---Volume 2: Time Arc---

I follow Chronos as he walks about 10 metres in front of me on nothingness. The platform below me moving with each step, I walk with strong motivation to become powerful.

“ *Sigh*, Sephtis, calm down. Your killing intent leaks out way too much. Don’t you have anything to ask me or talk about?”

I calm my heart a bit as I realise that I do indeed have a large amount of questions, but Betty’s death weighs heavily on my heart, so much so that I almost forgot about them. Then I suddenly realised the error in his speech, something that shouldn’t have been said.

“Yes… For starters, how do you know my name?”

“Child, I am an immortal, a God at that. Do you honestly think that I don’t have the ability to perceive the world, even in another immortals plane of existence. I can perceive the world in from any of the faults of time present in the world.

Remember the pit in hell, filled with countless tortured souls? Time in that pit is slower in that pit than normal, Hades mentioned this to you did he not?”

I nod to his question and he goes on.

“I gave him that pit as a symbol of peace to one of the strongest figures of the immortal realm. He and I have no enmity, but similarly no real positive connection save for a single thing. Although I ‘gave’ him the pit, it was more like a trade in the early millenia’s of my life.

As I said earlier, I can only perceive the world from displacements and unnatural tamperings in time. I am also not liked greatly by the other Gods, and am considered a traitor or heretic. This makes it impossible to place any artifacts or items that influence time in the mortal realm, and there exists very few Gods or immortals that would allow me to gift them such an artifact to place in their realm, as they will be hated for the possession of it.

Because of this, when I gave him the ‘gift’, he knew he would be hated by the Gods because of it, but he did not only not care, but accepted it happily. This ‘gift’ allowed me to learn of your situation, since I listened in from the time rift to get the information that ‘Death’ told you.”

Basically a spy…

As I think this, a question pops up in response to his prior explanation.

“Hmm… Why is that; why are you hated by the immortals? Does it have anything to do with the element of ‘Time’?”

“Indeed, it is exactly as you speculated. To understand why I am hated, you must know some background information about the element that I use.

Do you remember the 4 ‘extra elements’ that Death mentioned? These elements are the elements of Life, Death, Time and Chaos.”

When he mentioned Death, it brought up memories as my blood boiled and ‘aura’ pushed against the inside of my body, willing to go out. However, I barely restrained it as I knew it would dissipate if it actually exited my body.

Unfazed by my sudden killing intent which quickly died down, the God of Time kept on going with his explanation.

“The ‘Life’ element plays around with recovering shattered souls that have been destroyed and killed. It also allows bestowal of souls into bodies allowing you to, in a sense, ‘revive’ the dead. At the current moment, I know no one who can use this type of ‘aura’, even among the Gods and immortals as the only user died not so long ago.

The ‘Death’ element is one that you are well versed in, so I don’t have to explain it to you.

The element of ‘Time’, unlike the previous 2 is actually not a true element. This element is actually an application of the ‘Chaos’ element and is more like a subsection than a whole. However, its effect is so strong that it was considered as a separate power.

The ‘Time’ element changes the flow of time, making it faster and slower at will. You can make a zone incredibly fast, which would affect and accelerate all movement in the area other than that of ‘aura’ particles, which cannot be accelerated by such magic.

However, although it can’t be accelerated, it can indeed be slowed and that application of ‘Time’ magic is the absolute opposite in which everything gets delayed instead. This is what I used on you when you were made to fall into the portal to here, or what you saw as a ravine.

By slowing time in the area, it makes you incredibly slow and incapable of releasing ‘aura’ at any speed at all. Although ‘Time’ magic is so fierce, this pseudo element has some detriments as all elements do. Unlike ‘Death’ magic, the ‘aura’ consumption is nowhere near as large when compared to the strength of the outcome that you get. Sadly however, to affect an object, the entirety of the item must be covered with ‘Time Aura’. The same is said for humans and this in turn makes the other negative more prominent.

The other negative that I speak of is that the increase or decrease in time will influence all in the vicinity including yourself. If you try and slow your enemy, and throw a punch at them, the instant your body enters the area, you will also slow down greatly and it will turn into a slow motion fight where both your brains process information at the normal, much higher speeds.

Earlier, when I said that it doesn’t cost a great amount of ‘aura’ when compared to the outcome, that doesn’t necessarily make it a positive. Because although it uses less than it logically should, the amount is still phenomenal. For example, a normal 40th Fall mage from your world would be able to hold a 2x slowing field for about 80 seconds before running out of power.”

Although I don’t know the mage ranks yet, I guess that a 40th Fall is pretty high up, otherwise he wouldn’t have used it as a comparison. A minute isn’t a bad amount of time, but it’s only a 2x slowing field. Had it been a greater slowing field, I wonder how long such a mage would be able to hold it.

