CH 58

The group had surrounded Zel who was sitting beside Emilia while a cup of coffee was served on the table in front of them. His trademark smile made them all wonder exactly what Zel had in mind, but what he had just explained made no sense.

"So, let me get this straight. You're saying that people we just saved will try and force us to do their bidding? And if we don't follow, we get killed because we're too much of a threat?" Maisie looked at Zel for any indication of falsehood, as if wanting all that he said to be some sick joke. But his face didn't relent, there was no continuation to his story.

"When the time hit 3:30 am this morning, the whole dimension got placed into what we call the 'Central Foundation'. It's a universe where all creatures that had turned sentient are gathered. When we found mana, they found us."

Thoughtful expressions permeated the room as everyone collected his words and analyzed them for themselves. Everyone here possessed enough intelligence to figure out what he implied, the lowest one here had 6 Intelligence points after all.

"When we get found, this planet that houses millions of people that can handle mana in a new way that they hadn't found before, there will be blood spilled. But even before that, our whole planet will face against beings from dimensions that overlapped against ours in the process." Zel took a sip of his coffee, finding it strange to enjoy his final cup of coffee right now. How everything he would do for the rest of this meeting would be his last, at least from this timeline.

"If that was it, we could handle it easy as pie. But the world I've prepared for had suddenly changed into one that would rather not have us find a way to save it. It wants to own us. Daisy, see if you find the satellite 'Horizon-0DWN'."

"Got it."

Everyone watched as Zel sat down on the couch, overlooking one of the screens that had been screening a live feed of the Prime Minister of Cina, Chu Fan, giving a speech to thank the Coalition and the Oculus.

"That idiot still doesn't understand! We're the Pantheon damn it!" Phil looked helplessly at the screen as he knew why they still called them the Oculus.

He had been the one responsible for compiling the information that was sent to the Coalition, the one who identified them as the 'Oculus' because he thought it sounded more impressive than the 'Pantheon'. But now he was feeling regretful as the team was now being called by the name of their project instead of their genuine name.

"I hereby represent Cina in giving thanks to the organization that calls themselves the Oculus. We owe the lives of men and women of our great Cina to your efforts in thwarting the threat that is the abdicate, the now termed Heftpound. We offer you our deepest gratitude."

Zel produced a smile that was not a smile towards this man's speech. Good etiquette for sure, but that wasn't going to wash away the monster inside that facade. The man who would stop at nothing to retain his position, even in this altered world.

"I implore our heroes to gather with us on a banquet, a celebration to be held at the Mammon Gala Hall. At 8:00 tonight, we will present all the heroic men and women who risked their lives to sa-"

"Yeah, we got eyes on them."

A live video feed of a house was presented on the screen, replacing Prime Minister Chu's peroration. A person can be distinguished one the video, a young boy playing with three young girls while three women drank tea at the side.

"Mother!"

"Zel! That's your house!"

The room watched in horror as the screen revealed a man wearing military uniform directing his gun at one of Zel's sisters. Though the man had merely contained her in his scope, the fact of the matter was he can claim her life anytime he wanted to. And they can't do anything about it.

"These bitches think that their actions here are to secure what was rightfully theirs. That my family who is being taken away from me right now is going to be their bargaining chip to see to it that I don't go towards the side of Cina. It's not just my family. Emilia's parents are taken hostage as well."

"Ring. Ring." Zel then took out his phone, placed it on the table and paused. He looked around the room, noting everyone's reaction as he recalled what would come next.

"This is Adam Sonthor, the chief commander of the HBO. Kanada's most secretive military unit. They're going to invite me to attend their party tonight, a party held at the same time as that of Cina's."

"But why?"

Heads turned to the still ringing phone that Zel had no reason to pick up as it is a number that displayed no name on it. Though he did pick it up and place it back inside his storage ring without missing a blink.

"If I answered that call, there would be a choice to make. One that symbolizes which country I choose to place Pantheon on. Which side I choose."

"Which side did you choose last time?"

"Neither, I didn't care."

"Then they would have left you alone, right?"

Kylie looked at it simply. If Zel didn't choose a side then he chose all sides, not being a part of something made him part of everything right?

"Left me alone? They took my family to a facility where I cannot recover them, or they thought I couldn't. Maisie, check for 393 Lindale Street Torotot, Kanada."

The sounds of typing on a keyboard started and ended swiftly, soon after, the screen had changed into a seemingly desolate street with a few houses situated in it. The house Zel required her to focus on was the blue one near the corner, one where a car was parked in front of.

"That's the safe house they will use to keep my family, with Emilia's family being held just on the other side."

