Chapter 588: The Battle For Control
Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
“Anyway, the war is over now, right?” Baiyi said, looking up at the long, black tear in the sky. For some time now, no more angels had come in through the crack.
Baiyi’s gaze s.h.i.+fted to the Ancient Rohlserlian Sorcerers Corps, who were still in formation. “Thank you for your fine work.”
The sorcerers respectfully bowed in response before vanis.h.i.+ng, one after the other.
“Are they really…” the Archmage began.
“Relics of history, embedded in the sand of time. In other words, they are your Rohlserlian Sorcerer Corps. I merely brought them — or rather, their souls, wills, and powers — to the present,” Baiyi explained. “Unfortunately, unlike Little Mia here, they are people of the past, so they can’t stay in our time. Don’t worry; I’ll talk about it in detail once we all get comfortable.”
Baiyi walked towards the sleeping Noirciel, princess-carried her, and pinched her cheek. “Okay. Why isn’t she awake yet?” He wondered out loud.
‘Maybe she needs to sleep a little longer,’ Baiyi thought and pa.s.sed her to Mia, who had been beside the sleeping angel for some time now. “Let’s take her to the academy; she can now be transported through a teleportation portal. Other than the fact she is powered by Divine Energy and cannot age, she’s just like the average human girl.”
The Voidwalkers tried to clean up the battlefield, but after some time had pa.s.sed, their attempt had restoration had yielded very little progress; so, they used the transporter portal to travel to Da Xue. When the group arrived at Baiyi’s chalet, the girls carried the sleeping Noirciel to a room upstairs, and the Voidwalkers made themselves comfortable in Baiyi’s living room.
At that moment, they were students that were eager for their lesson to begin.
“We should bring the Thane Walker and everyone else home, right?” Baiyi muttered when he realized that these Voidwalkers were absent. Without waiting for a reply, Baiyi waved his hand, and orbs emitting white light appeared in midair. The glowing orbs soon vanished, leaving behind the Voidwalkers that had been tasked with missions outside Arfin City.
The Lich Walker looked extremely confused about the sudden teleportation, and when he saw Baiyi, the flames in his eye sockets burned brighter in shock. “What’s the meaning of this? Don’t you know I was in the middle of a battle — a battle I was so close to winning?”
‘You mean a battle in which you were seconds away from losing your skull?’ Baiyi sneered in his mind.Baiyi, who had been watched the fights of every Voidwalker, knew how much the Lich Walker and his corpses struggled against their angel enemies, who were, at the time, boosted by the Holy Light. The Lich Walker had survived only because he was good at escaping. Even the Devil Walker had perished in battle. Read more chapter at ReadNovelFull
“Anyways, there is no need to fret. This explanation is long, and I will need some time to tell it,” Baiyi said, gesturing to the Voidwalkers to make themselves comfortable. When everyone had taken a seat, Baiyi began to recount his experience while asleep.
Although Baiyi had called that state ‘sleep’, the correct term was ‘awakening.’ When every part of his mind and spirit awakened, Baiyi felt like a fourth-dimensional being overlooking a third-dimensional world. He could clearly detect every move and thought made by the Voiwalkers. Baiyi could also share the sensations felt by different people. In this state of mind, everyone and everything were just motes of dust in his eyes.
Baiyi felt like a G.o.d. [1]
Fortunately, Baiyi was not someone easy to tempt; even his newfound omniscient ability did not make him waver. With his goal in mind, Baiyi combed through every bit of his soul, quickly but meticulously, trying to find the fragment that was lost in the Ancient Rohlserlian period.
Baiyi did find the soul fragment, and he also noticed this process could not be quantified with the human idea of time. When he studied the soul fragment, he noticed some anomalies.
Whenever Baiyi interacted with the soul fragment, records of time began to play in his mind. Sometimes, it moved forward, and other times, it played backward. Sometimes, the record was played fast, and at other times, it was slow. For some reason, this soul fragment had become an archive of human history; anytime it was triggered, scenes of humanity’s history would be replayed.
Baiyi believed that tampering with the Laws of Time had caused the soul-fragment to become what it now is. He remembered how similar scenes of of human history rapidly flashed before his eyes when Noirciel sent him back into the present.
Baiyi carefully studied this fragment of his soul. He used this soul fragment like a dictionary to study the flow of time, starting from the past — specifically, the point in time from which he was transported back to the future — to the present. From Baiyi’s perspective, all of this took a second, yet in reality, he had gone through events spanning thousands of years.
“It wasn’t until much later that I realized that I was actually studying the concept of time,” Baiyi said with a shrug. “As for why that little fragment became what it was… I guess Noirciel’s action with the Arbiter’s Right of her G.o.d is to blame. If I had returned to the present with my soul intact, I would have not gotten the chance to study time.
