Soul of Searing Steel

“Earliest traceable history entry is recorded 1585 years ago, when the Multiverse System underwent its first trial processing.”

The Commanding Will answered Joshua’s question thus. “However, when I, the Multiverse Sacrificial Grounds officially begun operations, the war began. Even so, I had been activated on a trial basis over several occasions, and it is with those test data as basis that I was voted in by the council of representatives of the Glorious Union, my implementation hence commencing.”

“Although I have lost some data, the data vault still recorded that information clearly.

“I know that. The Sage himself must have used the Multiverse Sacrificial Grounds over a few times—he wouldn’t be able to scamper around the Multiverse otherwise, or even leave his footsteps on Stellaris.”

Joshua flew high above, arriving at a level altitude with the silver sun. As he reached the edge of the Silver Sky Brilliance and overlooked the Multiverse Sacrificial Grounds, he said a little nonchalantly, “Now that you mention it, it must be more than a thousand years now that the Final Battle ignited at the world of Mycroft and its surroundings.”

“To be precise, it’s 1255 years, including inestimable battles that probably lasted more than twenty years.

The surface of the silver sun flashed once—Commanding Will appeared not to comprehend the meaning of Joshua’s words, and hence simply revealed the information recorded in its data vault. “Most of my core hubs had been destroyed in the battle, which is why the period of war is inestimable, although it must have lasted more than twenty years. Then, after the battle, it was 323 years of extreme Chaos, in other words, the time you call the Lost Three Hundred Years.

“And there is also the 839 recorded years of Starfall History, and the unrecorded 93 years of shelter wars.”

The Commanding Will of the Multiverse Sacrificial Grounds listed a screen form for Joshua that drew long historical lines, using a format that marked five-years in a single box. “Since most of my core hubs had been destroyed,” it said flatly, “I have fallen to utter stagnation. However, with the elemental decline clock in my body, I could precisely calculate the time passed—it must be said that the Starfall Era is exceedingly powerful, to start again but reach early Glorious Era standards in less than one thousand years.

Joshua did not reply at once. He lifted his hand and glanced at the wristwatch that he made at some point in time, saying softly, “Twelve seconds had passed since you’ve started speaking…”

“To be precise, 11.38 seconds.” the Multiverse Sacrificial Grounds corrected.

Joshua smiled simply and looked up at the Void. “Commanding Will,” he said, “you could connect to every corner of the Multiverse, right? Then you should be aware of a single fact—the Frame of Reference of the variance between time is actually not the same for different observers.”

This time, it was the Commanding Will’s turn to remain silent. The surface of the silver sun dulled slightly.

“Just like how you could connect to Stellaris, or perhaps a massive world at the other side of the Multiverse not within the galaxy we’re positioned… you could also naturally be linked to Kronos and Karlis, worlds close to Mycroft… but you naturally wouldn’t be aware of those worlds’ histories, right?”

Joshua shrugged, ignoring the Commanding Will’s silence as he lowered his head, keeping his eyes on the land of the Multiverse Sacrificial Grounds that show green hues, although most of its land remained barren. “I could tell you if you don’t know.”

“According to Karlis the Steel Python and Zero Three, the artificial intelligence residing in my home, the time when Karlis was invaded by the Evil God of Famine was approximately 1270 years ago when converted to Mycroft time. Though there is a deviation of a dozen years it was not that huge a gap, and with the Avian’s prolonged resistance before their extinction, Zero-Three’s original form is only created one thousand and seven two years old, at the end of Karlis’s civilization. In between, it could all be explained by gaps in data.”

“However, Karlis is the world closest to Mycroft.” Joshua enunciated, heavily emphasizing the words ‘closest to’. “As for the world of Grandia, according to detailed records, the Saint’s world creation was one thousand and four hundred years ago—isn’t there an issue there? 1400 years and 1255 years are quite close, the variation of more than a hundred years too ordinary for the two worlds… but that’s wrong.”

