Time Twister

At this point, a yawning sound appeared around the sages, alerting them and preparing their spells once again for deployment the moment they detect where the source of the sound was hiding.

"Huh? Why is there such thick mist here? I just took a nap and I become covered in mist? Disperse."

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All over Eta, the mist began to spread and cause the people to fall into a deep sleep. However, there were some exceptions.

For one, Xander"s friends and his subordinates were immune from the spell"s control, but not its effects. This was due to a bonus side effect of his contracts and vows with them, allowing them to have a stronger, lucid mind. Similar to James" case, they realized they were in a dream the moment they appeared in their school clothes, or in their military uniform. Then, they heard the voice of Xander echoing in their minds.

"You"re in a dream made by Sage cultivators. Act like you"re in fear exaggeratively and you"ll be safe from interrogation~ They"re looking for my friend, sorry for the bother~" his voice faded, and his friends trusted him, so they decided to react accordingly. They were surprised to experience the feeling of disappearing and dying completely during the phenomenon 4 weeks ago. Numerous thoughts were running in their minds, especially those parts of large clans.

Wasn"t this the emergency meeting our grand elders had mentioned? So they requested Sage cultivators to solve the issue…but what does Xander"s friend got to do with it?

Another group of people exempted from the dream"s effects and power were those in the area of the university. All faculty members were not subjected to the dreamscape spell, functioning normally inside the campus. On the 3rd floor of the Elemental control cla.s.s building, a man was lying idly in his chair, twirling his fingers.

"You old b.a.s.t.a.r.d, better make sure the items you bring back would be worth this trouble," the man mumbled to himself. He didn"t like to interfere too much with the happenings of the university unless it involved life or death or the secrets of the university. Aiish, I wish I hadn"t been caught in the first place, the man thought to himself.

Another group of people that were immune was Xander"s parents. It was all thanks to Jacks, who immediately blocked the entire house from the outside world under Xander"s orders, and after briefly explaining the situation to the couple, Jacks sealed the whole house, with the maids and guards inside the house property becoming immune as well. Those who were outside the house property, however, were affected.

Other places included specialized places owned by conglomerates and families. These places were established as a bunker of some sorts from their sage ancestors, allowing them to be unaffected by the spell.

Pity, the downfall and lack of information the investigation team would have is caused by their own descendants. Those that held vital information about Xander was actually not under their spell.

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Brutus and Harvers were both prepared to launch their attacks, being the powerhouse of the investigation team. Supporting them were Parker and Wuhshan, prepared to launch their own spells as well.

When the team heard the man"s voice, swirls of the dream energy mist that bathed the country of Eta began to be turbulent, before forming the figure of a man looking at the group, his face expressionless, with his eyes looking cold and bored.

"Hmm? Sage cultivators? What are they doing here in Eteria? The last time I saw them was when Carlos the Sixth was attempting to unify the planet." the man mused, his words striking a chord in the hearts of the sage cultivators.

Carlos the Sixth… they knew that man, a brutal Sage-6 magician from 650,000 years ago, far before they were even born. However, according to history, he was the reason the Ete and Ria continents were split in the first place. They had heard he became crazy and left the planet, his whereabouts and situation unknown.

"Excuse me, sages, what year is it now? I just took a nap and so many things changed."

It was Calissa who responded, eying the man carefully, scrutinizing his looks, demeanor, and actions.

"It"s the year 2057 of the Revised calendar. Roughly 652,000 years had pa.s.sed since Carlos the Sixth"s reign of terror ended."

"Huh… so it"s been that long… I wonder how my old friends are now. Good day to you, sages." The man mumbled before he began to walk in the sky, with every step causing his body to slowly become transparent as if he was traveling in a different realm. When the sages saw this, their faces changed, because this was a characteristic of dimensional travel that G.o.d-cla.s.s cultivators can only do.

How was it that there was a G.o.d-cla.s.s cultivator hidden in the area? Should we ask if he was the reason why the situation happened 4 weeks ago? Will he kill us if we asked him? These were the thoughts running in their minds, but the two a.n.a.lysts looked at one another, and nodded imperceptibly, before launching an attack towards the man who was disappearing.

