Chapter 342 The Life and Trials of a Nephilim (2)

During their Battle, Ath constantly spoke down on and taunted his older brother, eventually getting the better of him and forcing him into a position where he would either need to sacrifice his only arm or die. His older brother did just that, except this was where the battle took a turn.

To Ath’s surprise, his older brother had become a master Magician. He created two new Mana Construct arms, mercilessly beating him into submission, mangling Ath’s body, and shattering his mind once again.

However, before his brother could strike the final blow, he collapsed on top of Ath, with tears in his eyes, begging Ath to return to himself.

But to his dismay, Ath was having none of it, and after regaining his composure, he and his brother continued their battle until only one was left standing, Ath.

By killing his brother, who had not only opposing points of view but also Affinities, Ath had become a finalist in the Legacy Strife. When the Time came to come up against the remaining Charges, Ath wasted no time destroying them, leaving him as the sole Victor.

Ath’s Victory was partly due to his ruthless and bloodthirsty fighting style but also because he had broken through multiple times and achieved Tier-7.

Standing atop a mountain of corpses, Ath cared not for those he defeated except for his brother.

When his brother died, Ath had stored his body within his spatial ring, refusing to allow any animal or scavenger to defile it, and took it back to their hometown.

Once there, Ath used his Affinity to protect his brother’s corpse from decomposition by encasing it in a prism that would never shatter.

According to Ath’s Memoir, he stood before his entombed Brother’s body for two weeks straight, morning and night. At first, he was angry that his brother had the gall to fight him, to try and change him, but as the days ticked by, Ath’s mind slowly fell apart until he succumbed to grief.

However, no matter how badly he wished for things to return to the way they were, it was impossible, or so he thought.

Pleased at his actions, the God Of Light appeared beside the distraught Ath and praised him for Winning the Legacy Strife.

The Deity he fought for informed Ath that he could have one wish, so long as it wasn’t reviving the dead. Riches, Power, anything was possible as it was within his Power as the God Of Light to do so.

Hearing the Deity’s words, Ath was on the verge of snapping and attacking the God of Light, but with a glance at his brother’s entombed body, he began a plot even his brother would be proud of.

Steeling his resolve, Ath faced the Deity and demanded a single item that he had spent hundreds of years searching for to no avail. With this gem, it wouldn’t be a stretch to say that Ath could right all his wrongs, bring back his Beloved, and even make amends with his brother.

The item that Ath requested was a 1-carat Pristine Time Affinity Gem.

Through his travels, Ath knew there could only ever be ONE Time Affinity User in a given universe. When that being died, his Affinity would Crystalize into a single Pristine Affinity Gem.

Ath requested only this gem from the God Of Light, and the Deity finally gave in after struggling for a while.

Ecstatic, Ath thanked the God of Light as the Deity disappeared back to the Hall of Gods.

For the next hundred and forty years, Ath devoted every waking minute to learning to control Time through his New Affinity. In the beginning, Ath could only jump forward or back by a few seconds, but the longer he learned and grew his new Affinity, the more powerful it became.

Yet even with all his strength, and the ability to rewind or speed up Time, the thing he wanted most eluded him; through his studies, Ath learned about something he prayed wouldn’t be valid, and that was the existence of Timelines.

The knowledge he acquired about timelines left Ath devastated. From what he learned, it would be impossible to return to the past to fix the Future.

That day the planet he had been born on was nearly destroyed in rage. Mountains shattered, storms spanning thousands of miles formed, the oceans churned, and the beings on the planet viewed it as the end of days, and for them, it was.

In his grief-fueled rage, Ath killed 95% of the planet’s population over two years. Still, he couldn’t care less because his Affinity was virtually useless to him as it was with the knowledge he obtained of parallel timelines.

Sure he could go back, save his beloved, and even make amends with his brother, but when he inevitably returned to his own Time, nothing would have changed.

The Time stream was just that mysterious of an existence; one could alter their own line, but in doing so, they would create entirely new lines in their unreachable parallel dimensions. This was also why there could only ever be a single being with the Time Affinity in a given dimension. There would be infinite timelines if too many people jumped around, so it was regulated by a higher power that not even the Deities understood.

For Ath, this news was enough to send him over the deep end and kill off nearly every creature living on the planet.

When his grief subsided several years later, Ath helplessly collapsed before his brother’s tomb, which was just as it had been the day he made it, and wept.

For an unknown amount of Time, Ath laid on the ground beside the Crystalline structure weeping, a broken man.

As a Time Affinity user, the passage of days meant nothing to him, as he could, in a sense, exist forever. So he stayed by his brother’s side, falling into slumber, until one day, after many years, he was startled and woken up.