Zel then pointed at a yellow house by the side of a basketball court, one with nothing outside to indicate that someone lives there.

"By this time, they would have already started seizing them. Transferring them to this location."

The screen cut back to the live feed from the satellite 'Horizon-0DWN'. The scene now presented the inside of a truck where a few people were held down in gunpoint. A pair of little girls were trembling in fear as their temples had guns pressed against them. Everyone looked in anger as the tear stains on their faces as well as the reddened cheeks of one of the girls indicated signs of abuse.

"Even when we use the project Oculus, we won't be able to safely extract them. Not all of them at least. I've had to take them down myself, only being able to save one person."

Zel's eyes had turned back to the hateful glare that he had on when he woke up this morning. The anger he felt compelled the mana around him to become heavier, showing it's now changed color.

"Zel! It's indigo!"

Matthew was peculiarly sensitive to mana as the mana core in his heart had made it hard to miss the extremely significant change. Zel then released the surprise earlier, not caring enough to obscure it anymore.

"So, you've improved your talent?"

"That's right, I've already taken the other reward of the Top 10 function. A soul assessment stone."

"What does that do?"

"Not telling."

Zel remembered how he didn't understand why the system was giving him an item that shows his status when it was able to do so anyway. It was only when he consumed it that he understood. What exactly the system was from, what it was trying to copy.

[Soul Assessment Stone

- Gives the user the ability to see the soul status internally. Consume to activate retroactively]

Zel looked up to see nothing on the ceiling, while the others inside the room following him afterwards. Though they didn't see anything there even after looking for a while.

"Let's just say I met some good-looking guy that told me everything I needed to know to finally unlock the requirements to level up my talent. But it's not something anyone else can do, as it's specifically applicable only for me." Zel couldn't tell them about him meeting his future self in the dream.

The facts he had learned allowed him to understand why someone had a certain level of ability with regards to mana, why he had blue rank talent. Why Emilia had blue rank talent. Why he instinctively loved only her all these lifetimes.

"I'm telling you all something not because I'm looking for your permission, as I have every intention of moving forward with this plan even if you don't approve of it. Though I doubt anyone here would disagree, as I'm proposing something that can potentially solve not only the problems we will face in the future, but also problems you thought were inevitable in the past."

Zel watched the screen showing his sisters being threatened and chose to turn it off. He might change the present, but it doesn't mean he'd like to see the horrible conditions they are in right now.

"I don't understand, what does that have to do with 2006? Was there something that happened that year that would help us fight against them?"

"No, not yet." Zel showed them his system watch and used its holographic projection to showcase them his new talent.

[[18] - Temporal Manipulation - Indigo

- The ability to manipulate the time aspect of matter.

- Active Ability: Rewind/Forward - displace matter to a time zone of your choosing]

"What?" Daisy fell on her seat when she saw it. A power like that, how much would she sacrifice to have a power like that.

"I'm saying I'll be the one to fix your problems, when I return to 2008. I can travel back to 2008." Looks of disbelief were encountered on everyone's face except for Emilia. Zel's careless smile had delivered them more reason not to deny. Just how many surprises would be given today?

"But... You can time travel?"

"Zel! I..." Billy felt a flicker of hope burn inside him when he heard Kylie's cry.

'Stacy...' Phil had his eyes dart around the room, only to meet Mikey's eyes which had turned stoic. The soft grin on his face showed an expression rarely seen on Mikey's face as the man had never opened up to anyone except for Zel.

Matthew placed his hand over his beating heart. This thing had been bestowing life upon him for the past decade. A decade he would have gladly given up to get his parents back. His eyes reddened in silence as regretful tears fell from his now limpid eyes.

"I will only have one chance, one that I won't let slip through my hands. With this, I can fix everything."

The familiar morbid feeling brought the people there on their limits, but it merely happened for a moment before the aura the crystal gave out rushed towards Zel who now had a violet glow in his eyes.

The clothes he wore had disintegrated, but the violet mana that surrounded him concealed his naked body. It was when the skin on his body turned clear that his body seemingly started falling apart.

"I just wanted to ask you. What mistakes do you want fixed?"

Everyone watched Zel's godlike appearance, but hesitation filled a few of the people gathered here today. Be it shame or due to feeling they do not deserve it, they kept their wishes to themselves.

"You babies."

Zel then spread his mana around the room, segregating everyone from everyone else. He made sure to give them some privacy in order for them to be truthful in what they want for him to change. He may not be able to promise that he would change them entirely, he would do his best to see what he can do. That is, except for one person.

Zel spent all the time he had left embracing Emilia one last time, swearing in his heart to uphold his promise. The only one that matters in his heart.

