The Regressed SSS-Rank Water Mage Wants To Live a Calm Life-Chapter 5: Dum Spiro, Spero

On that glorious day in the Cacosphere, two gods had gone against the will of the Celestial King. They had rebelled and defied fate itself.

The day came to be known to all living beings in the Cacosphere as the day of Divine Upheaval. A day when a god whose name was etched on the very fabric of reality broke one of the Celestial King’s ten rules.

Maxwell and Malin were beings who’d been known by different names throughout the ages — Siege Twins, Chaos Bringers, Lords of War, Eternal Champions, and... Cacospheric Guardians. But on the day of Divine Upheaval, the Cacosphere called them different names. Simple names.

One had sacrificed his life for the other. And the other had made use of this sacrifice, fleeing the timeline while chasing after a lost love.

The Cacosphere called them...

The Lost Ones.

***

As the eternal god of water fell into the stream of time, his figure blurred into mists.

Maxwell closed his eyes, accepting the conclusion to his plight with a warm smile.

’I’m already gone.’

The lone god gritted his teeth, enduring the sharp pain that surged through his physical body.

A result of the spear frozen in his heart. It had penetrated his back, piercing his heart, and it remained there as a final thorn in the god’s path to home.

And alas, as fate had it, this spear wasn’t just any spear. It was the spear of the guardian of mist.

A spear that ate away at the years of a being’s lifespan.

So, currently, as the god of eternal water slipped through the blinding cerulean stream of time, falling like a weightless object, his physical body rapidly devolved.

As Maxwell felt the strength leaving his free-falling body, he breathed out, and only one memory played through his mind. Something that Malin had told him:

’The destination of FreeFall is highly determined by how much the heart longs for a certain time.’

As the lonely god kept thinking and remembering those mortal days when he would free-fall from the top of a wyvern, he failed to realize that the spear had eaten at the small lifespan that he had left. And his physical body had died.

Suddenly, Maxwell’s eyes opened wide.

’What?’

At that moment, he realized the surging pain that came with the spear was gone.

And around him, his surroundings began to blur.

Maxwell was inside the flow of time itself, seeing the intricate workings of the Cerulean concept as he fell.

Instinctively, the god raised his head, gazing above.

What he saw made the eyes of his ethereal soul widen.

The god’s physical body, wrapped around by his green, flowy coat, floated high above the Cerulean stream.

Maxwell came to the immediate realization.

’I... am dead.’

Just as he thought this, a soft ripple waved through the otherwise calm stream of time.

Maxwell moved his ethereal neck, looking left and right.

In the waters, numerous large roots of a tree stretched from various corners. In fact, they seemed to have appeared from out of nowhere.

All these eerie-looking tree roots moved with precise speed, aiming at Maxwell, who currently fell through time.

Maxwell, with widened eyes, recognized this phenomenon.

An uneasy feeling crept up his soul.

’No!!!!!’

With all desperation, the god began to dive deeper into the stream, hoping to swim to his destination fast enough to evade those roots...

’No, no, no, no!’

The roots of The Mother Tree.

Just then, while Maxwell kept thrashing through the cerulean stream, a calm, otherworldly voice reverberated.

[Be At Peace, Askr]

The calmness of the voice prompted an ineffable ease to spread through Maxwell’s soul.

Immediately, as if obeying the words of the voice, the roots of the Mother Tree instantly disappeared from the stream of time.

Maxwell, bewildered, looked around him.

Finally, he gazed high up.

An eye.

A massively large eyeball was what Maxwell’s gaze met. This eyeball floated above the god, gazing down at him.

The pupil of the eyeball was golden, and the energy that this mere eyeball radiated surpassed even divinity.

’Ah,’ Maxwell thought, exasperated. ’The Celestial King himself.’

Maxwell remained calm and suspended in the stream because he no longer fell for some odd reason. He stared at the Celestial King with something on his ethereal face that resembled a smile.

"Here to take me, Oh King of All?" Maxwell’s voice, carrying a layer of resigned sarcasm, echoed unnaturally in the stream of time.

[Take you? I can take you at any time.]

Maxwell’s eyes widened.

’That’s... true.’

[’Any time.’ Time itself is nothing to me.]

"Huh? If so, why are you here then? And why didn’t you stop both my brother and me earlier?"

The massive eyeball blinked.

[You’ll find out why in due time. I came to tell you that I’m always watching.]

’What?’

This confused Maxwell even more. The idea of it was utterly ridiculous.

If the Celestial King could, why had he never stopped Malin since the very moment he conceived the idea to break the rule of time Manipulation? Why had he never interfered down to the last moment? Why was he here now?

There were a lot of questions on the god of eternal water’s mind. None that he could get the answer to. At least not at that moment.

[I do hope you live that peaceful life that you’ve been craving for.] The Celestial King uttered with finality.

’What would you know about a peaceful life, Ruler of the Cacosphere?’

[I’m a family man myself, Maxwell. I’ve known what it’s like to have peace for eons. I’ve seen my children’s children and their children’s children. I have experienced a full life.]

Maxwell, hearing the Celestial King’s words, could say nothing. The king had responded to his thoughts. Read his mind.

[Now. Fall.]

The moment the Celestial King said this, Maxwell’s soul began to fall through time once more with frightening speed. This time, more than a hundred times the speed he had fallen earlier.

[𝑫𝒖𝒎 𝑺𝒑𝒊𝒓𝒐, 𝑺𝒑𝒆𝒓𝒐.] The Eyeball whispered, before vanishing from the stream of time completely.