My worries have finally fallen off of my chest. After all, having a professional like Cristina at our side was pretty much a guarantee of victory. As a Deep Delver, she must've had years of practice when it came to fighting Guardians. Because of that, it felt much worse when I saw her struggle just as much as Gier did. With each tick of the clock, she struck the creature, who managed to block the attack with relative ease. Blue sparks were flying all over the hallway as the magical blade hit the metal one. In the meantime, Corwyn had finally managed to start dragging away Gier, whose eyes darted all over the place as if he was looking for something.

It didn't take long and Rogier finally appeared behind Cristina. In his hand, he held Amy's blade, already ignited and ready. He stopped as he saw the shower of blue sparks and stood there, visibly flabbergasted by the sight.

"What are you doing?!" he shouted at Cristina.

"Fighting! Give me a hand!" she replied.

Rogier took a few seconds to have a closer look at the Guardian, before backing away. "Nope. Nu-uh, that's suicide. If you can't kill it, I'm not gonna throw myself at it," he said and turned around, running away from us.

"Rogier!! Come back, you coward!" I yelled at him, but to no avail. As much as his betrayal disappointed me, I couldn't say it was unexpected. After all, he was a hunter. Criminals like those could never be trusted.

"Amy!" I turned to my terrified companion, hoping that she would at least be able to help out a bit. Unfortunately, she didn't seem to be listening. Her head was buried in her legs, which were pressed against her chest, and I could only hear quiet sobbing.

"Damn it!" I swore out loud. "What do I do?" I asked Cristina.

"Valmiria!" She shouted back.

"What?!" For a moment I wondered whether I was too stupid for not knowing the word, or if she was perhaps already losing her mind.

"Sorry, was worth a shot. Forget about it," she replied. "Every Guardian has a heart! We just need to find it!"

"It's probably in the middle, under all the clock hands!" I passed my theory on.

"Great, but I can't hit it! It's too fast!"

I tried my best to think of something. A way to slow it down, or find out what its weakness could be. Frustrated, I gripped my tunic at my chest. My own heart was beating so quickly. The Guardian's power was not allowing me to calm down, which only made any attempt at thinking that much harder. Then, something finally crossed my mind. My eyes nearly shot out of my head as the answer presented itself in front of me at last. "Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock." That was the horrendous sound the Guardian was making, and as if my heart wanted to join this orchestra, it was beating at the exact same tempo. Without a moment to waste, I rushed over to Amy.

"Hey, I need to check your pulse real quick, okay? Don't be afraid." I gently grabbed her arm and placed my fingers over the veins. Indeed, it was the same beat. Same exact beat as mine. Then my attention shifted back towards the corridor and my fighting comrade. "Tick. Tock. Tick. Tock." Their blades were clashing at the exact same frequency. It was as if the Guardian was a gigantic metronome, dictating the speed of everything around it.

"I figured it out!" I shouted at Cristina. "The ticking makes everything move in rhythm. Even your sword!"

"Fantastic, but how do I stop it?!"

I stood there quietly, stunned by the question. Sure, maybe I discovered the secret to the Guardian's power, but I still had no idea how to defeat it.

"Umm... I still need to think about that."

"Then think harder!" she replied and continued on with her endless struggle. I could tell she was losing her stamina really quickly. Her strikes were becoming weaker, sending off fewer and fewer sparks, not to mention that the frequency of the noise was slowly increasing.

"Think, Elliot, think!" I thought to myself, not getting my eyes off the creature.

"Is she still fighting?!" I heard Corwyn call out to me from the other corridor. Then, at last, everything clicked together. He was like the last piece of the puzzle I was looking for.

Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

"Quick! Put Gier down and help me!" I shouted.

"H-Help?!"

"Yeah! Only you can do it!" I ran over to him and explained everything about the metronome effect. "Listen, you have some resistance to this place, right? Like when we were descending before and you were unaffected. Or when you managed to strike the Guardian outside of its rhythm."

"Umm... Y-Yeah. I guess I do. Why?"

"The Guardian will always match the speed of whoever it is fighting to its own. But you can strike it due to your resistance."

"B-But, I did strike it before. My knife barely made a dent."

"That's because you were aiming at the wrong part."

"Huh?"

"Clocks are delicate instruments, right? The more complex, the more fragile they are, right?"

"I-I guess. I'm not like... an expert on clocks."

"Well, you see those little cogwheels sticking out of the Guardian's body?"

"I'm supposed to break them?"

"Not them. It. Just one should be enough. It has so many clock hands that the inner workings of the Guardian must be incredibly complex. If you break one of the gears, it should be enough to mess it up."

