Ti splintered.
In front of Sev stood an older man mid-forties or mid-fifties, perhaps. He wore the flowing robes of a priest of the God of the Sun with the full title capitalized in his head, even, because he couldn't not. Power poured out of him in waves.
"In the light of the sun," the priest intoned. They were the words of an incantation, a prayer. "None may fall."
And it was the truth.
The man led an army. Tempus led Sev high up into the sky, so he could see the battle for himself; there was at least a thousand n, if not more, involved in an outright war. Sev didn't recognize the equipnt or the banners of any of the n involved, and even the landscape seed unfamiliar, for all that it was clearly a part of Obreve.
What he did see was that none of them died no matter how hard they were struck, even with their limbs and heads cleaved off, they kept fighting. Ghostly trails of light filled in where heads or arms had once been and simply... kept fighting.
It was an awe-inspiring display of power, but Sev felt a deep discomfort stirring in his stomach.
"When did this happen?" he asked quietly.
"In ages past," Tempus answered. The god stood next to him, a stately figure dressed in blue-silver robes; in place of a head, he had a vortex of ti. Sev could hear the steady tick-tock of a clock every ti he glanced too long at Tempus, and perhaps that was for the best ti seed to lose all aning when he stared for a fraction of a second too long. He could almost feel the way causality sped up around him, grounded only by the sound that echoed in his mind.
"You can reach back beyond the last two hundred years?" Sev asked. He wondered if Tempus' power could breach the End like that, pulling back things that had already been erased.
Tempus dashed his hopes when he shook his head. "No," he said. "Not without help. This is but a small piece of history, recovered when one of my priests alongside one of the Platinum rankers of Anderstahl delved deep into their Pri Dungeon and retrieved a fragnt of the past... though we have been finding fewer and fewer of those of late."
A small glance to Sev, and the priest felt the weight of eternity pressing down on him. Just for an instant. "Now you know why," Sev said quietly.
"Indeed I do," Tempus answered, his voice grave. "I have tried to speak to the other gods about this, and I cannot; they do not recognize my words when I try. But the good news is that one of your allies appears to be reaching out to the gods to spread word, so you are not alone in this quest."
That was good to know, at least.
A mont passed. The army beneath them continued to fight, though half of the priest's army was clearly dead, for all that they hadn't fallen; all that was left of them were specters of glittering light, fighting for all they were worth. The priest didn't seem at all perturbed by this, and that was perhaps the most disturbing part of it all for Sev that he seed to feel nothing for the deaths of so many n.
Perhaps that was because he intended to bring them back, but... as far as Sev could tell, none of the divine magic here interacted with the souls of any of the people. They wicked away into the air as soon as their owners died, caught quickly by threads of divinity and drawn sowhere Sev couldn't see.
Even more curiously, Sev sensed no interference from the system. He couldn't know if any of the soldiers below were using system skills or not, of course, but it didn't seem like they were. There was none of the strangeness that he had co to associate with the use of a system skill.
The soldiers were many tis stronger than most, certainly, but that didn't seem to be the result of system-given stats rather, he saw the distinct glow that he'd co to associate with mana wrapped around their arms and legs as they fought, like they were reinforcing their bodies with mana.
The Priest of the Sun still stood impassive at the back of it all, watching his army fight tooth and nail against their enemy. Sev couldn't tell what or who that enemy was, though he tried it was like whatever had been recorded in this fragnt of history was simply missing one entire side of the conflict.
All he could see of them were twisted fragnts of color, flashes of wing and stone and fire.
Where they clashed, light erupted. People died and rose again, golden-bright figures waging a fierce battle like they were fighting for their lives.
It would have been a beautiful sight if not for all the death and carnage involved.
The Priest of the Sun wielded a staff of sunstone and starlight. He wasn't fast or strong, but he moved with precision. Sev saw the divine energy fluctuating around him with every step he took, and watched the contemptuous face the priest gave his enemies as they approached him.
Three in particular that snuck their way past his army. Three in particular that were represented by larger clouds of possibility; Sev could not see what they were, but he could see that they were strong. He could see the magic they wielded, the way dark-red fragnts of crystalline mana trailed around behind them every ti they made a move to attack.
A storm of magic erupted.
Three weapons inscribed with glyphs Sev saw those in remarkable detail thrust forward, each carrying with them the force of a spell that could devastate a mountain; the power of each spell was such that he could feel what they were, even without being their target.
Magic was an idea imprinted on the mana, and the mana sung with that collective ontological weight. Here was a spear that accumulated gravity mana, strong enough it could visibly bend light; here was a sword that rang with sound mana, loud enough to crack the earth around it; here was a chain that carried a freezing nothing, ice mana that had deepened so much it stole all the energy from anything it touched.
