ROTLE- Chapter 159- Fate Watched

“I have a task for you,” Aiden said to Oncot, his jepat moving at a steady walk. “A path you will—”

“That’s a pretty bird,” Ted muttered.

 A bird, feathered in rainbow colors, zipped through burning trees. It heralded a notification.

[Fate is Unwoven]

Hands tightening on the reins of his jepat, Aiden froze.

Pain filled Aiden. It sucked him into it as it ripped his heart out of his chest, breaking ribs and shattering everything else in its way. Aiden gasped for air. He could feel his life stats plummeting.

He could feel himself dying.

Releasing the reins to his jepat, he grabbed at his chest, clinging for dear life. Everything turned on its head. Heat. Fire. Pain. Death.

He had fought and he had lost.

Oncot had a broken neck from a flick of a wrist.

Feira had doomed herself to death in the fire.

A spear pinned Zen to a tree, running him through the head.

Ted took a spear to the back while escaping.

A voice, deep and solemn, spoke to him.

“I wish,” it said, “that you did not have to die.”

Aiden teetered of his jepat and didn’t know if he fell off or not. Everything came crashing down on him. Truth and reality an intertwined mess as his lungs refused to suck in the air.

The Immortal.

They had faced the Immortal and lost. He had tracked them down and found them. His hand went to the sac strapped to his chest and he clutched at the [Crystal of Existence].

All for this.

Ted was the first to react to him, forcing his jepat to a stop. Only then did Aiden realize that his jepat had reacted to him and stopped moving as well.

This can’t be, he thought in dread. It can’t be happening.

But it was, and he had done it.

“Aida?” Ted asked, worried. “What’s wrong?”

Aiden refused to believe it. Life could not be this cruel to him. For all his worry and fear, he had been the Time Mage.

“Aida!” Ted snapped sharply, demanding Aiden’s attention. It took a moment for Aiden to realize that he was once more upright on his jepat, hands holding onto the reins.

Aiden looked at Ted, his attention moving very slowly.

“What’s wrong?” Ted asked. Everyone had stopped now, gathering around. “What’s happening?”

Aiden stared into his brother’s eyes, dreading the very answer that he knew he had to give. The words rested in his mouth and petrified his soul. Still, he said them. He spoke the words that he hadn’t thought he would have to say to Ted today.

No, he snapped at himself before he said the words. The similarities end here.

He was aware so he would do everything differently.

“Halt!” he commanded, before remembering that nobody was moving.

Elami sat quietly on his jepat with Valdan in his arms. The [Healer] was still glowing as he had been glowing when they’d made their way out of the crystal cave. Oncot had a frown on his face. He was worried, more so because he could not kill the problem.

Fjord watched him quietly and Aiden realized that he had no idea what had become of Fjord. The last thing he could remember was Fjord charging the Immortal, but there was nothing after that.

His eyes searched Fjord. Did the [Gambler] possess some kind of skill that had made him somehow survive and escape without anyone knowing or had Aiden simply not noticed when the boy had died.

Zen’s jepat pulled up next to him.

“Are you okay?” he asked.

Aiden blinked, looking away from Fjord. Before his eyes could settle on Zen, Feira was beside him.

There was so much worry in her eyes. She was scared for him. She spoke no words, but he saw her compassion in her eyes.

They are so alive, he thought. So, different.

The last memory he had of them was horrible. They were so lifeless, so accepting of death that could’ve been avoided. They had given up.

Aiden raised his hand to her face without even thinking. She had been crying, weeping. Then she had been silent. The tears had streamed down her cheeks, but she had possessed no sounds to announce them. Zen’s death had broken her completely and she had chosen to live no more.

She wasn’t crying now, though. Instead, she was giving him an odd look. Only then did he realize that he had his palm pressed against her face so gently. Her cheeks were dry but they were getting warm.

Once again, Aiden blinked. Then he removed his hand from her cheeks.

“Lord Lacheart,” she said in a quiet voice.

Aiden sucked in a calming breath, doing his best to pull himself together. He had lost everything in the blink of an eye. His weakness had been shown to him.

“Yes,” he answered her, gritting his teeth.

Her next words shook him deeply. “You’re crying.”

Aiden’s breath came out cracked and shaken. He blinked furiously, wiping at his face with his hands. He was crying. He bowed his head as he cleaned the tears away furiously.

This was no time for tears.

You lost everything.

And I have them back, he scolded himself. I will cry when I am sure that I will not be losing them again.

Aiden raised his head, noticed Ted waiting patiently, then he turned his head from side to side. He ignored everybody now.

We headed that way, he thought, looking beyond the trees in front of them.

