When I finished reading the book about Time Events, I realized that I need to return to the classroom. I found so many important information in the book, especially about the history of the Time Gate and the origins of the Commoners. However, after reading from both sides, from the others and from the perspective of the previous Innight, I realized that the situation is perhaps much more complicated than I have anticipated.
Different sides have a different version of the story involved. From the others perspective, they said that the trigger of the event was because of the previous Innight. From the perspective of the previous Innight, however, he has no idea who and what is the cause, but he is very sure that someone has set it up so that it turns out to be him taking all the blame. Whichever side it is, they all came to the conclusion that there was mass destruction in the entire city due to the event, and it took the effort of all the 6 Grand Ruler so the Elemental Planes to clear up the mess. It is also stated that a rule is created such that no one is supposed to go near those seals, the only exception is for schools that are going there for educational purpose.
From what the book stated, the Time Gate is located at the centre of the world in this particular Timeline, called The Core. So, the trip that the school is providing me is on path of what the instructions the previous Innight has left me. The next step is to craft the weapon, if everything goes according to the diary, it will take a day for it to be completed. He did not state what the weapon is used for in the dairy, but I guess I will find out once The Event is initiated.
I went back to the classroom, and of course I have to dodge spells that are “accidently” fired at me. I sat down at my seat. Then Luricerite announced:
“Everyone, listen, we are going to reactivate the Magic Security System again.”
Hm? Magic Security? Is that a team of droids used to defend the school from an attack?
“Why?” Someone asked.
“We received reports that there is activity in the mana network, something that has not happened since the Time Gate was activated before. Whenever there is a disturbance in the mana network, we can be sure that those creatures are up to something again. We will activate the Magic Security System to ensure none of the creatures comes near the school compound. Students, you are not allowed to leave the school compound, excepts for emergencies, for your own safety.”
“Also, Innight, after the lesson ended, follow me to the Meeting Room. Me and the other 5 Grand Rulers wants to meet you to discuss on your custom magic weapon.”
I kept checking the clock as the lesson goes on. Finally, the bell rang, signifying the end of the lesson. I told Time and the 2 girls to go back home first while I and Miku will go with Luricerite. We both went down to the ground floor and entered a room with a sign written on it labelled “Meeting Room”.
Inside there, all the Grande Rulers are waiting for me, sitting on their seats.
“Welcome, Innight.” The Grand Ruler of Water Elemental Plane spoke.
“We all congratulate you on your success in the Magical Ticket Event. Today we invited you here to inform us of your custom magical weapon. It will help us if you have a drawing of your weapon and a description on the capability of the weapon itself. Do you have these in mind?”
“Fortunately, yes. I have prepared a drawing in advance. Let me show you the rough sketch…”
I materialized a screen from my suit, on it is a drawing of the an aquamarine coloured sword, with golden clock faces were painted on the blade itself. The entire blade also radiates with a blue aura.
“I call this blade Chrono Corruption. It grants the wielder the ability to manipulate Time. It can fire purple projectiles that, when hit, steal Time from the target to the user. The wielder is also immune to all Time magic casted onto him. If anyone is slain using the sword, they are removed from all the Timelines present in the Existence.”
All the Grand Rulers gave a suspicious look at me.
“Look here, Innight. We did say that we are supposed to craft you a custom magic weapon, but this is far too dangerous to be created. We cannot risk anyone getting their hand on this weapon, because if they do, it will spell the end of this world.” The Grand Ruler of the Fire Elemental Plane spoke.
I know that they are going to say such things. That’s ok, I’ve come prepared.
“I know this sounds a little dangerous, but there is something even more dangerous exposed to the environment now. Master Inoxion, have you heard of the Time Cubes that Nightius is created?”
“I did. What about it?”
“Didn’t Nightius report to you about it?”
“About what?”
I should have known, he is too much of a coward to report this to Master.
“Nightius reported to me yesterday morning, his entire stock of one million Time Cubes all vanished from his inventory. Well, all except one. His recipe for creating the Time Cubes is also stolen.”
