Radhaan's lips parted, but he said nothing, trying his hardest to school his twitching facial muscles.
Time was something that moved in a straight arrow over space, and mass, stopping it was physically impossible without tearing down all space, causing timequakes— a single part of the universe being sent back a million years in the past, and the other forward, in simple words destroying the entire world.
As far as Radhaan's knowledge went for physics, Mass, space, and time were all interconnected, "mass" being living creatures, planets, galaxies, etc, existing, so they could age, cause let's say if there's nothing in this world to age to its eventual doom, there's no time.
Same with space, that's where everything is happening, if there's no space, there's nothing to hold it all.
At the speed of light, Radhaan had theorized, and daydreamed to control time, but he never meddled with this as this could literally mean destroying the fabric of the entire world, messing with higher dimensions he couldn't fully comprehend, and who knew how many dangers were involved in this task…
There are thousands of stories about the horrors beyond human comprehension existing, creatures that could destroy you with a glance, aether so violent that it would instantly make your aether cores corrupted, turning you into any form the 'being' wished you to be, and in this world, there was rarely something just a myth.
'I even wrote about it back in academy days… more than four essays explaining my theory, but this was treated more like a joke than anything… stopping time? Moving in Time? You're ridiculous.' Radhaan chuckled.
'Yet… this man, the man who I could've killed with a single flick of the finger, the man who was my puppet… Can actually do this?' Radhaan's mind spiraled down in a kind of existential crisis.
Radhaan's mind went back for a moment, a time when he was just eighteen, trying the spell that actually allowed him to turn into light—all on his own, transforming that simple spell to make himself the strongest, transforming that simple spell to give him the speed of light.
That night, he tried moving in future, when you're moving at the speed of light, you personally experience time slower than the external world, theoretically, if Radhaan moved at speed of light, and slowed down his perception to the limit, tens of years would pass in the present, while only a few seconds for the user.
And, at midnight, he immediately went and tried this theory, just out of pure love for the magic, and growing his abilities, but… what happened was beyond his human understanding.
He successfully fulfilled all the requirements for the spell, and even started to experience a little bit of time dilation. He was the happiest he had ever been, feeling like he was a God while experiencing a kind of world that no one else could imagine.
Pink, yellow, green colours, mixing together in a kind of curvish tunnel, but, his eyes suddenly opened.
"Don't try this again, or… we will find you."
A voice, extremely distortive, and glitchy, like every word was glitching hundreds of times, a soft voice, most likely of a woman, it was so gentle that it was extremely frightening.
Radhaan fanatically looked around, trying to find anything, and then he felt it, like a heavy spirit, just behind him, and he knew, if he turned around he would never be the same again, so he didn't, he was too scared, his muscles were completely frozen.
"Don't try this again, or… we will find you."
The soft voice repeated, and it kept repeating, over and over again, every night, every day, basically every second of the entire month, the memories of that weird heavy pressure also returning, scaring him senseless.
Radhaan bit his lips, he never messed with time again. His face turned ugly.
Johan grinned seeing Radhaan's shocked face, not understanding the exact reasons for it.
He was currently looking like the angel of death with that fit—Long wings, long slimy suit, but actually fitted properly, marked with incomprehensible letters, and numbers, grinning devilishly.
Surrounded by tens of blood fountains as the bleeding of the rouges' wounds wouldn't seem to stop, the thick, and bitter smell of blood filling the air.
It was because, knowing the unusual regeneration speed of Manabeasts, Johan had used a little bit of God tree's devouring properties on each of his slashes, these things constantly consumed energy out of the place they had infected.
Like a black hole, the slash slowly attracted all aether, and energy gathering up to the wound to heal it, then slowly made it vanish into nothingness, giving each one of the beasts a slow but sure death.
Radhaan instantly vanished from his original spot, making all three—Orihime, Olivia, Sebastian spiral down in panic, but Orihime quickly located him… only for him to vanish from that spot completely.
Johan's grin widened even further, "I am disappointed Radhaan, I feel like I overestimated you too much this time, you're less than 25% speed of light… is it intentional, or… the limit of your clone?"
But just as Johan was speaking—
Radhaan appeared just inches away from Johan's face, and instantly, before Orihime could even react, a sharp jab connected with Johan's face.
Johan was shot like a cannon from the point he was standing at, vanishing from the spot so fast that it was almost invisible to the normal eye.
Tham! Tham! Tham!
Johan's eyes widened as his body had lost all control, crashing into tens and tens of the rocky walls of the dungeon.
"How can you stop time!?" Radhaan's voice rang, filled with suppressed desperation.
Johan, taking a deep breath, spread his wings to the limit, twisting them around, and flapping them with his whole strength, his boots dug into the hard rocky terrain, his feet injecting in the ground, and almost tearing off from his body in the process of stopping.
Developing a spell to stop time by just researching Velmire's notes was simple, God tree was not like a normal human, it didn't comprehend time, and space same as a human, but a higher dimension, Timespace, so with Johan basically becoming him, he could see it clearly.
He could see the different threads of time in time, he just pulled out a single thread that was connected to this area, used aether to program the action of stopping, and boom, he could momentarily pause time.
But it was a waste of aether due to Johan's current understanding, and he just used it to fuck with Radhaan's mental game. A battle was more of a mental fight than physical after all.
Johan finally stopped, stabilising on his feet, his body regenerating back quickly. But, Johan didn't relax for a single second, turning around fanatically as he sensed something, but… he was too late.
A.N.= I had to actually study physics for over 10 hours in the span of two days to write these chapters, it was very hard, I really hope someone liked it ;)
But yeah, maybe some also found it boring, I certainly did not, and I know the real ones didn't either, but if majority didn't like this style, then just say it bruh, I am a man improving everyday on feedback.
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