Nihility [ Isekai • Dragon Evolution ]

[Amity's POV]

Floating high in the sky above the Darnas Forest, Amity keeps mumbling to herself about the Card of Destiny she has in her hands, given to her by a card reader she is friends with. She keeps staring at the card and the number written on it.

"But why 4? This is the coordinates but what is the number four? Does it have any importance? I still don't understand…" She then slaps her hand in her face, doing a facepalm.

"I just remembered, I felt that temporal energy near that baby dragon. I should have asked him about it, but I forgot! Well, to be fair, I asked him about the 4 but he didn't know…No, did he know and just didn't answer? No, it's not possible, he looked confused when looking at the card so he couldn't know. Or was he pretending to not know? But then, how much sentience does he have? I'm pretty sure there are no other dragons around here, first because it isn't nesting season and second I didn't receive any news about another dragon living here. I mean, a dragon could try to sneak in, but then that would be a problem for Athorisnamor to deal with. What was I saying again?" Amity frowned her eyebrows deep in thought before snapping her fingers.

"Oh, right! That baby dragon. I need to ask him about that temporal energy" She said before flying back to the encampment she had just left.

As she approached the encampment, the various guards and personnel in it began to flee to the forest, most to the anger of Henry as he shouted that he would fire all of them if they didn't come back and defended him at the cost of their lives, to which the soldiers and personnel responded by ignoring him completely, leaving him agape.

Amity landed where she had last seen the dragon, but even after looking around she couldn't see him anywhere near the camp.

"Maybe he left? I mean, I would leave if I were him. I mean, if he is at least cognitive enough to understand what this place is…why did I need him again? Oh I'm stupid. I can just use time magic to see what happened here. But, didn't she say to not use time magic else I would regret it?... Nah, I'm sure it will be fine" With a movement of her hand, a dome made of magical inscriptions appeared around Amity as she then changed various aspects of the dome before pouring her magicules into it, making it glow with green energy.

[Marcos's POV]

I ran from that encampment for a few minutes before I was too exhausted to continue. I had already used most of my magicules when I used my breath attack, and my stomach was growling for food like crazy, I couldn't keep my rhythm any longer if I didn't at least eat anything. I looked back at where the camp was, slightly regretting I didn't try to search the place for supplies that I needed but what was done was done and I needed to find food in the forest.

That feeling I was having in the cage, the one that my time was running out, had now reached a crescendo and I couldn't help but start looking all around me. It was like the world itself was holding its breath, like death itself was right behind me with its scythe in my throat, ready to slice my head right off. But no matter where I looked, I couldn't see anything around me, just forest and small insects. That's when I felt something passing through me, like a wave in an ocean, and the feeling exploded in intensity and I fell to the ground, face locked in a silent scream, not of physical pain but it was as if I was inside a pressure chamber and it had reached the max pressure it could hold. Suddenly tremors shook the ground and a deafening explosion made me lose my hearing and then I saw a wall of white rapidly approaching, giving me no time to do anything but stay on the ground as it rushed over me.

I slowly opened my eyes as a strong headache hit my head like a hammer and closed them again. It took a while for the pain to go away before I managed to open my eyes again.

The first thing I noticed was that I was on a metallic floor in a strange room. Looking around I saw various monitors with a bunch of stuff written on them, constantly changing, rows of computer server-like cabinets filled every centimeter of the walls and in front of one of the walls there was a massive monitor with a creature in front of it looking at the monitor that was full of strange text and graphics that I couldn't understand, and it seemed as if it hadn't noticed me yet..

Looking at the creature, it resembled a lion that had black fur from head to tail and a massive glowing green mane that seemed to flow with energy. The mere presence of it felt like I was looking directly into the universe… It's a sensation I couldn't quite explain.

"You'll need more than that if you want to stop the collapse" The creature said, its voice reverberating through the air as if its very being exhaled pure power, but at the same time it felt tame, as if the creature itself was holding its own power back. "And you", the creature said, turning directly to me.

So much for not being noticed.

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"Hello again" It said, and made me pause. Again? What does that mean? I thought, as I clearly hadn't met him before… no, I think I did? I clearly remember meeting him before, some form of déjà vu?

"And it will be right about… now" It said, but before I could say anything back another headache crashed into my skull and made me scream in agony. At the same time, memories came crashing down into my mind.

