At this point, I knew that there wasn’t much left that I could do for this Balton, or more that I could learn from him without starting a new interview. If I wanted to uncover the truth of what happened to their people, I would need to look at a different time period, closer to when the event itself took place.
However, there was still one more thing that I wanted to do. “Before I send you back, there is one thing that I would like to ask, or rather offer.”
The Balton turned its attention towards me, but remained silent. Seeing that as an invitation to continue, I did so. “I have a method of preserving a projection of your civilization. I often do this when I come upon people that have been lost to time, as a way to allow them to preserve their culture in some form.”
“I have trained in a special technique, which grants me something akin to an imitation of a universe within myself. Through this training, I can save a moment in history and place it within that universe. However, I always try to get the consent of someone in a position of authority before I do this. There are those who would rather let their culture die with them, after all.”
The Balton hesitated for a moment, seeming to think over the offer, before nodding his head. “If that is the case, I would appreciate it if our people had the chance to live on, at least in some form. However… will this still lead to the same event that cause our decline?”
This time, it was my turn to hesitate. “That depends on what the true cause is. If it is an outside force, that force would not be taken into my inner world. However, if the cause of your civilization’s downfall was the natural progression of your civilization, there is little I can do without directly interfering, which is a rule that I set for myself. At most, I can choose to take your people from an earlier moment in history, giving you more time before that natural progression to the end.”
The Balton seemed to huff at that. “If things are as you say, I do not believe that this is a natural event. I know of no reason why the Balton would choose to fall.”
“Should I take it that I have your consent, in that case?” I asked with a smile, to which the Balton nodded his head. “Excellent. In that case, there are a few things that you should know. As the one that has provided consent, you will be aware of this interview, but nobody else will. This is so that you can alert me of any looming crisis. I might not be able to directly interfere, but I might be able to give you alone information that could be used to avert the crisis.”
The Balton shook slightly as he accepted this information. “I-I see. Very well.”
Obviously, nobody would just believe him if he came out and told others the contents of this conversation, and he was no doubt aware of that. This was quite a heavy burden to put on his shoulders, but this is why I always asked for consent from someone in a position of power before doing this, because that person would be responsible for shaping the future of their race and trying to avert potential disasters.
Closing my eyes, I allowed my divinity to stir. Within my inner universe, I chose a star isolated from the others, one empty and devoid of life. After that, I allowed my divinity to expand, extending the window into the past to cover the entirety of this floor. This was the largest area that I had ever covered with a single window, so it caused considerable strain on my focus, requiring me to concentrate on every small detail that my divinity touched a world with a diameter of nearly three light years.
Perhaps it would have been better if I had done this with the residents of the sixty-first floor as a form of practice, but… the person that I spoke with there asked for their culture to be allowed to fade into the past. They recognized that they brought their destruction on themselves, and saw it only fitting to allow their civilization to disappear as the consequence to their mistakes.
It took me… I don’t know how long. I sat there, brows tightly knit in focus as my divinity stretched out more and more, until finally feeling as if I had completely covered this layer. Once that was done, I let out a low sigh of relief, and the window into the past began to shrink. This process was substantially easier, because I was no longer adding new details to the window, and instead merely bringing it into my inner world.
Even so, it took almost half an hour before the process was complete, the window into the past now looking like nothing more than a grain of sand hovering over my finger. Closing my eyes, I brought this slice of history into my chest, letting it merge with the world that I had chosen for it in my inner world.
Once I finished relocating this slice of time, I looked around at the ruins surrounding me. As the Balton administrator had been part of the window into the past, he was naturally sent into my inner world, as well. There’s nothing more that I can immediately get from this building. I’ll need a proper view of the city if I’m going to see what happened.
Thus, I left the spire that I was in, heading out to the open air, and began to open a new window to the past. Because I had just taken one slice of time into my inner world, I wouldn’t be able to observe that general period again, or anything within a week of where I pulled from. Honestly, I wasn’t entirely sure why this was the case, I only knew that it was what I had noted from my past experiments.
As I was starting to open my second window, I felt something buzzing within my pocket, pulling out my terminal and noticing that I had several missed calls. Another one was coming in from Jordan, and I blinked, answering the call. “Hey. What’s going on?”
Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
“Oh, good, you answered.” Jordan said with a sigh of relief. “What’s going on with you? You went off the grid for a while. I was expecting a report last week on your initial findings, and you wouldn’t answer my calls.”
