Chapter 54: The Hour That Escaped Fate (2)
[Severing Edge (Above Origin)]
HUMMMMM!!!!!!
The moment Jovian tapped into his innate power, a wave of divinity burst forth around him.
Immediately, all frost hung frozen in the air, snowflakes paused mid-fall, and even the Angels’ wings stilled for a single, unnatural heartbeat.
For that brief instant, it felt like the entire world was holding its breath.
Then, Jovian’s white blindfold loosened and slipped from his face.
It did not tear or flutter away in the wind; instead, it drifted downward with an almost ceremonial grace, revealing eyes that were not meant for the weak.
His irises were pure white, ringed with molten gold, glowing with a soft radiance that did not illuminate the world but instead illuminated the truth beneath it.
The instant his eyes were revealed, the battlefield lost its color.
The sky shifted into an immense expanse of pure black, empty of both clouds and stars.
Far below, the ground spread out in a stark, unbroken white, like an endless blank canvas beneath the fighters.
The Angels appeared as ghostly figures, all frost and wings, their forms reduced to glimmering outlines of icy light.
Meanwhile, the Humans of the Northwind Sect stood as quivering shadows, huddled beneath the fading remnants of the formation’s power.
Only one thing still held its color, and only Jovian could see it—golden threads.
They hovered above every head — delicate strands of shimmering destiny stretching upward into the monochrome domain.
Each thread pulsed with its own rhythm, glowing softly like strands of sunlight trapped in a world drained of color.
The Angels’ threads were thick and radiant, blazing with the certainty of victory. The Northwind Sect’s threads flickered weakly, trembling under the backlash of their own formation.
Jovian smiled, and the smile was not cruel or triumphant but quietly amused, as though he were watching a performance reach its final act.
His voice drifted through the monochrome world, carrying an echo that seemed to belong to more than just sound.
"Well," he murmured, his tone gentle and almost casual, "good riddance to your so-called victory."
He raised his Golden Black Sword, and the blade did not shine or glow or radiate power.
Instead, it absorbed the light around it, becoming a perfect void — a blade that existed only to erase.
HUMMMMM!!!!
The air around it bent inward, as though the world itself feared the edge.
Jovian stepped forward, and the monochrome battlefield seemed to tilt with him. He took one breath, one step, and then he swung.
The sword did not touch the Angels.
It touched their threads.
SHHHKKK!!!
The first golden strand snapped with a sharp crack, like the shattering of delicate glass.
Then another broke, and another still, until the sound multiplied—first to a thousand, then to a million—filling the air with a relentless cascade of breaking threads.
The noise swelled into a deafening cascade, a chaotic symphony of shattered destinies that echoed through the monochrome world like a storm of broken futures.
CRRRRACK!!!!
In an instant, the Angels’ wings froze mid‑flap, their halos flickering wildly... and then they fell.
Millions of Ice Angels dropped out of the sky like shattered snowflakes, their bodies crashing into the ground with thunderous force.
The sound of their descent was overwhelming — a relentless series of impacts that shook the land like an earthquake.
THUD! THUD! THUD! THUD! THUD!
And it wasn’t just the Angels....
Fissures tore across the frozen plains, splitting the earth into jagged fragments.
Ice pillars collapsed, ancient structures shattered, and the clan’s territory fractured like a broken mirror.
The ground heaved and buckled, as though reacting to the sudden absence of the futures it had once supported.
Because the opposite of certain victory wasn’t defeat—it was complete collapse.
The Angels’ power, once drawn from winter’s ice.... spiraled out of control.
Their wings cracked, their halos dimmed, and their bodies trembled violently as their futures were ripped away.
Their voices rose in panicked cries that echoed across the monochrome battlefield.
"What is happening to us?!"
"My D... divinity is falling!"
"Elders! Elders, help us!"
The Elders attempted to rise, but their threads snapped as well.
COUGH!
One Elder coughed blood, another’s wings shattered into icy fragments, and a third collapsed to his knees, his eyes wide with horror as he whispered.
"No... this cannot be... what did... he do to us?"
However, the Northwind Sect watched just as shocked.
One hundred thousand cultivators stood beneath their failing formation, their mouths open, their eyes wide, and their souls trembling. Their formation flickered violently, its runes twisting and distorting as though trying to escape the monochrome world.
"What did he do...?"
"Why are the Angels dying without being touched?!"
"Stop the formation! Stop it!" one shouted as he realized what was happening.
"He’s cutting their future! He’s cutting their future!"
But it was as if his realization was just another part of fate, because in the next moment, their own threads began to shake—thin, unstable, flickering like dying candle flames.
Jovian’s gaze shifted toward them, and the golden threads above the Northwind Sect cultivators quivered violently, as if pleading for mercy.
Tilting his head slightly, he wore a thoughtful expression.
"Oh," he murmured, with his voice drifting through the monochrome domain, "looks like your party’s started too, huh?"
Then he raised his sword again.
But before he cut—
HUMMMMM!!!!!
----
[A/N: FYI, this scene is a few moments leading up to Jovian’s chaos.]
Not too far away, within the Academy of Lore.
In a quiet courtyard set aside for the most exceptional disciples, a woman named Sunya sat alone beneath the shade of a pale silver tree, savoring the rare calm that settled over the grounds between training cycles.
The breeze carried the faint scent of fresh leaves, and the soft rustle of branches overhead blended into the background like a familiar melody she had heard a thousand times.
She lifted her cup and took a slow sip, savoring the warmth and the stillness.
Then she stopped... in this moment it was like the world around her subtly shifted.
It began as a faint distortion — a subtle drag in the flow of time, like a single second stretching longer than it should.
Her fingers tightened around the porcelain, not enough to crack it, but enough to betray the shift in her focus.
Then a second distortion followed, sharper and more intrusive, pressing against her senses with enough force to make the air tighten.
For a brief moment, the courtyard seemed to dim—not in shade, but in tempo. The breeze halted mid‑flow, and the leaves overhead hung suspended, utterly still.
Even the comforting warmth of the tea seemed to linger uncertainly, as if time itself had tripped and was struggling to regain its balance.
Sunya lowered the cup.
"A tear in this world’s timeline?" she muttered, knowing well that each world had its own River of Time and, as a result, its own timeline.
However, such things were not truly independent, as they were all connected to the larger River of Time of the Orin Star System.
Though, she didn’t bother to get up.
She simply remained where she was, still and composed, letting everything drift past her like waves against the shore.
"...This isn’t the way things are meant to go," she said softly.
With deliberate care, she placed the cup on the stone table beside her, the porcelain making a faint, delicate click as it met the surface.
"The Heavenly Frost Clan... and the Northwind Sect," she murmured, her tone low yet unwavering.
"Both are being cut off from the future at the same time."
Sunya stood up from her seat, her movements calm and deliberate.
There was no need to ask questions or guess—whatever was happening was enough to call her into action.
As the Academy of Lores’ top disciple, it was finally her turn to join the games.
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