The God That Never Was
The moment Ja Sun appears back into the world of dessert being searched by all six of the beasts, his gaze snaps towards the clearly unhurt body of the Dark Devilgod Tiger. His spirit soul was already stripped off of his consciousness and absorbed by Ja Sun.
While others quickly regain their composure, Ja Sun's mind shifts as the 'dazed' Devilgod Tiger within him roars in a sense of frantic impulse, and a core tears itself out of the corpse of the Dark Devilgod Tiger.
While Ja Sun is surprised, his body acts on an instinct and he closes the tear in space through which the core wished to escape. In the next moment, he's already holding the core and glancing at it curiously. Not to mention the fact, Ja Sun also has... two bones to salvage from the corpse of the tiger.
A tail!
A ribcage!
---
This time Ja Sun doesn't play around the bush and absorbs the external scorpion tail and the ribcage spirit bone from the Devilgod Tiger. His account of the Tiger's actual domain came as a terrifying reminder that the mysterious attacks of this world can surpass one's imagination to the point that even Ah Yin was left wondering how she would have dealt with something like this.
Just with the addition of two bones and four new rings from his spirit soul, Ja Sun's cultivation shot past rank 97 and settled at rank 98. But, to be fair, these ranks were only boxes to be checked in his current state of affairs. What truly made Ja Sun reluctantly enter closed doors and not follow up on disciplining Zi Ji, and hopefully, Snow, was the strange core of the Dark Devilgod Tiger.
With three cores already absorbed, Ja Sun COULD absorb another core. But, for a reason, he chose not to press on his limits just yet. Instead, he settled to comprehend the mysteries of the core in a more traditional manner.
To meditate upon it.
Wisps of dark mist leaked through the pitch-black core that was held against its will.
Yes, the core strangely had its will, despite Ja Sun owning the Spirit Soul of the Dark Devilgod Tiger.
The core of the beast, usually, acted as the base of all their abilities and this couldn't be truer for this core as it seemed to have layered itself with various elements. Ja Sun had yet to chance upon the true core skills of the beast— Evil Devouring— while the strange Space-Time domain was already obtained through the torso bone.
Still, the first layer brought Ja Sun a greater insight into the concept of wind. Not that Ja Sun's insight into this particular element was any lower than the tiger's. But this process was greatly quickened as the Devilgod Tiger in his being acted as a mediator. The fact that Ja Sun had to vanquish the beast before leaving that domain meant he did not get time to read through its brain but gaining abilities in this manner wasn't so bad. It was just more primal.
He continued. After the wind came the law of lightning. This time it was even weaker than the wind. Ja Sun had experienced the lightning attack from the beast but it barely fazed him. However, any gain is welcome.
Ja Sun could rarely focus on many other elements so this plunder is a welcomed one. The Devilgod Tiger was barely a master in the element of Lightning, too, but as Ja Sun continued, he was beginning to realize that the beast's comprehension was not of his own hard work.
Like Lightning, the beast's comprehension of the element of water was at the level of a master but it was too 'basic.' Not the law, of course, but the beast's use of it. It was not practiced. It was not an experience gained from performing the law itself.
If this wasn't an indication of this beast's rather potent devouring skill then Ja Sun didn't know what was.
After 'peeling' and absorbing the chaotic concept layered upon one another, Ja Sun firmed his comprehension to the level of a master in the five basic elements— Fire, Earth, Water, Wind, and Lightning. But after these five layers came to a somewhat shallow mastery in the realm of time.
Unfortunately, neither Ja Sun's nor the comprehension in the core was enough for him to even reach the realm of a master.
The concept of time is simply rarer than the spatial element itself.
Still, it was an important and well-appreciated sensation. In fact, as Ja Sun comprehended the core, he felt the river of time closer than ever before.
The Beast's Spatial Comprehension was a notch higher than the Temporal one but Way lesser than Ja Sun's and barely of any use.
Finally, Ja Sun observed the core in its true form. Layers and layers of dark roiling mist displace themselves and reveal a nail-sized golden-black bead.
The sheer otherworldly concept around this core was... well, sensational. Even Ja Yin's attribute of Destiny did not have such a might.
'Is this really just a concept of devouring and darkness?'
That's right. Only these two concepts could be felt from this bead.
