Warlock Apprentice

Chapter 3072: Chapter 3073: Rain of Chaos

Laplace recounted some of the memories she saw in the Sea of Void Mirror.

She particularly focused on "one person, one beast, and half a city."

The so-called "one person" refers to a wizard suspected to be of the Time Series.

From the perspective of image recording, it should come from a water curtain suspended in the sky, reflecting the scene that was captured.

This water curtain might be a water canopy, or perhaps a sky-sea; because of the angle, it’s hard to discern the exact situation. However, the scene reflected on the ground through the water curtain could be clearly observed.

On the ground, there was a witch wearing an Illusionary Cloak, swiftly moving atop the treetops as she flew across a forest.

However, her movement wasn’t the usual displacement seen by ordinary people, but a strange transposition.

Before each big step forward, she would first produce two phantoms.

For example, if she wanted to reach a treetop five hundred meters away, she would first conjure a static rainbow illusion A at the target point.

After illusion A appeared, another rainbow illusion B would appear between illusion A and her body, about two hundred and fifty meters away. Illusion B, although stationary, appeared dynamic, as if it were running.

Shortly after these two phantoms appeared, the cloaked witch would transmit from her original position to the location of illusion A.

Once the cloaked witch reached the destination, both phantoms would disappear.

Just talking about this transposition alone, Angel couldn’t detect any clues, but Laplace was adamant that it was a kind of time ability.

At first glance, it seemed like a Spatial Series transmission, but in reality, it was an application of Time Series ability.

She used illusion A to simulate the position she ultimately wanted to reach, which is a "result"; she used illusion B to simulate the scene during her movement, which is a "process".

After having both the process and the result of the movement, the "event logic" was established; once she started moving, the "time logic" was also established; and ultimately the "practical result" would certainly succeed, which is—reaching the end point.

This created a scene similar to spatial transmission, but it wasn’t transmission, rather a deceptive illusion of time logic.

Laplace described the situation in detail, but Angel was still puzzled as he listened.

After talking about "one person," the second memory Laplace spoke of was "one beast."

This "one beast" refers to an unknown magical creature.

Its form resembled a snake; but its specific appearance, including patterns, whether it had scales, the shape of its head... Laplace couldn’t discern any of it, because its whole body glowed with rainbow-like light.

This snake was even more peculiar.

Laplace saw it while observing the "scenery".

At that time, Laplace wasn’t specifically looking for special memory images in the Sea of Void Mirror, she was just gazing blankly at a nearby image, which was unremarkable, presenting a "calm sea under the moonlight".

She thought it was just an ordinary scene, but suddenly, Laplace saw a phantom-like shadow on the sea surface, resembling a snake.

As Laplace’s gaze fixed on that somewhat phantom-like snake in the image, the next second, that snake appeared beside Laplace.

Yes, it was beside Laplace’s actual body.

It emerged from the image in the Sea of Void Mirror, directly materialized from phantom, manifesting its body in the Mirror Domain.

Laplace was shocked at that moment; it was her first time witnessing a creature jumping out directly from an image.

And after that snake appeared in the Mirror Domain, its form was still indiscernible, entirely covered by rainbow glow. Upon manifesting, it glanced around.

It looked at Laplace, then at the surrounding drifting Sea of Void Mirrors.

"So, it was observed by a creature from the Mirror Domain, no wonder it fell out from the time seam... The Sea of Void Mirror is truly dangerous; to think there are creatures surviving here."

"How unlucky, never mind, I’ll go back first."

The glowing snake muttered these two sentences to itself, then turned into a rainbow stream, and vanished.

Lately, when Laplace looked back at that "calm sea under the moonlight," she couldn’t find the shadow of the other again in the image.

This incident greatly impacted Laplace; she never imagined that the target of her observation would jump out of the image and come face-to-face with her... However, because the other party appeared beside Laplace in person, she was able to capture its aura.

