Chapter 551: Arcadia, The First Planet In All Creation (XXIX)
The moment his foot crossed the threshold, reality fractured around him.
The familiar desert air vanished, replaced by something far older, heavier, and infinitely more alien.
There was no sound of transition, only a sudden, overwhelming silence that pressed against his ears like the vacuum before creation itself.
He emerged into Arcadia.
"...Fucking hell..."
The first thing that struck him was the sky.
It wasn’t exactly a sky, but more like a living canvas of pure light and shadow.
Swirling nebulae of silver, gold, and deep violet twisted slowly overhead, forming ever-changing patterns that resembled both galaxies being born and dying in the same breath.
There were no stars in the conventional sense; instead, massive crystalline structures floated in the upper atmosphere, pulsing with soft inner light like hearts made of frozen time.
Some were the size of continents, drifting lazily through the endless expanse.
The ground beneath his feet was not soil, but something closer to crystallized memory.
It shimmered with faint images, fragments of strange, maybe old events playing out beneath a glass surface.
When he took a step, the ground rippled, showing fleeting visions of the Creator shaping the first mountains, of oceans forming from tears of light, of the very first breath of life.
The air itself felt alive.
It carried the scent of ozone, fresh rain on ancient stone, and something sweeter, like the memory of blooming flowers from a world that no longer existed.
Time here didn’t flow in a straight line.
It branched, looped, and folded in on itself. A breeze that touched his skin one moment felt like it had already passed a thousand years ago.
Arcadia stretched out before him in impossible beauty and scale.
Towering spires of white and obsidian crystal rose in the distance, some piercing through clouds made of liquid starlight.
Floating islands drifted between them, connected by bridges of pure energy that sang softly when the wind passed through.
Vast forests of trees with leaves made of shimmering glass swayed gently, their trunks carved with runes that told stories older than the Divine Realm.
Rivers of liquid time flowed uphill in some places, cascading into waterfalls that reversed mid-fall before resuming their course.
In the far horizon, a colossal tree, larger than any planet, stood as the apparent center of this world. Its roots dug into the fabric of reality itself, and its leaves shimmered with every color that had ever existed.
Around it, twelve massive pillars of light rose into the sky, probably the Divine Trumpets, dormant but radiating power so immense that even Aestrea felt the pressure in his bones.
The entire planet pulsed with life and danger. It was beautiful beyond words, yet it carried an underlying sense of judgment.
This world tested those who entered, and even showed them who they truly were.
"Huff..."
Aestrea looked at the world for a moment... but quickly closed his eyes as he remembered that he had a promise to keep.
Without ceremony, he reached deep within himself and seized the Authority of Time he had absorbed from Chronos.
The golden power surged violently inside his core, fighting against his chaos like oil against water.
He forced it to obey, channeling every ounce of his will into reshaping the temporal flow of this world.
His body began to tremble.
The backlash was immediate and devastating.
Black blood started leaking from the corners of his eyes, his nose, and the edges of his mouth.
His veins glowed golden for a moment before burning black as his chaos fought to contain the foreign authority.
Every cell in his body started screaming in protest; after all, time was not meant to be twisted so brutally, especially not on a scale like this.
But Aestrea did not stop.
He poured more power into the Authority, bending the rules of Arcadia itself.
He linked the flow of time here directly to the Divine Realm. One millisecond outside would equal one full day inside this world.
The strain was catastrophic.
CRACK!
His knees buckled for a split second. Cracks appeared across his skin, leaking black and golden energy.
His bones creaked under the pressure of rewriting such a fundamental law.
The Yin-Yang symbol faintly appeared behind him, spinning erratically as it tried to balance the impossible equation he was forcing into existence.
Pain, unlike anything he had felt before, tore through his soul.
It felt like every reincarnation, every death, every loss was being replayed inside his mind at once.
His regeneration fought desperately to keep up, but the cost was immense as pieces of his divine essence were burning away to fuel this change.