All the Grand Rulers started whispering to each other. They all have known about the Time Cube since it is so powerful that it cannot be left to the hands of the others except for those that can be trusted.
“Seeing this situation, we are going to permit on the construction of this weapon. We will need something to counter whoever who has stolen the Time Cubes, just in case. We are also building on the trust that you and Inoxion have over the years. Give us one day to construct the weapon. You are dismissed, Innight. Meet us here again tomorrow to retrieve your weapon.” Luricerite said.
“About the trip to The Core, when do you think it will be a good time?” Master Inoxion asked.
“Tomorrow. I want to visit The Core as soon as possible.”
“That shall be it then. Tomorrow please be at the school teleportation station by 8 o’ clock. You do not need to bring anything except for a clear mind to note down important details about The Core, which you are likely to not have the chance to visit ever again.”
I left the room and head home. When I went to the ship, surprisingly, no one is hanging on the Void Storm. I note the surroundings, there is absolutely no one left outside the school yard.
“Strange. It doesn’t matter now though. Today I need to figure out the glass globe that the previous Innight has sent a few days ago.”
The globe must have something to do with The Event, and from what I can tell, the previous Innight uses Symbols when he doesn’t want anyone to figure out messages. All his message that has been encrypted into Symbols are all in relation to how The Event is going to be like. Also, from the diary, he said that he has hidden the Data Bank 0, 1, 3, and 10 somewhere at The Core, so I have to keep an eye out during to trip to find them out.
When I got back home, I went straight into my room and opened up the book on Timelines. On the new page, a new line of Symbols is written in crimson, probably blood. I started decoding the message.
“Too late… She found me… If you are reading this, do not fail us… The Event will be happening at a faster rate now as she has found out me hinting to you. You must… stop them…”
He has been killed?! Have the antagonists found out where the previous Innight is staying and killed him? If that is true indeed, then I’m on my own now. I don’t have anyone to help me out in trying to prevent this world’s ultimate demise other than Miku. Time is also clearly running out, I worried for the worst to actually happen during my trip to The Core. I’m now very sure that since the previous Innight have not foreseen this coming, so it means that this Timeline is travelling down another pathway instead of the originally intended path. Someone must have manipulated the Timeline to cause that to happen, but who?
Then I gave a thought about it. He did say that the antagonists are in a group. There is a girl within them, and she killed him after finding out that he is trying to guide me in preventing their plans from happening. This is not really that much of a surprise that he is killed, the real surprise is that the murderer has the ability to travel across Timelines, which, as I have mentioned before, is a rare ability. From what I know from my previous Timeline, only one out of a billion people will have that ability, and the world population is around 15 billion, so that will approximate to about 15 people in this entire Timeline that is capable of using Time magic.
Because of how dangerous these people are, they are registered in the database of the human population. So, if I can be able to sieve out who have this ability and track them down, I might be able to find who is responsible for the previous Innight’s death, and from there I can find who is involved in starting The Event.
I thought about all of this as I sat in the bath. If things are going to accelerate, then I will have to prepare sooner. Had everything gone according to the dairy, I will have at least 3 more days to prepare, but now things are changing, I’ll make a guess that it is going to start tomorrow. From the diary and the books I’ve read, I can conclude that The Event is going to originate from the Time Gate. If I am there tomorrow, there is a high chance I will get to see who is the one that is starting the Event. I will then be able to deduce who started it, and it is likely the one that is pushing all the blames for the previous events onto the previous Innight.
No matter how I think about it, something feels off.
“Oh yes, the glass globe! I have been thinking so much about everything else I’ve forgotten all about it!”
I quickly climbed out of the bathtub, dried myself, put on my clothes, and rushed up to my room. I found the glass globe still sitting on my desk, with the paper still beside it.
I read the Symbols again and start translating it.
“This contains the last piece of the puzzle. If you managed to figure out the rest, current Innight, you should be able to figure out this last one.”