When the other sages saw this, they were horrified. This was a living G.o.d cla.s.s cultivator, one that can crush them easily! Before they could react, a familiar, deep, manly voice sounded out in their surroundings.

"Tsk, tsk. What gave it away, Ms. Heavenwood and Cloverfield?"

Calissa and Hailey didn"t answer but rather ordered the rest of the sages to contain the figure of the man that they just attacked. Realizing that was the enemy, the sages didn"t hold back and began to launch their attacks.

"My, my, you do realize you are still in the vicinity of the city? Let"s take the battle somewhere else, a bit higher up~"

Immediately, everyone felt the s.p.a.ce around them shift, and less than a second, they appeared high up in the sky, hundreds of kilometers above sea level.

They saw the man once again, but his looks were different this time. He was quite large, towering more than 2 meters in height, his shirt fitting him perfectly that one could immediately see that he was packing a lot of muscle and power underneath. Yet, his movements were fast and graceful, incongruous to his body frame and size.

As he moved out and about, he launched several hundreds of spells, layers upon layers of effects appearing, derivatives from [Elemental Dominance]. Although it didn"t have much damage, and rather caused surprise to these sages, it was enough for Xander to cast [River of the Underworld] and [Spatial Collapse], directly targeting the location of the investigation team.

However, the reactions of these people were quite fast. Although [Spatial Collapse] had created a small black hole, the sages were able to escape the spell"s range as Xander had purposely limited the size to 20 meters.

However, their movements were obviously affected by the gravitational pull exerted by the black hole, and using this opportunity, he began another barrage of attacks that had the effects of [Time Slow] rather than [Time Stop] because this spell was strong, but against a Sage cultivator, he was still ultimately weak, and using this particular spell would work against them, but roughly for 1 to 5 seconds, max. If he wanted the spell to have the effect as described by the System, he needed to be at least a DemiG.o.d.

He believed in one thing concerning combat: If you can"t win by quality, win by quant.i.ty. He had enough magic stones to power him continuously for the next ten years if needed, once his magic power reserves ran out. From his last test, it was able to last three casts of [Twilight Sonata] at a range of 1500 light-years, or roughly 6.66 billion pseudo-rank spells, 66.66 million Advance-rank spells, 6.6 million Legendary-rank spells, 666,666 Mythic-rank spells, 6,666 DemiG.o.d-rank spells, or 666 Divine-rank spells, all of which were at the 81st cla.s.s.

He only needed to use one 150-kg perfect elemental crystal and he could recover his magic energy completely in 10 seconds from zero.

The sages were not idle at this time; they began to launch their attacks, specifically their DemiG.o.d and Divine rank spells. They didn"t use up their Sage rank spells easily because of the risk of backlash and power consumption. They used lower-tiered spells because their cultivation boosted the power of these spells by several folds.

Different colored lights began to suffuse around Xander, as the spells continued to bombard him. However, nothing managed to pa.s.s through [Absolute Defense], the attacks diverted to different dimensions and s.p.a.ces, never reaching his actual body.

Seeing the figure of Xander still standing unscathed and unharmed, the sages look at one another before commencing with their plan. Immediately, Harvers and Brutus approached the area Xander was in and began to cast their spells and physically attack Xander.

It was Brutus that charged at Xander, while Harvers launched his own spells. They began a coordinated attack while the rest of the sages supported by casting their repertoire of spells that hindered slowed down or affected negatively the target. However, after a few seconds of exchange, Xander was still managing to hold his ground, while the other sages were cursing.

"d.a.m.n it, his life essence is blocked! It can"t be reached by my spells!" Maria shouted to the rest, indicating the others they should change strategies.

If the body can"t be targeted, as well as the life essence doll, they had a limited avenue for spells. One would be the mind, the other would be through dreams. The first one requires the target to be reachable, meaning they need a deep understanding of the target to manipulate his psyche. The second requires the target to sleep. None of these options were currently accessible.

