Prologue—The Fallen Immortal

A man and a woman stood before the king. He was the ruler of many worlds, with the power to match, but the woman was unafraid. And the king was on the ground.

"Show us where you're keeping it."

The woman's eyes were ruthless, but the king, while terrified, somehow managed to stutter a refusal.

So the woman just smiled, in a way that was anything but reassuring. Then came the snapping of bones and the sound of screams. Eventually, she stopped.

The king lead the woman and her companion to a hidden chamber, where a ball hung in the centre of the room, distorting light that passed through it. It appeared to be a solid, but somehow made of nothing real, and it was surrounded by the aura of evil.

"This is the time orb?" she asked, gesturing at it.

"Yes," said the king, "Behold, for I have solidified time."

"And how many lives did you take to do it?"

The king didn't bother to answer. To anyone sane, the lives of trash didn't matter, anyway. Then, he suddenly began babbling as he inched towards a worktable with several amulets on it.

"You know, it's impossible to move something within frozen time because movement is something that occurs in the passage of time. But for something to enter the sphere, movement has to occur. So, from the perspective of inside the sphere, are all moments where things enter it happening simultaneously and eternally? I would like to- "

Smoothly, without showing any change in his manner of talking, the king picked up an amulet mid-sentence and fired a shockingly powerful beam of energy at the woman.

"Ha! That was equivalent to the all-out attack of an immortal! Even you should be obliterated!"

But when the energy dispersed, the woman stood there unharmed. The only difference from before was that she was smiling.

Then, the woman grabbed his head and drew out his memories, before sticking her arm through his chest. Since he was a powerful cultivator, this level of injury was far from enough to kill him. It was the burst of energy she released that ravaged his body and ended his life.

She turned to look at her companion, who was her younger brother.

"Let us take this time sphere back to the elders. It has the potential to be incredibly dangerous."

"Alright, but I've noticed something interesting in how the evil aura around here is interacting with your cultivation. May I check it over first? There is something I want to verify."

The two of them had grown up together, and although they took different paths, they would often examine each other's cultivation to draw insight for their own. As always, she opened her aura and let him pour his energy down along her channels, into the core of her being. Even though he was much weaker than her, this action showed her extreme trust of him. With his energy running throughout her body, he could choose to make her self-destruct, destroy her cultivation, or completely lock down all of her movements and abilities.

Which he did.

"Theodore??"

The shock and betrayal in the woman's expression were hard to describe.

"Not anymore. Ha, Maryam, child of destiny, you were so foolish. Now, your glorious fate has become mine, along with this sphere of incredible power. That idiot king did not know how lucky he was to have acquired such a thing. However, I do quite appreciate you fetching it for me. It will be quite useful when I go to annihilate your sect!"

The woman's soul was locked down, along with her cultivation. She struggled with all her strength, but it was futile. For her brother's energy had been expertly placed in points of weakness.

"Now I shall give you your death."

The woman felt the foreign energy begin to move through her channels, drawing her own into a circulation route that would lead to her self-destruction. She felt the structure of her core collapsing, but still, her soul refused to move.

A flash of horror appeared in her brother's eyes. Her bonds loosened ever-so-slightly.

It was enough. She drew her soul out and threw it into the time-sphere, dragging her rampaging energy along with it. There was an explosion. The orb shattered, and fragments of frozen time were sent throughout the universe.

It should be known that within the time-sphere, the moment the sphere shattered is the same as the moment it was whole, for there are no moments in any sense we can understand. So the woman's soul, inside the time sphere, is as whole as it was the moment it entered, and although eons passed outside, she remains locked in an instant.

Like a man trapped in a room with thousands of doors, from all the moments across time when fragments of her sphere were touched, she needed to choose one to use as her escape. Then, she could have her revenge and reclaim her destiny.