What can this mean? This is the last puzzle? Does it even mean anything? I used to have an idea that it might be The Void, but judging from how the previous Innight functions, it must be another technological equipment. I played around with the globe carefully, to see if there is any more clue behind this, but nothing came up.
I started thinking. The previous Innight recorded absolutely nothing about this glass globe, yet he must have predicted something to send this globe to me during this period. This glass globe must be something important since he wrote that this is the last clue to the mystery. Could it be that it has a hidden message somewhere? I then thought about hidden messages.
There are two ways that I know how to reveal a hidden message. One is using UV light, the other is using heat. I brought up a UV lamp from my laboratory to the room itself and shone it on the glass globe. At once I saw a tiny line of Symbols on the bottom of the glass globe. I quickly start translating.
“This is the denotator of the Time Gate. Place it on the deactivator will cause the gate to be destroyed. Note: Fragile.”
Good. So we have a weapon capable of destroying the Time Gate, should it be activated. This will be our Ace in stopping The Event, should it occur tomorrow. I will also be having the Chrono Corruption with me tomorrow, and according to the diary, that will grant me the ability to stop the antagonists. I will see how it does that when that happens.
I went up to bed, with Miku beside me again. I’m trying to get used to Miku sleeping beside me. She is a girl, after all, and I get nervous around girls up close. I tried to forget that she is beside me by thinking about what will happen tomorrow.
“Eh????”
“You will not be with us tomorrow, Innight?”
“Sorry for telling all of you at the very last minute. Too many things were going on yesterday so I forgot about it.”
“But will you be back for dinner?”
“Of course I will, silly, I’m just going there for the entire morning and evening.”
“Oh. I forgot to tell all of you, I’m not attending school today.” Time suddenly said.
“Eh? Why?” Charlotte asked.
“Today is my parent’s death anniversary, I’m supposed to stay at their grave for the entire day. This is a family tradition so I have to follow it.”
“Alright, we understand.”
Saying these, we left for school leaving Time behind.
When I think back on it, I should have realized that she is the only one in this Timeline capable of casting Time magic that powerful. Had I realized that sooner, things would not have escalated to that extend, yet had it not happened, I will not be able to return to who I am.
I met the 6 Grand Rulers at the teleportation station when I reached school. They handled me my Chrono Corruption, then they revealed a passageway that is hidden away from the rest of the teleporters. On top of the teleporter there is a bronze plate with the words “The Core” labelled on it. I guessed that hid away this particular teleporter because they could not have any others to access it other than them. The Core is supposed to be heavily protected since it is a dangerous object, after all.
We then took off to The Core. When we arrived, I find myself to be inside a very large room. There are so many buttons, switches and levers everywhere in the room. I guess this is the control room, where they monitor and control the environment of the Time Gate. Where is the Time Gate, though?
The Grand Rulers greeted the people working inside the room, then one of the workers showed us a room. Inside were rows upon rows of brown coloured robes.
“Please put on these magic concentration robes before we can show you around the Time Gate. The Time Gate is positioned in a dangerous environment. We will explain to you why is this so later in the tour.”
All of us put on the robe. The worker then showed us to a teleporter, we all stood inside it. When we come out of it, we are in an eerie environment. The entire environment is coloured in moss green, and grey mists surrounds everything I see, the wind howls across my face. I suddenly have this overwhelming impulse to vomit. The worker saw me and push a bag of something in front of my nose to breath, the feeling then left me.
You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.
“So everyone, you are in the enclosed region where the Time Gate is positioned. The Time Gate is positioned around 250 m ahead. As you can easily see, within a radius of 1 km around the Time Gate, nothing can actually grow. This is a result of an effect caused by the Time Gate, in which the mana of everything in this region is being sucked away from the living things and absorbed by the Time Gate. What is the reason that it is doing this, we are still investigating, but the best explanation is that the Time Gate is fuelling energy for the next reopening.”
We then walked on foot for a certain distance, then I saw it: the Time Gate. It is huge, towering over everything. It has 12 symbols located at the side of it, and I can see it shimmering a faint green aura. I can almost feel how ancient this thing actually is by just from the looks of it.