“People cannot see their souls, but I’m no ordinary person. When Noirciel kicked me back to the present, she had no idea that Voidwalkers exist. She did not know who I was or what I could do, so she did something that ended up being a golden opportunity for me,” Baiyi said.
“This has to be the real reason she was punished and exiled, right?” The Cleric Walker asked. His human appearance was that of a calm, collected, and holy priest — a facade, for it did not portray his perverted interests.
“It is probable. Even though Noirciel used her master’s Arbiter’s Right without permission, she believed she was fulfilling her duty,” Baiyi said. “Little did she know that she had granted me pa.s.sage into the mysteries and secrets of time itself. After recognizing the opportunity, I enacted a plan to steal the Time G.o.d’s powers. I believe this to be the reason why Tylemus went crazy and started a war. Noirciel was only collateral damage.”
“But, weren’t you in the Void? How did you do it, seeing as your target resides in the Divine Realm?” The Archmage asked.
Baiyi replied, “Here’s the thing: an Arbiter’s Rights isn’t a tangible item. It’s knowledge of the Laws of the universe. Once one’s understanding of a Law reaches a certain level, that person acquires the ability to manipulate that law.
“In other words, any Tom, d.i.c.k, and Harry can acquire an Arbiter’s Right.” It was a bombsh.e.l.l of a revelation, yet he had revealed it with an indifferent expression.
“You’re joking, right?!” The Voidwalkers shouted. “Doesn’t that mean anyone can become a G.o.d?!”
“In theory, yes. In reality, most people would never encounter a substantial manifestation of the Laws. Even if someone managed to, they would not necessarily understand what they have seen,” Baiyi explained. “As for me, I happened to have had Bella, the G.o.d of s.p.a.ce, tip me twice. After my experience studying the Laws twice, I was able to minutely manipulate Spatial Laws, which gave rise to the ‘Ember of Hope.’ With this precedent, I was fit to utilize the opportunity that Noirciel unintentionally presented me.”
Baiyi found it challenging to explain the struggle for owners.h.i.+p of Arbiter’s Rights. All he had to offer were implied a.n.a.logies and simple recollections.
When Baiyi was trying to decode the mysteries hidden in his soul fragment, he was met with some strange distractions. The way to express Laws began to change. The flow of time also became irregular, yet it was as though it was unmoving. This was akin to one’s study material suddenly changing languages; sometimes it would be in English, then j.a.panese, and then Martian. [2]
This chaos greatly hindered Baiyi’s progress. The Laws that he was beginning to understand suddenly became so difficult to study that he almost gave up. He persevered only because he was determined to bring Mia back.
It took some time for Baiyi to realize that the disjointed intercuts of the Law were not gibberish. They were actually expressions of the Laws, albeit pasted haphazardly on Baiyi’s “study material” in a deliberate attempt to disorder. These changes were legitimate parts of the Laws, and Baiyi knew that if he continued meditating on them, he would figure out the entirety of the Laws of Time!
That was easier said than done, though. The Laws were already extremely difficult to study, and Baiyi also had to account for the constant but random scrambling of their expressions. It was like reading a Quantum Physics book that had a constantly changing page order.
It is almost impossible to read such a book. One’s intellectual capacity would have to exceed that of humans before they could make an attempt.
However, Baiyi had the perfect solution for this problem: the Voidwalkers’ Memory Anamnesis! He split his expansive mind to perform two functions simultaneously; one would memorize the expressions of the Laws he encountered, while the other would meditate on them.
Tylemus might have heard nothing of the concept of concurrency. The G.o.d probably had no idea that his opponent was quite abnormal — abnormal enough to do the impossible. Thus, the G.o.d believed that disrupting the order of Baiyi’s study materials would stop him, but in reality, all he was doing was trying to put out a fire with kerosene.
“I do wonder if that dude knew that he was helping me. As my knowledge grew, I came to understand why Tylemus reacted the way he did. It may seem stupid, but that was his only shot of trying to fight back. Since I was stuck in Void, he could not physically destroy me,” Baiyi said. “Laws were all he had at his disposal, so he attempted to sabotage my study of them.
“At a point, my understanding of the Temporal Laws eclipsed his. Tylemus, despite being the G.o.d of Time, could not transport souls and their abilities across time, neither could he freeze the time-flow of an individual. These are two feats I just performed. In other words, the Arbiter’s Right of Time has fallen into my hands. This sounds a bit like a duel between hackers.”
“Are you saying… you’re the G.o.d of Timenow?!” The Archmage shouted.
“Hmm… How do I put this… Not yet, not really, no. He is still in possession of some of the Arbiter’s Right. His understanding of the Temporal Laws is at fifty percent, and mine is at sixty. I haven’t grasped enough knowledge to boot him out, but when I do…” Baiyi smiled. “When I do, I’ll be able to change the Laws to my heart’s content. When that time comes, I’ll gladly pay him back in kind.”