Chapter 1,333.

A deafening roar heralded an enormous shockwave of fire and smoke. It would have been easy to mistake the eruption with the volcano coming alive with Emily’s totem pole as the epicenter. Six streaks of condensed destruction moved much faster than the expanding cloud. They smashed directly into the tightest clumps of cultists who’d advanced on Emily’s position.

The zealots were woefully ill-prepared to deal with the Atwood Empire’s bloody gift and were consumed by ephemeral suns. The explosions quickly disappeared, leaving behind utter devastation. Three dozen cultists instantly died, only leaving scraps behind. An even greater number were maimed by the hidden shrapnel or knocked silly by the shockwave.

Those who’d narrowly avoided calamity mutely stared at the smoldering remains of their so-called siblings. As one, they stepped away from the menacing weapons that had appeared around the buffing pillar. Not even the True Sun’s blessing could make them stare down the oversized barrels of the [Godslayer Cannons].

Smoke poured out of the War Machines, and they were covered in cracks. They still exuded a palpable fighting spirit, like dying warriors ready to drag their foes down to hell. Their runes sputtered and flickered as they released a low roar, and cultists began running for their lives.

A burning mace radiating horrifying power descended before the cannons could go any further. It held the weight of a collapsing star, far surpassing what a Hegemon could withstand. The totem pole shattered, and the [Godslayer Cannons] were turned into flattened scrap by a resounding slam. Suzy would have shared their fate if she hadn’t returned to her spiritual space the moment the cannons fired.

Emily hadn’t expected the Emissary of the True Sun to interfere, allowing his vice-captain to get mortally wounded to deal with the unexpected variable. Thankfully, she’d never planned on sticking around. She was already miles away, hiding inside the shockwave she’d created. The Emissary had kept his ambush contained to avoid birthing new suns, but the ripples still reached her position.

Holding back a pained groan as bleeding cracks appeared across her body, Emily kept making her way toward the altar. The message had told her to ignite the flame, so that was what she was going to do. Not because of a belated sense of duty but because it was the only way Emily saw herself getting out in one piece.

Emily moved with supernatural grace, a perfect integration between purpose and Dao. She’d become the storm, making her aura almost indistinguishable from the rippling clouds. Her placement in the ritual was close to the innermost circle, and she successfully slipped past a protective perimeter erected around the True Sun.

Success was so close Emily could taste it, but the clouds couldn’t withstand the sweltering sun’s glare. Despite Emily’s best attempts to keep them going, they dissipated while Emily was still crossing the no-man’s land.

Behind were dozens of powerful cultists who realized their deity was in danger. Ahead was a Peak Middle Monarch who had already tried taking her life once. Caught between a rock and a hard place, Emily could only keep going. She threw a massive ball covered in sinister runes at the cultists as she rushed toward the altar, her body crackling with invigorating lightning.

The bomb erupted in a blinding light. That was it. Emily snickered at the cultists scrambling out of the way of her disco ball. Sure, she would have preferred presenting them with the real thing, but her stockpiles were running low. This wasn’t the first time she’d been forced to rely on external help. Emily had used them while traversing the Left Imperial Expanse with increased frequency, and the previous memory domains had required incendiary intervention.

Emily feared she would arrive at the Radiant Court with empty pockets at this rate. The decoy bought her the window she needed, but it wasn’t over yet. The Emissary of the True Sun wouldn’t fall for a cheap trick like that. However, the Emissary had underestimated the determination of his enemies. The C-grade infiltrator suddenly exploded, unleashing a conflagration of Imperial Faith that threw the Emissary out of the way.

The golden flames fueled by the Monarch’s life force swept over the altar, exposing a hidden protective array. The detonation of a Monarch’s inner world only managed to open a small crack, and it was already closing. It was now or never.

“No!” the Emissary roared, desperately unleashing another attack through the curtain of golden flames. Even weakened, it wasn’t something Emily could deal with. Suppressing the pain in her heart, Emily threw out the only thing strong enough to buy time. A massive cube of refined alloy thumped on the ground, creating a durable blockade.

From its shadow, Emily hurled her tomahawk imbued with the raging flames of summer at the altar. The weapon turned into a flaming comet and successfully squeezed through the crack. It was at that time the bulwark exploded. The Middle D-grade ship would have been able to withstand a hit or two with its shielding active. The same couldn’t be said in its furled state.

