Chapter 68 — The Time That Managed to Freeze
Weeks had passed since the events of Pandemonium.
The world continued moving forward normally on the surface, but in the shadows… something was slowly changing. The kingdoms were becoming increasingly unstable, and strange magical phenomena were multiplying everywhere. An invisible tension spread across the continents, even though most people didn't truly understand why.
However, in the Dragon Kingdom…
another battle had begun.
Training.
For several days already, Seth had been living within the sacred mountains of the kingdom under the direct supervision of Alexander, the Sacred Dragon of Spirits. Alma and Damian, meanwhile, had been entrusted to Vulcan in order to learn advanced combat techniques. Reynard spent most of his time buried inside the royal libraries, searching for new ways to improve his lightning magic.
And despite the apparent calm…
nobody ignored the fact that something gigantic was approaching.
That morning, the sky above the Dragon Kingdom was particularly clear. Massive dragons slowly crossed the clouds above the mountains while the great cities carved into the cliffs reflected the golden light of the sun. Inside the royal arenas, training had already been going on for several hours.
A gigantic explosion echoed.
The ground violently cracked apart as Alma slid several meters backward before stabbing her sword into the stone to stabilize herself.
Facing her, Kana smiled.
Her blue hair moved slightly beneath the magical energy surrounding her body.
— "You're slowing down already?" Kana said.
Alma lightly wiped the blood at the corner of her mouth before smiling back.
— "Not even in your dreams."
She vanished instantly.
The ground exploded beneath her feet.
Then she reappeared immediately behind Kana, bringing down her sword with monstrous force.
BOOM.
A massive shockwave tore through the arena. Kana blocked the attack with her arm covered in draconic scales before driving Alma back with a brutal knee strike to the stomach.
Alma was launched into the air.
But before she could even fall back down, she hurled herself forward again, creating several magic circles beneath her feet.
Vulcan observed the fight from high above the arena, his arms crossed.
Then he slowly nodded.
— "Good. She learns fast… the daughter of those two."
The two girls immediately stopped.
Vulcan continued calmly:
— "Your summer mission is nearly over, Alma."
Alma's eyes instantly lit up.
— "HIIIIII!! Seriously?! So that means…"
— "Yes."
A faint smile appeared on the old dragon's face.
— "Your first S-Rank mission is approaching."
For a second…
Alma completely froze.
Then she nearly jumped in place.
— "AN S-RANK MISSION!! My first real one!!"
Even Damian looked surprised behind her.
Noel quietly sighed.
— "She's really incapable of staying calm for even five minutes…"
Meanwhile, much farther away inside the royal palace…
Reynard slowly walked through the immense draconic libraries. Thousands of ancient books floated alone through the air thanks to the kingdom's magic, and some shelves seemed literally endless.
The young lightning mage eventually stopped before a massive row of forbidden books.
— "Lightning magic… transformation… nervous system amplification…"
He slowly grabbed an old black grimoire before sighing.
— "Yeah… I need this thing if I want to get stronger quickly."
— "You talking to yourself now?"
Reynard jumped violently.
Then he turned around.
Seth was leaning against the library entrance.
— "Damn it, Seth. Try not to appear out of nowhere like that…"
Seth smiled slightly.
— "Sorry. Alexander asked me to come get you."
Reynard frowned.
— "Already? Your training starts today…"
— "Yeah. Obliranca is waiting for us."
Reynard slowly closed his book before walking toward him.
The two boys then left the library and crossed the immense corridors of the draconic palace. Around them, giant dragon statues towered over the royal halls, making it feel as though they were constantly being watched.
Then Reynard calmly asked:
— "Are you nervous about your training?"
Seth remained silent for a few seconds.
— "Honestly… yeah, a little. I really don't know how this is gonna go."
— "Normal. Obliranca scares everyone."
— "Thanks for the emotional support," Seth replied.
Reynard laughed lightly.
But his expression soon became serious again.
— "You know… Alexander would never entrust someone weak to Obliranca."
Seth slightly raised his eyes toward him.
— "You really think so?"
— "Yeah."
Then with a grin:
— "Though that doesn't mean you won't suffer horribly."
— "Fantastic."
Eventually, the two crossed a teleportation portal and arrived before Obliranca's immense spiritual palace.
The place felt unreal.
White structures literally floated through the air around the main building, and enormous transparent dragon spirits silently circled in the sky.
When they entered…
Obliranca was already waiting for them.
Motionless at the center of a massive circular hall.
Then she calmly spoke:
— "Come."
Without waiting for a response, Obliranca slowly turned and walked deeper into the spiritual palace. Her footsteps made almost no sound against the white floor, as if even matter itself refused to disturb the silence surrounding her.
Seth and Reynard exchanged a nervous glance before silently following her.
The farther they advanced…
the stranger the palace became.