“Last week?” I asked, my eyes going wide. “Uhm… just curious, but how long have I been out here?”
“...It’s been about a month now. Is everything okay, Helen?” There was genuine concern in his tone, and I quickly shook my head.
“I’m fine. There hasn’t been anything dangerous or anything like that. I guess that it must have just taken me longer to perform a large-scale sweep with my divinity than I was expecting, and I lost track of time.” That said, I was still amazed that it had taken me an entire month to establish that window and bring it into my inner world. Usually, it only takes me a few minutes at most.
“In that case… is there anything that you would like to report?” Jordan asked, and I shook my head again.
“Not yet. I need a little more time. It’s hard to express how large this place is with just numbers. I’m still in the process of my initial checks, so I will let you know when I have something concrete that I can report.”
After I said that, there was a bit of a pause, Jordan seeming surprised by my request for additional time. I could understand his surprise, however. Typically, I saved my reports for after I did an initial investigation, an interview, and then a detailed look at what caused a civilization’s downfall. After that, I would look through the past to find relics that could support my claims, and use all of that as the material for my reports.
Even with all of that, I had never been late to file my report before. However, like I said, it was hard to express just how large this layer of Fyor was with simple numbers. It was to such a scale that it seemed ridiculous to even compare it to something. I could walk the Earth a thousand times over, and not even come close to the distance I would fall simply by releasing the ability holding me aloft. The entirety of Deckan could be lost in a single cloud drifting beneath my feet.
“I understand. In that case, I shall await your report.” Jordan said, before ending the call. As much as I wanted to share my experience talking with the Balton administrator, it was best to do so after I had completed my full routine first. After all, anything before that is just hearsay, as nobody but myself is privy to the information. Only when I provide solid evidence can it truly be taken as fact.
Turning my gaze back to the window into the past, I saw that it had solidified at what appeared to be the next available moment after what I had pulled previously. Everything still appeared to be fine with what I could see, and thus I began the process of narrowing down the timeline, shooting forward one month at a time and looking for any significant changes.
After a few skips, I saw three large, golden bubbles floating amidst the crowd, likely the gods that I had heard about from the administrator. Focusing my divinity in my right eye, I saw that they were the gods of Wind, Light, and Water. I made a mental bookmark at this point of time, planning to follow back their personal history later to learn how such natural-born deities came to be.
However, the main thing that I wanted now was to find the reason for this civilization’s downfall. Everything could be considered secondary until I learned what caused that.
Every now and then, I would have to pause, seeing a rather low number of Balton floating around, and had to investigate the nearby buildings to make sure that they were all just inside, as opposed to having disappeared. Still, this was a long, slow process, the scenery around me changing every time I blinked.
After passing through more than a hundred different windows, I began to fall into the monotony of simply investigating and moving on. Eventually, however, I was forced to pause, my eyes going wide. What I saw was not a strange entity within the city, but rather something below. A green flash of light drawing a line throughout the sky below.
At this distance, I was barely able to make out a humanoid shape. And, given what I knew, there should not have been any humanoid creatures within this layer of Fyor at any point in history.
Curious, I dove down towards the figure, finding that it was far further away than I had initially imagined, and far larger. It took me more than an hour, flying at a safe speed to avoid damaging any of the ruins behind me, before I managed to find the figure wrapped in the green glow of natural energy.
Is that… James? I blinked, moving around to get a look at the dark-skinned giant’s face. Surely, I had never seen him this large before, but the face and body structure was unmistakable. However, why was James in a place like this, long before the layer was even open to the public?
I suppose that’s another mystery that I will need to bookmark. I thought to myself, shaking my head and returning to the ruins above. There was no evidence of his passing by the time I hit the next frame, so it was clear that he didn’t stay for long. Maybe the passage that he used to arrive is the same passage that whatever caused their downfall used…
That was starting to become a rather significant theory in my mind, but the question of what could allow such passage still existed. Shaking my head, I put that thought aside, moving on to the next frame, whereupon my entire face turned pale.
The city was covered with a black smoke. No, not smoke… just some strange energy that resembled a black cloud. The Balton were fleeing downwards, some of them detonating in an attempt to push back the cloud and provide their kin an extra push.
Turning my gaze, I found that this black cloud was not limited only to the city. Instead, it covered the entirety of Fyor’s ceiling. Everywhere I looked, a rolling, black mass covered the sky.
Well… I found the right point in time… now I just need to slowly cycle back, and see what actually caused all of this.