Memory

Despite the dense forest blocking Seth from discerning anything about the Tower’s second floor, the smell of blood assaulting his nostrils and the battle cries echoing through the tree trunks did enough to paint a clear picture.

Seth proceeded forward, carefully hiding behind each tree to avoid getting spotted until he reached the end of the forest. Hiding behind the large trunk of a tall tree, Seth observed the fight happening right ahead of him.

Six-handed beings of the same race as Krum and Neoss, asura warriors engaged in a deadly fight against an opponent Seth had never seen before.

Humanoid-shaped creatures with silvery-gray skin met the asura race in combat. They carried weapons of the same color as their skin, and even the armor covering them had the same silvery-gray color, reminding Seth of the same ability demigod level ascended had; to turn energy into weapons or armor.

With each collision between the weapons of the asura and the enemy, a silver substance would stain those weapons, extending slowly toward the hilt.

In less than 20 minutes of observing the fierce battle, the strange beings forced most asura warriors to discard at least one of their weapons due to the corruption extending to their arms. Some even mercilessly cut off the corrupted limb before picking up another weapon and continuing the fight with five, four, or even fewer arms.

“What are those things?” asked Seth, his question directed towards Krum, whom he knew was always watching.

“Tell me where you learned about my people, and I’ll tell you about their enemy.”

Seth chuckled and ignored Krum with a shake of his head. Until he had no other choice, Seth had no plan to reveal what he knew.

Taking a deep breath, he ignored the fighting and focused on his target, the way to the next floor.

Right in the middle of the battlefield, a circular white staircase could be seen extending to the ceiling of the floor. The warriors engaged in combat didn’t appear to be aware of the staircase’s presence, but that didn’t make reaching it any easier.

Seth had no idea how his presence on the battlefield would affect the fighting, but since this was a trial prepared by Krum, he could easily imagine both sides forgetting about their issues and uniting to deal with him instead.

Heaving a long sigh, he knew there was no reason for him to delay any longer and walked out of the forest’s cover, slowly making his way toward the battlegrounds.

Seth’s eyes were firmly placed on the nearest combatants, destruction greatsword in hand, waiting to see their reaction. Just as he expected, the closest asura and the other warrior stopped mid-fight, simultaneously turning toward Seth.

Despite their intimidating gazes, Seth, who had been observing the battle for quite a while, had a good grasp on their strength and knew he could win against them.

His energy began swirling around, destruction strings extending from the handle of the greatsword and forming a handful of snakes that charged toward the two warriors.

The asura and the other warrior moved to attack the destruction strings. Surprisingly, not only did the weird silvery creature quickly destroy the energy string, but even the asura warrior’s simple-looking weapon did the same.

The energy forming the strings was severed from Seth’s source’s control, dispersing naturally into the atmosphere after a single attack.

Despite all that, Seth continued rushing forward, creating another greatsword and engaging both warriors simultaneously in three-way combat.

Like the energy string, each collision between his energy swords and the enemy’s weapons ended up with a large chunk of his energy being canceled, forcing Seth to fall at a disadvantage right from the start.

The two warriors’ stamina seemed endless, increasing the pressure on Seth with each swing while his destruction energy was being consumed at an incredible pace to fuel his weapon.

‘Since when did destruction energy become so weak…’ Seth asked himself, dispelling his physical form and flying with his source forward, arriving between the two warriors just as they were ready to swing their weapons again.

The two warriors quickly moved to hit the destruction source, but due to their proximity, their attacks clashed against one another, giving Seth enough time to rematerialize between them.

With his new position, Seth quickly focused most of his destruction energy in his extended arms, shooting two destruction spears through the abdomens of both warriors.

His attack worked, but he had no time to rejoice in his success, quickly leaving the spears in their abdomens and dashing backward to avoid the silvery blood leaking from the strange warrior.

Even with two spikes gushing out of their abdomens, the two warriors didn’t seem to care, charging toward Seth again.

Seth smirked at their valiant effort and snapped his fingers. The next moment, destruction spikes grew from the spears embodied in their bodies.

The spikes skewered the two warriors alive and continued piercing through the ground, simultaneously rooting their bodies in place.

The energy inside the asura warrior was still under Seth’s control, and he could retract it at any time, but the energy inside the other warrior felt strange as if it was fighting his control.

Not willing to risk that corruption making its way inside his source, Seth severed the energy inside the silvery being and approached the two dead warriors, planning to have a better look at their bodies. His primary interest was the new strange creature, already having had enough encounters with the asura race.

“It will be wise to step back. It’s not dead.” Krum’s voice resounded behind Seth’s ear, startling and making him turn around.

Just as he expected, Krum was there, watching the two bodies on the floor solemnly.

