“Lukas, why do you still idolize the Overlord Sect after what just happened?” Samuel needed to pass the time while waiting for Merling to finish his part of the technique, so he proceeded to clear the air with the shapeshifting kid.
“What? What happened?” Lukas was unaware of Samuel’s show of power but remained very vigilant around him. “Why would I not idolize the Overlord Sect? They are literally the number one sect in the entire realm, reaching a power unimaginable to mortals like us. What is not to idolize?”
“Kid, I humiliated the Overlord Sect’s goons mere minutes ago. How can you possibly not lose respect for them after seeing one of their strongest members be killed with a flick of my fingers?”
“I don’t know what you are talking about.” Lukas began to freak out at the sheer instability of the person in front of him. Delusions, nonsense, and a menacing presence were all key ingredients in creating fear in people. So, he was justified. “Do you... need some help?”
“What is this situation? Do you think I’m mentally ill or something? Kid, you literally watched it happen, right? Wait, where were you like four minutes ago?”
“I was in my room. Why?”
“So, you didn’t look at the sky, did you? No. Well, fuck. It appears that I might have erred in my ways, so I apologize. Let me just catch you up to speed. Me and the Overlord Sect had a little kerfuffle; they attacked, and I retaliated while projecting it to the entire realm using the sky, then I came here. In my moment of anger, it seems I might have forgotten about the fact that NO ONE looks towards the sky except for weirdos. The point of all of this is that the Overlord Sect is a pretentious piece of garbage organization that should not exist. Not only are they not impressive, but they are degenerate as well. There is literally nothing to approve of regarding how it functions or its members."
Lukas became quite confused listening to Samuel ramble on and on. Some of the things sounded truthful, but they were too unbelievable. “Oh, cool. Good for you.”
“No, not good for me. How do you still not believe me? You know what? I'll just show you. Animus Imperium.” Samuel took control of the little, weak Lukas to force his memories into his mind. This, in Samuel’s opinion, was the fastest way to solve the problem. What he failed to realize, however, was the fact that the technique was crafted and adjusted for a near-infinite amount of pure energy, not a little Superior Mortal stage cultivator. In other words, Lukas was now convulsing on the floor in pure shock. It wasn’t dangerous or harmful, but it would not look good if a certain middle-aged man were to see it after finishing his business. Which he, of course, did.
Emerging from the area of time distortion was a haggard Merling, who looked like he had not slept or cultivated for weeks on end. Because he didn't. For some strange reason, Samuel’s time control was countless times superior to what it was in the past, meaning he had an easy time distorting it according to his wishes. What he hadn’t improved, however, was his timing. Merling emerged only to see his nephew dying on the floor after going through an arduous process of helping their mysterious assailant. He was quite upset, to say the least.
“What the fuck have you done, you lunatic!?”
“Woah, calm down there. Put down the bow before you accidentally injure yourself. It is not as bad as it looks. By the time he wakes up, he will feel better, be more intelligent, and have a more realistic world view, so don’t worry about him. Now, you should also be ready to go through that process, only more extreme. You ready? Good. Let’s begin.”
“I didn’t say—”
“Gowla” Time in the nearby vicinity came to an absolute halt. Gowla was the name of his previous time-rune/talent. Samuel figured that the rune had an actual meaning other than being a gate between the time sphere and the outside world. He did not know its meaning, but it had to be something related to time. Since it was no longer connected to anything, it was only logical to think that it would affect time in one way or another. Samuel planned for this effect to be sufficiently powerful that, combined with his talent, he could create an alternate timeline that followed the exact same events as his previous time. This sounded absolutely ridiculous, but it was not an actual timeline; it was more of a projection. He would then use the projection to retrieve Merling’s memories. The reason he needed Merling’s memories was to perfect the beginning of the timeline, and since Samuel knew the end, he would be able to create a near-perfect replica.
Of all the things in the vicinity, only Samuel was able to move, which he did to retrieve the memory jade in Merling's hand. Upon getting the jade, he read through it in its entirety before he used By Creation and Animus Imperium to create an infinitely condensed space that would function as the Shattered Realm in the simulation. He inserted Merling’s and part of his own memories to begin the simulation, while focusing all of his comprehension of time on making things inside happen. One thing after another, the events that took place the first time he arrived in the Shattered Realm happened. Arriving, meeting Merling, being tortured, meeting that bitch, falling out with Merling, meating Mike, cultivating, time resetting. However, instead of focusing on his own part, he absorbed every single action and thing that Merling ever did or had happened to him. Upon seeing something, he infused it into the frozen Merling’s mind, piling it up, waiting for his mind to resume functioning. As the timeline came to an end, Samuel relinquished the hold he had on the timeline and singularity, making them dissipate into energy before he allowed time to pass again.