“The world of Grandia is a realm of reserve Flame Seed the Sage had nurtured to rescue the world of Mycroft. To be precise, it was the ‘Final Solution” that happened after the Final Battle, after the gods failed to restore the world and extended consolidations and controversies. Its birth must have been a dozen years after the war, perhaps even decades—but why would Grandia’s creation appear earlier than the Final Battle? Not only that, but more than a hundred years earlier?”

The Multiverse Sacrificial Grounds remained speechless. The silver sun kept flashing and alternated between brightness and dullness, as if in warning.

On the ground, some of the researchers stationed had come out to observe why the light of the Multiverse Sacrificial Grounds was fluctuating. When some of them who were nearby the Silver Sky Brilliance heard Joshua’s voice, they dashed in panic at once into the research center and began calling for headquarters back in Mycroft.

Joshua certainly would not pay attention to the mood of those ordinary researchers—their calls to headquarters would be nothing other than to say some rubbish like ‘Count Radcliffe is up to something again’. Meanwhile, the warrior kept dissecting the ‘issue of time’ bit by bit which appeared logical, but actually was not.

“I don’t know much about the world of Illgner as well, but the elves there had definitely developed over a few dynasties, only establishing the new Bay Federation in recent centuries. No matter how it was counted, it should have been one millennium and a few centuries right? And yet, Father Nature had held on until after the Final Battle and only fled when the Mycroft continent sunk. You must have been able to observe its departure—do you think your recorded time is similar to Illgner?”

Joshua’s tone was calmly, even unbelievably affectionate even as he spoke clearly. “However, it is clearer with the world of Kronos. The realm itself had been attacked by the Black Fog more than a thousand years ago and left devastated to the point that it was inhospitable, and according to the Ancient Dragon, that so-called more than one thousand years ago was probably around fifteen hundred years.”

“If it had been a thousand years ago, the Black Fog, not to mention its main body must still be inside the core research center of Shelter Civilization, sealed as a technological prototype. The main body itself was released twelve hundred and fifty fives years ago in Mycroft time, after the invasion of Evil Gods—and its assault on the Ancient Dragon happened decades, even centuries later.”

At that, the warrior paused for a long moment. He watched as gray clouds wafted in the skies of the Multiverse Sacrificial Grounds and said slowly, “rarely anyone would notice such a bizarre issue. However, due to personal interest and some recent research, I’m starting to become curious over that difference.”

“Commanding Will, could you tell me why there are such differences? Why does the Black Fog that should only appear after the Final Battle had begun pursuing the Ancient Dragon in the galaxy two hundred years ago, even before the war began?”

“//< data error //> information trace… Unable to find objective! Error, error, error! //< objective does not exist! //>!”

The Commanding Will promptly burst with a wave of information turbulence, and only calmed after a long time.

On the ground, the researchers were in an uproar.

“What’s going on? When Nostradamus and the others came before, the Multiverse Sacrificial Grounds almost crashed—why is it the same with Count Radcliffe here?!”

“Didn’t they warn him? It’s best not to agitate the Commanding now! If it crashes, we can’t restart the Multiverse Sacrificial Grounds!”

At the same time, Joshua could sense the communications equipment inside his own body activating. Someone, or perhaps quite a few people were trying to contact him.

“Jo—sh—ua!” Nostradamus left him a flustered and exasperated message. “Didn’t I tell you not to ask questions that would crash the Commanding Will?! Or do you not understand human language?!”

“I heard you, but I wasn’t asking those questions, only something else.”

Joshua replied simply and ended the conversation, only to see that there were messages from Israel, Igor, Barbarossa, Vahina, Galanoud and the other Legendary champions. Skimming through it generally, the warrior saw that all of them were advising Joshua to be prudent, refrain from seeking ruin or recklessness, problems can be solved by them working together, stop acting alone and so forth… the communications plugin kept ringing all the time, and noisily so.

