I Got Reincarnated as a Zombie Girl - Chapter 281

Chapter 281: Chapter 277 – Dance of Shadows Within Time
The three of them were starting to get irritated. Attacks came from every direction fast, formless, and every time Sylvia’s chains or Alicia’s spells nearly hit something, the figure vanished like a reflection on rippling water.

“Not a single hit…” Stacia muttered, her eyes darting rapidly as she read the ever-shifting mana flow. “I can’t map them. Their positions shift before we can even lock onto their spatial coordinates.”

Alicia slammed her staff against the ground, breathing heavily.

“They’re toying with us. Strike, vanish, reappear in random order… it’s like fighting the shadows of time itself.”

Sylvia stood in the center, eyes narrowing. Her black chains floated around her, rotating slowly like serpents waiting to strike. Yet even those chains able to trace space itself lost their way. The enemies were too fast. Or rather, they weren’t existing at the same moment as them.

A thin silver mist rolled around them with every passing attack no clear shape, just ripples of pressure and faint echoes of impact, followed by silence.

“Their attacks are coming from three seconds in the future,” Stacia said quickly. “They’re moving on a faster temporal stream! They’re hitting us before we can even see them!”

Sylvia gave a quiet scoff. “Then I just have to think like them.”

She closed her eyes. Amid the invisible chaos, her mind recalled something simple: fish in water.

A reflection on the surface never shows where the fish truly is. Sometimes ahead, sometimes behind, depending on depth and flow.

She opened her eyes slowly, a faint smirk curling her lips.

“If their time moves like water…” she murmured, “…then what I’m seeing is just the reflection out of sync.”

Alicia turned sharply. “Sylvia, don’t act rashly!”

But Sylvia was already moving. Her chains tightened, lashing into the seemingly empty air.

For a heartbeat nothing.

Then… TING!

The metallic impact rang clear. A flash of blue erupted, and for the first time, they saw a faint humanoid silhouette, flickering, its body covered in fractured layers of time like cracked glass.

“Got one,” Sylvia said calmly, eyes glowing.

Alicia instantly raised her staff.

“Soul Lock – Bind!”

Blue light shot forward, wrapping around the figure but before the seal could close, the figure shimmered violently and vanished.

A surge of energy struck from another direction. Sylvia barely raised her chains in time, but the blast clipped her arm, scorching her sleeve and leaving a faint burn.

“They’ve recalibrated their acceleration!” Stacia shouted. “You only trapped one temporal moment; they’ve already moved to the next phase!”

Sylvia looked at her scorched arm and smiled thinly.

“Good. That means they’re not illusions. They can bleed.”

She slammed her foot into the ground. Her chains spread outward, forming a vast circular pattern that spun like a temporal wheel.

“Chain Technique – Binding Area.”

The sound of metal filled the air. Hundreds of chains burst from her shadow, spreading in all directions but this time, they didn’t strike. They trembled gently, resonating like a web of tuning forks.

Sylvia wasn’t targeting their bodies. She was targeting their temporal frequency.

“Stacia! Shift spatial resonance to negative delta point five seconds!” she ordered sharply.

“On it!” Stacia wove a spell instantly, forcing the space around them to slow by one and a half seconds relative to the main temporal flow.

Alicia added a secondary spell.

“Then I’ll make their souls lag behind their time flow!”

The air rippled violently. Energy waves clashed like overlapping layers of film past, present, and future grinding together.

And then…. They began to appear.

One… two… three forms. Humanoid. Semi-transparent. Their bodies flickered like reflections on shattered mirrors, each movement leaving ghostly afterimages.

“Look… there they are,” Stacia whispered.

Sylvia’s eyes sharpened. “Seere’s subordinates. Few in number but far deadlier than Dantalion’s spawn.”

The three figures moved simultaneously. Their feet didn’t touch the ground they glided, dancing between frames of time. In an instant, one appeared behind Sylvia, another beside Alicia, the third before Stacia.

“Hold formation!” Sylvia barked.

Her chains shot backward without looking, forming a living metal barrier that deflected two strikes.

CLANG! CLANG!

Sparks of warped time scattered like shards of glowing glass.

Alicia blocked the third attack with a defensive spell, but the creature’s speed was overwhelming. A small explosion rippled against her shield, forcing her back two steps.

“They’re too fast! I can’t read their movement patterns!”

Sylvia surged forward, chains spinning.

“Don’t read their movements, feel their temporal pulse!”