They were out of options. All they could hope now is ask for reinforcements from the other sages. However, Calissa informed them that it was possible this was also a decoy, and the real target will escape.

The fight continued on for another hour, With Xander trying to evade their fast strikes and spells, training himself to become stronger.

Slowly, he gained momentum, allowing him to dodge some of the attacks done by the Sage cultivators. This was because [Time slow] was already taking its toll on the sages, their movement and casting time were slowing down. He slowly disappeared from their sight, appearing behind the sages. He then said a slow, deep, masculine voice,

"Aren"t you going to tell me what made my acting fail? I even had to read up, you know?"

For a moment, those who heard his voice had been mesmerized for a second, a dazed look plastered in their faces. However, their life essence dolls were much more powerful than demiG.o.ds. They immediately snapped out of their dazed looks and moved away from Xander, alert and ready to launch their attacks once again. Parker and Wuhshan did a preemptive strike, launching two divine-rank spells they had prepared ahead of time, but the moment it hit Xander, the area blurred.

After a while, the area cleared, revealing Xander, who was merely standing aloofly, looking at them calmly, unfazed. They were in a stalemate.

"Don"t bother wasting any more of your energy. You can"t break through my barriers. I"m curious, are you here because of the situation a month ago? Wasn"t everything resolved nicely anyways?"

"… so you are the perpetrator of the situation then?"

Xander merely shrugged at Hailey"s question, neither denying or agreeing to it. Truthfully, he wanted to say that it was an accident, however, it would probably bring more questions from them.

"Just a failed experiment actually, no biggie," Xander said carelessly, with no change in his inflection. When the sages heard this, they were flabbergasted; what kind of experiment would cause a planet to be destroyed and then restored within a span of less than a fraction of a second?

"Anyways, although it ended in failure, nothing bad happened in the end, so it should be all good, right?"

"… You have to come with us, then, if you truly are innocent." Parkers said grimly, his voice telling Xander it was non-negotiable. Upon hearing this, Xander laughed and looked at Parkers like he was staring at an idiot.

"… are you taking me for an idiot?" Xander asked, looking at the sages for a bit before continuing.

"Do you really think I believe in your words? I"ve been alive for hundreds of thousands of years, if not millions. I already see your plan. You want to access on the experimental data right? Aaaaand, probably develop a spell from it after numerous repeats of the experiment?"

When the sages heard this, their faces looked weird for a bit, because that was the intention of most of the sages that returned to Eteria after hearing the situation. For most of the sages, they needed to know and understand the concept of creation and destruction, of which they felt the phenomenon the planet experienced a month ago fits right to their needs. After all, they had to understand it so they can derive the same phenomenon from their primary elements that have completely fused.

"Would you believe, I can cause it to happen again?" Xander twirled his fingers, wherein the sages detected a dangerous fluctuation occurring between his fingertips, much, much powerful than their Sage-rank spells and attacks. The sages, sensing this, attempted to disrupt Xander by launching their attacks, of which none managed to reach him.

Xander sighed, twirling his fingers, causing the fluctuation to disappear, before saying to them,

"Chill out. You can"t kill me or restrain me, but I also can"t kill you lot without collateral damage. How about we discuss things in a diplomatic way, eh-" Before anyone else could speak, Xander once again disappeared. Behind him, there was a man whose arm was outstretched to Xander"s previous position, with a look of confusion in his face. It was Brutus.

Looking around, he couldn"t detect the presence of Xander, and the other sages were confused as well. Before he could react, Brutus sensed a foreboding feeling and immediately attempted to run, but it was too late.

A simple finger materialized behind him, touching his shoulder.

"Reversal - 10,000,000 years…"

When the finger landed on him, Brutus" internal warning was off the roof. He felt something was happening to his body, his cultivation, and his life essence dolls in the Elemental essence stones.

It was the latter that he noticed something was wrong. The partially fused stones were quickly moving apart, and after a while, it returned to individual stones. From the stones, he noticed that they were slowly losing l.u.s.ter and shape as if they were regressing back to their raw states. The stones were slowly becoming smaller and less shiny, even producing cracks in the end, before being shattered to bits, disappearing as if they never existed in the first place.