By the time they finished, which had been a few minutes later, the light in the room had suddenly flickered. When it lit up again, the surroundings had turned into a regular hospital floor.

...

In a dark empty space that encompasses a quadrillion cubic kilometers, nothing existed. Just as time had taken away all things, this dimension had returned to its origin, to dust.

But when one peeks through the lens of time, there are minute brilliant flashes of life that sprout once in a while. Moments that would eventually return to nil, only to wait for the next session of life to occur again.

The empty space had been like this for thousands of years already, waiting for it's next phase patiently. Anticipating the next instance of life to fill it's voids.

That was until a light erupted from the center, a blinding light that outshines any source of light currently known to man. One that filled every space that once had nothing. A new beginning. A new dimension is born.

In the center of this light is an old man, whose long white hair had turned to a pale golden river that stretched across the dimensions, seemingly endless. What followed immediately after his appearance was a resounding cracking sound. The passage way that he had created earlier had started collapsing on itself, leaving him with nowhere to retreat. But as soon as the light vanished, the old man's body collapsed, leaving only a few spheres that had formed from the dust he left behind.

They did not turn into dust as he did. No, they floated around the space, fleeting along the empty space that had turned silent once again. Their spherical shape everchanging, releasing mist that spread out into the void.

These spheres had contained laws, rules that dictated how matter will form. A blueprint for the arrangement of what would would be a dimension. He'd already planned in advance what kind of world he needed to create so that he might succeed. So that they would survive.

Millions of years passed and the once barren space had changed. A few of the beautiful spheres were lost in the passage of time, mixing with the creations left in their wake. Now the empty void had a few fills in its voids. Rocks of all sizes, gases that had no form, what could be described as chaos appeared where the beautiful scenery of light once was. There was no order, no law.

Until suddenly, one of the spheres that had been lost in time broke off, forming a crystal that glowed violet. A hand had come out of the crystal, one that held the crystal as soon as it manifested. The hand looked fragile, pale and feminine. But it glowed brilliantly, creating with it a series of circles around that created a buzzing sound all over the vast space.

Those rocks that were scattered had suddenly compressed into spheres, taking with them the various gases that were floating about. A few had spontaneously combusted, forming giant balls of fire that floated statically instead of moving around like it used to.

With these balls of fire as the center, a few of the spheres had formed a path. Though some paths had intersections that eventually caused a hundred thousand spheres to crash into each other, leaving only a hundred that had formed a path that did not intersect. Creating order in the once lawless void.

The violet crystal, now visibly dimmed, had been left floating around the space. The hand that it formed before was gone, but it did not turn to dust like the other spheres before it. It passed by the worlds it had created, as if observing its work. Eventually the crystal regained a glimmer of itself, and with its journey came a few companions. The crystal now had the rest of the spheres together, though a few of them had been lost, there were still nine left behind.

Time passed as the crystal and it's friends have arrived at the edge of the space, though there seemed to be more space if they floated forwards, there was a barrier that hindered their path. A limit they cannot overcome, not if they wanted this dimension to survive.

It was then that one of the spheres suddenly turned into dust, forming a fog that hid the rest of the marbles and the lone crystal. The fog had spread out, hugging the invisible barrier that formed around the space. A slow invasion was happening as the fog grew thinner and thinner, and when it was so thin that it couldn't expand any more, another sphere would take its place, resuppling its reserves to occupy more territory.

....

It's the year 2008 in the Gregorian calendar. Nine years since Estophelia woke up and thirteen years before Zel's temporal journey.

A figure of a woman can be seen from among the floating fog that surrounded the only planet in the space that contained life. Her body was trying to condense itself but every time it did, a force suddenly appears that splits the fog apart. As if the dimension had a problem with her desire to manifest.

The fog that covered the space lifted itself from the invisible barrier, heading straight for the planet that had called out to her, or to a presence that did. The fog then turned into rays of light, similar to what had happened in the past, one that only she remembered.

The plan had always been to place half of her soul in a new body, one that can eventually handle the rest of her soul as it grows. But it is proving difficult to do as the host she chose was unable to handle having only half a soul. The only solution was to either supply her with more energy from the Legacies or to place all of herself into the host.

She chose the former, as it would be more beneficial in the long run anyway. He won't get mad if she used more, hopefully. The situation was going according to plan when the violet crystal the fog held suddenly glowed, as if sending a message to the figure among the fog.

The womanly figure then looked at the only thing that glowed similarly to her crystal on the planet. Her non-existent eyes looked on as a man covered in indigo fire stood listlessly on the void that she used as her home. His face was familiar, very familiar. 

"You're back!"

(End of Volume 1)