Re: Timeless Apocalypse-Chapter 155: Killers and Gamblers
Aether crystals.
The new currency of the world and wider universe, and a creation he found rather interesting considering it was the only way for him to awaken his Sparks.
He had more of those than he dared count.
And while he could use them for his Spark, he wouldn’t.
Not now at least. No, he had a far better idea.
"You know, I actually despise death, especially the act of murder. To kill—I hate that." He said aloud, softly caressing the crystal in his hand, feeling its warm energy stream into him.
"I hate it from both sides. I don’t think anyone has the right to strip anyone or anything of life. I think it’s the most sacrilegious act a man can do."
"Once you kill, you lose something you never gain back."
He looked up.
"I also think murder born from anger, however justified, is idiotic." He paused. "There are many more ways to punish the living than there are the dead. Death is mercy."
"Death is eternal peace. It is solace. And why would I want to grant that to those I hate?"
The Fox continued to retreat slowly, a low growl escaping from it, its tails standing taut, betraying the creature’s nervousness.
The scene was curious, between the half-dead and seemingly powerless Uriel and the almighty and perfectly healed beast.
The winner should’ve been clear. And yet, it wasn’t.
"Your Spark is a sort of adaptive evolution of sorts, hm? You grow by eating? Experiencing? Seeing? Or perhaps by mimicking?"
"Whatever the case may be," he fully turned away from the beast, staring at the ruby monument behind him, the only looming titan across the desert. "This is an opportunity for you."
He closed his eyes, laying sight upon the cube in his mind.
"We either both die—"
The Fox couldn’t hold it anymore and simply took off, exploding with power and streaking across the air at staggering speeds.
It had to escape. It had to, or else—
"—or be reborn greater than we ever were."
Uriel crushed the aether crystal just as a memory played in his mind.
...
["Last question," he blurted. "Why did you send me into the Death Trial? What was the goal? Why?"]
[Veins erupted across Enoch’s skin as the entire house trembled, his Lie Eaters bearing the brunt of an outer force Uriel couldn’t sense, but could feel.]
[It was like a spectral weight embodying all things, hanging above him, reaching down to crush him bit by bit.]
[It felt as though the world itself was shrinking, coiling around his throat, trying to kill him.]
["Like I said, we both have more than one Spark, each with extremely potent abilities," Enoch forced out. "You, in particular—amongst your Sparks—have one that allows you to comprehend and master things extremely quickly."]
["No," he corrected himself, voice breaking. "It allows you to comprehend and master things in a blink."]
["You won’t be able to awaken it for a long time, time we don’t have. And I needed to speed up your growth."]
["You told me that—" He doubled over, vomiting blood. "—if you face death, your Sparks will all momentarily awaken and help you."]
["Your Sparks will then return to dormancy, but you’ll keep the growth and mastery speed related to whatever they affected."]
["Meaning that from now on, your arcane studies will be fulgurous."]
["That’s what I wanted," he gasped. "To speed up what would’ve taken years."]
...
If Uriel lost to the fox, he was dead.
If he defeated the fox, the rain would kill him.
If he survived the rain, the coming day would kill him.
If he survived the coming cycles of day and night, time would simply kill him.
He couldn’t comprehend the lock and thus was stuck.
There were no paths of survival for him to take, so he’d carve one out in blood. He’d either soar and live or fall to his death.
WHOOOOOOOOOOSH!
’Killers kill, and gamblers gamble.’
Uriel flashed a radiant smile as his core shattered in a supernova of light that tore at the fabric of the entire desert’s space.
Space shook, but then, suddenly, it was as if time froze for the briefest of moments, all aether in the desert stirring and then—
WHOOOOSH!
—rushing towards Uriel’s imploding core, flooding it with energy and forcefully mending it, torrents upon torrents of energy overflowing within him.
Crimson lines appeared across Uriel’s body, all his orifices bleeding with radiant golden light. For a moment, it seemed like nothing else would happen, everything else suspended in time.
And then the aether crystal in his grasp shattered.
KAH!
And his core exploded yet again, this time fueled by all the chaotic aether of the desert.
The explosion was beyond words.
...
Uriel blinked.
He blinked, and he was suddenly in an endless void of darkness, a scenery he apparently was getting very familiar with these days.
He looked around, his gaze even and calm, nothing like the mad and unstable depths he’d shown moments prior.
Panning his gaze across the expanse, he found nothing.
Nodding to himself, he looked down at his body, noticing he had become a sort of spectral projection of white fire, just like when he’d enter Heart Realms and when he’d undergone the Hell of Remembrance.
’Mm. It worked.’
What he’d done was very simple.
He killed himself.
He used his control over his core to detonate it, causing a massive explosion strong enough to rock the desert and space alike.
Then, using Resonant Dominance, he piggybacked off the explosion, using it as an anchoring point to suck in a large portion of the desert’s chaotic energy streams.
Which led to an even bigger explosion. 𝚏𝗿𝗲𝐞𝚠𝕖𝐛𝗻𝗼𝐯𝕖𝚕.𝚌𝗼𝗺
And amidst all this, as his mind was wracked with numbing pain and his body burnt to nothing, he’d managed to divert part of the explosion’s energy, directing it into his Uniqueness before the last shards of his core completely faded.
Time slowed, then entirely stilled, his Uniqueness pushed to its absolute limits by the ridiculous amount of energy funneled into it.
His Uniqueness had saved him in the cave after his Sin Inheritance, and it’d save him here once more—hopefully.
Enoch had said that situations of near death allowed his Sparks to roar to life and grant him the miraculous ability of absolute comprehension and mastery.
And once overloaded, his Uniqueness essentially made time meaningless, slowing it to an absolute stop.
What could be closer to death than detonating his core and having his body entirely shattered? And what better way to take advantage of endless time than with a mind able to peel apart the layers of all things?
It was a gamble.
He’d either find a solution here, with his mind enlightened and time endless, or remain trapped here forever, until his mortal mind inevitably crumbled and he died a spiritual death.
It was risky, perhaps brash, and reliant on one of his talents which he didn’t understand anything about, but it was a solution nonetheless.
Killers killed, and gamblers gambled.
But...
’...where the hell am I?’
...something seemed to have gone wrong.