The kind and amicable Count Radcliffe hence silenced the tool, solving that troublesome issue at once. He then turned towards the fluctuating silver one and sighed.

“Still haven’t escaped the data error cycle? Commanding Will, do you understand?”

“Time isn’t balanced, it dilates—I might even say that recently, the world of Mycroft had experienced a different temporal flow from other worlds!”

“For us, a hundred years would be more than that for other worlds or decades more—if I’ve guessed correctly, it might even be centuries more in faraway places! Your so-called data error is simply similar to the ‘Millennium Bug’: the processing that relies on a linear temporal design is unable to cope with the chaos caused by differences in time! You may have observed other places for over twelve hundred years, but you were unable to refer it to the twelve hundred and fifty years you’ve sensed, and nothing but that!”

A long silence.

Just as Joshua thought that he might have said too much and left the Multiverse Sacrificial Grounds in confusion, the Commanding Will suddenly spoke quietly.

“Interaction program online.”

“No, Joshua, I understand.”

The silver sun ceased flickering. Although it was dim, the core intelligence of the Multiverse Sacrificial Grounds was stable once again. “The issues of ‘time’ you had mentioned was already raised by deities such as the ‘Earth Mother’ and the ‘God of Mountains’ in the Glorious Era.”

“The closer one was to a massive object—in other words, the true form of those deities, the flow of time would show indistinct signs of slowing. Similar to that, the God of Messengers also suggested that the faster in move, time would become slower in relative.”

Joshua nodded, unsurprised that the Commanding Will was aware of that. “It’s known as Time Dilation… As expected, the Glorious Era has a theory similar to Relativism.”

***

Compared to ordinary worlds, supernatural worlds held great advantages in certain aspects. When an individual had the ability to directly see every spectrum of light and directly sense electron cloud to use their very own forms and cause Time Dilation, the progress of their scientific observation would be incomparable to normal humans—they would be able to present peak phenomenon theories even in primitive eras.

Additionally, with extended lifespans and processing speed that surpasses supercomputers, such qualities were things all scientists desired greatly. Even so, that power could not be shared with other normal beings without supernatural powers—something that could not be helped.

“Sage’s Heir… you’re right. My data vault is certainly in disorder because the timestamp on most data isn’t compatible… but I can’t find the reason.”

The Multiverse Sacrificial Grounds appeared not upset despite almost going into downtime, and continued calmly, “In fact, the star charts of the Multiverse had changed greatly. The galaxy we’re in had thus become unfamiliar… When I first awakened, I could not even believe that I’m nearby Mycroft.”

“Is that so? There’s little wonder too… After all, our galaxy was in fact battered once.” Joshua simply shook his head in response a little emotionally.

The Commanding Will, however did not understand.

“Battered?” It asked, puzzled. “What battering?”

Joshua did not say a thing, but simply showed the Commanding Will a model of the galaxy that the Fairy Queens had displayed to him.

“That… that huge sunken basin…” The Commanding Will was left astonished as it stared at the galaxy’s three-dimensional model, muttering with a hint of emotion for the very first time. “The center of our galaxy is actually missing… where? Where had those worlds inside the basin gone to?!”

“It’s us.”

In return, Joshua sighed heavily and looked up at the Void. “We reached the Abyss,” he said quietly, “Mycroft and the worlds around it, according to my inference, were part of the worlds at the center of this galaxy.”

“These worlds—especially Mycroft, had been beaten down to the bottommost region that was closest to the Abyss from the center of the galaxy by some unknown power. The depression of the galaxy was the center was where our Mycroft once had been.”

At those words, Joshua smiled somewhat, keeping his eyes on the basin inside the Galaxy instead of the silver sun beside him. “Think about it,” he said with a deep voice, “a world moved by a great power, thrown directly from the center of the galaxy to its lowest edge—how greatly would time change then?”

