CHAPTER 120: | THE VISAGE OF TIME

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  Time... it seemed to pass by...

  The time where I had fought in a grueling duel against the supreme god of the water, Varuna, or the time when I fought the god of the lake of dreadnought, Lumicor, and then the time when I had exchanged numerous blows with Amara the servant of the evil god Xu Tie, before fighting Lumicor again, who had achieved starlight, wasn't something that I wished to be put through again.

  It's been exactly a month since he swallowed his sky-high pride and surrendered to me shamefully.

  It was a sight that greatly satisfied me.

  It was truly a sight I wouldn't bore of watching on a loop, him swallowing his sky-high pride.

  It was utterly satisfying, to the point where I would gladly humiliate him from time to time.

  Sadly, it was a sight I wouldn't be able to glimpse again, not while he was training with an intensity that no mere leviathan would dare to replicate.

  The sight of him training right now was one that words alone wouldn't be able to describe.

  Even I wouldn't believe that someone would train this hard.

  Was he a training fanatic or maybe something similar?

  The answer?

  No, he wasn't a training fanatic nor something similar.

  Instead, he was motivated by his defeat.

  He was sour about it.

  He just couldn't accept that he surrendered to the opponent that he detested the most.

  It was humiliating that he bowed his head to someone other than his wife.

  It was something that he wouldn't forget and something that he promised he wouldn't repeat, all because of his lack of strength.

  He sat in a lotus position, then closed his pupils as he slowly inhaled, then exhaled, in a practiced manner.

  While he was doing that, Lumicor also controlled his mana to lift a massive boulder that weighed one zen, which was a million tons, and gently placed it atop his head.

  It was to pressure his mana-enhanced flesh, to widen the veins where his mana circuits ran their operations.

  Simultaneously, he painstakingly compressed the inner energy in his lower dantian, his abdomen, and also his upper dantian, situated in his heart.

  He could feel it, the state of his mind, pushed beyond its limits, the searing strain on his mind, which burned painfully with every passing second that felt like hours.

  This was accompanied by his physical construct, which wailed for the release of the boulder sitting on his head.

  His neck screamed in agony, sore to the point that he could hear his spines creaking.

  Crrk... crrrk...

  It was as if they were on the verge of collapsing.

  His mind and his body screamed for release, release from the hell he had put them into.

  But he merely snorted at them.

  Time bled slowly in his perspective.

  It felt like a second was an hour, and an hour was a year.

  It felt like he suffered for eternity in this inescapable hell he created.

  It was a hell created by the word he detested most, 'weakness.'

  It was this very term that made him lose the match.

  It wasn't carelessness nor something else.

  It was weakness.

  It was this word that made him lose so pathetically.

  Even though he felt hell right now, he, Lumicor, would experience such weakness no more.

  Not while he lived.

  He wouldn't feel that term anymore.

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  He now swore to himself that he would surpass this limitation called 'stage' itself, that he would be someone worthy of her... even if he had to suffer this personal hell because of that desire.

  He, Lumicor, wouldn't call it hell.

  He would call it heaven, since it would lead him to progression.

  Even when his mind and body went through an unbearable, grinding pain, so long as he remained, this hell shall continue in an infinite loop.

  This... this is called insanity itself.

  Haaa...

  He sighed in disappointment, feeling that this level of intensity wasn't enough for him to truly achieve what he envisioned so far.

  Lumicor squeezed his eyes shut, then clasped his hands like he was praying as the mana all around him flared to life at his command.

  They then began to hit each other erratically, all to create friction strong enough to generate fire in this abyssal sea.

  On closer look, the mana that was slamming against each other slowly began to generate a small amount of heat.

  It gradually began to pick up its pace, flickering, which then turned into an ember of flickering moths of flames that burned brighter and brighter, into searing radiance.

  Then the hundreds of thousands of motes of radiance all around him began to move in an erratic manner as they slowly began to coalesce into thousands of starborn swords, floating right beside him, waiting for his commands.

  All of these happened while he was carrying a zen-weight boulder on his neck, while also gradually strengthening his mana circuits, both through the natural strengthening of his physical construct and magically, assisting its expansion with his mana.

  All this while he was also compressing his lower and upper dantian into a single dense point that he envisioned to be nothing but a centimeter sphere of compacted mana.

  It was beyond one's imagination to think that someone would be able to achieve this impossible feat that no man could ever dream of.

  But instead of being filled with pride or satisfaction, Lumicor... he...

