Chapter 36 - In the Eyes of the Architect

Everybody looked on as the bolt of concentrated magic shot towards Kaya. If she got hit by this, she would be dead.

BOOM!

When the magic left her palm, the color stabilized into a solid black. Darker than any color I had seen in my life.

Kaya stared at the magic as it grew closer and closer.

Nobody could save her in time. Her only option was to defend. But even then, her mind was struggling.

Her internal world was shaking along with her arms. She couldn’t hold her dagger steady enough to block.

She thought about what the God of Time said. I could tell.

“Observe it, and then think about how pointless it is as it pierces your heart.”

It wasn’t pointless to her. But, in that moment of life and death, it wouldn’t save her.

In nature, only the strong survive. To her, it was an incredibly unfair system. Suffering would be created by the natural world, as much and if not more than the unnatural world.

So, when the strongest stood in front of her, she saw everything she hated.

The God of Time was the natural would. She was the injustice Kaya wanted gone. But Kaya would die.

She needed to be strong enough to survive. Strong enough to kill those weaker than her, even if it went against what she stood for.

Kaya is weaker than the God of Time. So, Kaya will die.

That wouldn’t make sense.

The second premise must be that the weak must die.

That second premise. That is where Kaya needed to interject herself into.

Physical strength wasn’t the only contender. Intelligence. Luck.

And finally, passion.

All of them had a place in this equation.

A wild card was drawn.

And a new axiom was born.

Kaya is weaker than the God of Time. The weak must die to the strong. So, Kaya must di-

“NO! I won’t let this end here!”

Kaya yelled out.

Kaya was weaker. But, she had experience. Everything she saw before. She drew it into her internal world, and stabilized it.

She held her dagger towards the blast as it struck her.

She was being pushed back into the wall as her dagger was cracking.

No.

It wasn’t.

I was wrong. The dagger was glowing, melting and reforming itself in a natural cycle. It was consuming the energy from the blast to fuel its own transformation.

Kaya’s small muscles ripped as the wind from the blast pushed her ribs inwards.

But, she survived. Her dagger was dripping with molten lava as the air cooled it down.

Moments later, it had transformed. It was longer- the edges were sharper, and the ridges were multiplied.

Kaya grinned at the God of Time, pointing the dagger at her.

“I’m alive. I’ll punish you for your strength the moment I can.”

And a seed grew inside of her.

The God of Time grinned back at her.

“Good. I’ll be waiting~”

The timer was down to 3 minutes now.

BANG!

The timer was down to 2 minutes. The God of Time wasn’t paying attention to Ame when he sniped her in the skull with another water bullet. He was getting stronger. It still didn’t draw blood, but she was stunned again.

She stared at him with fire in her eyes.

“You’re next, I suppose. I’ll fight you on your terms.”

A sword of ice grew out of the palm of her hand. She stepped forward as Ame pulled out a sword of water.

He held it up in a defensive position as she attempted to strike his stomach. He barely blocked it as his sword of water froze. It was normal ice. If he hit anything with it, it would shatter. He had to make a new one.

As he reconstructed his sword, another slash came up his chest. He shot backwards to not die, but no matter how quick he went, it still would have hurt him.

He stood in front of her, breathing heavily. There was a minute and 30 seconds left.

The God of Time asked him a question.

“I know you value my Nell. I know that very well. But, how do you expect to hold onto that value? If he ever betrayed you, how would you stop it? If he ever was somebody other than Nell, what would you do?”

She was talking nonsense. There was a zero percent chance I would ever do anything like that. Not even if it killed me. Not even if it killed every human besides us on the planet. I wouldn’t bat an eye at my decision either.

Ame laughed.

“Are you serious? Hmmm… How do I expect to hold onto that? How about I reflect that question back to you?”

He was stalling. But it worked.

“Reflecting it, huh? Who would’ve guessed. But my answer is easy. I would reverse whatever was in my way. If he was hurt, I would turn back time. If there was something troubling him, I would fast forward past it. So, there's my answer. I’ll force you to answer it now.”

She walked up to me with the sword in her hand and pointed it at my heart.

Oh.

Oh.

I was going to die.

The tip of the sword pierced my flesh enough to hurt, but not to harm me.

Ame stared at me with fear in his eyes. I didn’t want him to feel like this. It was my fault he was in pain. If I died, it would be even worse for him. I didn’t want this. I didn’t.

Tears began to flow down my eyes, but it only made Ame think that I was scared. I was, but I was more scared for him than for me.

The God of Time smirked and turned to Ame.

“Answer me. How would you save the thing you value the most?”

Ame was silent.

The sword pushed deeper into my chest, until I could feel my heart beating against it.

It hurt. I was scared.

I turned to Ame with tears in my eyes.

“A-Ammeeeeee!”

He stared at me as his eyes grew even wider. The room grew cold. His breath was heavy and frosty.

He was… angry. Angrier than I had ever seen him.

He turned to the God of Time.

“Human value isn’t something fleeting. ”

He yelled out to her.

“So, I would freeze that moment!”

He appeared in front of her. Before she even had time to react, Ame mixed together his water and wind. When he first taught me about magic, he told me people with two elements could fuse them together. I had previously seen this with the God of Time, but this was closer to me. It was closer to my heart.