“As for the Glorious Era’s suggestion about our own galaxy that it was inside the Multiverse—what about now? We are at the edge of the galaxy, so could we still observe other galaxies? How far are we actually from the real axis of the Multiverse? More than twelve hundred years had passed for us, so what about other worlds and other galaxies of the Multiverse?”

At those words, Joshua turned toward the Commanding Will, his eyes flickering in silver radiance and his gaze unfathomable. “Now,” the warrior said softly, “I have given you a reason for the error in your data. So, Commanding Will, could you tell me if there are information about worlds at the edge of the galaxy that caused ‘data error’ due to ‘incorrect temporal flow’?”

***

That was Joshua’s true intention.

He was already aware that something was not right with the timing recorded about the Sage or the Evil Gods after transcending several worlds, just as he analyzed the reason for it.

Nevertheless, Joshua never mentioned it because it was not necessary. There were many things to think about and consider, and what he learned in Fairyland merely gave him a round-up of the tiniest of motivations.

This time, however, Joshua picked up the scent of something fishy. According to Nostradamus, the Commanding Will had simply stated ‘data error’ or ‘objective could not be found’, and not ‘missing data’ or anything else. That meant the initial data could exist, but could not be opened due to some logical error.

And since there was no harm in trying, why not?

Thus, there was another moment of silence from the Commanding Will.

“Yes,” it then said. “There are records of data error at the edge of the galaxy, where some secret worlds requiring high clearance existed. However, the time distortion is deviating much further and much more serious than Mycroft—if, counting with Mycroft as a center, the Time Dilation in worlds around it is only a few years decades or decades. On the other hand, for worlds at the edge of the galaxy, one year for Mycroft is five to six years over there.”

Joshua’s expression turned at once, although he soon frowned and calmed. “Wait. Being able to teleport there means that the Frame of Reference is in coordination, and the Time Dilation effect should have ended a long time ago. Otherwise, the teleportation would fail, and the subjects would quickly fall into heaven knows what dimensional corner.”

Even if that was the case, Joshua suddenly remembered the missing Red Dragon King and Green Dragon King of the Pentashade Dragons.

Both draconic monarchs had wandered the depths of the Multiverse centuries ago and disappeared mysteriously, to the point that they were unreachable even with the secret ways of the dragons.

The same thing happened to the ancestor of Joshua’s friend Brandon Kaos, the Legendary mage Carbala Kaos, who had sealed the dimensional passageway in Moldavia. He, too, disappeared unusually after he closed the portal—according to secret information, he too had head out to explore the Multiverse, never to return.

In fact, the disappearance of most Legendary champions was during their exploration of the world beyond.

If that proved to be the case, the world of Mycroft perhaps had remained in Time Dilation, a ‘Deviating Frame of Reference’ ranging at least four hundred years ago! Anyone inside Mycroft would hence lose contact due to that reason when they left the world by a certain distance, vanishing without a trace!

They were lost in an erroneous space in the Multiverse perhaps by one or two millennia!

Since Joshua himself had just crossed here in recent years, he was not aware of issues before. For that, the warrior found questioning the Multiverse Sacrificial Grounds appropriate.

Therefore, he asked, “Commanding Will. According to your data, when did that unusual Time Dilation error cease?”

The Commanding Will, appearing to be processing its data storage and hence unable to accept information due to various temporal errors, could only respond after a long time. “It’s really shocking. The temporal anomaly affecting various places in the Multiverse had returned to normal just a few years ago.

As a startled expression appeared over Joshua’s face, the Commanding Will continued calmly, “to be precise, according to my observation and comparison, the temporal deviation on Mycroft had only ended on the fifteenth of October, Starfall year 831.”

At that, it performed another verification before repeating assuredly, “two-one-one-five hours, the fifteenth of October, towards the end of Starfall year 831—that’s the precise timing.”

This time, it was Joshua’s turn to be left speechless.

A long silence followed in the skies above the Multiverse Sacrificial Grounds.