It felt heavy.
Everything was so heavy.
His eyes, barely still open, seeing the blurry room he had once been so proud of, seeing the beautiful tower above him, illuminated in a brilliant show of light, his own mana once having been used to create this gigantic artifact known as the tower of illusions.
Still, as his neck rested atop a slightly hard but still very soft pillow, covered in white sheets, spread out upon an endlessly big bed, though it had not always been, courtesy of his contract, he felt colder than he ever did before.
His breath, old and fragile, rattling as he brought it to the outside of his body burned his throat, and slightly cooled it as he retracted the stale air back into him, the temperature of the tower being far hotter than his own, as if the world wanted to give him one last joke.
Adelius had once almost been burned alive back when he had been but a young general, and now, he would die of the opposite problem, he, who passed the trials of relativity, would die because he got too cold, despite being covered in multiple sheets, despite having become one of the greatest kings, if not the greatest, to ever exist, despite having become a master of all kinds of magic, despite having changed his world for the better, despite having made contact with another planned filled with flying people with wings, kind ones adapt at artificing who helped him build this very tower that was supposedly one of the greatest tools for healing in his kingdom.
If this tower had been capable of doing anything for him, then, out of the countless floating platforms, serving as stools for the flying people, there would've automatically come hands and arms engineered through arcane means, bestowed with countless spells trapped in Ujotrian liquid, helping him regain his health, then there were various spells, even temporal ones, that they helped him with.
Actually, they were ridiculously weak, no doubt about it.
When he had first met them, he remembered, laughing to himself, though it was soundless and far too quiet to truly be heard, he had thought about killing them all, about taking over their world and making it his own, but after some time he had begun to understand why, in so many millennia, bot one person had truly declared war on ehetrians.
They weren't strong physically, they did have more mana than normal, but that did not serve them much either with the constraints seemingly placed on their world, they did have great treasures, they had a world free of monsters for the most part, but the problem was the very thing their species was thriving off of.
That infernal sugar had been, to a certain degree, what had protected them for so many years now.
Sugar was good for the body, at least in certain numbers, that Adelius knew, but, the sheer quantity of sugar in each and every bit of food growing in that world, it poisoned his people when they put foot on there, it destroyed their crops, it burned his homes, even their very structures began to fall apart because of the sheer amount.
After all, one would be surprised at how little sugar was needed to destroy concrete, the material they had been using the most back then, a good material, though it, of course, as every material, had it's weaknesses.
They had been lucky in his opinion, but now, what did he know, what did he even amount to now?
His species, a species of powerful people, actually, looking pretty much like ehetrians, just without the wings, did not live as long as them, not by a long mile.
Indeed, Adelius, who ehetrians had claimed to look as if he was about two hundred years old, was only thirty-five, and yet he was indeed seen as nearing the end of his life, though many had once proclaimed him to break that barrier by a long shot due to the sheer power he had held back then...
The authority of relativity, of relation... he had made good use of it after passing that infernal test the great pillar of relativity, or rather, relations, had put him through, after what could only be described as the mindscape of a mad man, as the labyrinth of a sick child who did not think of a way out, as someone that died and was stuck in hell but knew no way out, it felt as if he had been that man back then, but still, it had been gratifying, wielding such power and ability.
Now, though, despite still having that power, it had become nothing more than an ember for him, his past choices having come back to haunt him.
There were many ways to evade dying through age, but not so many when that death was already around the corner, not so many when one was already old and dying.
He had known many, but most of the ways he, and the ehetrians, people who truly knew countless ways of achieving the coveted 'agelessness' required a strong and healthy body, be it through transforming ones own body to become younger once more, something that took a huge strain, obviously, be it becoming another species, such as some arcane sicknesses, like vampirism or a special case of lycanthropy, be it a leviathan's blood stone, old as entire worlds, beings rumoured to be greater than even gods.
Speaking of the gods, those beings could also grant that coveted skill, but no god would invest in him now, that he knew.
He had great worth, no doubt about it, but the gods would not care if they could not see it right in front of them, that had always been the way they thought, aside from the great pillars, those guys didn't... really see worth in anything...
The great pillar of relativity had once told him that every being, even gods, were the same fro a certain point of view, and if he was honest... that was probably the point of view 'he' or rather, 'she' had been looking through... or whatever gender they had truly been... it hadn't been clear...
Sti-
The large door swung open, violently opening to the outside, as if angry at the person about to come in, though that made him feel slightly annoyed at that point because it was his son.