He grabbed the sword of ice and shattered it, before pivoting on his heel and ducking. Both of his hands pushed against the God of Time’s stomach.

And he yelled.

Ice began covering her entire body, one cell at a time. Her legs. Her pelvis. Her torso. Her chest. Her arms. And finally, her head.

The last expression she made before getting frozen was a smile. A reaction to the seed that was growing inside the ruined landscape of Ame’s internal world.

The timer was counting down.

5.

4.

3.

2.

1.

BEEP!

The God of Time thawed out and fell down to her knees.

“Haah… Haah… Amazing. You’re all growing so nicely. I love it. I love it all.”

She walked away as everybody stared at her. They were too tired to fight back if she did anything.

She stood in front of the stained glass and spoke.

“The first trial has concluded. All of you have survived. Your seeds have been planted in the soil of your identity. I have already given you your water. Now, go get your sunlight!”

She stared at me with a reminiscent look on her face.

“You’ve made some amazing friends this time, Nell.”

And she sent us back to reality.

…

I woke up next to everybody on a field of grass.

Ame turned to me.

“How long were we in there for? The time didn’t seem to change much. The sun's about to go down.”

I shook my head. I didn’t know. I was too shaken to respond back to him too.

I had around a minute to collect my thoughts before I heard footsteps rushing towards us.

There were around thirty people, all in a uniform marching position. Inda beamed at them after seeing the Maylem military outfit. Somebody had finally come to us. We weren’t lost.

A man with short black hair and a high-ranking military uniform stepped forward.

“We have begun confrontation with a part of the Laptaan military. Please follow us.”

Sy shouted out from the corner.

“Already?! We just stopped fighting!”

The leader of the battalion looked at him in confusion, before turning away and leading us towards the fight.

We walked forward. More grassland. It was almost endless. Ame began to make small talk with him.

“What’s your name? You seem rather strong.”

He responded back in a solid voice.

“My name is of no importance. On the battlefield, all that matters is my strength. I will protect you all with the blade resting in my palm.”

He was… really cool.

We walked for about thirty minutes, until we finally spotted somebody.

There were eight people fighting. Three of them were using electricity, one of them was using earth and the other four were using fire. There were also six dead bodies on the floor, so I couldn’t tell who was in the lead without seeing their military outfits.

The man spoke to Inda.

“All of these people will be fighting for control over Jeti. If you see anybody in this field, do not hesitate to kill them.”

Kaya nodded and held her recently improved dagger.

She was about to slit the throat of all the fire magic users, but they stared at her. There was nothing but fear in their eyes. She was stronger than them. They were weaker.

Kaya hesitated to kill them.

They took this chance to attack her from the sides with all their magic. She was strong enough to take little damage from this, considering their strengths were less than that of the 94th commander. But it was still an attack.

Inda grit her teeth and shot forward, obliterating all of the people on the field.

“Kaya! Pay attention!”

Kaya softly nodded and looked down.

There was one person left alive on the field. They were one of the people using fire magic, so I could reasonably assume they were a member of the Laptaan army.

Inda grabbed them by the collar and began to question them.

“Where are your allies? How many of them are there?!”

They looked away from her.

“I-I d-d-don-n’t h-a-a-ve an-ny all-lies…”

Inda tightened her grip as her hair began to glow.

“Eh? No allies? Are you sureeee? Because it looked like you got here quite quickly. Tell the truth and you can live~”

The soldier looked at her with tears in his eyes. His internal world was shaking to the point where it was about to crack.

“They are to the n-north… I h-hav-v-ve t-t-two le-leaders… Please le-eee-tt mme livveeee!”

Inda nodded and threw the soldier into a tree. I couldn’t tell if he was alive or not. I couldn’t tell if Inda would kill him or not either.

Inda led us north to the place where he said his allies were. Trees and rock spread across the battlefield. It was night time by this point, so it was rather hard to see.

He said he had two leaders. That meant it was unlikely that the Laptaan army sent them. I was even more confused. Kaya looked incredibly nervous. We made it to what I presumed was the battlefield. But, there were no two leaders I could see.

Just hundreds of regular soldiers. The strongest ones that I could see looked to be slightly weaker than Verwa. I saw rocks, fire, water, electricity- there was even wind. One of the leftover commanders that hadn’t died yet was fighting as well.

Moments later, another group of soldiers arrived. They were assisting the L’eau army.

One of them held their hands to the floor as a tree began to grow out of the floor, restraining tens of Laptaan soldiers.

It was the Baum army. The Maylem warriors along with Eternal Flame and I had no option but to enter the battle. Our goal was clear- kill all that threatened Jeti. But I didn’t want to. I would simply try and get them out of my way. That’s all that was necessary.

I walked forward an-

BOOM!

My ears rang as massive explosions erupted from the backline. The entire Baum army was wiped out. The entire Ujurak army was wiped out. The L’eau army was wiped out. The culprit of this massacre was coming at us next. I needed to act quickly.

I bolted forward to block the assailant, but he was incredibly fast. Faster than Inda.

His face was still.

But, once he stopped to fight the leader of the Maylem warrior battalion, I could see his face.

And so could Kaya.

Her face went blank. She couldn’t understand what she was feeling.

And she spoke.

“It's him. He was one of the two that I saw when my parents died.”

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Nell’s Notebook: Page 82

To the Nell of the past:

…

Who do you think you are?

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