By later chance, Laplace ultimately confirmed that the aura lingering on the other party was... the Power of Time.

The story of "one beast" left Angel more bewildered than the previous story of "one person".

Moreover, there were parts where Laplace spoke vaguely, such as how exactly Laplace confirmed the Power of Time by chance?

Laplace was unwilling to elaborate, and naturally, Angel didn’t press; he could only focus his musings on the story itself.

After pondering for a moment, Angel asked, "Can you be sure those two sentences were what it said?"

Laplace: "I can confirm, it wasn’t spoken with words, but a special kind of thought wave."

After confirming those two sentences were said by the glowing snake, Angel sunk into thought.

One could capture two pieces of information from its words: First, it seems to know of the Mirror Domain and is aware of the Sea of Void Mirror. Second, it explicitly mentioned ’being observed’.

From the implication of the words, it seems this snake fell out of the time seam because it was "observed."

Once "observed," a change of state occurs.

This made Angel recall the double-slit experiment Jon once talked about...

In the end, Angel couldn’t figure out this ability of "being unobserved and thus leisurely abiding in the law outside the time seam"; he remained perplexed about Time Series abilities, and could only put it aside for now.

The examples of "one person, one beast" previously described by Laplace were already quite absurd, and the last "half city" she described, was even more outrageous.

The "half city" was even more mysterious.

The perspective of half the city is a glass atop a Bell Tower of a human city, because this Bell Tower only had one glass, and there was also only one direction it faced.

Therefore, the scene presented in the image was just the "half city" reflected by the glass.

However, through this "half city", Laplace witnessed a very strange scene.

At first, one would think this was just an ordinary human city... or a small town, as there were no towering structures. From the half city perspective, the tallest building was no more than a large cathedral, and even this cathedral’s highest point wasn’t taller than the Bell Tower.

The other houses were just ordinary red walls with white rooftops.

The entire small town gave off an impression of cleanliness, tidiness, and mediocrity.

But soon, the scene underwent a rapid transformation: thick clouds suddenly moved across the clean sky, followed by a torrential rain pouring down from the clouds, drenching the town below.

With the rain falling, this originally ordinary small town began to transform.

The rainwater acted like a brush painting with graphite dust, and in the blink of an eye, the clean and tidy town was covered with thick moss. The once pristine white walls of the houses started to show mottled marks of age.

The most apparent change occurred at the towering cathedral... its pinnacle collapsed.

No external force had damaged the cathedral’s pinnacle; from the scene, there is only one reason for its collapse: aging.

Not only were the cathedral and houses aging, but so were the inhabitants living in the town!

The scene clearly showed a young man wiping the dust off the external dial face of the Bell Tower. Under the downpour, his skin began to age, and spots appeared across his body. Within a few seconds, he crossed the dimension of time and transformed into a weathered old man.

A few seconds later, the old man continued to age until he became a mere skeleton wrapped in skin. Due to the weight loss, combined with the fierce wind and rain, the skeleton was blown away and ultimately fell to the ground, turning to dust.

This scene was already quite shocking, but what was even more surprising was that the rain didn’t only cause aging.

In fact, on the very top of the Bell Tower, outside the glass, there wasn’t just that young man wiping dust. There was also a middle-aged hunchbacked man standing at the edge of the Bell Tower.

He was originally instructing the young man on where to clean.

But unexpectedly, a sudden downpour turned the young man into bones.

The middle-aged hunchbacked man was petrified by the scene before his eyes and slumped to the ground. Fortunately, there was a handrail nearby; otherwise, he would have fallen off the tower top.

The rain continued to fall, and although the middle-aged hunchbacked man was also exposed to the rain, miraculously, he didn’t age within this rain; rather, he began to rejuvenate.

Within a few seconds, the man’s hunched back disappeared, he grew taller, and his sallow skin turned fair and supple.

Soon, a young man who bore a slight resemblance to the middle-aged man appeared in the scene.

