Chapter 34: The Man Who Fell from Nowhere
The Divine Sky Academy was a monument to the arrogance of the Middle World.
Floating on the central continent of Aurelia, the academy was a sprawling metropolis of white jade towers, golden bridges, and waterfalls that cascaded into the endless cloudy void below. Three suns—yellow, blue, and red—shone down on it, bathing the campus in a perpetual, surreal twilight.
But today, the mood in the academy was grey.
It had been three days since the arrival of the Aerthos Team. Three days since the Golden Star-Cruiser had limped into port, its hull scorched by void lightning, carrying the survivors of a tragedy.
In the center of the Grand Plaza, a memorial service was being held.
"He was a... promising student," Prince Aethelred spoke from the podium. He wore a suit of mourning black (made of Divine Silk, naturally), but his eyes were bright with suppressed glee. "Rudra Ye sacrificed himself to save the ship. He was a hero. A foolish, reckless hero, but a hero nonetheless."
Below the podium, the Aerthos Team stood in a cluster. They looked ragged.
Prince Valerian was staring at his boots, guilt eating him alive. He knew he was only alive because Rudra had cleared the path.
Lyra and Kael were silent.
Anya sat on the steps, swinging her legs. She wasn't crying. She was eating a cookie.
"He's not dead," Anya mumbled between bites.
"Anya," Ria whispered, standing beside her. The android maid looked pristine, but her internal cooling fans were whirring loudly—a sign of extreme processing stress. "My sensors confirm he fell into a Class-5 Void Storm. Survival probability is 0.0000%."
"He's not dead," Anya repeated stubbornly. "I can feel him. He feels... heavy."
A few meters away, Seraphina (Lilith) was pacing. She wasn't wearing black. She was wearing a red combat dress. Violet sparks of demonic mana were arcing off her skin, scorching the pristine jade pavement.
"If he is dead," Seraphina hissed, her eyes glowing with madness, "I will burn this timeline. I will find the Arbiter responsible and peel him like a grape."
"Lady Seraphina, please," Elder Sirius pleaded, keeping a safe distance. "The ceremony is for closure. You must accept reality."
"Reality is what I say it is!" Seraphina snapped.
On the podium, Aethelred wiped a fake tear.
"And so, we commend his soul to the Void. May he find peace. And now, regarding the Tournament... Since the Aerthos team is down a member, I propose we disqualify them for their own safety—"
RIIIIIP.
The sound wasn't loud. It was the sound of a piece of paper being torn.
But it came from the sky.
Everyone looked up.
The three suns dimmed.
Above the Grand Plaza, the blue sky didn't open a portal. It split. A jagged, black tear appeared in the fabric of the atmosphere, leaking grey static.
"What is that?" Aethelred gasped. "An invasion?"
Something fell out of the tear.
It wasn't a ship. It was a man.
He didn't fall like a person subject to gravity. He fell like a glitch. One moment he was high in the sky, the next he was halfway down, skipping the space in between.
BOOM.
The figure crashed into the center of the plaza, directly in front of the memorial statue they had erected for him.
The impact created a crater ten meters deep. Dust, debris, and shattered jade flew everywhere.
"Protect the Prince!" The Royal Guards rushed forward, leveling their spears.
"Enemy attack! Alert the Elders!"
The dust cloud swirled.
From within the crater, a voice spoke. It was calm, bored, and slightly annoyed.
"Terrible landing. I really need to calibrate the spatial coordinates on that Ring."
A hand reached out of the dust. It gripped the edge of the crater.
A boy pulled himself up.
He was wearing tattered black robes. His hair was messy. He looked like he had been dragged through a hurricane backwards.
"Rudra?" Valerian whispered, his eyes bulging.
"The dead guy?" A student gasped. "He survived the void?"
I stood up and brushed the dust off my shoulder.
I looked at the statue of me (which Aethelred had commissioned—it looked nothing like me, way too ugly).
"Nice statue," I critiqued. "But the nose is wrong."
"RUDRA!"
Seraphina didn't wait. She moved faster than sound. She tackled me.
"You idiot! You jerk! You made me wait three days!"
She hit my chest.
I didn't flinch. I hugged her back.
"I'm back, Lilith. Sorry for the detour."
She froze. She pulled back and looked into my eyes.
The moment she looked, she gasped.
To the normal students, I looked the same.
But Seraphina—a former Demon Queen—saw the truth.
My eyes were brown, but deep within the pupils, faint Clockwork Gears were turning.
And my presence...
I felt "Old."
Not old like a grandfather. Old like a mountain. Old like gravity.
"You..." Seraphina whispered, touching my face. "You feel... disconnected. What did you do?"
"I made a deal with Eternity," I whispered back.
"Halt!"
Prince Aethelred flew down from the podium, hovering in the air. His face was a mask of shock and rage.
"You! How are you alive? The Void Storm dissolves souls! You should be nothing but memories!"
I looked up at him.
"I walked out," I said simply.
"Liar!" Aethelred roared. "He is an impostor! Or a Void Demon wearing his skin! Guards! Seize him!"
Three Soul Transformation guards rushed at me. They were elites of the Middle World, moving at supersonic speeds.
"Surrender!" the lead guard shouted, reaching for my shoulder.
I didn't move. I didn't dodge.
I just stood there.
The guard's hand reached my shoulder.
And passed through it.
"What?" The guard stumbled, losing his balance.
He turned around. I was standing behind him.
"When did he move?" the guard stammered. "I didn't see a blur!"
The second guard swung a spear.