“So, this is the Time Gate. Legend has it that it was cast down by Chronos, the Emperor of Time, it was told that he did so to challenge the first human race species on their ability on magic. It uses Time and mana to summon monsters from another dimension, which we call it as the Plane of Monsters. The monsters that comes out from it increases in strength in accordance to how much monsters we defeated. The Time Gate was, at first, under control by Chronos, but as time passes the gate begin to lose control. Monsters were pouring out at a rate faster than people could defeat them.”
“Chronos then decided to close it, but then, something terrible happened. A new monster emerged from the Time Gate, and it was so powerful that Chronos himself did not expected it. The monster looked like a human girl, around the age of a teenager. She wore a frilly orange and black dress, and she has one flintlock pistol in one hand, while using a musket on another hand. Initially, everyone thought that she was a human, but trapped in that Plane for whatever reason it may be. However, after greeting everyone near the Time Gate, the monster revealed its’ true intentions.”
“The monster start killing the humans, one after another. Different from the other monsters, however, it does not kill them by using physical damage or simple magic. It possesses a high level of capability of magic, strong enough to cast Time based magic. Using that, it killed many people. Chronos tried to challenged it and kill it, but it soon realized that this monster is no ordinary type monster, it possesses magic more powerful that he does. Chronos was killed in the battle against it.”
“The monster then announced to the people that are left in the battlefield: ‘Listen up, humans! We are taking over your world to be ours, we will consume it and turn it into our wonderland! I’m the ruler of my kind and my name is Time, remember that clearly as you die!’”
“The entire city was laid barren as the ruler of the monster named Time continued to extend her power over the land. Luckily, the Grand Rulers of the Elemental Planes realised this. They fought this monstrosity together, for over 50 days and nights. Finally, they exhausted her power, and using this chance, they sealed off the Time Gate.”
“Initially, the Grand Rulers wanted to kill off Time first, but she begged so much, saying that she only wanted a new place to play around with and wanted to play with her magic. In the end, the Grand Rulers decided to grant her mercy, but made her promise that she has to never use her magic for evil uses ever again. Time disappeared into the mist, never to be seen or heard again.”
Hmm……. I wonder…… Could it be…?
“Then there was a more recent case, where a boy named Innight tried to go near the Time Gate. He said it is because he has to analyse the material the Time Gate is made up of and to analyse the process the Time Gate takes to convert Time into teleportation energy. We initially let him be, thinking that he will not do anything harmful.”
“Right after he had left the Time Gate, we detect changes in the frequency of the mana wavelength around the region, where there is a large flow of mana from the area towards the Time Gate. We have never seen this happening before, but from the records, we can deduce that that the Time Gate is reactivating. We have very little records of what is the cause, but we have sufficient evidence to prove that it happens when enough Time is injected into the Time Gate.”
“Our immediate hypothesis is that the boy named Innight must have capability in casting Time magic, and has relations to Time herself. We send out this message to the entire world to capture him. So far to no success…”
Crap.
I immediately take off using a jetpack and fly as fast as I can away from them. As I fly away from them, I can hear blasts of spells heading in my direction. I dodged them in as they come flying towards me in rapid succession.
“Submit yourself, Innight!”
“You cannot run away now!”
“You need to be captured and questioned!”
I already knew that something similar is going to happen in accordance to the diary. I didn’t know that they planned this beforehand though. However, I have one question in my mind, why did not try to capture me directly after the wanted list is released? I guess I will never get to know that. My priority is to get away from them now.
Then I remembered something, I have the Chrono Corruption. Only people that are capable of using Time magic are immune to the effect of this sword. With this sword, I should be able to stop all of them. How do I use it though….?
I tried holding the sword with both of my hands, then cried out “Chrono Immobility!” I just thought of that name on the spot to see if the sword can obey my command and stop all of them in Time.
I felt a wave of magic swooped over the region, then I saw everything froze in Time. I prepared an anti-magic prison cell and locked the Grand Rulers and the worker inside. Then I shout “Return!”, instantly the spell came undone.