They’d headed that way because it was the fastest route to their next destination.

Not anymore.

“There,” he said, pointing in a different direction. “We are going in that direction. Push your jepats to a jog.”

“I don’t think they can take much more, Lord Lacheart,” Fjord said.

Aiden didn’t care. “They must. We ride until nightfall.”

With his command given, Aiden pulled up his interface.

[Name - Aiden Lacheart]

[Species- Human]

[Age – 19]

[Class- Weaver Lvl 72]

Class Skill

[Enchanted Weave (Mastery 92.49%)], [Walking Canvas (Mastery 64.33%)], [Unarmed Engrave (Mastery 51.58%)], [Modify Engrave (Mastery 33.40%], [Broken Weave (Mastery 15.11%)], [Locked (Mastery 2.50%)(U)], [Fate Walker (Mastery 10.00%)(U)], [Enchanted Void (Master 06.00%)(M)]

Affiliation

[Kingdom of Bandiv].

Title

[Goblin Slayer], [Defier], [Protector], [Stone Guard], [Giant Slayer], [Unfettered], [Unnatural Hunter], [Knight Killer(T)].

Skill

[Tongue of the Visitor (Mastery 100%)], [Unarmed combat (Mastery 98.10%)], [Willpower (Mastery 11.00%)], [Mana manipulation (Mastery 73.87%)], [Basic Enchant (Mastery 91.77%)], [Stealth (Mastery 04.01%)], [Detect (Mastery 46.60%)], [Lockpicking (Mastery 02.10%)], [Leap (Mastery 31.09%)], [Pathfinder (Mastery 15.00%)(U), [Basic Weapon-master (Mastery 14.01%)]

Dimensional Skills

[Reverse Summoning], [Fractured Tongue]

Stats

[Dexterity 52], [Agility 37], [Mana 53], [Speed 45], [Perception 50], [Strength 40]

Traits

[Dimensional Crack (Level 75]

Life

[Health 100%], [Stamina 100%], [Mana 100%].

There were changes. He could see them, and he wasn’t talking about his masteries. Those had gone up in different places, but there were more important things. For starters, his species, while still human, was greyed out, as if his interface wasn’t so sure anymore. That was worrying enough.

[Fate Unwoven] had returned to being a locked skill but its mastery had increased. Even [Fate Walker] that never moved and had been stuck at zero percent mastery for so long was now at ten percent.

Turning back time had given him no title no true benefits. However, his increase in stat gains from his fight against the Immortal remained.

Worried, he focused on the locked skill. When it opened, everything was greyed out.

[Locked(Mastery 02.50%)(U)]

Defy Fate.

[Criteria met: 3/???]

[Cool down: 4380:55:00]

Aiden stared at the cooldown, flabbergasted. He paused, did the mental calculations.

Six months.

That was the largest cooldown timer he knew of. There was no larger cooldown than that. A part of him had expected it, but considering he had no class skill with a cooldown, he’d hoped that it would not be that large.

Everyone still had their jepats strolling in the new direction as he studied his interface. Ted was yet to say anything, but he had his eyes on Aiden. Aiden shook his head, banishing the thoughts gathering. There was much that he had to think about, but he would think about them all when he was sure that the Immortal was not a direct problem while hoping that the criteria for [Fate Unwoven] had not changed.

Fate-based skill, he thought, remembering the criteria, slay something twenty levels and above, health should be less than five percent, advance a trait to level sixty, and reach level fifty.

If they remained the same, he guessed the three that he had were the fate-based skill, the trait and the level. The health part would be tricky, but Aiden had six months to deal with that. Ensuring that you fell below five percent health stats without hitting zero was tricky. But with six months to deal with it, he had a way around it.

Now, he had an artifact to get his hands on.

There was one called [Healer’s Greaves]. It was designed to save people from instant death attacks, so much so that they could bleed out for two kilometers before they would have to worry about dying.

But while there were more than enough around, Aiden had no interest in it. It’s draw back was if the skill was supposed to kill you instantly because it simply possessed more damage than your health stat could carry. It was an artifact that the weak used to survive the strong.

What he needed was something that would buy him time against an opponent of any kind. Something that no matter the damage, weak or strong, would keep him alive long enough. What Aiden needed was the artifact called [Hollow Grave].

It was a powerful artifact with a simple effect. When the wielder’s stats drop below ten percent, it automatically activated. For ten seconds, the wielder could not die. Their health stat would not fall below one percent. As for its cooldown, it was either a day or three, Aiden couldn’t remember precisely.

There was a lot to do.

Despite knowing that their jepats would curse them if they could, everyone forced their jepats into a jog as they changed directions. While Aiden rode, he felt the eyes of the rainbow feathered bird on him.