The Emissary’s desperate wave of flames descended, yet all Emily could see was the small, golden fire burning atop the altar. How dared that ball of burning gas above dare call itself the True Sun? What an impostor. Only that flame was worthy of such a grand name. Emily calmly looked up, knowing she’d stumbled onto such a fundamental, inviolable truth that reality could only comply.

The True Sun’s ancient presence was torn asunder, triggering a complete collapse of the Emissary’s cultivation. The sky darkened, and the volcano froze over from the chill of immense, cosmic loss. The whole memory domain quaked, but the Imperial Faith froze from the utter absence of sunlight. Even the Dao in Emily’s mind trembled, threatening to wink out like a dying flame.

The fighting had stopped while Cosmos forced them to witness the end of all things. Just when Emily feared the world would fade into eternal darkness, the True Sun reignited with majestic power. Shifting from angry red to the small fire’s imperial gold, the sun released a pulse of unquestionable authority. The cultists became shadows under direct sunlight, fading into nothingness.

“Butchers! Thieves!” a decrepit-looking Emissary wailed, giving Emily a final hate-filled stare before joining his subjects in annihilation.

Emily barely heard him. She gawked at the True Sun as its aura surpassed its previous heights and reached unfathomable levels. The memory domain should have shattered ten times over, but the sun’s rays kept the reality aloft. A single drop fell from the sun, turning into what could only be an angel without wings.

The featureless entity looked at the destruction, gently waving his hand. The chains faded, leaving only the sacrificial suns. They were joined by hundreds more that rose from the bodies of the fallen Templars. Emily marveled at the scene until even the few surviving infiltrators joined their brethren, leaving her behind with this bloody angel.

“What—You—” Emily stuttered before she found her mettle. If she were going to die, she wouldn't go out with a whimper. “Damn it! I’ll haunt you if you dare repay my hard work by turning me into a bonfire. I’ll curse you with impotence, you fire-starting lunatic!”

“Some mouth on you. I suppose your lack of discipline is how you successfully infiltrated the cult,” a decidedly female voice scoffed before her tone softened. “You did well. Countless years of work would have faltered if not for your timely intervention.”

Emily wanted to ask what the hell took the order so long, but she reined her temper now that she might survive. Still, the anger seemed able to read her thoughts.

“Caution is paramount when hunting Gods. It took us over a million years to make the True Sun accept our Faith Offerings, and it never truly trusted us. It would never have entered our trap if it sensed any High-grade Templars lurking nearby.”

“Wait, what?” Emily blurted. Did the angel just admit the Order of Dawn had not just infiltrated but actually founded the Children of the True Sun?

“Your contribution will be remembered,” the angel said, and a streak of flames poured into her left hand.

Emily didn’t have time to investigate the mysterious power it held. The angel had left, and the Imperial Flame released its grip on the memory domain. The volcano’s towering walls faded, exposing the vast jungle beyond. Emily gave the shrinking sacrificial suns a pitying look, suddenly realizing they looked quite familiar.

A parting message entered Emily’s mind as the domain’s last vestiges faded.

“Their service is their reward. Their faith shall burn forever, guiding those lost in the dark.”

Only two hundred freshly made memory lanterns remained.

-----------------

Kadel paused his work to wipe away the beading sweat on his forehead. A wayward drop could introduce heterodoxy to the fragile components, ruining hours of work. He couldn’t afford any more mistakes, whether personal or professional. He’d staked everything—his and his family’s reputation, his endowment, and his future in the Seat of Truth—to silence the overwhelming opposition.

It was time.

The world fractured into countless threads that stretched into the mist. Kadel fought the nausea as he searched the stable lines until picking one. The next moment, he was back in the shared workshop, sitting at the workbench that had been his home for months. He smiled, having successfully memorized two stable runes for the curved metallic band before him. Everything was coming together.

They’d accused him of abusing his ancestor’s contributions to ruin the Seat of Truth’s foundation. They didn’t understand. How could they? Even the Canonized Explorers remained trapped by three-dimensional thinking. Kadel would have been the same if he hadn’t stumbled into the gap left by his grandfather’s experiment. If he hadn’t fused with a sliver of the Ancient Arcana, which gave him a glimpse of the most ancient of truths.

Temporal Omnipresence was possible, and mortals could wield it! It wasn’t the exclusive power of an Eternal.