“What is the meaning of this, Innight?” all of them harmonized.
“All of you are trying to kill me! It is an act of self-defence! Wherever I go there are people who are trying to kill me! All of you cannot be trusted!”
“This is because you are the primary suspect for triggering the Common World Domination and the near reactivation of Time Gate. We need to imprison you to prevent more events like these from happening.”
“Listen closely. This is not the time to worry about this. In a few minutes time, Time will return to reactivate the Time Gate again. We should all unite together to stop her from doing this, because if she did manage to activate the Time Gate, she can return to her domain to recharge her power back to full strength. If she does that, no one in this Timeline can stop her. She will then use this power to consume all the Timelines, merging them into one, and then destroying it altogether. The entire Existence is dependent on all of us now to prevent this from happening.”
“How can we trust you about this info?” One of the Grand ruler asked.
“You have to trust me on this. I also have enough evidence that I am not the one who triggered the Common World Domination and the near reactivation of the Time Gate. I will tell all of you about this later, when there is time. Now we should all gather together to stop her from reactivating the Time Gate. I also carry a key to destroy this Time Gate once and for all. It is time that this constant danger in this world to be gone forever.”
All of them went quiet for a while, probably in deep thoughts. Then finally, they speak out.
“Fine. Since there seems to be an even bigger threat, plus according to the constant monitoring of Inoxion on you, you appear to be a peaceful entity, we decide to work with you.”
I nod my head.
“Right. We should head to the Time Gate now. She should be there already. I have a rough idea of who Time already is, though. Master Inoxion, you might be not be surprised by it. If my guess is right, she is actually someone closer to us than you can think. I should have read more about this Time Gate beforehand, that might have gave us more time to prepare for this.”
I disabled the prison cell and begin flying towards the Time Gate. The Grand Rulers and the worker followed. When we are near there, I saw a spot flying in the sky, near the Time Gate. I activate a pair of binoculars to view the spot.
A girl with orange and black frilly dress is pouring a green liquid from her fingertips into the Time Gate. I viewed up closer and saw the face.
My guess is right on spot.
The person doing that is Time indeed. My guess is that she is injecting Time into the Time Gate and preparing for the activation of the Time Gate itself.
“We are on time, everyone, she is here. Be wary, she can use Time based magic, I have no idea how strong it can be because her magic ability depends on how much Time she has absorbed from others. All of you are in danger of being killed by her because all of you are affected by Time based magic. I’m the only one safe from her and has the capability of fighting her since I’m the only one with this Chrono Corruption. This grant me immunity to her spells. All of you stay back. I will do the job of attacking her.”
“Then what shall we do?”
I took out the glass globe, and handed it to Master Inoxion.
“This is the denotator of the Time Gate. All of you must protect it. Find the deactivator of this Time Gate, wherever it is, and placed it on there. That will lead to the destruction of the Time Gate. Be careful with this thing, it is extremely fragile. There is only one of such thing in this world, and it took me ages to construct it. The fate of the entire Existence lies on us now.”
We all nod to each other. They all activated an invisibility shield and vanished from my sight. I approached Time.
“Time.”
“Ah! It’s… It’s… It’s you, Innight. Don’t scare me like this.”
“Time. I thought that you said that you have to visit your parents’ grave today and won’t be back for until tomorrow?”
“Uh… About that…. I lied to you…”
“Why, Time. Why?”
“I don’t think you will understand all of this if I tell you.”
“Why do you think I won’t? I’m not unreasonable.”
“You don’t understand, Innight. I…. I…. I….”
She started crying.
“Because we are bonded by this marriage! If I told you my real identity, you will come to hate me! You will then divorce me and I will be left on my own again!”
“Time…”
“You wouldn’t be able to understand that! The feeling of loneliness and being weak and exposed to the dangers of this world… It’s painful!”
“I understand that.”
“You don’t! In the other Timelines you are all powerful, capable of performing all kinds of magic! You only came to understand that after you were transferred into this Timeline!”