Everything was more beautiful if it could be made poetic. What people did not understand was that given enough skill, something remained horrifying to think about when made poetic.

The rainbow feathered bird watched them flee, because that was exactly what Aiden was doing, fleeing from the Immortal.

Fate watched them flee.

As they fled, Aiden collected his thoughts. One of the new things that came with coming back in time was that the weight he’d been feeling in his chest since killing the poachers that had granted him the [Giant Slayer] title was gone. As hard as he tried to feel it, there was nothing there. His new guess on the matter was that he had trapped the mana and [Fate Unwoven] had used it to power its activation.

Ultimately, it was nothing but a guess.

Then there was the real problem. [Hollow Grave].

There were only two of it on this side of Nastild. One was a secret of Nel Quan that the Queen kept as close to her as possible while the other was in a more secretive location Aiden knew he could not get access to.

I guess I’m robbing Nel Quan, he thought as they rode through the trees.

After all, even with a [Sage] within its walls, it was an easier task than stealing the second one from the Order’s vaults.

Eyes continued to hover on Aiden as they rode. Without meaning to, his head turned to the east. He had felt it then, when he had used [Fate Unwoven].

An extra witness to what had happened to him.

Somewhere in the distance, in a place unknown, he had felt something come alive in a flash of light—a beacon pointing to itself, letting him know that it was aware of him.

Even now, he could feel it, watching, waiting.

He knew what it was now. Knew the familiar feeling as a child knows their parents.

There were too many important things popping up in his life because of [Fate Unwoven]. A single thought slipped into his mind as he struggled to arrange his plans. He knew its name for he had always known its name.

Spell Binder.

…

The sister of the master of the Order opened her mouth to say more when the [Sage] that had arrived with her pointed to the ground.

“Look,” he said. “The parchments are all time related.” He paused to look at her. “Memory bank.”

“Don’t waste your time,” the [Sage] in Nel Quan said, standing, a translucent presence on the master of the Order’s office, like the other [Sage]s present. “It’s empty.”

She frowned. “Who could possibly be powerful enough to cast a time spell enough to affect all of us to the point of déjà vu? We can survive a time spell affecting the entirety of Nastild itself.”

“Perhaps one affecting more than Nastild,” the [Sage] in Bandiv said. He was seated behind his study desk, translucent as the others.

The master wasn’t sure if it was meant to be a joke but it was enough to make everyone present pause.

“You don’t think…” one of them began, unwilling to continue the sentence.

“A time spell that goes beyond Nastild,” the [Sage] in Bandiv mused. “It would have to affect an entire section. Time has already been a mess for the last two months and counting.”

“And that’s around the period they stopped looking,” the master mused, referring to the fact that the gods who always had their eyes looking for him and how they hadn’t been looking for two months now.

“It might not be about us, though,” the woman, his sister, said. “Right?”

The master would’ve liked to think that. “Sister dearest, can you please check if any system admin has been contacted in the last two months.”

She paused. “There hasn’t been an attempt at contact for more than three civilizations now.”

The master said nothing to that, knowing very well that she was checking.

“No one would be foolish enough to…” her voice trailed off in horror. “At least twice in the last two months.”

The [Sage] in Nel Quan staggered. “Who would be so foolish?”

The woman looked up at all of them in horror as she gave her answer.

“Nastild.”

The master paused. The entire planet had contacted one of the system admins? This entire meeting was unraveling a lot of important things. Important things that he didn’t know.

“Torat,” the master commanded.

Torat went down on one knee. “Yes, master.”

“Assemble every single member of the Order. Now!”

“Yes, master.” Torat rose to his feet and was already leaving. “For what purpose?”

“War.”

Torat stopped in his tracks, faltered a little, then left the room.

The [Sage] in Bandiv laughed. “What is your little rag tag army going to do, lick the boots of the gods”

“If the gods are coming,” the [Sage] that had arrived with the master’s sister said, “I do not intend to go down without a fight.”

“Why would Nastild try to contact the admins?” the master’s sister asked.

The master took a glance at all the communications. “And all contacts were successful. It is completely surprising that it took them this long to finally come.”

“We can’t win against the greater gods,” the [Sage] in Nel Quan said. “You all know this.”

“There is also a possibility that they are not coming for violence,” the [Sage] in Bandiv said. “If Nastild has contacted them multiple times, then perhaps they are coming to fix a problem, one that has required time magic. You will need time to reset time, after all.”

The master worried his bottom lip between his teeth. That was also a reasonable point.

The greater gods were coming to Nastild.

He almost laughed.

The impossible was about to happen. Nastild would be turned on its head.

