Nihility [ Isekai • Dragon Evolution ]

I heard the System's voice echoing in my mind, but I didn't have the time to think about what it meant, because in the next moment I felt the skill triggering itself and pulling every bit of spatial energy it could from around me into myself, and considering the white space I was in was nothing but space and the occasional corrupted temporal energy, the skill pulled on the only think keeping the space stable.

Cracks began to form all around the white space as my skill kept absorbing more and more of it. It was like a black hole of spatial energy, and I couldn't deactivate it. The skill felt stuck, as if I shouldn't have gained it yet, but my title forced me to have it nonetheless.

Jack's echo that was hit by my breath attack was mangled on the floor. His body looked like it was made out of clay that someone twisted in several directions at the same time. The end result was a mass of fleas that barely resembled a human. If he was, somehow, still alive in that state, the moment a fracture opened up and dragged him into the nothingness on the other side put him out of his misery.

"What have you done? My entire domain is falling apart like this!" I heard the butterfly shouting in my direction.

I tried to move, but I couldn't. The pressure of that much spatial energy being absorbed by me, driven by my skill, was locking me in place. I could only grit my teeth as I endured the pressure that threatened to crush me like a bug on a windshield.

The cracks kept spreading more and more, and when I thought the entire place would break like glass, I felt the energy that my body was forcefully absorbing rebound from inside me and expand as a wave, stopping the cracks from reaching me.

I felt full. Like I had just eaten a full course meal and then asked for repeats. The next thing I felt was the area around me, and not just how one feels the area with their eyes, ears and even touch, no, I was feeling the space around me and how fragile it was. I had already sensed space before, but not on this scale. I could feel how it moved downward to create the force of gravity. It was a completely new sense that was different from my other ones. It was close but still different from my temporal senses.

I blinked, and the next thing I knew was that I was on the floor with green blood gushing out of my mouth. It sizzled out and created a small bubble of the same type of field I had created with the temporal singularity, but this one was several times weaker. Now that the pressure had eased back to what it was before, I could feel the damage it caused inside me. If it weren't for [Pain Resistance], I would be screaming and unable to do anything else.

Yeah. It was bad, very bad. I checked my HP, and it was down to 2k from my 12k, and it was dropping by the second. If I didn't do something about it, I doubted I would leave this place alive.

I dragged myself back to the more stable zone, ignoring the dungeon's constant complaint about me destroying its domain.

"Do-" I coughed more blood. "Do you- do you have anything to heal me?" I asked.

"I don't think so. Let me check." The butterfly, what I think is an avatar for the dungeon, said before going still for a few moments while I kept staring at my slowly decreasing HP. The moment it decreased to less than 10%, I felt a sense of impending doom settle over my neck like the scythe of Death.

As I was about to say something, the dungeon came back to it.

"I think I might have something that will help you." It said as a glass vial containing a red liquid appeared next to me. "As time isn't really very effective here, I managed to grab this pattern from my future self."

I grabbed the vial with shaking hands and poured the liquid down my throat, which was easy as all I had to do was open my mouth and pour the liquid inside and it would go directly down my throat. Perks of being a dragon I guess.

I felt the magicules from the liquid starting to spread through my body, and the pain lessened. Checking my HP, I saw it wasn't dropping anymore, but it also wasn't increasing. It's the second time a healing item doesn't actually completely heal me. The first time was back in the loops, before [Spell Planner] evolved into [Magical Programming Language]. It's something to look into, but now wasn't the time.

"I don't suppose you have something that will heal me completely?" I asked. Better safe than sorry.

"No. This potion is the only thing I managed to grab from myself. More and I risk tearing the remaining space we have," the butterfly said.

I looked around, seeing that the white void we were in was now completely covered in rifts that were expanding fast enough for me to perceive them with my naked eyes.

"That's not good," I commented.

"It is not," the dungeon said. "We have a few more minutes before my domain completely breaks down. I don't know if this little space will remain."

"What do we do? I don't see any more spiders." I said as I tried to look over the rifts, but the only thing besides them was the white void.

"They won't appear. It's too unstable for any kind of manifestation to appear. We are out of luck." It said. "So I will use my remaining time to blame you for this."

I rolled my eyes at that last comment.

I took a step outside of the zone. I needed to do something, but I just didn't know what to do. The only place time existed was inside the zone I had created, and outside of it, space was breaking apart because it was too unstable because of the rifts leading to the nothingness.

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I reached out with [Spatial Manipulation] towards one of the rifts and felt the edges of it, how it was breaking space away and into the nothingness. I tried to hold it and was surprised as how it stopped the decay where I was actively holding.

An idea came to my mind. I tried to pull on the space near the border of the rift, trying to put them together and stitch them with my skill. To my surprise, it actually worked, but the scale was too small to do anything meaningful. If I had done it before things got like this, I would have resolved it, but now it's like trying to stop a flood with a mop. It was just unfeasable. I was only one, after all…

Wait. What if I wasn't just one?