The worst came to pass after a few minutes, leaving me on the floor panting, with more memories that couldn't be possible without time loops.

"My head…Why is this time worse?" Each word that came out of my mind felt like hot needles shooting into my brain.

"Souls are part timeless, and when two of the same soul exist in the same time period a resonance can occur. A body, being the receptacle of the soul, can cause a similar resonance if two of the same being are in the same time period, even if one of them does not have a soul. I wonder what would happen if three different versions of the same body with one of them being soulless happen to be in the same time period, it would be interesting for sure" The black lion said.

"What?" I asked, not understanding what he had said.

"Oh, it's nothing that you should worry about, young dragon" He answered me. "Besides, won't you try to think of a plan this time?"

He was right, but my head was hurting too much to think properly.

"If I fail the next time to stop the explosion, will I be back here again?" I ask.

"...I don't think I should be telling this, but I literally make the rules" The lion said after a small pause. "You're going to keep coming back here as long as it is necessary"

"Okay. I'll just think about something" I said as I felt the weightlessness that came before I was sent back in time, and as always I found myself in the forest at night, back in the wolf body.

"This will probably result in nothing, and I honestly hope it will because I would feel bad if I ended up successfully stopping the explosion with what I'm about to do" I said as I looked at my MP and pulled [Spell Planner]

"Fireball is overused, let's try a fire bullet" I said as I constructed a spell that would create a bullet made of fire and begin casting it aiming at the leaves in the trees.

I was trying to start a forest fire, because even if I don't get close enough to that cave it still ends up exploding, probably because of the cave being overflowing with temporal energy, maybe if I disturb the energy flow in the area it would stall the explosion enough.

I fired dozens of fire bullets at random directions, and even saw movement in the corner of my eye, but paid it no mind. The leaves in the trees I hit were starting to burn and I saw that it wouldn't spread enough. I then crafted another spell, this time with the wind attribute, it wasn't anything fancy, just something to make the oxygen move towards the fire.

Unfortunately I wouldn't be able to see the result, because the moment I casted it, my MP hit 0 and I felt something pulling my entire existence somewhere and I lost consciousness.

[Past Marcos' POV]

I kept running and running. I don't know how long I've spent running, but it was enough for me to be exhausted and I should be far away enough to be able to rest without anyone finding me. Or so I thought. The moment I thought about starting to decelerate I saw a wolf, not different from the one I killed moments ago, burning up with green flames shooting fire towards the trees and they were starting to burn up as well, but with normal fire instead of green. I noped out of there in an instant and backtracked a few dozen meters before then moving tangentially away from my previous path. I got probably fifty meters away from there before suddenly feeling like my head was about to explode and I fell to the ground screaming in agony. Memories crashing down onto me like a tidal wave, leaving me panting on the ground for various minutes.

"W-wow…This is w-weird" I said after regaining enough strength to stop screaming. I had somehow merged my future and past versions outside of that strange room where the God of time is.

My memories when this merge happens usually have a certain distance, and overlaps, but now the same memories are in two different places in my perspective and it's a little headache inducing to think about it, but this doesn't really matter, what does matter is the fact that I had merged with myself after I exhausted my MP instead of letting both my MP and HP end at the same time. Does this have to do with the resonance bit the God of Time said?

[ Downloading ]

Oh yeah, it was still downloading…wait, it shouldn't be downloading anything, I asked about the language in the previous loop. Does this mean that wherever my consciousness goes, my skills go with it? Though I guess it makes sense after all.

Shaking my head to let go of those useless thoughts, I look around to find myself. Afterall I remember being in two different places at the same time before the merge, so I had to double check. Seeing only the forest and hearing the small insects and the not so distant creaking of burning wood I knew I needed to get out of this place. But before that, I had to use the night time to my advantage.

My SP was too low for my taste and I can't risk it dropping to zero, I don't really know if I would die or go back to that room, probably the later but better safe than sorry. I needed to fix this and I needed to do it now.

"Wish I had something to track things, but I guess this will have to do" I said as I brought [Appraisal] on with a mental click and started appraising everything in my sight, trying to find some kind of animal I could eat. I still wasn't used to it, but I knew I had no other options. I couldn't risk going to the encampment and getting trapped again… or could I? If this loop doesn't end properly and I get yet again to that room, then in the next loop, I will know what I will need to do