She closed one eye, focusing her Death Aura into her hand. The chains around her shifted color from black to violet-blue, shimmering like falling grains of temporal sand.

When one creature lunged from the right, Sylvia swept across its path….

CLANG! CRACK!

Her chain sliced clean through the creature’s waist. Blue blood liquid time splashed outward, hanging midair like fragments of crystal rain.

But Sylvia knew that wasn’t enough. The creature’s form flickered, its halves trying to merge again.

“Not this time.”

She traced a sigil in the air.

“Death Step Mirage!”

Her body vanished then reappeared at its flank. With a single swift motion, her Venom Reaper Claw slashed through the air. The black talons, dripping with toxin, tore through the creature’s core and this time, its body shattered completely, collapsing like a mirror smashed by a hammer.

“One down!” Alicia shouted.

Stacia snapped her grimoire open wide.

“Temporal Burst – Reverse Collapse!”

The space before them warped violently, ejecting the remaining two creatures from their time phase forcing them into full physical existence.

Sylvia smiled coldly.

“Good. Now they can’t hide behind time anymore.”

Her black chains spiraled, rising like a dark cyclone.

“Because now…”

She raised her hand high with the rattling of metal like a thousand death bells.

“…they’re in my time.”

….

Sylvia swung her arm, and the world itself seemed to tremble. Chains burst from the ground, carving through the air, spinning into a perfect spiral that enclosed the two remaining temporal beings.

The air thickened. The white sky dimmed to a dusky violet, like a false sun devoured by shadow.

The creatures trembled violently. Their translucent bodies became clearer slender humanoid forms with glowing silver skin and blue eyes spinning like clock hands. Each movement left multiple echoes, as if several versions of themselves moved inside one body.

“Let’s see who’s faster,” Sylvia said quietly, her voice carrying across the field.

The first creature darted left, forming a sharp arc of blue light. Sylvia blocked with her chain but the second strike came from a different temporal frame entirely.

Her chains shuddered, sparks scattering.

Alicia reacted instantly.

“Soul Guard – Resonant Pulse!”

Blue waves rippled outward from her staff, spreading ten meters in all directions. The effect was immediate every tremor of time slowed and became visible.

For a brief moment, Sylvia could see them blue streaks cutting across the air like shattered glass reflecting light.

“Nice work, Alicia!” she shouted.

She kicked off the ground, dashing into the vortex. Her chains followed, twisting like living metal serpents, leaving trails of darkness in their wake.

One creature tried to intercept her but her chains erupted from beneath it, coiling around its legs.

“Caught you,” Sylvia whispered.

It struggled, but the black chains weren’t just physical, they bit into time itself. Its body jerked backward, movements slowing tenfold.

Sylvia darted forward. Her hand morphed into clawed talons, pulsing with poison.

“Venom Reaper Claw!”

She slashed twice in one motion once in the present, once a heartbeat ahead. Both strikes landed together.

CRAAAACK!

The creature’s body shattered, bursting into shards of glowing blue energy that drifted away like dying starlight.

Alicia watched, half in awe, half in concern. “She’s attacking in two timelines at once… that’s not instinct, that’s synchronization.”

Stacia’s quill moved furiously through the air as she analyzed. “She’s merged her aura with the local time flow. But it’s eating away at her own energy look! Her output’s dropping fast.”

Sylvia didn’t stop. Her gaze locked onto the final creature larger than the rest. Its body gleamed white, as if forged from molten steel, and on its back, an hourglass sigil spun rapidly.

The creature spoke for the first time, its voice a metallic echo.

“…Queen of Dead Time… you’ve violated the current. The world will not forgive you.”

Sylvia’s eyes turned colder.

“I don’t need forgiveness from a rotten clock.”

The creature raised its arm. The air quaked…

And in an instant, the entire field changed.

The silver sky flared. Time stopped.

The waving grass froze. Alicia’s glowing shield hung motionless in midair. Even Stacia’s breath turned to still mist.

Sylvia stood alone. Everything else is silent, unmoving.

“An isolated dimension…” she murmured. “You’ve created your own temporal domain.”

The being inclined its head slightly, blue eyes spinning faster.

“I am the gatekeeper of Seere. Only those who can defy the current may exist here.”

Sylvia smiled faintly.

“Too bad,” she said softly. “I don’t just defy the current… I drown it.”

She raised her hand. Her black chains trembled, slicing through the frozen air. And thus began the battle between Death and Time.