An old man was fishing in space as he sat on a moving giant boulder as he whistled a tune.

A young man with spiral horns appeared several meters behind him.

The boulder the old man was sitting on stopped moving.

The old man said: “You know, for a young chap, you really have no shame asking an old man to die.”

“Markus. You’ve lived since the creation of this reality and even before then you had no idea who you were other than belonging to the Chronos clan. Are you not tired of living an empty life anymore? Why keep suffering like this? Your clan is being hunted down through time and space and you are powerless against it.” The young man said.

Markus stood up and turned around. His old weary eyes sized up the young man and said: “I told you that if you came back I’d kill you. What? You think I care about what happens to my clan? I sacrificed myself for them and created infinite realities for them to live in. The space elementals will forever exist in time thanks to me. I refuse to believe that a lapdog like you can erase my work completely.”

The young man’s features could be seen clearly now. It was Aragil.

“The primordial gods of the prime reality promised to seal my power and stop its expansion. I have no choice but to follow their orders and erase all realities related to you. For that to happen you must die.” Aragil said.

“I am the space and time sovereign as well as the previous Primordial god of space and time. I am the master of the elemental realities. As long as I am alive, elementals shall live forever. Who do you think allowed the dragons to take refuge here? It was me. Yet you grow so arrogant to the point of trying to erase my bloodline?” Anger flashed through Markus’s eyes. He added: “ You stole my bloodline and still think that you have the right to dare parade yourself in front of me and ask for me to die for you?”

Endless versions of Markus appeared and encircled Aragil.

“Show me how your insights of space and time at the true origin realm can kill me.” All the Markus’ said at the same time. “I am going to teach you some manners first.”

All the Markus’ fused into one instantly.

Aragil was thinking: “I may not survive this... sigh, I can’t even see his future... those primordial gods are too afraid of this crazy guy to fight him openly...but I have no choice...I need that seal.”

“Time, heed my call. Stop.” Markus said and time stopped in all the realities.

“True Limbo.” Markus said as he waved his right hand in front of him. Space turned to nothingness then became stark white. No shade could be seen anywhere.

Aragil’s heart was pounding as he tried to move but could not.

“Your insights in time are not strong enough to be able to move in front of me.” Markus said as he slowly walked towards Aragil and touched his forehead with his thumb. He said: “ I know you will be able to recreate your true origin body once my hold on time is over. I will let you experience physical pain first.”

“Space. Heed my call. Compress.” Markus said almost like he was praying.

“RAAAAGH..” Aragil tried to scream but soon his mouth was no more as his body slowly compressed into a fist sized ball of gore. The ball gore soon became too small for the eye to see but the compression continued forever.

“How do you feel now? Tell me?...” Markus said before he evaded an attack that had come out of nowhere.

A gigantic gray dragon soul had appeared.

“The soul...huh? Your insights in both space and time are insufficient so you are planning on killing me with that defective soul of yours...haha...do you not understand that they sent you on a suicide attack?” Said a laughing Markus.

“I need that seal.” said Aragil as he opened his third eye and attacked with a tail whip.

“For some reason, I cannot evade this attack. The speed is just enough so I can try and evade but the tail’s trajectory doesn’t allow me to maneuver my body. I guess I will have to play with him for a while.” Thought Markus.

Aragil was using his all seeing power to know where to land blows.

It appeared to be an even fight.

They exchanged blows for a while until Aragil started showing some fatigue. He was fighting in soul form after all.

“You do know that I have so many ways to kill you...just stop and go back home to your primordial gods and tell them that I will be coming for them soon.” Markus said as a formless aura enveloped his fist and landed a last punch to Aragil’s dragon soul.

Aragil did not even move after receiving the blow. He just remained there, unmoving, seemingly in a daze.

The white space disappeared to make place for the earlier setting.

Markus released all his other selves he had fused with and they disappeared to their respective realities. He went back to the boulder and started fishing as if nothing had happened. He said: “Do not come back.”

Behind him, Aragil was remaking his true origin body. He was panting and looked pale.

“Don’t worry. I will come prepared.” Aragil said before he disappeared.

“Kids these days. They don’t know when they are lucky to be alive.” Markus mumbled as he shook his head.

***

Devinn had made at least a thousand jumps in the past.

He was a power source on his own. A power source that knew no restraint.

His arcane energy had grown even more violent than he remembered and his soul strived to maintain a balance.

His third eye acted as a relay between the soul and the arcane energy, allowing him to keep better control on it. If he wanted an order to be carried out, he shut down the third eye and thought of his wish and it happened. The problem was concentrating on not leaving behind any after thought.

He had to carefully think before he used the arcane energy. Of course, anything could be reconstructed if destroyed. He just did not like to use it too much and hated making mistakes.

After many experiments, he decided to go back to the rudimentary way spell models rather than thoughts.

He planned on creating a myriad of spell models for his immediate needs and activate them through speech. There was no way he could make a mistake with a few simple words.

He got the idea from the summoning objects he had created back in the previous faith world. This time he was the object and the power source. The spell could be called with his mouth, the third eye would take note of it and then transfer it to the arcane energy. He only needed the time to say the words and the requested spell appeared instantly.

His arcane energy was not the only one that saw an increase in both quality and quantity. The space-time element inside the netherwyrm sword also did the same thing.

The new netherwyrm bloodline had come from the arcane bloodline as well.

It had too much in common with the arcane energy in the aspect of never reaching a threshold.

Provided you had a stronger soul, you could see more from the sword.

The Human Alwyn who was connected to the sword with the split soul did not have to do anything.

Everything the soul learned and acquired was transferred to him as well.

As Devinn had to really use the time, Alwyn only needed to synchronize with the sword once Devinn reached the present before he jumped back into the past.

In short, Alwyn was training his soul like Devinn did without having to do anything at all.

Both had reached great heights in their training.

Alwyn was now in possession of a true origin body with the insights of an origin soul.

It was his way of cheating his way out of his powerlessness.

Most true origins gained the right possess that body through bitter training.

Alwyn just had a stronger soul that allowed him to do more.

As for reaching the sovereign level like Markus and the primordial gods, it was to truly comprehend the elements at the deepest possible level.