Time Holders: The World of Balance

”Gfff, hufff—” Covered in sweat, Aldrus forced his mind to recall the inscription left for him back at the chamber.

”Thou shalt look upon this testament when the hour is ripe.”

What does it mean? How and why was it directed at me? Who wrote that? Think; it said I would receive it when the time is right—does that mean right now? Today? Why? Damn it, it hurts so much!

The more the boy turned those words over, the greater the headache it brought grew. Just like a dangerous miasma in the air, haunting those who dared to approach a forbidden answer.

”Behold thy first truth and awaken, for the crimson tide draweth nigh, and thou must needs be girded for the storm.”

Learn my first truth, one of many? Is that truth that time doesn’t exist? How is it possible when all our powers come from it? And what is the Crimson Tide? An omen? Something terrible is bound to happen? What is it, and how close is it? Is the awakening something similar to ascending in rank? I need it for the storm—for what’s to come? Ugh!!

Aldrus clenched his teeth. Dissecting the message was taking him closer to a highly dangerous state, but he could not give up; if a catastrophe was coming and he required strength to thrive, he had no other choice.

Time isn’t a force because it does not exist. If that’s true, then how can we Holders control it?! It doesn’t make sense at all. What else was there? What else did it say?

”Plunge deep into the memory of thy seasons bygone; ponder heavily upon that which truly transformed thee. Was it Time? Was it the dust of the earth? I must declare unto thee, child, it was not. It was the discerning of thy soul.”

Dive into my memories... Reflect over what really changed me. It wasn’t time? It wasn’t reality? The discerning of the soul... does that mean Perspective?

”Whatsoever thou hast bent and warped, by such vision alone hath it been wrought, for Time is but an illusion, and thy mind is the path through.”

Hahh... Gahh... D-Damn... E-Everything that I’ve impacted, warped, changed? Is it saying my power isn’t to control time, but to bend the illusion of it? My mind... is the way through? Agh!!!!!! Aghhhhh!!! No! I-I’m close; I can feel it! Don’t stop now!

”Squander not thy travail contending with the immutable, but set thy gaze upon the abstract—the dim shadows of deeds past, the veiled tribulations of the hour that now is, and unto mysteries yet unborn.”

D-Don’t waste... my efforts with the immutable... is—is the immutable Time as I thought of it before? If Time really does not exist, then there is no point in focusing on it, is that it? UghhH!!! Huff... F-Focus on the abstract... Perspective? P-Past shadows, the current hour, unborn mysteries...

Past, Present, Future?

...

...

Ah...

AH—

At that moment, the boy understood. The first truth of Time.

It had always been there, before their eyes, encompassing them all—or rather, it had never been there at all.

Children often claim that the hours crawl by on leaden feet, while elders feel them flee with painful swiftness. Some sages argue that the swifter a spirit moves, the slower the world ages around it; others hold that time is a heavy shroud woven into the very fabric of the earth—warping, bending, forever changing...

They were all wrong.

Time does not exist; its shackles cannot bind you, for there are no irons upon your wrists. What Holders of Time rule over is no material force, nor any law of the cosmos; it is but a simple concept, a solitary experience, a shifting point of view. It was the answer he had known all along: Perspective. As simple and complete as he had deemed it once, yet now bearing an entirely different meaning.

Aldrus felt strange, as if a heavy harness of steel had been stripped from his flesh, or as if he had stared straight at a veil his whole life, blind to the truth that lay behind his shoulder. No matter how proficient he had grown or how deeply he thought he understood that upon which he focused, he had been smashing his fists against the wrong wall.

It was this simple shift in thought that drove him to reflect on his past deeds—how he, and every other Holder in his nation, approached the unleashing of their power. Some encouraged their own spirits; others, like himself, preferred ritualistic repetition, but the core idea held the same: they all fought to believe the intended changes, and such changes were but in their minds.

The only difference between their Perspective and that of mundane men was that Holders made it a reality, for they were one with a Fragment.

However, if time truly did not exist, then what were the Fragments? They had lain wrapped in deep mystery long before he questioned it himself, but after learning how much more, it felt as though the world he lived in grew much larger, and with it, his fervent obsession to discover, burning deep within his heart.

Whew...

Aldrus opened his eyes, feeling the heat of the fire against his skin. All things were clearer now; those words were meant to help him—to aid him in reaching the Second-Rank with greater speed.

Although he knew he was not there yet, he felt tremendous power brimming from every pore. He had drawn much closer, maybe even closer than Aiden himself—at least in terms of raw power.

Still, one thing that had not changed was the imbalance of his faculties; he felt every aspect of his power increase massively, but his output remained absurdly weaker than his Perspective. However, that did not bother him at all, for even if that could not be remedied, it still improved substantially; so much so that he might be able to use [Visione] naturally.

Not that he would, though. The method Sornel taught him was impractical for most, but for him, who managed to perfect it, it was even better than doing it normally. Yet, the choice was wondrous; in battle, being able to shift your sight to different times was vital, and he would no longer have to cancel and restart the art every single time.

Above all, he was now certain of what that horrible vision had been, and knew it was a simple warning: he was forbidden to speak the first truth of Time to his companions. Unfortunately, they would have to learn it by themselves.

...

...

Eh?

Wait...

If a Holder cannot learn it from others without suffering the curse, then does that mean... The one who left that message...

Was it me?!