Corwyn looked at me as if I was about to send him off to his death.

"I-I don't know if I can do it."

"Dude, I saw you fight. You're awesome! Besides, Cristina can keep it busy so you can deliver the final blow."

"W-Well..."

I put my hand on his shoulder and looked him dead in the eyes. "Please. I don't have any other plans. Not to mention that I am the only other option here and I would surely get affected too. I can't fight at all. You would have a much better chance than me."

Corwyn sighed. "Fine. I-I'll do it."

"Great! Please, hurry. Cristina won't last for much longer. See that exposed gear on its right... shoulder-like area?"

"You mean at 9 o'clock of the body? Yeah."

"Then strike that!"

Hesitantly, Corwyn drew his blade. It was a relief. For a moment, I thought he would just reach for his carabiner and signal the people above us to pull him out. I wasn't sure what I would do with a second deserter. His hands were visibly trembling as his tense fingers gripped the dagger. He took a moment, either to properly calculate his approach or to persuade his fear-struck legs to finally move.

Finally, after a couple of seconds, Corwyn headed out. I saw him bite his lips and scrunch his face as he approached the danger. The Guardian, however, seemed to have eyes even on the other side of its body. When it noticed another person joining the fray, it spun its body around, striking in a wide one-hundred-and-eighty-degree arc. I saw Corwyn crouch just in time to dodge the blade, while Cristina blocked the attack with her sword.

"Careful! The cog is on the other side now!" I shouted at them, hoping that Corwyn would realise that with the Guardian turned around, he has to change his tactics.

"I KNOW!" he yelled back, possibly much louder than was necessary.

Another blow came soon after, once again aimed at both of my companions. Corwyn's dexterity was nothing to scoff at. With relative ease, he jumped up onto the Guardian and before another tick or tock could be heard, he already managed to push himself onto the top of its body, right next to the cog.

"Now! Stike it!" Cristina shouted as she saw the Guardian raise its blade once more.

*Tick–

One final sound escaped the machine as it froze in place. Corwyn's magical knife severed a piece of the cog, sending it flying across the room. All of us stayed quiet for a moment, waiting to see if it worked. The falling chunk of metal was the only sound filling the library, as it bounced on the floor a couple of times before stopping completely.

"We did it!" I eventually shouted, breaking the silence. Corwyn sighed and jumped down from the stuck Guardian, running back to the middle as if something was chasing him.

"Never ever ever force me to do something like that again, please!!" he practically cried and let out a massive sigh of relief when he finally reached the safety of the middle section once more.

"Hey, Eliot, got a minute?" I heard Cristina call for me. She turned off her sword, put it back onto her belt, and whipped out her signature large notebook.

"Oh, yeah, sure, what's up?" I replied and joined her side at the far end of the corridor.

"How did you know how to defeat it? And in such a... unique way."

"Well, I just thought that since clocks usually need all their tiny parts, damaging one would stop it from working. Just kinda seemed logical."

"Hmm... I see." I saw her noting something down in her little book. "You see, this is quite unusual. We didn't kill the Guardian, but we functionally disabled it. A dead Guardian can become resurrected, but I am unsure what will happen with this one. Will it be repaired after the library shuffles? Or will it stay like this forever? Maybe this could be a revolutionary find. If Guardians could be permanently disabled, then maybe it would make the jobs of delvers like us a lot safer. I will have to investigate this further."

"Well... I'm glad I could have helped." I shrugged, unsure how to react to her. "By the way, what were you trying to tell me back then? Something like... Valina?"

"Valmiria. It's a word that sometimes causes Guardians to temporarily stop functioning. Nobody really knows why. The chance of it actually working is only about seven per cent, but it is still worth using, so I recommend giving it a try every time you encounter a Guardian. You never know when it might save your life." For a moment, she stopped writing and looked at the ground beneath the Guardian. "Oh, what's this?" she mumbled and picked a small, light-blue card off the ground.

"You found something?"

"Hmm..." She stayed quiet for a while before her eyes widened. "Holy shit!" she gasped.

"What? What?!"

"It's an ID card."

"Yours?"

"Nope." She nodded towards Corwyn, who was catching his breath at the other end of the corridor.

"Corwyn's?"

"Yup."

"But... wait, he said he didn't have his ID."

"He did. And I know why," she replied and put the card into her pocket.

"Are... you going to tell me?"

"I'm going to tell everyone, the little guy owes me answers to like a million questions."

"What? Why?" I couldn't wrap my head around it.

"Because he didn't tell us who he actually is."