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“—I was ready! Argh!” Like a truck to the face, the memories forced their way into Merling’s fragile mind, causing him great pain. It was painful, but not really. It was more of an existential pain caused by his memories of things that never happened. He watched himself grow older, grow in power, and grow in every sense of the word, until it was all stripped from him. Although it was not real, it still hurt to be an invisible bystander in his own life. Worst of all was the fact that he knew this had actually happened before. It was not pure nonsense that Samuel tricked into existence; it was his life. His true life. What he was living now was nothing but a wasteful imitation. Merling’s existential ordeal continued for quite a while, reaching such an advanced time that Lukas managed to wake up, fully recover, receive some guidance from Samuel, go cultivate, and finally perfect his Shadow’s Precipice technique before he finally woke up.
“Welcome back, Merling. It’s been a while, huh? While you were sleeping just now, I helped teach Lukas some things for the tournament, so you don’t need to worry about sleeping for so long. Well, I actually have some other things to do, so I think I should go. For now. I found your safety to be the most pressing, so I prioritized this, but you won’t need my help anymore. I will see you in a bit. Oh, and you should keep out of pocket dimensions and realms, as they might cause unexpected reactions with your memories. Got it? Good, bye then.” Samuel teleported to the bottom of the Currati Ocean, into the lab of Mike, who, weirdly enough, was not there. Samuel proceeded to scan the entire base in search of him, but to no avail. Next on the list was scanning the entire realm, yet there was still no trace of Mike. Samuel became slightly nervous at not finding Mike, as he thought of him as the ticket to safe cultivation. He thus continued to search not only the Shattered Realm but also the thousand neighbor realms, as well as all their subspaces. Samuel only managed to discover Mike in an extremely obscure, weak, and barren pocket dimension located in a newly formed realm. Opting not to waste any more time, Samuel opened a wormhole leading directly in front of Mike. He did not enter, however, but pulled Mike through instead. Mike was stunned into speechlessness at what just happened, but he was no coward. He activated all the hidden artifacts he was carrying, charged his abilities, and began to summon his clones in a desperate attempt to escape from his capture.
“Mike, relax for just a moment, and then you will understand everything. Animus Imperium”
“...Oh, Samuel, it’s you.”
Samuel just imprinted all of their interactions into Mike’s mind to make the meeting easier. Mike was an immortal and ancient creature of the higher realm; he could not be compared with Merling at all. As such, Samuel found it redundant to waste time and effort on something worthless. Those few thousand years of time would not change a lot for him anyway.
“Mike, why do you think time has reset? You have lived for a really long time; surely you must have come across a similar situation before.”
"Similar, yes, but nothing quite like this. Once, before the current hierarchy of the universe was established, gods of certain kinds could rise to providence by integrating themselves with laws. One such god did so with the law of time. The god was simply not powerful enough, however, so to offset the damage he inflicted on its origin, time reset itself. Most lost all recollection of what happened before, but those of a certain amount of power remained their memories, including me. My level of comprehension is so unimaginable that it’s part of the way the universe works, meaning I can never lose my memories as long as either I or the universe exist. Yet before you infused me with the memories, I could remember nothing. This means that something must have happened to the universe and me to cause this.”
“Are you saying the universe was destroyed? But doesn’t that mean that you were as well since you can’t remember anything?”
“Indeed. My immortality is not as omnipotent as I previously thought. Destroying the universe should be easier than killing me, yet it happened nonetheless. Hmm…”
A silence consumed the room as Mike was thrown into deep thought. He was of the opinion that his life would supersede that of the universe. He would be there at its end, and that was going to be when he discovered the truth of creation and destruction. He did not know how long this would take, but he had all the time in the world, so it didn’t matter. Now, however, that has changed.
“You know what? This is a problem for another day. What matters more is the fact that our actions perfectly match the reset. Logically, from your point of view, this has nothing to do with us, but I know for a fact that it does. Something happened when I was attempting my breakthrough to the Enlightenment stage that resulted in this. I’m once again at the peak of the True Cultivation stage and can barely restrain my urge to breakthrough, but I'm too afraid to do so. We need to figure out how I can safely do so without causing another reset. I really can’t stomach a third one.”
“So, there has been another, huh? What caused the other?”
“I really don’t know. Suddenly, from out of nowhere, after I completed a quest, I was pulled into a different place where some guy rambled for a while, and then I was pulled back here. When I came back, time had slightly reset again.”
“Describe the person; maybe it’s the Overlord of Time you saw. If it was just a minor reset, it might have been due to him.”
“Nope, it’s not that old man. Their voices and temperaments were completely different. Also, whenever I try to remember what the person looked like, I draw a complete blank. I can only remember his voice and words.”
“Then there are only two possible conclusions: there exists a higher dimension in this universe that we remain unaware of, or something from outside the universe has gotten involved here.”
“Oh, I should tell you that I'm probably not from this universe either. So, of the two, the latter is more likely to be true.”
“What?”