Thief of Time

"Is that what you wanted me to look at?" Dia whispered, looking at the insane sight before her. The Red Moon's corpse was but one of several other such remnants, now that Dia could examine the battlefield properly. Rimestar was devoid of life too, completely absent of any activity, and the faint powers of the various gods and divinities were dying away.

Now that the Frozen Emperor had recited his last rites for the world, Dia could see everything in perfect clarity. The world itself was meeting its end, now that all the gods and divinities had been slain. The five grand skies were actually powerless to stop the Frozen Emperor, and as Dia floated — not on her own power — in the world that was losing all colour and life, she realised something.

She wasn't here just to gain power.

She was here to understand the Omen's true might, which now lay bare before her.

The Last Godsfall had ended. The divinities and gods had been slain. The Frozen Emperor had, in the end, emerged victorious without any rhyme or reason, and the power that he was exuding was now freezing the world over. Just ten years ago, the divinities and gods were moving with the long-term as an outlook, secure in the assumption that the Frozen Emperor was at best a peer and equal.

This mistake was their last, their shattered corpses and fading remnants a testament to their folly.

Dia, by now, could tell that the greatest threat to the world was the Omen. The Omen could not be allowed to gather strength; within two hundred years of his awakening, the gods and divinities had been massacred.

The end of the world was approaching.

"And all I can do is watch," Dia muttered. By now, it was evident that the five grand skies could not interfere, even if the world was ending. They were utterly powerless in this regard, but…was this really accurate? Was this really something the Omen could do? Dia had never heard of the Omen doing something like this before, and it wasn't impossible that all this was just some fake mirage that the five grand skies cooked up.

Keeping that option open, Dia returned her attention to the Frozen Emperor.

His overwhelming presence was now on top of the Frozen Coffin, ballooning with every passing moment. Was it his existence itself that was being elevated? Or was he gathering power? Dia didn't know, but her instincts informed her that the Frozen Emperor had indeed grown stronger from slaughtering all other opponents that could have stood against him, and he was indeed now gathering power under a newfound strength.

At any rate, the radiance emanating from the Frozen Coffin beneath him was freezing everything that came into contact with it. It wasn't just mere ice either; Dia could tell that it was something far more elementary than ice; it was as if anything that was touched by the expanding blue sphere would cease to move entirely.

Was that how the Frozen Emperor intended to destroy this world, or was it the five grand skies…?

Dia shook her head, but before she could sharpen her focus, something seemed to shake the Frozen Emperor. The ice that had been slowly covering the entire world stopped moving, and a horrifying stillness fell.

It was as if someone had commanded time itself to stop.

You…I see.

That divine, impossible instant lasted for what seemed like an instant, before the growing sphere of divine ice abruptly receded and vanished. A moment later, motion returned to the world, a moment that was promptly shattered by a pillar of light that fell from the bottom of the Frozen Coffin.

White light dug into the graveyard that was Rimestar City, churning up soil and other materials as mind-bogging levels of divine power and mana stabbed deep into the world. The entire continent — at some point in time, Grandis and the other continents had merged together — was shuddering visibly, shaken by the Frozen Emperor's sudden move.

What was he doing?

A deafening crack made Dia grimace as a long ravine appeared on the ground far below her, a crack that seemed to invite disaster onto the world. Within seconds, more and more huge ravines appeared as the ground buckled and heaved from the sheer amount of energy that the Frozen Emperor was channelling into the earth.

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Rimestar, the last bastion of a free humanity, had long vanished under the insane output of energy from the Frozen Emperor. The tall city walls, the various houses…buildings, trees and other natural features had either begun to collapse or had fallen apart entirely.

The earth groaned again, and red-hot liquid surged to the skies as a giant stream. The sudden fountain of red-hot stone or something was not alone; within moments, even more fountains of crimson liquid, liquid so hot that everything it touched burst into flames, began to appear everywhere she saw. Steam surged up to the skies, and Dia winced – only to see the boiling vapour pass through her seamlessly.