The rain came quickly and subsided just as quickly. By now, it had already begun to cease.

But before the rain stopped, the middle-aged man continued to grow younger; the youth wasn’t the endpoint. A few seconds later, he appeared as an adolescent boy.

A few more seconds passed until the rain stopped, and the previously middle-aged hunchbacked man had transformed into a six or seven-year-old child. If he hadn’t been wearing those oversized clothes, and if Laplace hadn’t witnessed it firsthand, no one could have imagined that a middle-aged man would revert to childhood in mere seconds.

This rain, judging only by the transformation of these two people, seemed to imply a pattern: the old turn young, and the young turn old.

But, in fact, this isn’t the case. Some old men instantly turned to bones, just as some children blinked and turned into infants, ultimately vanishing, being wiped directly from existence.

Thus, this wasn’t a rain governed by any pattern; from the perspective of this "half city", its effects were entirely random.

The only thing known is that this rain contained an unknown Power of Time. It permeated the city and altered it...

This is the story of the "half city".

It can be said that this is the most absurd aspect in the tale of "One Man, One Beast, and the Half City", yet it perfectly aligns with Angel’s envisioning of the Power of Time.

For the previous "One Man, One Beast", Angel might have needed Laplace to explain, or he would need to contemplate to understand the mysteries of the Power of Time. But this "half city" directly showcases the Mighty Power of time, not only changing the color of the land and the buildings, but also causing the living to undergo irreversible growth and decay.

This is the power of time.

Even though Angel could understand the "half city" best, what he feared most was also the "half city".

According to the theory Black Earl had told him before, altering external time directly is something that an ordinary wizard cannot accomplish, not even a Legendary Wizard.

This temporal downpour must be either the means of a Miracle Wizard yet to be known... or possibly the effect of a Mysterious Object.

The reason for suspecting it involves a Mysterious Object is that Angel knows that the Temple of the Oracle harbors a strategic-level mysterious city with a Hoopa Coefficient of up to 75, called "City of Reincarnation".

This City of Reincarnation simulates a city over three days, from flourishing to destruction. After three days, everything resets; the destroyed things disappear, and all people and events revert to their state three days prior.

Of course, this mysterious object isn’t limited to the surface effect of the three-day Samsara; as a strategic-level mysterious object of the Temple of the Oracle, it definitely has deeper effects.

But just from the surface effect, it’s clear that this "City of Reincarnation" is certainly related to the Power of Time.

And the torrential rain in the "half city" that signifies both new birth and destruction... if not the handiwork of a Miracle Wizard, then it could be the work of a Mysterious Object.

As to what the source of the Mysterious Object is, Angel doesn’t know, but it could be... the rain.

Mysterious Objects are never confined to outer appearances. They could be a city, a heartbeat, even a ray or a nascent concept.

Since Mysterious Objects can take various forms, there’s no reason they can’t be rain.

Of course, this is all Angel’s speculation.

However, speaking of which, another reason Angel suspects the "half city" is a Mysterious Object is because it’s missing one aspect.

The earlier "One Man, One Beast" both had the iconic rainbow brilliance of the Time Series.

The illusion created by the cloaked witch radiated strange rainbow light; that snake, which appeared upon Observation, also emitted rainbow brilliance... Angel remembered that at the Earth Cavern arena, Aex’s production of Iridescent Silk Thread and the rainbow pattern above his head also shone with rainbow light.

It seems this strange rainbow light has already become a hallmark of the Time Series.

Yet, in the "half city", this light was completely absent.

But to say the rain in the half city has nothing to do with time is certainly impossible. This glaring difference led Angel to form different speculation.

Regardless of whether this speculation is correct, simply from what was learned from Laplace’s mouth about the Time Series abilities, one can see the wondrous aspects of the Time Series.

In any case, by the time Angel left the Heart Space, he was still immersed in the fantastical capabilities of the Time Series.