Fates Parallel Chapter 383 - Time

Once Yoshika finally had a chance to sit down and focus on her meditation, she immediately realized something was wrong. Her sense of unease had been growing slowly ever since her arrival in Chou’s tomb, like a gradual buildup of pressure.

Now that she was meditating on it, the pressure had grown far more than she’d realized. It was a strange feeling—stretched and distorted in a way that was hard for Yoshika to put her finger on. Unlike the premonition she’d experienced before the descent of the gods, this feeling came from within. Was it connected to her approaching ascension, somehow?

Deep within her soulscape, she noticed Heian sulking in her usual place by the hearth of her inner sanctum.

“Heian, sweetie, are you alright?”

Heian shook her head, not even responding in words. She couldn’t sleep because of the noise, and she was having a difficult time recovering after Jia had channeled her to become Lee Hei. Heian’s sleep wasn’t really sleep the way people understood it, but rather a way for her to recover spent essence.

Since Heian was made of essence as a spirit, it literally took something out of her to expend her power, and rebuilding it was an important healing process that she’d been unable to do since arriving in Chou’s tomb.

But since Heian didn’t really sleep, why was the ‘noise’ preventing her from recovering?

Yoshika had been working hard to counter the oppressive effect of the essence in the tomb, but she hadn’t really had time to examine it more closely. As Heian’s complaints suggested, the essence wasn’t ‘loose’ like mana usually was—it already had purpose.

While it wasn’t difficult to absorb the mana and repurpose the essence for their own cultivation, it was still an oddity. As she ruminated on it further, Yoshika realized for Heian, it was probably much more difficult to adapt the essence in the environment to suit her own needs. It would be like a spirit trying to subsume another living spirit—not impossible, but much more of a fight than simply resting.

“Sorry Heian, we didn’t realize you were struggling so much. We’ll try to help process the essence for you, okay?”

Heian nodded glumly. She was embarrassed to need help for something so basic when Iseul was clearly thriving.

“There’s nothing to be ashamed of, honey. I guess she just finds the mana here more agreeable—”

Yoshika’s thoughts ground to a halt. Why did Iseul find the mana so much easier to incorporate into herself than Heian did? It should be just as difficult for an elemental to adapt the essence as a spirit.

Unless, of course, it was already in the perfect state to use in spells. Yoshika recalled how Iseul had been moving the mana around herself to empower the formations Ja Yun had drawn, only using her own essence to bridge the gaps and make subtle changes to the formulae.

She shot to her feet as the realization hit her.

“This is the elemental realm!”

Not only that, but now that she knew what she was looking for, she understood why the essence in the air was so ‘noisy’ as Heian put it. Chou’s entire tomb was one giant impossibly complex and equally impossibly intricate formation.

It explained so much. Iseul was an elemental, so the environment was perfect for her, while Heian, as a spirit, struggled. The inherent ‘purpose’ held by the mana in the air was sustaining the grand formation.

Eui frowned and stroked her chins.

“No, wait. We were able to sense the spirit realm before—and as Lee Hei we existed in both realms at the same time...”

Jia shook her head.

“Not both—all three. I think that might have something to do with Heian’s Shadowflame essence, I’m starting to understand it better. It’s about the coexistence of different states of being. Heian is a spirit, but she’s also becoming more human, shadow is the coexistence of light and dark, fire is both physical and ethereal.”

“That sounds a lot like us.”

Jia beamed proudly.

“I know! But let’s stop and think—what does this mean?”

Yoshika sat back down and joined hands, taking a moment to calm down. So they were in the elemental realm, and the essence around them was mana empowering a huge formation maintaining the tomb. Was the entire tomb built within the elemental realm?

That seemed unlikely, especially since they’d already seen parts of it that were spiritual in nature. Chou’s realm had the power to move people and objects between phases of being, and even hosted structures that existed superimposed between multiple phases at once. The gate had been like that, and while she hadn’t investigated it yet, she expected the palace to be the same.

Then why were they in the elemental realm? If Chou had the power to move them between realms, then they could have been anywhere, but instead he’d trapped them within the elemental realm and passed it off as physical. Why?

She replayed everything the Bloody Sovereign’s representative had said over and over in her head, trying to find any hint, any betrayal of the true nature of this place. What was he hiding?

A number of things stood out. When he’d first ‘welcomed’ them into the tomb, he’d declared that their first trial was to reach the first gate, but then after they’d crossed the threshold, he spoke again of the ‘first’ trial.

It didn’t seem likely that he’d just made a mistake, but then which was it? Had either trial actually been the first?

Then there was his disappointed reaction when she’d asked about the next trials. She’d obviously walked into a trap—asking a question that he’d anticipated. It was the wrong question, clearly, but what was the right one?

The last piece of the puzzle was an oddity that she’d failed to notice until she started looking for inconsistencies. There was no divine essence around them. There hadn’t been since their first arrival. The Sovereign’s Tear was the source of all essence in the world—an endless wellspring of divine essence that naturally broke down into the mana that permeated and sustained all life.

Yoshika ground her teeth in frustration. She was missing something. The more she thought about it, the more convinced she was that the first trial had never ended, but what was it?!

She stopped to collect her thoughts again, the nagging sense of unease still pulling at the edge of her frayed attention. Redoubling her focus, she tried concentrating on that urgent feeling—if for no other reason than to give herself a break from stressing over the strange nature of Chou’s tomb.

It was a complicated emotional cocktail—panic, urgency, desperation, anger, and so much more—but it was distorted, and lacking context. It felt simultaneously like a distant memory and an immediate concern. Where was it coming from?

As she followed the thread, Yoshika realized that the source was her far-away connection to Li Meili. Were they her emotions, connecting them even through vast distances and different realms? If so, how did that explain the odd distortion?