“This brings us to the fourth and most powerful element, the ‘Chaos’ element. ‘Chaos’ is also not considered an element, but not because it is a subsection like ‘Time’ but rather it is the opposite. It is the only element that we Gods and Immortals alike refer to as a ‘Law’. We call it the ‘Law of Chaos’, due to it’s huge power.

Theoretically, all elements have the same potential and power to rise up, but it is unquestionable that at the moment, the ‘Law of Chaos’ is at the top. It has a copious amount of ‘pseudo elements’ constituting it, differing greatly from ‘Death’ which only has 2 subsections.

The people capable of using the ‘Law’s power’ are few in number and are considered heretics in the immortal planes, I am one of those people. Training in the ‘Law of Chaos’ is rare and incredibly hard not only because of the abuse you receive from others, but also because of how difficult it is to stay on a single branch of the ‘Law’.

Only one God has managed to master more than one section of the ‘Chaos Law’, while the others are still trying to master a sole section, as those that try and branch out to other uses of the ‘Law’ are usually met with failure and results in a power drop. This is because it simply takes too long for anyone to study in the ‘Law’ and the power increase isn’t too large compared to mastery of a sub-section.

I learnt this from my prior kin, but if you master one of the sections, you gain a huge power-spike, doubling your combat capabilities. However, if you focus on 2 parts of the ‘Law’ and get about 50% into each one, you will not only be incapable of getting the doubling bonus, but you will also only have a total of around 75% power as the strength gain drops with each section you pick up.

When you reach 100% mastery in 2 parts however, the 50% loss of the total power of the prior section trained in is removed, causing your power to not add up to 150% mastery but actually 200%.

The ‘Law of Chaos’ also differs from the other elements in how it is applied. The basic 4 are just simple manipulation and employing physics to play around with it, as I am sure you know.

The 2 rare elements also have to do with their own areas of manipulation, but are actually rarely used in actual combat, but instead is used for stealth tactics. This is because by manipulating and bending light, you can become invisible. If you intensify the darkness and remove the light in an area, you can also become unable to be seen, but not invisible like light magic can permit.

The rumors spread around in your new world about these elements actually differ greatly in comparison to the true uses. It is believed that light and darkness elements are opposites, but even if they work differently, where one decreases light and the other bends light, they are both sides of the same coin. Similarly, because of a light element user being capable of making illusions, they are believed to be saviors because of those illusions.

Only the highest government officials understand the truth of these types of elements, but the people proficient in them are still hired the instant they show up. This is due to the great image they have in public, but also because of their assassination capabilities. Although nowhere near as great as ‘Death Aura’s’ they are still effective.

‘Death Aura’ and ‘Life Aura’ handles with souls, whilst Chaos belongs in another area of expertise.

‘Chaos’ is terrifying because it bends the laws of physics and completely opposes them at will. It can increase the density of a particle, screw with gravity, break atomic bonds happily and many others such as manipulating time and space.

I am sure that you are aware that ‘Death’ is fighting someone to do with the ‘Chaos Law’, considering your reaction to the word. The reason for this is actually very simple, and many people know the story about who he is fighting. I will tell you about the enemy in question before you leave training, but you must be aware and listen to me during when I teach you for however long you stay here.”

The strength of ‘Chaos’ is no small thing, but the other elements are also terrifying. If even the element of ‘Time’ goes into ‘Chaos’, how powerful must the being that mastered more than one section of the ‘Chaos’ element be?

Pushing those thoughts away, I pose another question.

“Where is this place?”

“It is a dimension formed by an Immortal God’s power, namely my own. It is like my version of Death’s Hell, but you don’t have to worry, not the entire place is similar to a void like this. In fact, we are heading towards that place.

Because there is such a high density of ‘Time Aura’ in this place, time’s speed flickers occasionally, as you experienced upon falling down to here.

As we walk, I wonder about the ‘Time Element’ and its potential benefits. In my head, I thought of the benefits and knew that there was countless, under the 2 abilities of slowing and accelerating that it possessed.

After walking for another 10 minutes, we appear at a door standing in the empty space. It didn’t move, but just stood there, looking to be a door made of silver, but strangely it wasn’t attached to anything at all.

As we near the door, a collision of ‘aura’ in the God of Times hands occur and I feel the great power from here, and although it didn’t have the imposing ability that Lord Death’s presence did, I still got goosebumps from the amount of ‘aura’ used in that collision.

As the silver light from the ‘aura’ manipulation in his hands dies down, I see that he now holds a closed pocket watch, which he brings up to face the door and it swings open, seeming to tear space with its movement, making a rectangular outline in the dark place. The watch then dissipates into silvery thread as I peer through the newly made doorway.

Through the door’s tear in space is something that differs greatly from the previous dark void of a world.