Epilogue 1 - The Web of Time

The timer ticked down in front of Luke. He rubbed his hands together in preparation of the final number to tick away. Thirty to go. He was getting impatient, but he held it in. He had waited millennia for this, he could wait thirty piddling seconds. He watched as Declan chased after Laurence. The poor Lupe had given into his rage and lost the chance to become bound to him even more tightly. For some, perhaps even for Declan, it was a blessing for him not to be there. He would be free of Luke’s control for good, though it would also mean that Declan’s shortcut to power would have been cut off. I wonder if he’ll be able to live with himself once he realises that he’s thrown everything away to deal with a teenage boy?

He turned around and lowered his hood, looking at the people behind him. “Tonight we will ascend and I will return to godhood. You will be my...” He stopped. Turning around he looked at Declan’s figure in the distance. “Oh no... Declan you idiot!” He looked up at the timer counting down. Five seconds. The time said five seconds. He stopped and looked at the sky above the timer, at the thin line that split the sky in half. There was a screech, a ripping as the sky tore apart, cracking like a web. A beam of light sprung up from near Declan and connected to the middle of the web formed of cracks within the sky itself. As the beam of light thickened the timer ticked down, and by the time the timer was a single second to go Luke felt an overwhelming sense of dread. Even he was afraid of False Immortals when they first ascended to true immortality. There was something horrifying about them, the way they seemed to connect to the Books far more intimately than anyone else for the short time they were acclimatising. Becoming a False Immortal was the best path towards immortality in Luke's eyes. It gave the greatest access to the mysteries of the world and allowed the challenger to peek into their future path before they took their next step. There was far less uncertainty within them. The issue was that becoming a False Immortal was far tougher than becoming a Heaven ranker. It was tough to the point that the only clan that had ever intentionally made one was the Hephaistia clan. No one else had the ability to.

The timer ticked to zero and the dais swelled with light. It built up beneath Luke and then passed through each of the figures standing on the platform before coalescing upon Luke's hand. The light danced for a moment, acting as though it was home before it solidified in the form of a Book with five colours. With each passing moment the Book seemed to flicker and change colour, from red to brown, to purple, green and finally white.

Through all this Luke did not once look away from the light shining from the heavens, but instead began slowly backing away. His blood ran cold as he looked on at the soft yellow light, it called to him in a way that he found profoundly unsettling. It was a siren, a fair maiden waiting for her knight, a deadly honeypot that would trap him in an eternal death if he was not careful. The most terrifying part of it all was that this was something new.

He glanced at the Book in his hand and flipped through the pages of the Book, quickly reaching the Myriad Manifestations of the path of Creation. Page after page of bizarre expressions of power and will showed up but this was still not coming up. Past Salamir’s Binding Wall, past the Wishing Well of Yoth, the People of Living Stone and even when he reached the ninety-ninth Manifestation, the Tree of Fates, he had still not seen what the sky cracks were. Luke turned the page once more in trepidation and looked at the hundredth Manifestation. His eyes flicked across the page and the knot that had wrapped around his heart sank to his stomach.

“We leave now!” He turned and strode towards the other end of the Valley of Kings, gradually picking up speed until he was almost running, his cloak wrapping around his ankles with each firm but horrified step. His followers looked on in confusion, but they were unable to resist his command, and soon they were retreating from the battlefield as well. They reached the edge of the valley in moments and quickly ascended to the desert proper. Turning around and looking out at the carnage below, they gasped. Radiating out from three quarters up the valley was a giant tower of crystals, piercing thousands of metres into the air. They shone with an odd yellow lustre, similar to the beam of light, but at the same time it was both ruddier and bluer than the yellow light.

“What is that?” said one of Luke's followers. It was a feeling they all shared. At the same time the crystals both repulsed them and yet had an almost irresistible allure. They seemed like things that simply could not, that should not exist.

“It's the hundredth Manifestation of the Book of Creation. It's the Web of Time”. Luke pulled out his Book and ushered the group in to look at the page.

Manifestation number one-hundred: The Web Of Time.

Originally formed by the war Immortal, Laurence, the Web is a creation used to solidify and halt time in a localised area. Any place that the Web’s light touches during its activation process will be frozen and left in a crystalline state that is irreversible by anyone other than the owner and creator of a Web. The crystal itself, once set, has a variety of uses within crafting, including stabilising time-shifting boxes and arrays. Be warned, the Web itself is extremely dangerous, as getting caught within the light produced is irreversible no matter your strength or rank.

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