Another thought crystallized. Perhaps the piece she was missing—Chou’s confrontation after they’d crossed the first gate. A moment out of time that Yoshika had taken for granted. She’d thought of it as a break in the script—Chou’s avatar had singled her out as an anomaly and threatened to remove her.

Perhaps that was just another red-herring. Another deception to distract them from the reality of their situation. When Chou had dismissed them, they appeared among their friends and allies as if no time had passed at all. Yoshika had guessed it to be a technique similar to Do Hye’s, but what if it was something else?

She shuddered to even consider it, but Chou bragged that he was the most powerful cultivator to have ever existed. Could it be that it wasn’t her perception of time that was altered, but time itself?

The urgency she felt through her link to Li Meili felt like it was both a distant memory and an immediate concern. What if it really was both? If Meili’s emotions felt like that to Yoshika, what must Meili be experiencing on the other side?

Yoshika shook her heads. She wasn’t getting anywhere on her own—but she couldn’t let this go, either. She stood and left her hut, seeking the only other people she could think to ask. The foremost experts on magic among their group.

Ja Yun and Iseul were hard at work replacing their talismans when Yoshika stormed into their tent.

“Ja Yun! Tell me everything you know about time magic!”

The war mage jumped, letting out a startled yelp.

“Wh-what?! There’s no such thing!”

“There has to be! Anything you can think of that would alter the flow of time.”

Ja Yun’s brows furrowed in concentration.

“Okay...um...this would be easier if I had more context, but there is one thing.”

“Go on, what is it?”

“Uh...it’s hard to explain. First, time isn’t really a thing in its own right, it’s just an abstraction that we use to describe the world changing.”

Jia blinked.

“Okay?”

“So you can’t really change time, because there’s nothing to be changed, but you can change the way time is perceived—you already do that with your Absolute Awareness.”

Eui shook her head.

“Not that, it’s not just thinking faster, we’re talking about something bigger. Something that could alter the flow of time itself.”

“Right, except there’s no such thing as the ‘flow’ of time. It is possible to slow the rate of change on very small or very large scales.”

“That sounds like slowing down time to me, how does that work?”

Ja Yun sighed.

“Spatial magic. You’ve already seen it in action. Lady Hayakawa’s technique slightly alters the way her body experiences time, and haven’t you noticed that the food you put in your ring never spoils?”

Spatial magic was a shorthand used by Goryeon mages to describe the complicated interactions between the opposing elements of Gravity and Void. Yoshika had always struggled with it.

“I thought that Hayakawa’s technique just made her faster because she was lighter.”

“I mean, yes, but also no. There are entire fields of study dedicated to explaining that phenomenon, but uh, let’s just say it’s not as simple as it sounds.”

“Oh. And the ring?”

Ja Yun grimaced and scratched her head.

“That’s really not my specialty, but my understanding is that the stasis effect is a convenient byproduct of the way space is twisted to create a parallel demiplane linked to the artifact. All storage artifacts are like that.”

Yoshika nodded along eagerly, a picture beginning to form in her head.

“Has there ever been a storage artifact that could hold people?”

Ja Yun’s eyes widened.

“Oh, ancestors, are you saying what I think you’re saying? There hasn’t—living things resist being shifted that way and every attempt to get around it has resulted in failure or death.”

“But is it theoretically possible?”

“It...is, yes. Yoshika, please tell me what this is about.”

It all fit together. Chou’s equivocation, the strange mana, the distorted sense of unease coming from her connection to Li Meili, and Heian’s struggles.

“It’s a storage artifact. This entire place is one giant dimensional ring that we’re trapped in. I don’t think we’ve even entered the real tomb yet.”

Ja Yun clutched her head and groaned.

“Ancestors...how are we supposed to get out, then? I don’t know anything about this.”

“I’m not sure, but I think I know where we can start. Iseul, I assume you’ve been listening?”

The blob of goop that had continued dutifully scribing talismans for the entire conversation coalesced into the shape of a young woman resembling Ja Yun—though Yoshika noticed that it was now more like a family resemblance than an attempt to copy her appearance exactly.

“I have.”

Her voice was more clear than before, though it still had an odd hollow quality to it. Like her face, it was similar, but not the same as Ja Yun’s.

“We should have asked you so much earlier, but can you understand the mana around us?”

Iseul shook her head.

“Not all of it. It’s too complicated, like grandpa.”

Iseul’s ‘grandpa’ was an ancient Void elemental that even Jianmo had been fearful of. If the mana in the air reminded her of that monster, then Yoshika worried that it may be hopeless. She wasn’t willing to give up yet, though.

“We think it might be part of a huge spell formation that we’re stuck in. Maybe as big as the entire world. We need to break that formation. Do you think it can be done?”

“I don’t know, but I think I might be able to find part of it. I’ll need mom’s help.”

Ja Yun jerked in surprise.

“Me?! What do you need me for?”

“The magic here is different. Not just thought, but feeling too. That’s why it bothers Heian so much. It doesn’t matter to me when I’m just moving it, but I need to understand and my soul isn’t strong enough yet.”

“So you want to merge again, like the first time you became Iseul? I thought you didn’t ever want to do that again.”

Iseul wobbled a bit, sending ripples through her body in what Yoshika realized was a shiver.

“I don’t, but we have to. I’ll be okay, I think. I know who I am now.”

Ja Yun frowned.

“Don’t push yourself if you’re not comfortable.”

“It’s fine. Yoshika, when do we need to start?”

Yoshika could still feel the sense of urgency growing. She was needed outside, and though she wasn’t sure why, she knew that disaster would befall her if she couldn’t get out in time.

“As soon as possible.”