Re: Timeless Apocalypse-Chapter 150: Fox

Daytime always eventually came to an end.

Even in the desert.

"..."

The desert was nothing but a flat plane of white ivory grains, the waves and chaos absent and the air deathly quiet.

Even the usual sandstorms had come to an end, as had the constant clashes of wind and ice.

Far on the horizon, a sun that had been hidden during the day by the grey skies above slowly set, rich golden-orange rays washing over the sandy expanse as soft winds swept by.

The grey clouds above gradually dispersed as the sun descended, revealing a starry sky of untold beauty that only grew more breathtaking with each passing second.

It was quite the sight.

"...mm."

Uriel was still tied to the ruby wall.

"..mmm.."

His pupils fluttered open slowly, dried blood caking his face alongside crusts of sand and ice.

With a groan, he fully opened his eyes, the radiant golden light of the setting sun blinding him for a moment before he adjusted.

Weakly, he smiled.

"...ah."

His body was riddled with cracks and blood, beaten blue and purple, his robes torn to rags soaked in blood and sweat. At this point, he wasn’t sure if his mage set would even be able to rebuild itself.

He couldn’t feel most of his body, the pain ever-present and constant.

Every inhale and exhale came with the sharp realization that more bones than he dared to count were broken, piercing his flesh in an innumerable number of ways, each more painful than the last.

’Ah, it’s not as bad as expected.’

He had passed out after the first few hours of falling waves, fully expecting to wake up in the underworld. From there on, his mind had flickered in and out of consciousness.

It had been a long, long, long day.

But the day was now over.

Uriel stared ahead at the radiant sun, feeling its warm rays against his cold skin and the thick wind brushing across every part of him.

The silence was ever-present, yet it felt more reassuring than daunting. Though he was alone for kilometres on end—perhaps across the entire desert—he didn’t feel quite as lonely.

The moment of respite gave him a peace he found hard to describe, even more than the couple of days he had spent in the cave.

And as the seconds passed, his Shells worked without end, mending his flesh as his Mantle and Simple Domain stood strong.

He closed his eyes for a moment.

He laid his gaze upon the cube in his mind. Then, he bitterly laughed.

’I still can’t for the life of me understand.’ His laugh turned into a groan of deep exasperation. He leaned back as much as the bindings allowed, slouching as he exhaled.

’With my Shell and Mantle, it’ll probably take a week or two before my body collapses and I die. And if my Timeless Resonance and Pioneer Scale continuously make me grow, maybe a month.’

He smiled. ’Or a year.’ 𝓯𝙧𝓮𝓮𝒘𝓮𝙗𝙣𝒐𝒗𝒆𝓵.𝓬𝓸𝒎

’Should I be lamenting my choice, or be proud that my little turtle was able to make me this sturdy? Who knows.’

’Ah, maybe going for an indestructible body wasn’t the best idea. Maybe I should’ve gotten an elemental body that can slip past everything.’

He hummed. ’Or maybe a sort of space-attuned body. I’m sure that would’ve been powerful, especially for escapes and intrusions.’

’Whatever.’

He shrugged, then stopped thinking. He was so relaxed he almost felt himself falling asleep.

He let the silence settle.

KIH!

"Hm?"

He reopened his eyes, having sensed a small spike of aether not far from him.

’The waves are back already?’

Looking around, though, he found nothing. In fact, he hadn’t even noticed that the aether in the air had become strangely stable and that the sand had lost a large portion of its prior effects.

After scanning the horizon and finding nothing, he was about to close his eyes once more and continue resting when something suddenly caught his eye.

SHHH!

Not far from him, a small patch of sand shook and shuddered, then collapsed inward, forming a passage from which a small, lithe, nimble creature surged out.

Uriel was taken aback.

’Is that a dog? Huh. I didn’t know they could live in the sand.’

It was a fox, particularly small, its fur a deep white, the track along its belly a stark silver. Its ears were large, pointed toward the skies, and its three tails were long and puffy, elegantly undulating through the air.

The creature’s eyes were a deep gold, reeking of intelligence.

"Kih!" It let out a soft hiss-like sound, which Uriel found far cuter than threatening.

With nimble steps, the fox made its way across the distance, approaching him.

"Hey, little guy. You’re lost?"

The creature reached him rather quickly. He sat strapped to the ruby wall at its foot, so it was hard to miss him, especially when he reeked as badly as he did.

The little fox climbed atop his lap. He looked down just as it looked up at him, sniffing and probing.

He smiled. "I don’t have any treats, I’m sorry."

The fox ignored him. The longer it spent smelling him, the more its tails undulated, almost as if betraying its excitement.

Its beady golden eyes lit up, and aether sparked around it, flowing across its body in a manner so strange that Uriel was immediately left dumbfounded.

His own gaze sharpened, sparkling faintly as he peered into the creature’s body, curiosity overtaking him.

’...what?!’

The fox had the same strange body the little witch and the emperor possessed, a body seemingly forged to control aether, a body he and other humans did not have.

But beyond that—

’Its core can control both chaotic and orderly aether and... its body is immune to chaotic backlashes? What in the world...’

He had entertained many thoughts about aether control and built a plethora of theories around it, yet something naturally capable of controlling chaotic aether had never once crossed his mind.

He hummed, smiling faintly. ’Oh well. Just shows how much there is to see, to discover, to learn out there.’

The fox suddenly stopped sniffing him. Then it reached out and began licking him, peeling away the layers of blood, sweat, ice, and sand from his skin.

"Aht! Wait—hahaha!"