As Ja Sun began to interact with the core, it dispersed into a fine dust that rushed in his direction but scoffing, he instantly locked the entirety of it. The Devilgod Tiger spirit soul within Ja Sun alongside the Bright Goddess Butterfly, Evil Eye Tyrant, and the Nightmare's Fantasy grow alert at once in a rare moment of unified caution as Ja Sun's soul origin shuddered the next moment—
The fine dust formed from the core still bypassed his control and enters his body, pulling his vision into a different world... a different time.
---
Ja Sun's view shifts. He is no longer looking at the spherical golden-black core but rather finds himself in a lavish court. Pillars of glimmering mountainous crystals reach past the enchanting patches of blue-pink clouds. This is most certainly a hall. A grand court. The golden-amber sky covers the world as a ceiling and Ja Sun observes hundreds and thousands of gigantic dragons of different elements and natures at a vast distance.
Ja Sun himself feels suspended in midair as his senses finally observe nine divine beings. Most certainly gods. Although they 'look' human, Ja Sun has simply seen enough dragons in human form to know that they are the same.
Two of them look... nay, feel, familiar.
The scarlet-haired dragon and the sky-blue-haired dragon. They look shocked like the other seven divine beings and stare in Ja Sun's direction.
Ja Sun remembers the duo's aura as the same as the Fire Dragon King Arm Canon and the Water Dragon King Saber... These are the two dragons that Yin-Yang Petals was born to suppress, or at least, the remnants of their souls.
But that's not all.
The man who covers most of Ja Sun's view is deeply attractive. His hair flashes in a state of constant kaleidoscopic glow, but Ja Sun cannot see anything else. Even if the man waves his hand again, Ja Sun's senses cannot come to fathom the structure of this being. That is how different they are. This individual outclasses Ja Sun by a large margin. Each strand of law within presents a level of creation that Ja Sun is too weak to even appreciate.
So, Ja Sun turns to the strikingly beautiful youth. The entire world around him is moving in slow motion...
No...
The law of time around him is making things slower. This law instinctively originates from the body of the only man in motion as if he wants to stop himself. But he's not in control. Even a divine being of unimaginable power is not in control and the law born from him cannot stop his will.
The youth with a long tear on his body is still like a beautiful sculpture. Ja Sun can observe him. Neck-long dark golden hair that curls naturally, in the end, a pair of thick golden eyelashes wide in surprise but his pure black pupils with a tint of gold hides a sense of dismay. A sense of betrayal resonates with Ja Sun for only a moment.
Ja Sun, however, is merely a drop of golden-black blood that splashed out of this youth. There are uncountable droplets but it's also at this moment, the various drops of blood reveal a massive accumulation of law. Some burn in golden flames, some turn into putrid black water, some turn into sharp swords and tough furnaces, and the one that Ja Sun occupies tears through the shackles of instinctive temporal laws and zips past space to enter a strange dimension.
Before he disappears, however, Ja Sun notices the vague flicker of a plain black-haired woman behind the youth. Her figure, too, was shrouded in the laws of such nature that he could not see through her true appearance.
---
{A/N: This part is from Reverend Insanity mostly. Again, I really like that novel and love to incorporate many things from it like how I categorized Laws in various attainments starting from Master and ending at Supreme Grandmaster.}
Ja Sun, still in the same drop of golden-black blood, finds himself swimming downstream. It's a river but it does not have any water at all. The size of the stream is unending. Its point of origin is unknown. Even its destination is mysterious. The 'water' of this river is made out of countless images that resemble twinkling stars and in this vast darkness, this river doesn't look much different than the milky-way.
The drop of blood that holds Ja Sun's senses cannot move horizontally in the water and is swept forward in a straight line through an enigmatic force.
The river is still. It's made of countless images that shift successively. It's the drop of blood and this formless temporal energy that moves through these images and connects them together like a string connecting multiple pearls to form a beautiful necklace.
So, instead of the pictures moving, it's right to say that Ja Sun is moving through countless instances of still images that capture even a fragment of a millisecond that forms a very vivid stream of... life.
'This is... the River of Time!'
Ja Sun's breathing speeds up even when he has no body and his senses shiver with excitement!
'River of fucking TIME!'
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Alternate Title: Finding Temporal Nemo
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