“What do you mean it’s not dead? And which one?” asked Seth, stepping back and joining him in observing the two bodies.

He was surprised Krum decided to show up after the earlier tantrum, but he didn’t mind it as long as he could get more information from him.

“The voidling. That’s what those things are known as. They might appear human, but their form is nothing but.”

“They are a parasite race from The Outside, inflicting other races and using their bodies to fight. They are also extremely corruptive; everything they touch will become part of them.”

As Krum spoke, a small silver worm rushed out of the dead warrior’s forehead, charging right at him, but Krum just snorted once, and the little worm disappeared into thin air.

“Of course, these are just simulations the control tower pulled out of my memories and its database, so their absolute terror cannot be fully displayed. To reach the third floor, you must not simply get to the stairs but also clean up the entire battlefield of both asuras and voidlings.”

Seth looked over the sparse battlefield, counting over a hundred on each side, and said: “Are you crazy? Killing everyone here will take too long. You’ve already changed the challenge; I can’t believe you will also change the rules.”

Krum smirked and placed a finger at Seth’s heart, right where his source was: “It would be troublesome indeed to change the fundamental rules, but since you broke through, you won’t be able to synchronize with your other sources. If you want to regress your source, you better do as I say.”

Seth frowned and lowered his head to think. He knew Krum was right, but he also knew taking care of the battlefield was a pain and would take too long.

“Why do you want me to waste time clearing everything here?”

“Because that’s His Excellency’s order.”

“I can find other ways to regress my source, so that won’t be enough to have me do all that.” Noticing that the golden light in Krum’s eyes was getting more intense, Seth quickly added: “If you want me to do it, I need you to stop time on the outside for the remaining trials. I can’t return to my world only to discover that everyone is dead.”

Krum nodded and disappeared. “Fine. As long as you kill every being here, we’ll return you to the time as it is now if you pass the trials.”

Seth barely managed to prevent a victorious chuckle from leaving his mouth and bent down to pick up one of the asura warrior’s weapons.

With the asura longsword in one hand and a destruction greatsword in the other, Seth moved on to the next group of fighting warriors. He was also grateful that the other warriors seemed to ignore him as long as he didn’t approach himself.

Also, as he expected, the asura weapons were the secret to eliminating the voidling worms. Seth’s energy got consumed incredibly fast when he fought the voidlings. Still, constantly changing between the weapons of the asura, who seemed to have a strange resistance to the corruption, reduced the pressure on his source considerably.

It took Seth more than a month and employing every trick in the book to rid the battlefield of both asura and voidlings; he eventually came up on top and made his way through the corpse-riddled battlefield toward the next floor.

Halfway through the staircase, Seth felt the same worth coursing through his soul, and his surroundings changed again.

He was now floating in space, looking at a familiar throne.

“The Throne of Time?!” muttered Seth, but his attention was quickly pulled away as the pained screams of a woman entered his ears, making him turn around toward their origin.

The moment his eyes landed on the torture scene ahead, Seth’s body shook, and an unconstrained rage grew inside him.

A skinless body was lying on its knees, blood leaking out of every pore as it kept its head lowered, its lips repeatedly parting, muttering the same weak: “I know nothing….” constantly.

He recognized Aleena instantly, and the rage inside him exploded, his destruction energy leaving his source and moving toward the avatar of time. Unfortunately for Seth, his energy passed right through both the avatar and Aleena, disappearing into the emptiness of space.

After releasing two more attacks towards the scene, a move which emptied his source of energy, Seth collapsed to his knees, forced to watch the scene continue to play out in front of him with nothing he could do to stop it.

Grasping tightly on his chest, he asked in a hurt tone: “Why are you showing me this?”

With his question, the image before the kneeling Seth changed again, and he could now see Kronos standing before an endless tower. Krum walked up to the doors of the tower and spoke to Kronos.

“Wipe your prisoner from existence, and you’ll be granted a wish from the Tower. Nothing is impossible as long as it doesn’t interfere with another granted wish.”

…

“Fine. She’s gone. Grant me my wish.”

“I can confirm all her records are gone. What is your wish?”

“Show me everything in the records and about the owner of the time anchor.”

Seth’s face turned black as he listened to the discussion between Kronos and Krum, his rage increasing with every word entering his ears.

In the depths of his rage, Seth’s contorted face slowly returned to its usual calmness, and he stood back up, gently asking inside his mind: ‘Can you show me what happened to Aleena in the end?’

His surroundings changed to Kronos erasing Aleena’s existence.

Seth watched everything happen with a chilling calmness, his eyes not missing a single detail as if he wanted to imprint the image shown into the depths of his very soul.

Eventually, his surroundings changed again, and Seth appeared at the top of the staircase leading to the third floor.

“Come on, Krum, show me what you got this time.”