Chapter 464: The Way Home

The room was small and smelled of tanning chemicals. It was not the best room I had stayed in, but I did not have much experience of staying in different rooms, to be honest.

With the many things that had happened to me, it was sometimes hard to believe that I had not seen much of the world. After all, I had only slept in two places, my home and the room assigned to me in the Academy. I am not counting the tent.

There was a bed, a chair, and a window that looked out towards the road. I hung my coat on the back of the chair and sat down on the edge of the bed with the crystal still pressed against my ribs.

The inn was quiet. The four men in the common room had gone, and the woman who ran the place had put out the lamps and gone to bed. Most likely we had paid her enough that she did not bother to seek out any new customers. The warband was settled in their rooms down the hall, and I cut out the sound of their voices.

I closed my eyes and turned inward, moving through the crack in the seal and heading towards the room with the lightning shards.

The seven days I had spent on the road were not wasted, as I had, against all odds, located the room with my lightning shards. And yet, no matter how I tried to enter this room, I could not.

It was not as if there was a barrier holding me back. Well, there was, and it had to do with power. Only a mage at the peak of the Arcanist level could even begin touching the power of Laws, and one of the reasons they could do that had to do with their Anima.

Well, at this point, I barely had any Anima to control. If the door of this room were made of solid oak, then with the Anima I had access to, my hands could not push it open.

I could feel the shards inside the room, but I could not get to them.

I could beat myself against this wall, but that was the wrong way of tackling the issue. The seal on my soul was restricting the growth of my powers, and I was not in a peaceful time period, so that meant I would be expected to be constantly fighting.

For me this was a good thing, as it would increase my strength. The System was a force that fed on conflict, and I did not get weaker as I fought, I grew stronger. The only problem was that this growth was skewed.

This weird desire to consume blood had only arisen because the strength of my soul was leashed, and the longer I spent in this time period, the less strange I would find it if my body became so powerful that it drew my soul into it, and I became a god or something else… the damned System was already showing me that I could receive Faith.

I did not have all the time in the world.

This age did not welcome mages, as if the laws of the heavens were different here, and there was no point in running from that truth any longer.

I had known it, in the back of my mind, for a while now. I had been ignoring it, because I did not want it to be true.

I let myself feel it, finally.

The only way to understand the shards was to return to the time where understanding was possible. The only way back to that time was through the Loop.

I would have to die.

∞

I fell back on the bed and closed my eyes. A thousand thoughts were whirling through my mind, but I was able to eliminate most of them and come to the core of the issue.

My body and soul were becoming more imbalanced the longer I spent in this time, and I could not continue in this manner.

I had gained an incredible opportunity when I fell into the past, and I had wanted to use it to expand my powers to their limit before I found my way back to my own time. But it seemed I had to change my ideology to something I had theorised before.

In the present I had two Temporal Anchors, one in front of Caelith Mourne and the second in the flying prison. I had made a plan at that time to use both Temporal doors as checkpoints in time, so I could focus on different aspects of my powers.

The tent was filled with demons, enough for me to open all my Earth Gates, become a Celestial and awaken Aurora. The second checkpoint was for me to practise my magic in the solitude the Sovereign of the Stars had given me.

Obviously my plans did not live up to my expectations, and I found myself in the distant past. But something surprising happened when I saw another two Temporal Anchors inside me, different from the first two.

I do not understand how time works, and I am not going to pretend otherwise.

I had used one of those Temporal Anchors at the top of the mountain after I met Dorrik, and I still had one left, and I did not plan on using it until I came across a very important reason.

Every Temporal Anchor was extremely important. I had used the second one in the present when I was weak and needed to escape from the Sovereign of the Stars, and I did not want to waste my second opportunity here.

I already had a door to the past. Perhaps this was the time to step back to the present. My flesh had outrun my soul, and I could not change that in this time period.

∞

I got up and went to the window. This town was filled with both life and death, and I could smell the conflict on the air. Mortals and demigods were battling, but I knew there were many gods like Dorrik who had not joined this fight, and I wondered if killing the serpent might be the fuse that finally triggered the divine war that would lead to the end.

I took out the crystal and looked at it. I did not know what it was or what it was for, but a god had died to stop me touching it, and so I did not believe this matter had ended.

A storm was coming, one I would have to face soon. The power in my Title that had given me an extra life was gone, and it would take a while before it refilled. I felt it was happening much faster now that I had gained the Law of Blood, but unless I placed my second Temporal Anchor soon, if I died here, I would be returning to the top of the mountain.

I stood at the window and watched the sky go from black to grey to a pale milk white. I had already made my decision. I would have three doors now. One in the past, and two in the present, and the plan would not change… use all the doors to enhance my abilities.

The town began to wake, and I heard Ogg and Ines come down the hall to the common room, and then heard them go back up when they found the door shut.

Ines came to my door before the sun was fully up.

“Elric,” she said quietly, through the wood. “Ruggah is back.”

“Give me a moment.”

I stood up, put on my coat, put the crystal and the compass in my pockets, and put the pen back at my waist.

Apologies for late uploads, the chapters are longer and I wanted more time to ploy out what is coming next.