The clamor of countless parallel worlds filled Kadel’s mind, and a series of spasms made him drop his engraving chisel. He hugged himself, humming the nursery rhyme his wetnurse used to sing to calm him down during the summer storms. The thousand voices—most filled with ridicule and contempt—stilled.

The backlashes were getting worse. Kadel slowly reopened his eyes, finding most of his neighbors warily looking at him. One even stowed her project and moved to a workbench further away. Kadel didn’t mind, partly because he’d already seen it happen. Besides, a scholar cracking under pressure could be a deadly affair. You never knew how an experiment tainted by madness would act.

Kadel knew how he looked, and he didn’t care. He picked up his chisel and continued his work. He would prove all of them wrong tomorrow, and the backlashes would stop. He just needed to visit the crossroad a few more times to discover the final patterns.

“It will not work.”

It took a moment for Kadel to realize the taunt came from his prime timeline. The shock made him lose control and infuse too much Spatial Energy into the component. He always picked trajectories free of disruptions, so hearing a voice meant he’d either gone insane or was losing control over his ability. He’d also ruined the component.

Kadel swiveled toward the culprit with a bellyful of anger. It was the nondescript man seated at the workbench to Kadel’s left, a stranger who’d spent the past two weeks working on a metallic sphere. Kadel had already noticed it incorporated extremely novel concepts related to the Peak of Fantasy. A few years ago, Kadel would have loved getting to know a researcher of such caliber.

Now, Kadel mostly liked the man because he’d minded his business, not once interfering with Kadel’s important work. He hadn’t so much as looked up when Kadel was fighting against the backlashes.

“Bastard, couldn’t help yourself any longer? You had to speak up at a critical moment?” Kadel spat, his eyes stinging from held-back tears of betrayal and pent-up frustration. “Who the hell are you?”

Seeing who’d interrupted his work was surprisingly painful. Kadel had deluded himself into thinking there was at least one person in this Heaven-forsaken academy who believed in his work. Or at least had the decency to give him the benefit of the doubt instead of citing antiquated rules. Someone with an unconstrained heart and willingness for exploration.

Kadel’s outburst had no effect on his neighbor. There was no derision on his face, only a slightly vacant expression as he slowly drawled an answer. “I… I am Anson.”

“Anson? Never heard of you. Did someone put you up to this? Was it Kon’Lo? Did she pay you to interrupt my work at a critical moment?” Kadel growled.

Despite his tough front, Kadel started to worry that his antics had attracted an actual lunatic. Those lost in the truths often sought out like-minded.

“Can you see it? The disorder brought by your search?” Ansil slowly asked, pointing toward a clump of workbenches nearby.

“What disorder?” Kadel’s eyes were wide with shock upon seeing the scholar's horrifying state. Some looked like they had fused with countless of themselves, while others flickered in and out of existence. It was like the timelines had been merged in a forced state of omnipresence.

“It’s you!” Kadel wheezed, believing this illusionist had used his tricks to mess with him. “What do you want?”

The man shook his head and stood up. “I’ll show you the truth if you dare wake from the dream.”

“What are you—HEY!” Kadel shouted, his eyes darting back and forth.

None of his tricks worked on the illusion. How was this possible? The Seat of Truth had extremely powerful protections in place. If this was a mental attack or illusory domain, the workshop’s arrays should have dealt with it already. Anson was already leaving through the main door on the opposite side of the enormous hall. Gritting his teeth, Kadel rushed after him.

If nothing else, Kadel needed to know how this mysterious observer could replicate such a realistic illusion, perfectly matching his theories of a temporal collapse.

“Hey? Where are you going? How did you do that? What’s the truth you speak of?”

“Wait.”

Kadel followed his desk mate to the middle of the Inquiry Square. As usual, there were hundreds of scholars around. Some were moving between departments or the grand library. Most were listening in on the Seat of Truth’s time-honored tradition—the public defense where scholars expounded on their insights while the audience poked holes in their ideas.

“Wh—"

“It’s time to wake up,” Anson said, and his sphere ignited with golden splendor.

The world froze, and the Inquiry Square was cast in a golden sheen that filled Kadel with warmth. He’d never seen pure Imperial Faith once before. However, a pervasive decay was hiding behind the empire’s warm embrace. The frozen scholars had become faded paintings covered in dust, both real and unreal.

