"A time warp?!" Lewis cried, scrambling towards Percival and getting into his face. "You mean we've not been redoing the same thing, we're just actually going back in time?!"
Percival turned his back on the Arcanist, causing him to peep over the Hero's broad shoulders as if he could then see what he was thinking.
'If it's not a simulation, then I don't think this is really just a race to the top. It can't be,' Percival thought, dissecting the trap. 'We had run perfectly in the last loop, completely outpaced the blood lake, and reached the door with time to spare. Yet, the clock still reset us.'
There had to be something else.
Perhaps some kind of hidden variable. A mechanism they had completely bypassed in their blind panic to ascend.
Percival stepped back, lifting his face as he swept the circular walls of the clocktower with his glowing blue eyes.