“Time. Listen. Stop whatever that you are doing now. I do not wish to harm you. Let’s go back. We can talk about this once we get home.”
“You don’t understand, Innight. I long to return home. I have not been accepted as a human anywhere. You were the very first human to have accepted me and even married to me. However, I know that, deep down, I’m still a monster, the ruler of the Plane of Monsters. I need to return to where I belong and fulfil what I have promised to my monsters, to consume and destroy this Timeline, to create a new Timeline for the monsters only.”
“So it has to come down to this… Time, if I cannot convince you, I will have to stop you. The world needs to be at peace. We have enjoyed peace for so long, we cannot have you destroying it for your selfish needs.”
“I don’t want to fight you, Innight. Please…. Leave.”
“Then stop, Time. We don’t need another bloodshed. Let’s just go home.”
I’m trying to buy time for the others to find the deactivator of the Time Gate, but it seems that they are having a hard time doing so.
“No. I’m not leaving. If you try to convince me more, then I will have to fight you, Innight.”
“So it has to come down to this in the end…” I took out my Chrono Corruption, and fired at Time.
She blocked it off with a shield, which I think is generated from Time.
“Stop forcing me, Innight. If I start fighting, my personality changes completely, I become someone who will not stop until I tasted the blood of the opponent. Stop forcing me, Innight. If I start fighting you, I will not be able to control myself.”
“Then stop all of this!”
“I. Will. Not!”
I kept firing projectiles at her while she continues to pour out the green liquid into the Time Gate, which I guess is liquefied Time, while using her musket to fire bullets to break my projectile.
Hurry up, the lot of you, is it so hard to find the deactivator?
Suddenly, I felt sick again. I vomited, and Time to this opportunity to knock me out from the sky by firing her gun at my jetpack. I lost control of the jetpack and went tumbling down onto the ground, near the Time Gate itself.
“Zafkiel, Zayin!”
I immediately hold up my Chrono Corruption in front of me and block the bullet. I’ve known the attacks of Time from the previous Timeline. She has 12 bullets, each corresponding to an ability in Time. To activate those ability, she has to first call upon her limiter called Zafkiel, which is also, coincidentally, the name of one of the Archangels. That will fill up her gun, either the musket or the flintlock pistol with a bullet that contains the spells of her Time magic. She then fires the gun with the bullet at the target, thus activating her spell. With my Chrono Corruption however, I become immune to her spells. This will give me an advantage over others.
The sick feeling wells up again and I vomited. I then felt all my strength drained from my body, I crumbled on the ground, unable to move. I then heard rustling sounds coming in my direction.
“Any success?” I asked in the direction of the sound.
No answer came.
“Hello? Are you people alive?”
Then something came into my sight. It is definitely not human, I can tell that in one glance. It is probably a monster that lives in this region, but has never been detected by the workers here.
It is quite small, approximately the size of a 5-year-old child. It has a protrusion above the head, and on that protrusion, it hangs a little golden clock. It has four arms, with two pairs of scrawny hands attached to it. It makes a curious “tick, tack” sound as it investigates me. I wonder how many of this creature actually exist near the Time Gate region. More sounds came to my direction, the creature scampered away.
“He should be over here. This mist is starting to become a pain.”
“It is. It’s obstructing everything that we can see.”
“He’s there. Innight, can you move?”
It’s them.
“No I can’t. The nauseous feeling came back and I vomited, then now I can’t move.”
“No surprises here. We all felt the Time gate starting to extract mana from the region. You have the lowest amount of mana among all of us. We need to boost you with some mana before you will be able to withstand the effect of the Time Gate. Time is probably injecting magic into the Time Gate now, and we still cannot find the deactivator.”
“I will look for it. Help me to get up first.”
Master Inoxion produced a red coloured bean and pushed it into my mouth.
“Bite and swallow it.” He ordered.
I bit on the thing and swallowed on it. A wave of warmth swept over me and then I felt energy returning to me. I stood up, slightly dizzy from staying down for too long.
“Alright. We have to look for the deactivator. From what I know, this Time Gate becomes impossible to be disabled once it activates as the deactivator will be hidden away as the gate undergoes a conformational change.”
