King Gulben rose from his seat with now a clear purpose in his eyes, his cloak brushing the floor as he called toward the nearest attendant standing outside the door.
The two attendants entered the throne room with a solemn face.
"Fetch the Royal Alchemists," he ordered, his voice ringing sharply through the chamber. "Tell them to brew high-grade potions of restoration, fortification, mana-focus, and resistance. The strongest they can produce. And tell them to work with haste. I want the first batch ready as quickly as possible."
The attendant bowed deeply. "At once, Your Majesty," he said before sprinting out of the room.
The king didn’t pause. He gestured to another attendant waiting.
"Summon the advisors," King Gulben commanded. "All of them. I require an imdiate council eting. There are matters too urgent to delay."
The attendant bowed and hurried away, boots echoing across the stone floor.
Erend and the others remained where they stood, watching the king’s sudden flurry of orders.
The throne room, monts ago filled with tension and dread, now pulsed with movent and heavy purpose.
Erend stepped forward.
"King Gulben," he said, "you should also know that ti flows differently in that dinsion."
The king paused in the middle of his stride, glancing back. "How differently?"
"One hour inside equals one day out here," Erend explained.
The room froze.
Aurdis gasped softly. Aerchon blinked hard, as if he hadn’t heard correctly. Even the calm-faced Aesa visibly stiffened. But Eccar already knew about it so he just smiled calmly looking at their reactions.
Saeldir stared at Erend, stunned. "That much?" he breathed.
"Yes," Erend confird. "We can train for weeks and return here with only a few hours passed in this world. We won’t lose precious ti."
A wave of relief swept across the group, the tension in their shoulders easing all at once.
Even King Gulben allowed a slow sigh, so of the weight lifting from his stern expression.
"That..." the king murmured, "is more advantageous than I expected."
He straightened, resolve hardening across his features.
"Good. Then we will use every mont to its fullest. Prepare yourselves."
With that, the chamber once again stirred with movent.
—
Sowhere far from any world that mortals could understand, in a place where distance and direction held no aning, Zerathul stood rigid at the center of a pulsating chamber made of living flesh.
The walls throbbed, black and red tissue twisting with each other, veins glowing as they pulsed with corrupted power.
Thick mist seeped from the organic floor, carrying a stench of blood, decay, and sothing ancient.
Zerathul’s octopus-like head twitched as his tendrils dug into the air above him, latched onto sothing violently resisting.
His pale red limbs writhed with effort, pulling with a grotesque rhythm. His obsidian-black eyes blazed, reflecting streaks of warped golden light.
The remnants of Krono the Ti Dragon.
The space above Zerathul split open into a crack of distortion. Ti bent and trembled, spiraling into impossible shapes. Within that rift, Krono’s enormous Dragon form flickered in and out of existence.
Krono roared in defiance, his voice bending space like shattering glass.
Golden sparks burst from the clash, scattering across the fleshy chamber like shooting stars. Those sparks carried a fragnt of ti power and warping reality wherever it landed. Walls lted, healed, then lted again as if caught between monts.
Zerathul let out a deep, gurgling scream and howl that shook the entire dinsion.
The absorption carved agony through his body. Every second felt like his essence was being torn apart and rebuilt. His tentacles spasd violently as Krono’s power surged through them.
"RRRRAAAAGHHHH—!" His voice cracked into a dozen overlapping tones, as if each one was from a different version of him across tilines.
Krono’s power surged again. An explosion of temporal power forced Zerathul to his knees. Ti itself buckled around them, collapsing and restarting in unstable loops.
Krono fought and he refused to yield. Even when no hope exists for him.
Zerathul slamd his tentacles into the rift, forcing more of Krono’s essence into himself. The Dragon’s form flickered, flickered, then strained.
"You... will... be MINE!" Zerathul roared with a voice that warped past sound.
Krono’s answer ca as a blast of golden distortion that nearly tore Zerathul apart.
And in that unreachable forbidden place, their struggle continued. It was an agonizing reality-breaking war of wills.
Krono knew that he had to hold on as long as he could to give ti for Erend and the rest to prepare themselves.
—
Ti kept passing. Preparations continued without pause, and before anyone truly realized it, a full week had gone by.
The palace now moved with constant determination. Every corridor echoed with footsteps, orders, and hurried tasks. Potions brewed day and night. Warriors trained until their bodies nearly collapsed. Mages ditated to sharpen their focus. The Royal Alchemists barely slept.
During those days, Erend beca a constant movent between worlds.
He spent hours looking at Arty, helping her master every ounce of strength her body could do right now. He returned to the human world next, watching Adrien, Billy, and Jessica push forward with the Magic Assimilation experint.
He was checking every detail making sure that nothing went wrong. Then he went to Adrius and Lysander.
And always, at the end of these rounds, he returned to the Elf Palace again to spend ti with Aurdis.
It felt like he was everywhere at once, yet never long enough anywhere.
Still, everything seed to be going well.
Even Thar’Zul-Vekar, who monitored the deeper layers of magical flow of this world, reported no disturbances from Zerathul.
Erend found that strange.
But Thar’Zul-Vekar answer remained the sa each day.
There is no movent. No influence. Nothing from him at all.
That was odd and unsettling. But Erend chose to accept it because it ant they could prepare without interference. And they desperately needed that ti.
Finally, the awaited day arrived.
The day to depart.
The palace courtyard beca the gathering point, filled with the faint morning mist.
All the allies that Erend chose to go with him were here.
Erend walked to the front of the group.
Everyone understood.
Their journey into the training dinsion would begin now.
—
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