Kadel was no different. He was hollow, yet his mind felt unprecedentedly clear. It was like he’d finally shaken off the blinders that kept him from the truth. As the observer said, he’d woken up. And it was in that state that Kadel realized that only this mysterious observer felt solid in this world of fading lights.

“I cannot maintain this state for long. You need to move us forward,” Anson said, and Kadel saw how his tool was rapidly draining energy.

“I can only peer into potential futures. I can’t actually move through time,” Kadel said, somewhat understanding what Anson wanted.

“Here, you can,” the man urged. “Hurry.”

“You don’t understand. Even if I grab the trajectory—” Kadel choked on his explanation as the world around them sped up.

A day passed in the blink of an eye, but they could travel no further. The countless futures had fused into a singular river that severed his connection. Kadel had never seen anything like it during his many experiments. A single possible future? Had they encountered inevitable Fate? The academic in him tried to dissect the fantastical experience, but the theories went out his mind when he saw something just as shocking.

Kadel saw himself standing atop a workbench. Truthfully, Kadel might not have realized he was looking at a copy of himself if not for the prototype in his alter ego’s hand. Kadel could barely recognize the scruffy creature once lauded as a generational genius, the candidate most likely to pick up his grandfather’s mantle and become the first Headmaster in two generations.

Hundreds of scholars and more than a dozen lecturers surrounded him, their faces a gallery of emotions. There were even two elders standing at the front, including Professor Emision. Time was flowing erratically, and a bubble around Anson’s tool blocked all sound. Still, it was clear his old advisor was urging him to stop and reconsider.

Standing within the illusory bubble, Kadel knew it wouldn’t work. His other self activated the prototype, and Kadel immediately realized the observer—and everyone else—had been right. It wouldn’t work. The Omnipresence Chamber was only supposed to create a domain the size of a walnut, but a small fissure made it draw everything. Future and past converged on the present, and the prototype immediately shattered under their weight.

A pulse of total annihilation swept through the academy, completely erasing the present and, thus, the future. The people, the buildings, everything, was mowed down by buckling time and space.

“No!” Kadel wailed, consumed by horror and guilt.

A primal rejection of what he witnessed allowed Kadel to seize the temporal threads, and he fled into the past. The Seat of Truth reappeared as it was before. Kadel was once more standing in the middle of the square with the mysterious stranger a day before his ill-fated experiment. The Imperial Faith, the discrepancies, they were all gone. Gone everywhere save for his memories.

Kadel was covered in sweat like he’d woken up from a bad dream, and his mind feverishly went over the experience. Nothing was as scary as the unknown.

“An illusion successfully mimicking limited Omnipresence? No. We moved in time, yet not. It’s as if we—” Kadel gasped, his eyes wide with dawning realization. He looked at the observer, sensing his waning solidity. Yet Anson wasn’t the oddity—the world was. “…As if we were already standing in both points of time. Like we were observing time from within a true Omnipresence Chamber.”

“I first tried to help you discover and remedy your mistake. I’ve come to realize there might not be one. Your vision demands perfection in an imperfect world,” Anson said.

“You…”

“Destroying your prototype would have stopped the tragedy, as would killing you. I believe saving your records is enough.” The observer shook his head. “But they have their goals, and I have mine. I think you can accomplish more, so I figured out a way to temporarily wake you up.”

Kadel took a deep breath, surprised at how calm he suddenly felt. “How long has it been?”

“Very, very long.”

“The empire used my theories to create a dream with Temporal Omnipresence. Why?”

Ansel answered after some thought. “I think they needed to observe everything to find the answer. You’re part of it.”

“And what are you looking for, ghost of the future?”

“The same thing as they. A path forward. Hope,” the observer said as he began to fade. “Be patient. Give up on the demonstration, but don’t give up on your dream. If you wish to repay me, look for a way to step out of the dream.”

“I’ll be expelled and—Huh, I guess that doesn’t matter,” Kadel lightly laughed before looking at the man from the future. “Why?”

“Because it’s incomplete,” the man said, looking deep into Kadel’s eyes. “What will happen when the dreamers step out of the dream?”

“Step out? You’d have to—” Kadel's brows furrowed upon realizing he didn’t know the answer, and a new road of inquiry opened up in his mind. By the time he looked up, the mysterious stranger was gone.