WHOOSH!
The world around Rui shifted in the blink of an eye.
One mont, he was in the llow.
The very next?
He found himself standing before the shores of a beach.
The softest of smiles cracked at the edge of his mouth as he spotted Kane standing at so distance before him.
Yet, Kane faced soone else.
He had bronze skin, donning an attire that resembled that of a fusion of between that of an adventurer and dical attire. An umpteen number of instrunts, artifacts, and tools adorned it from top to bottom, no doubt able to be of aid in nearly every circumstance conceivable.
The Divine Doctor himself.
Not in a mory, not in a prophecy, but in the flesh.
His eyes devoid of any compassion, shifted away from Kane, turning to Rui slowly. Curiosity flickered within their hollow depths as he beheld Rui.
"Interesting."
Kane frowned, turning to follow his gaze.
"Rui!" His eyes lit up with joy. "You're finally here!"
An invisible smile cracked at the edge of Rui's mouth. "You're alive."
"Bring it in, man." He lunged at Rui, pulling him in a bear hug. "After the first few days, I thought we'd never et."
Chills crawled across Rui's skin at those words. "…Days?"
"Yeah, it's been like three days. Actually, what took you so long?"
The atmosphere grew taut.
The void within Rui's stirred as he stared at Kane gravely. "Kane…"
His dark eyes sharpened to slits. "I entered less than an hour after you did."
Kane did a double-take, cocking his head back. "What?! There's no way!"
Realization had already dawned on him.
"Doctor Kar," Rui addressed the Divine Doctor, his dark, sharp eyes slowly turning to him, eting the man's clinical gaze. "Could you tell how long you've been here? I wish to confirm or deny a hypothesis."
The Divine Doctor's smile remained frozen.
Yet a glint of interest flickered in his eyes.
"About two hundred and sixteen days."
"Figured…" Rui muttered severely.
"Figured what?" Kane asked, narrowing his eyes. "Spit it out!"
"This place…" Rui glanced at the world around them. "…Ti moves one hundred and forty-four tis faster here than it does in the real world."
Kane's eyes widened with shock. "What?! Are you sure?!"
"Certain. The ratio matches both your stated tispans in this world compared to how long you've been absent in the outside world."
"And just how would you know how long I've been absent in the outside world?" The Divine Doctor's tone cut through, seeking to know.
The darkness within Rui's eyes stirred.
They stirred, eting the clinical curiosity that lay within the Divine Doctor's.
"I verified it in the mory of a deer that spotted your abrupt disappearance when I searched for you in them," Rui truthfully remarked.
Yet, the Divine Doctor's detached intrigue only rose. "And just why would you be searching for in the mories in the fauna of the llow?"
"Because we ca to the llow to find you, of course," Rui replied. "And just why did you co to the llow to find ?" Rui's chilling gaze bore into the man.
"…To compel you to heal my father of the Eternal Dream disease."
In just a mont, all the interest disappeared from the Divine Doctor's eyes.
"Eternal Dream disease?" He murmured, bored. "Trivial. Has the dical community not figured that one out yet? Tsk Tsk."
Rui shuddered as a wave of deja vu washed over him.
Those words.
Those very words had been uttered by the Divine Doctor in the prophecy that his grandmother had shown him. It appeared that now that Rui had reached the Divine Doctor, the prophecies that his grandmother had shown him might start unfolding one by one.
"Will you help ?" Rui stared at the man.
The man gazed at Rui with a hint of derision.
"My father is the Emperor of Kandria." His tone was sharp. "Aid him, and he will reward you handsoly."
A mirthless laugh escaped the Divine Doctor. "What I need, he cannot give. No one can. No one aside from the Martial Transcendents who refuse to move despite reaching the pinnacle of Martial Art."
The weight of Rui's gaze pressed down on the Divine Doctor. The darkness within his eyes stirred.
The endless void within them rumbled. "You…" "Besides…" The Divine Doctor's eyes closed. "Even if I were to agree, and I certainly haven't, it would be aningless. After all, we cannot leave."
He spread his arms, gazing at Rui with a frozen smile.
"Welco to my prison." He spread his arms. "I ca here looking for clues regarding the illness of my latest patient, but alas, I only discovered that this world is even more fantastical than I had ever expected."
Rui narrowed his eyes. "Prison?"
"We can't leave this place man," Kane grew grave. "I checked this place; it's even more bizarre than the Garden of Salvation. The Garden of Salvation had barriers. An end. But this place…it's continuous. Endless. It loops back over and over, no matter how far you go. It's like it's its own planet! Truly its own world!"
The sheer shock of this revelation stunned even Rui through his cold darkness.
"What…?" He whispered, staring at Kane, turning to the Divine Doctor. "Is this true…?"
"It's a self-warping region of heavily curved space-ti," the Divine Doctor replied, intrigued. "It's a sha that the Astromind and Ecologer weren't here; they would have seen through every secret that exists in this place. Certainly, I would have inferred far more than I am able to about the geotry of space-ti. It's far too far from my field of expertise."
Rui closed his eyes as a flood of thoughts churned within the depths of his mind.
"If what you told is true, then it can be inferred that the ti acceleration gamma factor of one hundred and forty-four is a result of the self-looping extrinsic four-dinsional manifold." He sharpened his eyes in thought. "In order to maintain the constancy of the speed of light, ti warps to cancel out the effects of the space-warping."
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