I Can Assimilate Everything-Chapter 343: Know thy Enemy! III
The wind over the Cenotaph Wild Lands was sharp and endless.
It bit across the jagged ridges of cracked mountains and rippled the broken plains below, where fossilized bones of colossal Evolutius Beasts jutted from the earth like the spines of ancient titans.
Above it all, two streaks of light moved swiftly- one golden and arrogant, shaped like a blur; the other obsidian-gilded, wrapped in auroras of starlight, Primordial Energy, Evolutius Energy, and Gamma radiation!
What others could not readily see was the grandeur of purple and gold that represented the Organic Regulations of...Time and Destiny!
The Monkey King, Sun, flew beside Achilles, arms tucked behind his back as his tail waved lazily through the wind. His voice broke the quiet, vibrant as ever.
"This land that many call Ethemia hasn’t always gone by that name."
...!
His gaze was heavy as he spoke.
Achilles didn’t answer, but his eyes shifted slightly. The gusts parted easily before him as if respecting the unnatural flow of time and power around his form.
"There was a time when even the Ancient Ones didn’t reign," the Monkey King said, "Back then, this Plane of Existence was known as Qor’Zaneth. A wild name for a wild time."
Achilles finally responded, his voice calm. "Qor’Zaneth?"
"Mmm," Sun nodded. "A land where Mythological Ancients ran rampant. Where lineages weren’t yet solidified, and everything was born from myths. You’d find entire continents ruled not by dynasties or Ancient Ones, but by nightmares."
He shook his head as if trying to remember old history!
"There was... Valissia of the Crimson Veil, an empress who drank not only blood, but lineages themselves. She’d hollow out entire Lands and wear their memories like clothes. And I remember Records of one called Moruk, an elk-shaped titan whose antlers were constellations and whose breath warped seasons. I call myself a Mythological Ancient, but before them, I would be nothing."
...!
Achilles listened, silent again.
"What kind of power did they hold?" he finally asked.
Sun’s calmness slowly faded. He looked ahead toward the endless distance of the Wild Lands. The skies above them seemed to shift from blue to hues of gray and gold.
"At their peak? Empyrean Star Nexus Transcendence," Sun said slowly. "They could even traverse the borders of Qor’Zaneth and go out...into the stars."
WAA!
"The Primordial Light of Darkness many believed he stemmed from that time."
Achilles’ gaze sharpened.
Sun flew ahead, his face turned to the deepening sky. "But there’s the problem. If he’s connected to those crimson eyes- then he may truly no longer be what he once was. The original might’ve been replaced. Killed. Puppeted. Or maybe... corrupted so deeply that what remains is just a name."
"...A shadow wearing flesh," Achilles murmured.
Sun nodded.
The land beneath them was shifting- what had once been dense petrified forest now gave way to ruinous plateaus and broken temples swallowed by sands. No birds called. No wind stirred the bones. Even the clouds were slow and weary.
They had flown for over an hour now, yet the edge of the sea remained out of sight.
An hour!
So...
"Wait."
Achilles stopped mid-air, his aura condensing as a pulse of starlight flickered outward.
The hour had passed.
He could use it again.
Time Vision!
In his mind, the strands of time unraveled like an ancient scroll. The deep violet hue of the temporal river swirled before him as his thoughts coalesced.
Target...The Primordial Light of Darkness!
And then...
HUUM!
A flicker.
The world tilted.
The river pulled him.
Time stayed still, but he moved!
Achilles was there again- not in body, but in sight. The two mountains rose like titans over the sea- one veiled in frost, its jagged peaks catching starlight like shattered glass. The other, veiled in mourning mist, wept vapor from its cliffs into the waters below. Between them, the island pulsed.
Closer now.
He could see it.
On the island’s blackened shore, the Primordial Light of Darkness stood.
Not towering, not monstrous.
Just... waiting.
His body was shrouded in rippling black cloth, wings folded behind him like a sleeping blade. And kneeling before him, a woman with ink-dark hair and a long feline tail. Her ears twitched as she listened, her eyes glinting with violet irises.
He handed her orbs- pulsing, pitch-black spheres that seemed to absorb all light.
"Scatter these around the island," he said calmly. "Place them beneath the soil, within the waters, atop the cliffs."
The woman tilted her head. "Why?"
The Primordial Light of Darkness smiled. "Out of caution. If anyone dares approach... and their aura differs from the encoded frequency, the Gamma Orbs will detonate."
She nodded and vanished, her body dissolving into mist.
He remained alone.
And in that stillness, Achilles saw the being’s fingers tremble.
"So close," he whispered. "So close. But still... why does my heart remain uneasy?"
And with that whisper...
A surge of violet.
And the Vision stopped!
The river returned.
Time folded inward.
Achilles’ awareness returned to the Wild Lands, standing still beside the Monkey King.
He didn’t speak. Not yet.
He felt the flow of time around him, a river far too vast to tame. He didn’t reach for it. Not this time.
He only... observed.
It shimmered across his soul, brushing the edges of his being like the fingers of one tracing the grooves of fate. And within him, he felt the subtle strain. The ache. The sharp thrum of something foreign!
Existence Corruption Value: 41%.
It had risen this much from assimilating time!
Too high.
Too dangerous.
The Regulation of Time... was still too majestic. Too ancient. Too far beyond the curvature of who he was. To force more of it now would be madness.
And so he breathed.
He let it go.
And beside him, Sun hovered in silence, sensing the weight in the air.
Neither of them said anything for several moments as they continued.
Above, dusk deepened.
Below, the Cenotaph Wild Lands stretched endlessly, a forgotten graveyard of time.
And far beyond, an island waited between two mountains where a shadow fed darkness into the soil, waiting for the moment when someone bold enough would come to unearth!
And Achilles...planned ahead!
