Against The True Gods Chapter 31 Fractured

This realization had settled over Caine as he committed one heretical act after another and sohow… lived.

Soone like him, with an inner circle standing at the very peak of all that existed, shouldn't have survived his awakening—not fully.

He should have been pushed to the brink of death, left crippled, or at least gravely weakened. Yet, against all odds, he had not only kept his body whole but even overco one of the many bolts that had fallen upon him.

Even more mind-boggling was the fact that he had been able to steal shard after shard of universal forces. Such a feat should have been impossible. It defied reason and the natural laws of existence.

That's when he realized: all his theories had been both wrong and right at the sa ti. He hadn't rely been displaced through space or ti. No, he had been displaced through both, and yet sohow… neither.

He was in a fractured reality.

Sothing so outlandish and absurd that he hadn't even considered it as a possibility.

All worlds resided within an endless expanse of clashing positive and negative forces—a primordial battleground known as Primordial Chaos.

In this chaos, negative and positive forces clashed endlessly, their collisions producing fluctuations in energy. Occasionally, these fluctuations would resonate, causing the essence of the 3,800 Primordial Paths to bloom simultaneously. This phenonon would bind portions of the negative and positive energy together, forming a seed—a World Seed.

By consuming these opposing forces, also known as Yin and Yang, the seed would grow.

Stabilized by the 3,800 paths, it would eventually bloom into a fully realized world. A cosmic barrier would then form around this new reality, shielding it from the unending chaos of the primordial expanse.

This was the simplified, widely accepted explanation of how worlds ca into existence.

However, like all things, not every attempt was successful. So seeds failed. When the balance of Yin and Yang forces was off, the seed would beco corrupted, resulting in a fractured point of warped space and ti—a Ruined Seed.

These failures mattered because all worlds were intrinsically connected. When one seed failed, the ripple effect would echo across the interconnected tapestry of existence.

The ruined seed would latch onto a nearby world, warping a point in its space and ti. This would create an entirely separate, self-contained reality—a warped reflection anchored by the ruined seed's fractured will.

These fractured realities were often tied to specific ti periods and were notoriously difficult to escape. Those who fell into these twisted realms would be trapped until they completed a set of tasks dictated by the ruined seed's will.

This was the nature of a fractured reality, or as many called it: a Dungeon.

With this knowledge, Caine's predicant beca glaringly obvious.

First and foremost, he hadn't been given any tasks. Without the seed's guidance, he had no idea what he needed to do to clear this fractured reality and return to his own.

But more pressing was the issue of ti.

In fractured realities, the flow of ti rarely aligned with that of the outside world. While he had spent only a few days here, centuries could have passed in the outside world—or, conversely, only seconds.

Even worse, fractured realities often took years to complete, and Caine couldn't afford to waste that much ti.

'If I were strong enough, I could simply read the runes of this world and decipher the clear conditions myself. Hell, I could have just torn a hole into the void and escaped.' He sighed, but his focus quickly sharpened as he assessed the situation.

'Let's think this through. Those old bastards tampered with my trial on purpose. Their goal is either my death, the wasting of my ti, or both.'

'That ans two things. First, this fractured reality likely contains a threat capable of killing —most likely this so-called Pope. Second, even if I knew the clear conditions, they would have been designed to take years to complete. I can't rely on conventional thods.'

'If I assu the worst, they've likely manipulated the world will itself to hide the conditions from . They may have even restructured this entire place as a trap tailored specifically for . That ans I have to act quickly, decisively, and unpredictably.'

His hand brushed against his chin as he fell into deep thought.

'The biggest trap is most likely where my other half is. I'll need to plan around that carefully. I also need to devise a way to leave this place whenever I want.'

Caine's eyes widened suddenly as a thought struck him. A soft smile spread across his face.

'That could work.'

***

High above the horizon, as the first light of dawn painted the skies, a squad of ten soldiers soared through the air on the backs of flying beasts. They wore golden armor that glead in the morning sun, their leader unmistakable—Reiner.

"The mission is straightforward," Reiner said, his voice cold and commanding. "We're to search the cave we previously sealed—the one infested with mud golems. The Pope has entrusted with a talisman that should clear them out."

He glanced at the soldiers under his command, his gaze sharp and unyielding.

"His Holiness wants us to locate the summoning formation responsible for spawning those creatures and bring it back to him. Once he has it, he'll reverse-engineer the formation to create a portal to the suspect."

Reiner's voice dropped, his tone laced with gravity. "Since our enemy is intelligent, it's likely he anticipated this and left traps within the cave. Stay vigilant."

He paused briefly before continuing.

"Additionally, we need to secure the surrounding villages before we move on the cave. We can't afford another hostage situation—not with tensions this high."

Reiner's cold gaze swept over the squad.

"Based on the intelligence we've gathered, our current forces should be sufficient to take him down if it cos to that. But rember, he's a master of the arcane arts. If combat becos necessary, assu the Burning Crane Formation imdiately and link your qi streams. I want no mistakes."

As Reiner continued to issue orders, his soldiers couldn't help but feel the weight of his words. The air around them seed heavier as the squad soared through the skies, their leader's cold, authoritative voice a constant reminder of the danger ahead.