  He was extremely dissatisfied at this speed of his, to form and coagulate his thousands of projectiles in a matter of seconds.

  It wasn't out of greed, it was purely discontentment.

  He could do better than this.

  He knew he could do this in milliseconds, even nanoseconds.

  He knew that this wasn't his limit, so he continued to train, to push further to increase his understanding while also filling the gaps in the half-assed theories that his emperor imparted to him earlier.

  "..."

  It is infinitely slow for others, but for some people, it is infinitely fast.

  When you are born, time seems to flow slowly, so that it feels like a year has passed when it was merely a day.

  But as you gradually approach your death, time itself seems to move faster than before without you noticing, so that it feels like an entire day is just an hour or two.

  But for me, who has lived for a time unknown to all, time... it moves at a faster rate.

  It feels like a day is a minute, and a month is a quarter of an hour.

  It feels infinitely long to some, but for me, a month itself is way too short to prepare anything.

  It was saddening that an entire month had yet again passed without me noticing it, since I was still stuck lounging in the throne that I constructed earlier, watching Solia practicing her swordsmanship while sparring with Tellus, wearing a blindfold, since she was literally impaired in her vision.

  I corrected her form, along with the distance of her steps, same with the time she draws her sword to unleash a single devastating attack, repeatedly.

  I guided her, and she was steadily making some small improvements from time top time, but not as good as Lumicor, whose prowess had already tripled from this past month as he also mastered his new form that turned him into a god of starlight or something eerily similar.

  It was something worth celebrating, me watching them improving by the day while Samantha was cuddling with me in my throne.

  It felt blessed.

  I pondered what I should do for now.

  Should I turn the Seed of the Fallen mine, or awaken the 'Torrent of Extinction' into the First of the Fallen series, my own skill and not one that Eleysian imparted to me?

  "Maybe you should decide what you should be doing right... now, Alister, since it is displeasing to see that the one I loved is such a sloth. A person that isn't worthy to be loved."

  Her voice was sharp and commanding to the ear, and I listened to the very last of her words, then nodded my head, since it's quite unsightly for me to do nothing but lounge every day in this same spot along with her.

  "I recommend you kill the ten overseers of this segment, or 'sector' as you call it, since you could basically obtain some spoils that are useful for the current you. Like a miraculous pill that increases the density of your magic, or maybe an artifact just like what you had given to that visually-impaired, half deaf, mute woman wielding a sword that is quite an eyesore."

  I nodded at her words, since it pretty much made sense to defeat the overseers and grand overseer of this segment.

  I wouldn'g like it if Amara, who was slowly recovering in a desolate corner of this segment, to hoard all of the reward.

  I stared at her then smiled as our eyes met.

  I guess it was time for me to hoard all of the rewards.

  But where should I find those overseers, especially the grand overseer, when they hadn't shown their faces at the destruction of Atlantis nor the fall of Ashin Sae Acoustine?

  I sighed.

  Finding them right now without knowing their location, was like finding a needle in a haystack.

  "No need to worry about their locations, Alister, since I had already known where their lairs are, thanks to me inheriting some of my master's memories... Maybe I should tell you about the Cereum Lady, who was pretty close with my master, since her lair is the closest from here."

  It was impressive that Samantha would be able to figure out my worries without me voicing them out.

  It's a blessing that she was understanding, but more so when she knows the locations of the overseers, since I wouldn't have to unnecessarily waste my time in locating their lairs, hidden from society just like hermits living in the mountains too ashamed to socialize down the mountains.

  "PWEHAHAHA! DISCIPLE OF THE GREAT ONE, SPEAK NO MORE! SINCE I, THE INDOMITABLE LADY, AM HERE TO PLAY WITH YOUR FRAIL HUSBAND!"

  Finally, she had shown herself.

  I couldn't help but find her aura a bit... too powerful for my current self to defeat without going all out, since I could feel that her defense would be somewhat troublesome to deal with.

  I sighed at my calculations, then stared at her body, covered with a cloudy armor covering her body from up to bottom, like a beetle.

  Tch.

  Now wasn't the time for me to worry about how tough of a nut to crack her would be.

  It was now time to deal with this unwanted intruder, who seemingly had a relationship with Ashin Sae Acoustine.

  Now it wasn't such a bother, since I could deal with one of the overseers of this segment before moving out.

  I smiled at this discovery, but soon my smile faded away as the two women, Samantha and the unknown intruder, met their eyes.

  Then Samantha sighed, knowing exactly why she had come here, as she muttered aloud.

  "I see... so you've come, Cillian."