The corridors seemed to stretch unnaturally, as if distances constantly shifted around them. At times, Seth even felt certain doors appeared and disappeared a few seconds later. Translucent lights drifted slowly through the air like fragments of souls, and occasionally… he heard distant whispers without understanding their origin.
Then finally…
Obliranca stopped before a gigantic silver door.
No…
it wasn't even a simple door anymore.
The entire structure looked like a piece of reality torn from somewhere else. Thousands of temporal symbols covered its metallic surface, moving slowly like clock hands. Some runes disappeared before reappearing elsewhere seconds later.
Just looking at it…
made Seth feel dizzy.
His brain couldn't process it.
Obliranca gently raised her hand.
Then she simply placed her fingers against the silver surface.
CLACK.
The sound echoed unnaturally long.
And slowly…
the door opened.
Instantly,
Seth felt his breath stop.
His pupils violently contracted.
Because behind that door…
there wasn't a room.
There was another world.
An infinite white expanse stretched before them. No walls. No ceiling. No visible horizon. The place felt like it floated inside a perfectly silent void where the normal laws of reality had ceased to exist.
And everywhere…
clocks.
Thousands?
No…
millions? Impossible to count.
Gigantic clocks floated in every direction like planets suspended in space. Some were golden. Others black. Some possessed multiple hands turning in impossible directions while others seemed completely broken.
But the most terrifying part…
was the silence.
Absolute.
Even the luminous particles floating in the air remained perfectly motionless.
Here, time itself had been murdered.
Seth immediately felt something strange pass through his body.
His heart beat slower.
His breathing felt delayed.
Even his thoughts became heavy.
Every function of his body was being slowed by an invisible force.
— "This dimension is called the Hall of Frozen Time."
Obliranca's voice softly echoed behind them.
But even her voice sounded strange here.
The words traveled slowly through space before reaching their ears.
Seth remained unable to look away from the infinite white world before him.
Then Obliranca calmly continued:
— "Here… one entire day equals five minutes in your world."
Seth's brain literally stopped functioning for several seconds.
He slowly blinked.
Then looked at Reynard.
Then the clocks.
Then Obliranca again.
— "…What?"
Even Reynard remained silent.
And coming from him…
that was probably the most worrying sign possible.
Obliranca slowly walked deeper into the dimension while the giant clocks reacted slightly to her presence. Some hands began moving on their own before abruptly stopping again.
— "This dimension exists between multiple temporal layers."
Her voice echoed through the white space.
— "The flow of outside time is almost completely isolated here."
— "The first Sacred Dragons created this place to train heirs capable of surviving such an environment."
A chill ran down Seth's spine.
Because now he understood.
This wasn't merely a training room.
It was far more than that.
Reynard eventually muttered nervously:
— "Wait… so Seth could technically stay here for years… while only a few hours pass outside…?"
— "Exactly."
Seth immediately turned toward Obliranca.
— "THAT'S COMPLETELY BROKEN!!"
For the first time since their arrival…
a faint smile appeared on Obliranca's face.
But it vanished almost instantly.
Her gaze became cold again.
— "This place is also extremely dangerous."
Then—
BOOOOOOM.
A monstrous pressure suddenly crushed Seth to the ground.
His knees slammed violently against the white surface.
The air instantly left his lungs.
Even Reynard staggered backward from the overwhelming power flooding the dimension.
The giant clocks rapidly began vibrating around them.
Seth tried lifting his head.
Impossible.
Even moving a single finger required monstrous effort.
This wasn't merely magical pressure.
Time itself was crushing his body.
As if every single cell inside him had to fight to continue existing within this dimension.
Obliranca slowly approached him.
Her blue eyes stared down at him without the slightest emotion.
— "Time naturally destroys weak beings."
Seth violently gritted his teeth.
His arms trembled as he tried to rise.
But the more he moved…
the more the pressure increased.
His entire body seemed to slow down.
Even his vision became unstable.
Then Obliranca spoke once more:
— "If you wish to become strong enough to survive what is approaching… then abandon forever the idea of your humanity."
The gigantic clocks around them suddenly began turning.
All of them.
At the same time.
An immense sound invaded the dimension.
TICK.
TOCK.
TICK.
TOCK.
Each beat echoed directly inside Seth's mind.
This place possessed its own consciousness…
Obliranca then calmly turned away and walked deeper into the infinite white expanse.
— "Starting today…"
Her voice slowly resonated through the frozen world.
— "Your body, your mind, and your soul will be rebuilt here."
Meanwhile…
thousands of kilometers away from the Dragon Kingdom…
the Kingdom of Wind was slowly descending into chaos…
The kingdom's gigantic celestial cities floated majestically above an infinite ocean of clouds. Suspended nearly nine hundred kilometers above the ground thanks to ancient wind currents, these structures represented one of the most impressive kingdoms on the continent.
