Ram POV
Panic, cold and sharp, clawed at my throat, constricting my chest, stealing my breath. The sweltering heat that radiated from the Djinn on his throne of bone pressed down on me, a physical weight that threatened to crush my very being.
My gaze darted between Tereda, his expression a mask of reckless determination, his eyes gleaming with a battle lust that chilled me to the bone, and Amon, the ancient Djinn, his gaze a burning inferno, his presence a suffocating wave of power that made my enhanced senses scream in warning.
He doesn't understand, I thought, my mental voice a frantic whisper, a desperate plea for a way out of this that went unheard and unanswered. He doesn't know what he's facing.
The power of the Oni God, a legacy passed down through generations, surged through my veins, a torrent of strength and knowledge that whispered warnings, ancient memories surfacing, their echoes intertwining with my own consciousness. I could feel the weight of their experiences, their battles, their triumphs, their defeats, a symphony of emotions and instincts that flooded my being.
My Horns, restored to their full glory, thrummed with energy, feeding me a torrent of power, a cascade of knowledge from the previous wielders of the Oni God's might.
I could sense their presence, their whispers, their warnings, a chorus of voices echoing through the ages.
But their combined power, their wisdom, their millennia of experience, felt utterly insignificant, like a candle flame flickering against a raging inferno.
Every single one of them declared 'escape or die!'
My gaze locked with Amon's, and for a fleeting moment, the veil over his mind parted, allowing me a glimpse into the depths of his being, the vastness of his power.
His thoughts, ancient and vast, flowed through me, a torrent of knowledge that both terrified and petrified me.
Amon.
The Judge.
The Tutor of Solomon.
Not just a Djinn. Not just a powerful being. But the one who had guided Solomon, the legendary Magi, the one who had shaped this world, who had commanded the very fabric of reality. And now, even after Solomon's passing, Amon channeled his former student's power, his wisdom, amplifying his own already formidable abilities to an unimaginable degree.
A cold dread, a stark terror unlike anything I had ever experienced, gripped my heart, a visceral understanding of the utter futility of our situation.
We were facing a god who was channeling another god!
The realization hit me like a physical blow, a wave of nausea rising in my throat, my knees threatening to buckle beneath the weight of despair.
He's going to die, I thought, my mental voice a whimper of anguish, a desperate plea for him to understand, to turn back, to run while he still had the chance. We're all going to die.
It would be an unending cycle! My mind screamed at me. Elimination over and over for eternity!
And his method of elimination-
A cold sweat slicked my palms, my heart hammering against my ribs, a frantic drumbeat against the backdrop of Tereda's calm, almost bored, voice as he challenged the Djinn.
Amon had- in less than a visible moment even to my enhanced senses- summoned a star. Not a mere illusion, not a conjured image, but a genuine celestial body, a miniature sun, compressed into an orb the size of his finger. Its surface, a swirling inferno of plasma and radiation, pulsed with a light that dwarfed the flickering torches of the cavern, casting grotesque shadows that danced across the ancient stone walls.
And then, with a flick of his wrist, a casual gesture that belied the unimaginable power he wielded, Amon had thrown it.
I hadn't even seen it! The Oni god's power simply informed me of what happened!
The orb, a blazing blue inferno, had transformed in mid-flight, collapsing in on itself, its light devoured by an abyss of pure darkness, its gravity twisting, warping, consuming everything in its path. The air crackled, the stone floor buckled, the very fabric of reality seemed to groan under the strain.
A black hole.
A singularity of destruction.
A force that defied comprehension, that mocked the laws of physics, that swallowed light and time itself.
And we, caught in its inexorable pull, had been torn apart, our bodies reduced to atoms, our souls scattered across the void.
There had been no pain. No time to scream. No chance to fight back. Just the crushing weight of gravity, the blinding darkness, the terrifying realization that our existence, our very essence, was being unraveled, erased from the fabric of reality.
There was no fighting that. No resisting. No escaping.
And Tereda, bless his stubborn, oblivious heart, was standing there, his fists clenched, a battle-hungry grin splitting his face, his eyes gleaming with a reckless confidence that bordered on insanity. He was ready to take on a force of nature, a being who wielded the power of a god multiplied by itself.
He was walking towards his death with no escape!
And I, trapped in the grip of a terror that froze my tongue, that paralyzed my limbs, that shattered my voice, could do nothing to stop him.
My mind raced, desperately seeking a solution, a way out of this impossible predicament.
There was no time to have him create an alternative escape route. Even with his enhanced mind, fueled by potions and accelerated by countless loops, brewing such a potent concoction would take hours, days, maybe even weeks. He'd need to delve into the depths of his soul storage, sift through countless texts, experiment with ingredients, refine the formula, test its efficacy.
Utterly impossible!
I turned my gaze to Rem, her serene face a stark contrast to the turmoil raging within me. Her blue eyes, usually so sharp, so perceptive, were now softened by a gentle warmth, her gaze fixed on Tereda with an unwavering trust that I both envied and despaired. She believed in him, in his power, in his ability to overcome any obstacle.
Neither of them understand, I thought, my mental voice a whimper of despair. They don't know what their facing!
We're screwed, my thoughts continued their spin of redundant warnings of incoming death, my mental voice a whimper of despair. We're utterly, completely screwed.