A barrier of sunlight shone around the priest. He looked unconcerned. Sev knew for a fact that his barriers would have shattered in an instant under just one of those attacks, let alone three. The divinity pressed into that barrier should have been far from enough, and yet
And yet.
"The light of the sun washes away all sin," the priest intoned. Ti seed to slow as he spoke. He should have been struck before he even opened his mouth, and yet the divine energy building did sothing strange, building in cadence with his words.
His words lent strength to his beliefs, and his beliefs lent strength to his magic.
All three attacks did nothing.
Sev could almost feel the stunned confusion in the air, though the Priest of the Sun's expression remained as serene and slightly contemptuous as ever. Three weapons faltered, as if their owners didn't know what to do now that their attacks had failed. They had not conceived of the possibility of failure.
The priest waved an arm, and smiled an almost chilling, distant smile. "We are all but stardust," he said.
Just like that, all three of his opponents vanished. It was so sudden and anticlimactic it seed unreal, and yet Sev knew it wasn't, because he'd seen sothing most others wouldn't.
He'd seen how that magic worked.
A small piece of divine magic of Sun divinity, specifically broke past the natural barriers of the soul, of each person's sense of self. In that mont of vulnerability imposed by their shock, the Sun divinity took over and imposed itself upon them.
What they were was written into reality as a concept, as an imposition of their souls. That small piece of divinity took it over like a parasite, flooding every aspect of them and turning it into little more than stardust and sunlight, killing not only their bodies but overwriting their souls.
Sev felt a little sick.
What anyone else would have seen, more likely than not, was three individuals being instantaneously incinerated by a brief flash of sunlight, but what Sev understood was that sothing far more horrifying had happened. And yet, in that horror, a small piece of understanding broke loose.
"Mana is mory," he said out loud, tasting the words. "And magic is the expression of a concept from the infinite record that is mana."
Tempus shot him a questioning look, and he ignored it.
"Divinity is the concept itself, imposed on reality." Sev muttered.
It explained why reality anchors tore gods apart to fix themselves. It shed new light on what reality shards were, even. He'd never sensed a hint of divine energy about them, but if it was encased in a shell and hidden from him...
Tempus gave him a strange look. "Are you alright?"
"I don't want to see this." Sev felt the answer erge before he could stop himself, and he winced slightly at how brusque his words were. Tempus didn't react, waiting patiently for him to explain himself even as the battlefield froze around them, and Sev sighed as he tried to search for the words.
"He's strong," Sev said, gesturing at the image of the Priest of the Sun. "But this is... wrong. He's not a healer. He's healing, but everyone around him is dying. This isn't who I want to be."
"Ah." Tempus barely seed to have considered the possibility; he looked around at the battlefield as if he was considering it for the first ti, and winced just slightly. "The tiscale of mortal lives often makes such conflicts seem... irrelevant to . I went for the greatest display of power I had in my collection. I apologize."
"It's fine." Sev waved it off. "It taught sothing valuable about divinity, and whatever's happening here seems... I don't know how long ago this happened."
"Eighteen hundred years," Tempus said.
Before the end of the universe, then. Before the system existed? Sev frowned, looking out over the battlefield again; sohow, the fact that he couldn't see who the enemy if they could be called that here felt... significant.
"You would like sothing else, then?" Tempus asked.
"I learned what I needed to," Sev said finally. "And I know what is possible, even if this isn't the direction I want to go in. I know that I can be more. I just need to choose my own direction one that isn't this."
"Do you have an idea of what you wish to be?" Tempus' voice was mild, curious. Sev thought about it for a mont, even as the scene around him faded, and he found himself once more kneeling on that prayer mat in the Roads.
Tempus was no longer next to him, but the divine connection between them remained steady and strong perhaps even stronger than before. Part of it almost seed to be beginning to anchor itself to him the way Aurum's connection was anchored to him.
Yes, Sev answered, this ti in his mind. It took a mont of contemplation for the desire to solidify into sothing certain.
If there was anything that watching that war had taught him if there was any one thing he had to take away from it it was the simple understanding of how he felt about conflict on a scale such as this. He didn't know if it was sothing he had understood before and lost, with all his mories drained into his healing, but it didn't matter he knew himself now.
I want the power to prevent conflicts like that before they even begin, Sev said. To forge peace where it should be impossible. To search ti and pluck out the threads of conflict before they happen.
But in the event that I cannot... and that will happen. Not every conflict can be prevented, and I cannot be useless if I have to fight. Sev's mind briefly went back to the fight with Irvis, and the way he'd been relegated to the role of support; he didn't mind, but he'd been powerless. His shields hadn't done enough, and his true support skills were lacking.
In the event that I cannot, Sev said. I need a better way to heal. A way to fight. And a way to support. A way to take the strengths of those around and make them even greater.
Tempus humd in response, and Sev felt the passage of ti wrap around him. I may have so suggestions.
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