Massive stone bridges connected the floating islands.
Aerial mages crossed the distant clouds.
And throughout the streets, streams of magical energy levitated entire structures as though gravity itself no longer existed there.
But today…
something was wrong.
The wind blew in the opposite direction.
And it was silent.
Inside the Kingdom of Wind…
a silent wind was probably the most abnormal thing imaginable.
Within the royal palace corridors, Rhea calmly walked toward the throne room when alarms suddenly exploded across the capital.
Red runes immediately appeared on the walls.
Soldiers began running in every direction.
— "Intruder detected!"
— "Unknown presence at the main gates!"
— "Mana level impossible to analyze! Potential S-Level threat!"
Rhea's expression instantly changed.
Then she vanished within a violent explosion of wind.
A few minutes later…
the kingdom's main walls were already filled with soldiers.
Hundreds of mages activated their spells.
Massive magical barriers now surrounded the floating capital.
And at the center of the main entrance…
a man roughly 1.76 meters tall simply stood there motionless.
Zero.
His long black coat moved slightly beneath the aerial currents.
But around him…
the wind literally refused to circulate.
As if the atmosphere itself feared approaching his body.
Neinhart, one of the kingdom's most powerful military commanders, slowly stepped forward atop the walls. His immense rune-covered halberd vibrated beneath the magical energy gathered within him.
— "Who are you?"
Zero slowly raised his eyes toward the kingdom's gigantic floating structures.
Then calmly murmured:
— "Nine hundred kilometers high…"
The commander immediately frowned.
— "What are you talking about?"
Zero slowly observed the void beneath the capital.
Then calmly asked:
— "Do you know how long it took me to get here?"
Silence fell for several seconds.
Something in his voice instinctively disturbed every soldier present.
Then Neinhart violently tightened his grip on his halberd.
— "I seriously don't care about your nonsense."
His mana instantly exploded.
A gigantic storm appeared around the walls.
— "KILL HIM!"
Hundreds of magic circles immediately illuminated the sky.
Then hell descended upon Zero.
Thousands of wind spears, lightning bolts, flames, and magical projectiles rushed toward him at monstrous speed. The entire sky vanished beneath that colossal magical barrage capable of pulverizing an entire mountain.
Then—
CLACK.
Zero simply snapped his fingers.
And the world stopped.
Completely.
Not just the attacks.
Not just the soldiers.
The entire kingdom had been removed from time itself.
The flames instantly stopped moving in midair.
The lightning froze like luminous sculptures.
Even the clouds above the capital ceased moving.
The silence became absolute.
Terrifying.
Time itself had been suspended.
Then Zero simply began walking.
Calmly.
Amid an entire kingdom frozen in time.
His footsteps slowly echoed through the unreal silence as he crossed through the thousands of immobilized attacks floating in the air. Some flames remained suspended mere centimeters from his face before he casually walked past them.
Eventually, he stopped in front of Neinhart.
The commander remained frozen within his attack order.
Unable to move.
Unable even to think.
Then Zero sighed lightly.
— "Too slow."
And he restarted time.
BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM.
The kingdom exploded in a monstrous roar.
Every attack resumed instantly.
But Zero was already gone.
Neinhart suddenly felt something tear through his body.
His eyes widened violently.
Then—
BOOOOOOM.
A gigantic shockwave literally obliterated the walls behind him.
The commander was launched through several buildings amid an explosion of blood and stone.
He hadn't even seen the attack.
Around Zero…
hundreds of soldiers exploded almost simultaneously.
Some were sliced in half.
Others were pulverized by invisible force.
The entire ground cracked beneath the monstrous pressure generated by his movements.
And amid the massacre…
Zero simply continued walking.
To him, exterminating an entire army required absolutely no effort.
More than twenty-five thousand soldiers massacred within fractions of a second.
Then he slightly raised his eyes toward the distant royal palace floating far away.
— "Where is your king?"
And suddenly—
BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM.
A gigantic violet light crashed down from the sky.
The impact instantly destroyed dozens of meters of walls in a monumental explosion. The wind immediately became uncontrollable. A colossal pressure spread throughout the floating capital.
Then a silhouette slowly rose from the center of the crater.
A Valkyrie.
Her immense violet armor shone beneath the magical storms already forming around her. A gigantic celestial spear appeared in her hand while colossal energy distorted the entire atmosphere.
Rhea.
The Ninth S-Rank Hunter.
The surviving soldiers immediately felt hope return.
Because an S-Rank Hunter…
The wind became increasingly violent.
Storms literally began forming across the kingdom's skies.
Her gaze remained locked onto Zero.
Then she finally spoke.
— "You should have fled before my arrival, stranger."
And for the first time since the massacre began…
a faint smile appeared on Zero's face.
The atmosphere of the entire kingdom had just changed.
The real battle…
was finally about to begin.
To be continued…