Even warning him felt futile. What words could possibly convey the sheer scale of the threat we faced? How could I explain the concept of a miniature black hole, of a power that could unravel the very fabric of reality, to someone who had never encountered such a force, who had never tasted the bitter truth of his own mortality?
The portal, our only escape route, shimmered faintly in my mind, a cruel mockery of hope.
We'd used it twice in quick succession, pushing its limits, draining the energy required to keep distances and universes stable.
It was on a six-month cooldown, a safety measure Tereda had implemented to prevent overuse, to ensure we didn't accidentally rip apart the realities we were entering and leaving.
Six.
Fucking.
Months.
We had less than seconds!
We were trapped.
Caged with a god multiplied by a god!
A god who could erase us from existence with a flick of his wrist.
I had to do something.
But what?
My mind, usually a whirlwind of plans, of strategies, of contingencies, was blank, a terrifying emptiness mirroring the abyss that awaited us.
Tereda Chouju POV
Amon's power pressed down on me, a suffocating weight that made my bones creak, my muscles tremble, my enhanced senses scream in protest. It was like standing before a raging inferno, the heat searing my skin, the air thick with smoke and ash, the very ground beneath my feet threatening to crumble.
His gaze, cold and ancient, pierced through me, a judgment that stripped away all pretense, all bravado, leaving me bare, vulnerable, exposed. I felt the weight of millennia staring back at me, the accumulated wisdom and power of a being who had witnessed the rise and fall of civilizations, who had tasted the blood of kings, who had shaped the very fabric of this world.
I felt Ram's panic, a wave of terror that echoed in our shared mindscape, a frantic drumbeat against the backdrop of my own forced composure.
She knew.
She remembered.
The black hole, the annihilation, the utter hopelessness of our situation.
Her fear, sharp and acrid, threatened to overwhelm our mental link, to betray our carefully constructed facade of calm.
But she forgot we shared knowledge via the mindscape potion.
But I couldn't let Amon see that I felt her fear, that I knew her knowledge.
Not yet. Not while he watched, his ancient mind probing, dissecting, analyzing our every thought, our every emotion, searching for weakness, for a crack in our defenses.
If Ram relaxed, even for a moment, if her fear bled through our telepathic connection, I knew Amon would notice. He would exploit it, twist it, use it to break us, to shatter our resistance.
I had to maintain the illusion of control, of confidence, of strength.
I had a plan.
A desperate, reckless gamble. But a plan nonetheless.
It hinged on Amon's arrogance, his belief that he had us trapped, that our only options were surrender or annihilation.
He saw us as insects, as insignificant things, as playthings that had broken his game, toys that didn't belong in the dollhouse, to be discarded.
He didn't understand me. He didn't understand my power.
He saw my chi, the energy that surged through my meridians, the force that fueled my enhanced abilities, as a mere side effect of my time manipulation, a leakage of energy, a glitch in the system.
Like an unintended consequence of my meddling with the fabric of reality.
He didn't recognize the chi I used to fuel the ability for what it truly was- the source of my power, the key to my abilities, a force that transcended the limitations of this world, a power that could bend time, manipulate space, and, with the right catalyst, enhance our physical and magical capabilities far beyond their current limits.
That was his mistake.
He had hacked into my system, yes.
He had found a backdoor, a way to usurp my control over the flow of time and space. But he didn't understand the underlying code, the fundamental principles that governed my power.
He was like a moron with a keyboard, given commands but unable to understand what those commands actually did. Able to hit the run key, to use it for his own purposes, but clueless about the reason the code actually worked.
My plan was to exploit that ignorance.
I would fight him until it would be believable for me to play the role of the defeated, the desperate, the willing supplicant begging for a chance to escape this world.
I would plead for his mercy, offer to surrender my power, to leave this world, and never return- if only he would allow me to make a potion allowing me to leave.
While he focused on entering commands like a goddamn script kiddie- the code of my time and space manipulation would be rewritten by me, while he reveled in his supposed victory, I would be working on a different level, a level he couldn't even perceive.
It was a gamble. A desperate gamble. But it was our only chance.
I would use these loops, these repeated deaths, these stolen moments, to create. To formulate. To mentally refine.
Four potions.
One for each of us.
Potions that would allow us to harness the power of my chi, to channel it into our own unique abilities, to amplify our strengths, to push our bodies and minds beyond their limits.
Ram and Rem's mana cultivation, already formidable, would become a force of nature, capable of attacking before the black hole could form. Ram's mastery of wind magic would evolve into a symphony of destruction, her blades of wind dancing through the air with a speed and precision that defied logic.
Morgiana, her Fanalis strength and agility already enhanced by my previous potions, would become a whirlwind of motion, her strikes carrying the force of a thunderclap.
And me?
I would finally unlock the full potential of the "Time-Space Divine Death Law," shattering the limitations of my mortal shell, transcending the boundaries of time and space, becoming a force to be reckoned with, a being capable of challenging even the might of a Djinn.
But I couldn't let Amon suspect my true intentions.
I had to make him believe that I was crafting potions of escape, a desperate attempt to flee his wrath, to return to the 'world from which we came.'
It would be a delicate dance, a game of deception played on a razor's edge.
But I had to be a master of manipulation.
A survivor.
A strategist.
And I wouldn't let him win.
Not this time.
I had to trick a double-god.