Thump thump, thump thump. Kori could hear the sound of his own heartbeat as Akira fell to her death. Thump thump, thump thump. “AKIRAAA!” Elizabeth's voice was pained, as if someone was squeezing her heart. Everything seemed to slow down as Kori watched in horror as Akira got closer and closer to the ground.
Then, it got so slow that she stopped. Kori blinked. She just… stopped. Kori looked around. Everything was frozen, not moving. Kori tried flexing his fingers, only to find his gloves flaked with ice. His magic suppressing gloves had somehow frozen. He took them off. He then remembered his affinity with Time.
Had Kori frozen time itself? He walked over to Akira, who was a foot from the ground. The Dragon up in the sky was looking down in them, with a seemingly triumphant look on its face.
He tried to lift Akira with his gloves. It felt like she weighed a thousand pounds. Can he not move other things while in frozen time? He can move his clothes and gloves though. Maybe its just living beings.
Kori tried lifting up Akira with all his might again. Then Kori noticed Akira was easier to lift now. Was she getting lighter? It seemed that Kori was slowly killing Akira's momentum. Instead of having to kill it instantly, Kori can take all the time he wants. After what seemed like hours of lifting and resting, Akira was finally as light as air.
The problem was solved, and now Kori just had to make time flow once again. Kori stopped. He didn’t know how. How can he resume time again? Would he be stuck in frozen time forever? Would history just stop advancing right here and now?
Kori was racking his brain on how he would start time again when he didn’t even know how he stopped it in the first place when a voice sounded behind him. “In quite a predicament are we?” Kori whirled around in surprise. Another person was moving in frozen time with him. A beautiful woman with a white flowing dress, golden hair glowing like the sunset, and eyes, seemingly colorless, holding knowledge as old as the universe itself.
Kori tried to speak, then found that he couldn’t. The atmosphere wouldn’t vibrate in frozen time and he can’t use it as a medium to transmit sound.
“Ah, I can fix that real quick.” She walked up and simply touched Kori's forehead with her index and middle finger. A white light faintly glowed at the tip of her extended fingers and Kori could feel a surge of power through him.
“Um…” Kori could speak now. It seems like he can ignore the laws of physics and nature while in frozen time with the help of this person. “May I ask who you may be?”
“Well, I believe you might know me as, Athaliah, the Goddess of Time and one of the Three Great Gods of Existence.” Athaliah dramatically bowed as she introduced herself with a confident smile.
Kori was taken back a bit, but he supposed she would keep an eye on one she’s blessed. Especially when they make a mistake that might halt the progression of time and history. “What would one as great as yourself want with a human like me?”
“Well, I’m here to help. If I don’t, time will cease to progress and that’s just troublesome. I wasn’t able to give you a blessing powerful enough to give you the strength you will need in the future when you were born, so I’m here now to give you what you will need. And you should be able to unfreeze time now.”
“Can you teach me how?”
“I suppose. Listen, when you freeze time, you are sending out a wave of special energy that massively expands and effects the timeline of all of creation. When you want to unfreeze time, you simply reabsorb that energy. This energy is practically being recycled, so it takes power to stop time, but in the end you essentially don’t use any power at all. Try it. Absorb the energy, and make it yours once more.”
Kori closed his eyes, concentrating on the air around him. He focused his concentration down to his energy particles in every atomic particle. He reclaimed them, restarting the flow of time of the air around him, condensed the energy and reabsorbed it.
Kori opened his eyes, the air around him was moving once more and the goddess was still there with a reassuring smile, urging him to continue on. Kori closed his eyes again. He got used to the feeling of absorbing his energy from every separate atom. Then, he expanded his concentration to all pf creation, beckoning his energy to reunite with him.
It was overwhelming how much energy there was. It was the entire universe after all. Kori condensed it all down, but it was still too much to absorb all of it. It was like a Dwarf Star. However, time had resumed once again.
Akira fell with an oomf, alive, but passed thinking she was dead. “Kori? Wha- What’s going on? Kori!” Elizabeth’s voice was barely audible to Kori.
The goddess spoke once more. “Use this excess energy as a weapon. This special energy interacts with time very interestingly. Imagine a wheel. That is the timeline of something. My energy turns this wheel at a steady pace. But your energy can take over and stop the wheel, accelerate it, or turn it backwards. With this much energy, you can accelerate that dragon's timeline into oblivion, reducing it to dust as old as a millennia. Try it.”
Kori sent out his energy once more, this time, focusing it on the dragon. The dragon disappeared, dissolved into dust. Kori looked back, looking for Athailah to thank her, but she was nowhere to be seen. Kori would find a Great Church and pray to her there.
“Kori… what just happened?”
“It’s a long story. A very long story.”
“Who was that woman?”
“Athaliah.”
“Wait. The Goddess of Time herself? One of the Great Gods of Existence? That Athaliah?”
“Seems like it.”
“Oh gods…” Elizabeth promptly passed out after hearing this.
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