I looked at the zone the temporal singularity created. It was the eye of the storm, a place where spacetime was normal. Time was normal inside there.

I went back inside the zone and tried to feel the temporal energy around me. I felt as it pulsed outwards from the temporal singularity, washing over the space and seeping in. The energy furthest of the center was weaker than near it. I got close to the massive sphere of temporal energy in the middle of the zone. It was so dense and had so much temporal energy inside of it that it threatened to erase me from the timeline completely.

"What are you doing?" The dungeon asked.

"Something stupid," I answered back. Which was true. I had no way to know if this would work, nor how I would do it. I knew if I didn't do anything, then we were both goners. This was the only thing I could think of that had a chance of working. "I need you put as many cubes of magicules as you can, I might need them."

The dungeon said nothing, but the next moment, the ground was covered with tiny cubes of magicule. They were smaller than the first one, but there were just a lot of them. Dividing my mind, I started to break them down and absorb the magicules.

The last time I did something similar, my body stayed where it was and only a ghost image appeared, but now I needed myself.

I took a deep breath before diving completely into [Time Manipulation]. Time around me slowed down as I took control of all the energy that emanated from the temporal singularity that I could, with the exception being the outside of the zone, as time didn't exist there.

The skill leveling up came at a good time, as I managed to control more of the temporal energy being released. I twisted it, and time began to rewind, but that wasn't what I wanted. I focused more and more, trying hard to make it work. I was seeing the ghost image of my past self. My nature as an Ouroboros Dragon made me exist partially outside of time, that was why this was harder for me to do than if would be if I were still a white dragon–

An Idea came to me, and while I kept a tight leash on the temporal energy, I triggered [Genetic Dysphoria]. I felt some of my control slip as my species changed from Ouroboros Dragon back into a White Dragon, but that was fine. I then walked slowly around the sphere until I was back where I started, taking about a minute do it it, which was enough.

I reverted back into my true form and began rewinding. My past self was still a ghost image, but I could see how it was more 'real' than my true form, and that was what I needed. I locked into it and pulled the threads made out of temporal energy. My MP was rapidly being drained, but I managed to keep up with the usage by draining the several cubes that were on the ground.

I felt some resistance from time itself, but I kept pulling. I could sense how reality was beginning to buckle, but I used [Spatial Manipulation] to reinforce it. I was at the same time pulling and pushing a small part of reality, and it wasn't happy. If it weren't for the several parallel processing I was using to keep up with what I was doing, I was sure everything would blow up on my face and make the situation worse.

[Living Paradox] began to resonate deep within me and through my skills. Suddenly, the resistance I felt disappeared, and a temporal clone of me from a few seconds ago appeared. When he noticed me, he understood. Transforming into an Ouroboros Dragon, he stepped out and started to hold a small part of the white void and closing all the rifts he could.

I wasn't finished, though. Time rewound once more, a few seconds before, and another pull came another temporal clone, who also transformed and began holding space after seeing me.

I kept doing it until I ran out of time I spent walking around the sphere. But it didn't mean that it was over. I forwarded time and then started to rewind again. I kept pulling more and more temporal clones whenever I could

Another level up, and it became easier to do what I was doing. With each relative second that passed, I pulled another me from the past, which, in turn, went and started to close the rifts.

"Souls are part timeless," The voice of the God of Time came to my mind. He had said it in one of my various visits to that weird room, and at the time, I hadn't really understood what it meant, but I was starting to understand it.

With each temporal clone I pulled, I felt my soul resonate with my other variants. I didn't know what would happen if [Living Paradox] wasn't making this possible, but I doubted it would be something fun. I still didn't really understand what titles were, but I was thankful for them, even if one of my titles was a bunch of question marks.

Another thing I noticed was that the magicule cubes weren't depleting at all. Apparently, whenever I rewound time, they came back as if they weren't used by me yet, which I was using for my benedict as I doubted the dungeon would have this much magicules stored. I had a parallel process keeping tabs on how much magicule I was using, and I had already used the equivalent of a billion MP in magicules. The strain was taking its toll, though. I could feel my mental energy slowly being consumed by the sheer amount of work I was doing.

I had, currently, 25 individual focuses using the parallel process sub-skill [Mathematical Cortex] allowed me. The drain was substantial, and if it weren't for the almost infinite amount of magicules I was able to use, I would have run dry a long time ago.

I pulled clone after clone until my mental energy was almost depleted completely. I planned to go until I passed out, but I could feel how strained reality was. If I pulled any more clones I risked everything blowing up in my face. I had lost count of how many clones I pulled, I didn't keep count with my skill as I was occupied with other things.

Keeping a tight leash over the temporal energy, I looked outside, seeing dozens upon dozens of myselves closing the rifts and sewing them shut with [Spatial Manipulation]. I wanted to sigh in relief and relax, but we still were in danger. I needed to keep my clones in this temporal zone. I couldn't relax my control over time else everything I had one comes undone.