He was now back at the DemiG.o.d cla.s.s, his life essence doll whole once again, and went to Dimension-LIBRA. However, his body was continuously becoming younger and younger, his attributes decreasing. Meaning, if it reached a certain point, his body would collapse on its own because of the stress his magic energy would have.

He was barely hanging on and immediately attempted to connect with the ordered system, channeling his power from his fused domain to stop whatever was happening in his body. He could only use his connection to stop the process, but the effect remained.

Xander, on the other hand, appeared a hundred meters away from Brutus, his face cold.

"I. Don"t. Like. To. Be. Attacked. When. I. Am. Talking." With every word that he emphasized, the sages could clearly detect the fluctuation occurring in Brutus" body decreasing, from Sage-4 to Divine-9, slowly to Divine-1 and stopping in DemiG.o.d-9, and his body was visibly getting younger and smaller by the second.

What was this magic, causing the target to regress their cultivation and attributes? The sages were confused and felt a bit of fear.

Immediately, they surrounded Brutus, in an attempt to protect him from any attacks Xander might launch towards him in his weakened state.

Maria and Margus, along with Parker and Wuhshan launched a flurry of attacks, while the rest guarded and healed Brutus.

In fact, they were merely delaying for time and occupying Xander"s attention so that the others can heal Brutus and probably reverse the effects.

For the next 9 minutes, this was what they all did. If they needed magic energy, they brought out their elemental crystal reserves and absorbed them. On the 10th minute, Brutus finally was showing some semblance of recovery, with his body attributes rising up.

On the 11th minute, the attributes were back to Divine cla.s.s and were still increasing. His cultivation had also begun to increase from DemiG.o.d-9 to Divine cla.s.s.

On the 13th minute, his attributes were back to Sage rank.

On the 15th minute, his elemental essence stones were partially fused to the way they were before. When Brutus saw his partially fused stones, he heaved a sigh of relief that not everything was lost.

Even the others healing were quite relieved as well, but they were confused about how the mechanics of the spell had actually functioned.

Xander, on the other hand, saw that Brutus had already recovered from the [Time Reversal], and murmured to himself,

"Huh, it only lasted 10 minutes before it reverted back to normal after a total of 15 minutes… interesting. It seems the universe also has some sort of back-up for its cultivators above DemiG.o.d cla.s.s, huh."

Xander waved his hand and released another wave of attacks, this time fully expending his current magic energy.

Along with those advance-ranked spells, he also released tens of [Apocalypse Down] and hundreds of [Ragnarok] spells in the area, covering 50,000-square kilometers with numerous areas of elemental collapse. For a moment, the primary elements of the sages were out of their control before regaining them.

They immediately attempted to leave the area where they were in, however, their arms and legs were injured by the spell since they were extended outward to propel them out of the vicinity. This type of injury was in the form of an Elemental breakdown, so it is similar to necrosis in biological tissues and organs. They needed to overwhelm, absorb, and a.s.similate the power behind the breakdown to stop it from corroding their bodies.

The time they used up was enough for Xander to collect several tens of Chaos seeds and hundreds of Life seeds, giving him a bountiful harvest. When he collected enough, he bowed to them, before dissipating, leaving a few words in his wake.

"Adios, sages. I wonder if you"re prepared for the next gift I have for you cultivators."

If anyone would look up in the sky right now, they would see that the area Xander and the sages fought would be a black square smudge, as if there was a non-removable stain present in the skies above.

The sages were looking around, battered and weary. They didn"t lose, but they didn"t win either. After another hour of recovering their injuries and restoring their bodies into tip-top shape, they left and immediately messaged all sage-level cultivators, planning to submit their results.

The Dreamscape spell of theirs only lasted for merely 3 hours before being disturbed, but that was enough for the two sages to collect general information about the citizens in Eta country and do an a.n.a.lysis and comparison of their experience and feelings of the situation a month ago. At the same time, they had done 30% in-depth a.n.a.lysis of the suspected cultivators so all they needed to do was collate and a.n.a.lyze the results.