I strode over to the direction of the Time Gate, against the wind which has suddenly increased in magnitude.
“We’ve went around the base of the entire Time Gate, we have not found anywhere where we can put this denotator on.”
It makes sense that the deactivator is positioned at somewhere near the top of the gate itself, going by the idea that this gate is created by a God. I can’t fly now though as my jetpack is damaged. I will need them to carry me up while using their flying spells.
“All of you, you have to help me out on this. My jetpack is damaged so I can’t fly now. You all have to carry me up the Time Gate, I know where the deactivator is.”
I’ve seen a diagram of the Time Gate before. Apparently the previous Innight has a blueprint of the Time Gate for whatever reason. I’ve brought it with me because I had a feeling that it will eventually lead to this.
The six Grand Rulers panted a flying spell within myself, and casted an invisibility shield around me. I flew up of the Time Gate and took out the blueprint. Then suddenly, I heard:
“Zafkiel, Zayin!”
I hold up my Chrono Corruption and heard a “clank” sound on the blade.
“Don’t think that I can’t see you, Innight!”
I know this is likely to happen, so I’m prepared for this.
“Time, enough is enough. Stop this.”
Rapid chain fire of bullets fired right at me, I blocked all of it off with my blade.
“I see what you have there, I know what is it, I will destroy it!”
Suddenly clones of Time appeared before me and grabbed me. One of them took away the glass globe and shot it with the gun. The globe broke open and the purple liquid inside vaporised.
“Without this, you will not be able to stop me!”
A maniacal laughter followed. I turned my head to look at the real Time (or at least I think it is), her normal red eye is glowing and her face looks scary from where I am. This is not the normal Time that I know off, she is…different.
The wind suddenly stopped howling. Time seems to have stopped at that very moment. Time herself also stopped pouring Time into the portal. Everything stopped moving. The silence is unreal, yet temporary.
It was just less than a minute of silence, the 12 symbols of the Time Gate shone and a swirling ball of energy appeared in the middle of the Gate and expanded, until it covered the entire Gate. At that moment, the sky suddenly all turned crimson and a lightning struck the Gate. All at once the wind howled at an even greater magnitude, so powerful that I can barely keep my eyes open.
“This is the time! Humans, your time is up!”
Time flew into the Time Gate, her clones let go of me and also went in.
I land onto the ground and meet the Grand Rulers; the worker has vanished.
“We have failed to prevent her from opening the Time Gate. Sealing the Time Gate will not help now as when Time gains all her powers back, she can reopen whenever she wants.”
Everyone looked down.
“However, we have one last hope.”
“How?” All of them crowded around me.
“First, we need layers of defenders to defend this are so that the monsters do not advance outside of this region. All of you gather up as much volunteers as possible to do that. Inform the children to hide and wait for further notice.”
“Understood.”
“I will do the most dangerous thing that all of you wouldn’t be able to. I will go through the Time Gate and visit Time in her domain. I have one last Ace in the pocket.”
“But it’s dangerous to go through the Time Gate! No one knows what will happen if you go through it!”
“I do. Once you go through the portal your magic ability is stripped away temporarily. Since I don’t have any to begin with, I wouldn’t be affected by it. Besides, I have Chrono Corruption, that will help me to counter most monsters I meet in the Plane of Monsters. If everything goes well, I should be able to stop Time before she manages to claim all her powers back.”
The Grand Rulers discussed for a moment.
“Alright, we decide to trust in you further.”
“Good. Hopefully when all of this is over, we can have a nice chat on this entire event.”
The 6 of them teleported away, I stood in front of the Time Gate and sighed.
“So it has to boil down to this, huh?”
In the dairy, there are records on how to deal with Time should the Time Gate activates again. It is heavily encoded in the diary as I think it is used as a last resort. I need to follow every single step of it to ensure that this Timeline still has a future waiting for it.
I stepped into the Time Gate. As the swirling particles covers me I think:
Time… What are you exactly?