Ice and snow fled from the world, and in its place was a horrifying inferno.

What happened to the icy theme of the Frozen Emperor?

The Frozen Emperor, clearly, wasn't too fussed about that question, judging by how the person in question was still pouring power into the earth itself. Within minutes, any hint of ice and snow had been completely submerged by a sea of red liquid, and Dia found herself gazing down on the entire red world with shock. The temperature had shot up drastically, and Dia could no longer sense anything else that was still alive in this world.

The power emanating from the Frozen Coffin, the power that had destroyed everything around Dia, thinned and vanished, and Dia's eyes were immediately drawn to the only black spot in a world of molten soil and sand. The power that the Frozen Coffin had been sending out had dug out a solid passage, and as she examined it in silence, the Frozen Emperor dived inside, riding on the Frozen Coffin the whole time.

Dia pondered for exactly one second, and then followed after the Frozen Emperor.

By now, she was aware of the fact that she existed in a different time and space from the Frozen Emperor. Dia was, essentially, in a memory that she couldn't interact with at all, which could only mean that this might have been a recollection of the five grand skies.

Most importantly, though, was the fact that the Frozen Emperor couldn't just kill her in this vision…but even this might, divided across time, space and reality, could still affect her somehow.

This was not an opponent she could defeat.

"It'll be nice to see what he looks like," Dia muttered, before chasing after the descending Frozen Emperor.

The walls of this improvised passage had been smoothened to a point. Dia had half-expected the walls of this passage to be glowing red-hot, like the molten soil that had filled the surface of the world, but she could tell that they were surprisingly cool. There was probably something rather illogical here going on, but Dia was past that at this point.

She continued to descend, chasing after the shimmering afterimages of the Frozen Emperor.

How long did she fly for? Dia wasn't too sure, but she was certain that she had descended to a depth that no one else had witnessed, and before she knew it, she had appeared in a giant, expansive cavern.

"What is this place?" Dia muttered, looking around her. She couldn't conduct any exact measurements, but the spherical space that she was in right now looked so perfect and immaculate that it felt completely artificial. However, this space was clearly ancient, not something that the Frozen Emperor had created on a whim, so it was clearly used to—

Her thoughts died away as she caught sight of what the Frozen Emperor was holding.

"This…is the Cosmic Egg, right?" Dia muttered, looking at the item that she had seen for a brief moment…and whose appearance was made known to the world after the Omen grabbed it and somehow vanished.

Dia's eyes widened further as the Frozen Emperor gestured once with his right hand, bringing out a second Cosmic Egg. The difference in shine and age was noticeable, now that there were two of them — the one that the Frozen Emperor just brought out was pristine and smooth, while the first Cosmic Egg looked like someone had smacked it around with a mace or something.

More importantly, however, Dia wanted to know what the Frozen Emperor intended to do with the Cosmic Eggs. It couldn't be that he wanted to make some cosmic omelette or something with them, right?

The two eggs began to glow, thus dispelling any notions about weird omelettes, and Dia watched in silence as the two entities merged into a single shining spark.

At the same time, the ice that made up the Frozen Coffin turned into a vast white cloud that subsumed both the Frozen Emperor and the glowing little spark. Under the latter's illumination, Dia could only see two figures as they stood there, their actual features concealed by the icy cloud.

"I know not who is out there, listening or watching." A sonorous voice filled the cavern. "But I know there is someone."

Dia froze.

"I am the Frozen Emperor, one who will willingly consign the world into damnation for the faintest hope." The Frozen Emperor's voice paused. "I know not what faint hope you came here for. But just as I received it myself not too long ago, I now pass it over to you. Use it well."

He paused.

"We will not see each other again. But surely…whoever you are, you, too, are part of my hope."

The icy cloud vanished with most of the light, and Dia found herself reaching out to whatever that was left.

She hadn't understood anything at all, but in this final moment, Dia could, at least, know that her entire purpose here was for this little ember, burning away feebly in her hand.

Without any hesitation, she embraced the faint light.