As the hourglass slowly turned, time itself began to flow backward.
Sylas's consciousness sank once more into the River of Time.
Time was the most merciless force in all of Arda. It eroded mountains, wore down stars, and reduced even immortal beings to memory. No substance, neither flesh nor thought, could escape its passage. Not even the mind was exempt.
Within the River of Time, Sylas's mental essence was constantly worn away, its edges ground down by the endless current. Yet at the same time, it was tempered. Stripped of impurities, it became ever purer, ever more resilient. With each cycle, it absorbed more of time's lingering aura, until the boundary between thought and time itself began to blur.
In this slow erosion, wisdom arose.
The River of Time was formless and intangible, flowing through all of Arda and beyond it. Even the beings of the Void could not grasp it, yet here it unfolded naturally before Sylas, vast and impartial. He perceived it not with sight, but with understanding.
Countless insights surged through his awareness like sparks within a storm. The deeper he wandered, the more the meaning of time revealed itself, fragmentary, fleeting, yet profound. A strange radiance flickered within his eyes, and the aura surrounding him grew increasingly enigmatic.
Time seeped into his mental essence, and through it, touched his spirit.
Slowly, imperceptibly, his very being became marked by time's presence.
Sylas sensed it clearly: the more his spirit absorbed the aura of time, the closer he drew to it. He felt, instinctively, that if his spirit were ever to fully harmonize with the River of Time, the river would no longer reject him.
It might even answer his call.
At that point, mere descriptions like "time manipulation" would no longer suffice.
Yet Sylas did not dare to act rashly.
To cast one's soul directly into the River of Time was no different from courting annihilation. Mental essence could be restored through rest and meditation, but damage to the soul was another matter entirely. One mistake, and his existence could be erased as though it had never been.
Thus, he chose the only path available to him.
A slow one.
He allowed his mental essence to touch the River of Time, and through the deep bond between thought and spirit, let that influence seep inward, little by little, cycle by cycle. It was inefficient. Painfully slow.
But it was safe.
And for now, it was enough.
The great hourglass reversed twenty-four hours of time, its flow unfolding over twelve long hours. For one who merely wished to return to the past, this would have been unbearably inefficient, far inferior to a Time-Turner.
But for Sylas, who once had only fleeting seconds to glimpse time's nature, this hourglass was nothing less than a relic of revelation.
For twelve uninterrupted hours, he could remain within the River of Time.
His comprehension accelerated beyond measure. His understanding deepened. What once required centuries of contemplation now unfolded naturally before him.
And so, unnoticed by the world, a thousand years passed.
Sylas's presence grew increasingly otherworldly. At times, the radiance of time shimmered deep within his gaze. At others, his form appeared faint, indistinct, like a being only partially anchored to the present. Then, in the next instant, he would seem wholly real once more.
When he turned the hourglass again, he did something different.
This time, Sylas did not send his mental essence into the River of Time.
He closed his eyes.
From within him, a pure, luminous spiritual form emerged, his true spirit, stepping beyond the flow of the hourglass and into the River of Time itself.
From the spirit's perspective, the River of Time was even more immense than before, an endless, roaring current stretching beyond the confines of the world, carrying all histories toward an unknowable end.
Within that river, Sylas saw what lay hidden in time.
Everything that exists leaves a trace.
Flowers and grass, trees and beasts, insects and fish, birds and wandering creatures, all imprint their passage upon the world. So too do the peoples of Middle-earth, the Men of the East, and the Elves of Valinor, radiant and deathless. All of them drift, knowingly or not, within the vast and inexorable River of Time.
Sylas was no different.
Within that boundless current, he was like a small fish, unable to contend with its full force, unable to swim freely against its immeasurable flow. Yet unlike most beings, who could only be carried along without awareness, Sylas could sometimes leap above the surface, glimpse the river's true nature, and return without being lost to stagnation.
By this point, his spirit had long been steeped in the aura of time.
When his soul entered the River of Time, there was no violent rejection, no backlash, no annihilation. Instead, it felt natural, as though he had returned to a place that now partially recognized him. Like a fish returning to familiar waters.
In truth, Sylas no longer knew how many years had passed.
With the Time-Turners and the hourglass in constant use, time had lost its meaning to him. Perhaps thousands of years had gone by. Perhaps tens of thousands. The distinction no longer mattered.
What mattered was this: His soul had begun to harmonize with time itself.
Though not fully merged, he had become partially aligned with the River of Time. Without relying on any artifact, Sylas could now briefly step into the river on his own, only for a few heartbeats, no more. Beyond that threshold, the current would seize him and carry him away, erasing even the memory of his existence.
But even those fleeting seconds were enough.
Enough to escape death, enough to survive encounters with beings far beyond his reach.
This was not mastery.
It was instinctive evasion, a reflex born of time itself.
At the same time, Sylas refined several new workings of time:
Time Stillness- binding a single being in frozen moments
Time Acceleration- forcing a target's time to surge uncontrollably
Time Deceleration- drowning an enemy in slowed moments
Alongside his earlier Time Reversal, Sylas now possessed four distinct workings of time.
All were limited.
They could only affect a single target. To impose time upon a wide domain remained far beyond him, attempting such a feat would invite catastrophic backlash, shattering his spirit under the weight of the world's chronology.
Yet their effectiveness scaled with the caster's strength.
And at Sylas's current level, these workings were enough to ensure that even when facing the greatest of the Eldar or the mighty servants of the Valar, he was no longer defenseless. Victory was not guaranteed, but survival was.
To call him a God of Time would have been meaningless.
Titles held no authority here.
But if one day he were to fully comprehend the nature of time, if the River of Time were to cease rejecting him and instead answer his will, then he might stand as something altogether different.
Not a god.
But a warden of time's passage.
That future, however, remained distant.
For now, Sylas had only grasped the outer currents. The depths of time were still closed to him.
At last, when his soul could no longer endure the river's pressure, it withdrew. Time released him, and his spirit returned to his body.
Sylas opened his eyes.
He rose from the chamber of meditation and stepped outside the villa, facing the open sea.
Above Valinor's sky, Arien guided the Sun-ship across the heavens, while Tilion steered the Moon-vessel in its eternal pursuit. Sun and Moon crossed paths in radiant harmony, illuminating the Blessed Realm together.
Each bore the last light of the Two Trees, entrusted with the illumination of Arda itself.
Watching them pass, Sylas fell into quiet thought.
Perhaps it was time to leave Swan Harbor.
Time to meet the other Powers.
...
STONES >^_^^_^<
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