Still, he pushed harder.
The air around him warped violently.
The floating islands nearby trembled.
The colossal tree in the distance shook, its leaves rustling as if protesting the violation. The twelve pillars of light flickered in response.
Aestrea’s vision blurred with blood and tears of effort. His muscles tore and reformed repeatedly.
His heart stopped for several long seconds before restarting with chaotic, irregular beats. The Authority of Time inside him fought like a living thing, trying to reject its new master.
But Aestrea’s will was absolute.
"BEND TO MY WILL!!!"
And finally... he completed the adjustment.
One millisecond in the Divine Realm = One full day in Arcadia.
The change settled.
The backlash hit him like a collapsing star.
Thump!
"Cough, cough... ugh...!"
Aestrea dropped to one knee, coughing violently.
Thick black and golden blood poured from his mouth, splattering the crystalline ground. His body convulsed as waves of temporal feedback ripped through him.
For several agonizing minutes, he remained there, breathing raggedly, forcing his regeneration to stabilize what remained of his form.
When the worst of it passed, he slowly rose to his feet.
His clothes were torn, and his skin.
His hair was disheveled, and his eyes glowed with exhaustion and triumph.
The cost had been enormous as he had burned away a noticeable portion of his divine essence to force this change.
He would need time to recover.
But it was worth it.
He had bought himself time.
No matter how long he spent inside Arcadia searching for the Trumpets, only fractions of a second would pass for those waiting for him outside.
Vivian would not have to endure years of waiting.
None of them would.
Aestrea wiped the blood from his mouth with the back of his hand and looked toward the distant colossal tree and the twelve pillars surrounding it.
Then, he closed his eyes and expanded his senses to the maximum.
Black and white chaos energy surged outward from his body like an invisible tidal wave, spreading across the entire planet in an instant.
He searched for the Trumpets, for any trace of Luna or Elleonora, for any anomaly that might guide him.
His Authority of Karma, his Chaos, his Ruin, everything he had was poured into the search.
But nothing happened.
The planet simply... refused him.
His energy washed over the landscape like water over glass.
The world did not resist violently... it simply did not acknowledge the probe. The rules of Arcadia were simply... absolute.
Aestrea opened his eyes, a faint frown creasing his brow.
"So that’s how it is..."
He could feel the subtle pressure now, as if the world itself was watching him.
Judging him.
Testing whether he was worthy to even approach the pillars.
Forcing him to move at its pace.
He exhaled slowly, accepting the reality of the situation.
"Fine."
Without wasting another second, Aestrea began walking toward the first of the Twelve Towers.
It was the closest one, a colossal pillar of radiant white-gold light rising from the horizon, piercing through layers of floating islands and crystalline clouds.
Even from this distance, it looked impossibly tall, its surface etched with moving runes that told stories in languages long forgotten.
It was quite a long journey, as just when he reached the base of the tower...
CREAAAKKK!
The ground suddenly split open as a colossal guardian spirit rose to block his path.
It had no face, only a swirling vortex where its head should be, and weapons formed from crystallized time materialized in its hands.
Aestrea stopped.
He looked up at the towering guardian, then at the pillar of light behind it.
Without a word, he summoned both the Heaven Swallowing Sword and the Midnight Sword. The blades appeared in his hands with a resonant shing, humming with power.
If the world demanded he earn the right to proceed...
Then he would earn it.
The guardian attacked first, swinging a massive blade of frozen time that could erase centuries with a single cut. Aestrea met it head-on, his dual swords flashing in a deadly arc.
CLANG!
The impact sent shockwaves across the crystalline ground, cracking the earth for miles.
Fwoomp!
He dodged a downward strike that carved a canyon into the ground, then countered with a cross-slash from both swords.
The Heaven Swallowing Sword devoured part of the guardian’s arm, turning it into black dust, while the Midnight Sword cut deep into its side, drawing out streams of liquid starlight.