When Ath opened his eyes, he was greeted by a vastly different landscape, a forest filled with trees as far as the eye could see, and glancing around, he found himself in a clearing, with his brother’s tomb glistening behind him.

Sitting up in confusion, Ath heard the startled cries of two children, boys who were no older than 6 or 7 years old, holding sticks as if they had been playing adventurer in the woods.

Surprisingly, Ath wasn’t angry as he stared at the two terrified children holding their sticks like swords. Instead, he projected the image of himself and his brother onto the two children, and as a single tear rolled down his cheek, Ath waved both of them over, telling them to sit down so that he could tell them a story.

Ath told the children a tale about two brothers, the older brother, who was a bit hard to deal with and mean to most people, and the younger brother, who was kind and gentle with everyone.

He told them of the wonderful adventures the two brothers had, from beating up a bunch of criminals like superheroes to the Time they fought in epic wars together.

Sure, Ath edited the story a bit since these two children were far too young for all the gory details; nonetheless, the story was true; it was, after all, his story.

“Mister, what are the two brothers’ names? How come you keep calling them older and younger brother?” The youngest of the two boys asked in an innocent voice.

“That, hm, although their names were thought to be lost long ago, I do remember them, the eldest was named Ayke, and the younger was known as Athalos,” Ath said with a sad smile.

“Remember this lesson, you two, no matter what you face or how tough times become; no one will ever know you like the brother you grew up with. Although you may fight, and some distance may grow between you two as you get older, never let go of that bond.”

“Because once it’s gone, it is something you will wish desperately to return. But by then, all you can do is morn the loss since it will be too late.”

Then Ath patted both boys on their heads and turned to face the crystalline tomb he had stood near for ages. With a wave of his right hand, he then carved a line into the grave before smiling at the children and vanishing.

The carved words read, “Here Lies Ayke, the one who stood against all odds, to fight against the Demon Lord Known as Athalos. May he Rest in Peace Forever, for even in death, he was Triumphant.”

—

Placing the book down in his lap, Brance rubbed his tired eyes. Looking at his Watcet, he saw that it was already half past four in the morning, and Gabby hadn’t moved from his lap.

The abrupt ending left Brance’s mind in a storm of thoughts. Questions flowed as he wondered what happened after Ath left his brother’s grave.

But the most disturbing thought he had came to him when the brothers’ names were revealed.

Athalos and Ayke were the middle names that he and Cynrik had, meaning that this Ath had been him in a different timeline.

Brance had so many questions but no answers at all, but after reading the Memoir, he knew that he couldn’t allow things with his Turning Point quest to progress any longer.

The book had shown him the worst-case scenario, where he, in his grief, would become the bane of existence, destroying the world multiple times over and even killing his own brother, and this realization was unacceptable.

[Cyn, meet me in the training room, we need to talk.] Picking up the sleeping Gabby in his arms, Brance quickly deposited her in his bed, tucked her in, and headed to the training room after sending that message through the mind link.

When he arrived, Cynrik was already calmly sitting in the center of the room, eyeing Brance as he walked in.

“What’s up?” Though slightly confused, Cynrik felt something that had been bugging him for a long time was about to happen.

“First, before I say anything, you need to read this,” Brance stated as he tossed the book to his brother.

Unlike him, who had spent several hours reading the Memoir, Cynrik finished the book within five minutes and sat with a scrunched-up expression on his face while he ruminated over the new information.

He concluded the main character’s identity within seconds, and as he continued reading, his heart pumped with the sheer possibilities being presented.

Sitting in silence, Cynrik closed his eyes to process the information and grasp his rapidly-churning thoughts.

Eventually, when he opened his eyes, Cynrik found Brance sitting beside him, calmly watching.

“Timelines… a pesky thing; from what I can tell, it’s basically DBZ rules too and not Back to the Future, where even if one goes back in time, it creates a different timeline, making it impossible to alter the origin line,” Cynrik said as he leaned back on his arms and looked at the ceiling.

“I assume you got this from Yennifer, which means one of two things, the CSH exists outside of the boundaries of Time and Space, or Ath has been to our line and left the book with the CSH for you. Either way, what a troublesome knucklehead you are.” Sighing, Cynrik reached over and bonked Brance on the head before continuing.

“I had a feeling you were doing some stupid shit like suppressing the Divinity Fragment, but fucking hell, if this book can be trusted, you in another timeline became a demon lord, and it all started with doing what you are right now.”

“So…what is the next step?” Brance asked quietly. Now that everything was out in the open, he desperately needed Cynrik’s advice.

“Welp, now you get ready to beat the fuck out of that LM guy, I have my theories about his identity, but you will be on your own.”

“So power up all your skills now, and get ready; we are doing this shit here and now, Brancie, and if my theory is correct, the second you acknowledge its existence, you will be pulled into your SOC for your First Turning Point Quest.”

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