Swish.
The spear passed through my chest. Or rather, it passed through the space where my chest had been a nanosecond ago.
My body flickered like a bad hologram. One second I was there, the next I was two feet to the left.
I wasn't using speed.
I was using Chronos.
Inside the Ouroboros Ring, my Clone was manipulating my personal timeline. He was editing out the frames where I got hit.
"Stop tickling me," I said.
I tapped the second guard on the forehead.
Time Art: Stasis.
The Clone paused the guard's personal time for 3 seconds.
The guard froze mid-swing, looking like a statue.
I walked past them toward Aethelred.
As I walked, the world seemed to bend. Students who looked directly at me rubbed their eyes. They felt nauseous. Their brains couldn't process my position in space-time.
"You..." Aethelred backed away, his Divine Armor rattling. "What kind of magic is this?"
"It's not magic, Pinky," I smiled. "It's timing."
I stopped in front of him.
"Now. About this memorial service. Since I'm not dead, can I have the flowers? Anya likes flowers."
Anya ran over, pushing past the guards.
"Big Brother!" She hugged my leg. "You feel funny. You feel like static electricity."
"I'm fully charged, munchkin," I picked her up.
Headmaster Altair (who had come with us) walked forward. He looked at me with profound relief, and then profound confusion.
"Rudra... your cultivation base... it hasn't changed. You are still Core Formation. But your aura... it feels like I'm looking at a Demigod."
"I learned a few tricks in the void," I said vaguely.
Suddenly, the sky darkened again.
A massive pressure descended on the plaza. It wasn't a student or a Prince.
It was the Arbiters.
A scanning wave—a visible ripple of golden light—swept across the world. They were looking for the anomaly that had breached the void.
The wave passed over the city. It passed over Aethelred. It passed over Seraphina.
And it passed over me.
Seraphina tensed up. "The Eyes..."
I didn't flinch.
The wave moved on.
It didn't see me.
To the Arbiters, I was just a Core Formation boy with a normal lifespan. They couldn't see the World-Clone inside the Ring, which was absorbing all the "Causal Debt" of my existence.
I smirked at the sky.
'Keep looking, blind gods. I'm right here.'
"Rudra," Aethelred landed, trying to regain control of the situation. "Fine. You survived. A lucky fluke. But you missed the registration! The Tournament starts in two days! You are disqualified!"
"Actually," Elder Sirius stepped in, looking at me with a mix of fear and curiosity. "The rules state that as long as the team captain registers before the opening ceremony, the team is valid. Valerian registered the team yesterday."
He looked at me. "Though I admit... falling out of the sky is a novel entrance."
I bowed mockingly. "I aim to please."
I turned to my team.
"Alright. Show's over. I'm hungry. I haven't eaten in three days, and void energy tastes like sparkling water—no calories."
"We live in District 9," Valerian said, pointing downward. "It's... a dump."
"A dump?" I laughed. "Perfect. I love fixer-uppers."
I started walking toward the edge of the plaza, carrying Anya. Seraphina clung to my arm, glaring at anyone who looked at me too long. Ria followed, scanning my vitals and getting confusing readings (Heart rate: 0 / Heart rate: Infinity).
As I passed Aethelred, I paused.
"By the way, Prince."
"What?" Aethelred snapped.
"Thanks for the speech," I pointed at the podium. "It was very moving. Next time you write my eulogy, mention the cooking. It's my best feature."
I walked away, leaving the Prince of the Middle World fuming in the middle of his ruined plaza.
District 9.
We descended to the lower island.
It was indeed a dump. Mossy buildings, damp air, shadows.
But to me, it felt like a playground.
We entered the dilapidated villa assigned to us.
"Home sweet home," I said.
"It smells like mold," Seraphina complained.
"Ria," I commanded. "Cleaning protocols."
"Acknowledged."
I sat on a dusty chair. I closed my eyes.
I shifted my consciousness into the Ouroboros Ring.
Inside the Ring, time was frozen.
On the peak of the mountain, my Clone—Chronos—sat in a lotus position.
His clockwork eyes were spinning rapidly.
He wasn't just meditating. He was processing.
Every second I spent in the real world, Chronos was analyzing the timeline of the immediate future. He was calculating probabilities. He was feeding me "Pre-Cognition."
'Enemy approaching,' Chronos signaled.
I opened my eyes in the real world.
"We have a guest," I said.
Three seconds later, there was a knock on the door.
It was an old man with a broom. Old Mo, the crippled janitor I had sensed earlier (in the original timeline).
But this time, I knew exactly who he was before he even spoke.
"You made a mess upstairs," Old Mo grunted, standing in the doorway. "Who is going to clean that crater?"
"You are, Mo," I smiled. "But first, come in. I have a job for you."
Mo blinked. "You know me?"
"I know you were the Vice-Headmaster fifty years ago," I said, reciting the information Chronos had plucked from the timeline's history. "I know Aethelred crippled you. And I know you know the secret entrance to the Core Formation Chambers."
Mo dropped his broom.
"Who... who are you?"
"I'm the guy who is going to fix your dantian," I said, pulling out a bottle of Void-Refined Whale Oil (which I didn't have yet, but I knew where to get it in 5 minutes). "Sit down. We have a tournament to win."
I looked at my hand. It flickered, fading out of reality for a split second before stabilizing.
Being Timeless was going to take some getting used to.
But as I looked at the shocked faces of my team and the terrified old janitor, I knew one thing.
The Middle World wasn't ready for a Sovereign who could edit the script.