“We need to create backups,” he said suddenly. “I refuse to lose the memories of what happens once they reset the time.”

“What if they already have?” his sister asked. “What if we are currently living in the reset timeline?”

The [Sage] of Bandiv shook his head. “We would know. The rest of the world would be none the wiser, but we would know. We would hold no knowledge, but the level of déjà vu would be different.”

The master of the Order nodded in agreement. “We are currently living in the time before the reset. Time, craft us a chamber. We will store our ongoing memories there.”

“I gave a world enchantment to the Lacheart boy,” the [Sage] in Nel Quan said sheepishly. “It was interesting at the time, and it was not time related. I figured that should enter the chamber as well.”

The master sighed at the [Sage]’s recklessness but said nothing.

When the [Sage] in Bandiv began casting, everyone present was on their toes. Their lives were about to change, and they all knew it.

Nobody cared about a child holding a weapon capable of desolating cities in the right hands.

The [Sage] in Bandiv was halfway through his crafting when he paused. Everyone present noticed it. The [Sage] frowned, looked confused, befuddled.

The master’s sister grew worried. “Please tell us that you haven’t been locked out of time, too.”

“I haven’t.” The [Sage]’s words came out like a growl.

“Then what?” the [Sage] in Nel Quan asked.

The [Sage] in Bandiv made a gesture, waving his arm once. The action revealed a spell to all of them. While it was not their field of expertise, they had lived long enough to know what they were looking at.

The [Sage] that had arrived with the sister of the master paled.

“Impossible,” he said in disbelief.

The master of the Order walked closer to study the spellcraft as if he would be able to touch it. After a moment, he looked at the [Sage] in Bandiv for confirmation.

“This is what we think it is, isn’t it?”

The [Sage] nodded. “A memory chamber of my own design, crafted outside of time.”

The master’s sister walked closer. “When?”

The [Sage] studied it for a moment before answering. “A few minutes ahead of us.”

Silence fell on everyone present as they got the answer the [Sage]’s words implied. The master’s sister was right. They were already living in the reset time.

“Open it,” the master said. “What did we store?”

The spell craft came undone and the [Sage] moved back to rest on the table.

“Whatever we saved was affected,” he muttered with a sense of failure. “It could not withstand the effects of the greater gods.”

“Impossible!” the master hissed. “They are not that strong. To use magic of that level you would need to be connected to a…”

His words trailed off as the others looked at him.

The [Sage] in Bandiv was the first to speak. “Sinepore, have you found it?”

The master shook his head.

“What happened to Sinepore?” the [Sage] in Nel Quan asked.

“That’s the name of the dragon that my brother has been hunting for centuries,” the master’s sister answered.

“Hold up.” The [Sage] looked around. “The one he thinks has a fragment of reality?”

“The only fragment of reality on this side of the cosmos,” the master said absently. He looked at the [Sage]s one by one. “What are the chances that…”

“Impossible,” the [Sage] in Bandiv said. “None of them would be stupid enough to use one of those fragments. They would not allow themselves.”

“But what if they could come to an agreement?”

“I cannot envision a problem so great that they would use a fragment of reality to undo time.”

“But they—”

Whatever the master of the Order wanted to say died as all the [Sage]s stood at attention. They all exchanged glances, knowing that they had all felt the same thing.

It crawled along the master’s skin like a bored adult ignoring something of no consequence. It was the culmination of his searches. It was the one thing he had been seeking since forever. It was the one thing that the gods did not want him to get his hands on. Hidden by the protection of Sinepore, it was a thing beings beyond the world would die to covet—a thing that beings would die to bind themselves to.

All the [Sage]s spoke as one.

“Fuck.”

The fragment of reality had just revealed itself like a beacon. Every being as strong as a [Sage] on Nastild now had a general idea of where it was. Their only saving grace was that they did not know its exact location.

“Brother,” the master’s sister said, but he was already in action, leaving his office.

“I’m on it.”

He could only hope that the gods had not sensed it, too. The most powerful thing this side of the cosmos, if used properly, had just revealed itself.

People and lesser gods fought and killed each other for fragments of worlds. Fragments of reality were the domain of the greater gods, artifacts upon which the very laws of existence itself were written. They were not the rules, they were pieces of the very slab.

The master left his office, leaving the [Sage]s to do whatever they may. If the fragment was used, then it would explain everything. It was very possible that the greater gods had not just reset the time on this side of the cosmos, they might’ve even reset time itself in its entirety. Every world, every fate, every reach of time, gone, refreshed.

I’m coming, he thought as he prepared himself.

He had finally found the fragment of reality he had been searching for.

He had finally found Spell Binder.