Kurumi isn't all that different from her. Shido saved Tohka before she turned into an individual like Kurumi, an individual that regards another's life as trivial.
Wu Yan believed the same thing the original main character believed, that every spirit is fundamentally kind.
He knows that Tokisaki Kurumi likes cute little animals. This is proof that she can love, the fight with humans chilled her sympathy for humans. She regarded humans as nothing more than food after being made to live such a life.
Wu Yan didn't know just how important he is to Kurumi. His utility is more than Shido in the original work.
By hook or by crook, she wants his infinite time.
Kurumi slowly raised her hands and a dark stream of aura flowed out of her and it enveloped her.
It's like a domain of darkness that spread from her and it easily covered the alley there are currently in.