After walking and flying for thousands of years, he finally arrived five light-years away from the spiraling stairs. As he looked around, he discovered that he had to navigate through dangerous areas where temporal phenomena were abundant to reach the stairs.
According to the map, this place was known as the "Temporal Rift Zone." He approached the zone cautiously. From the outside, the Temporal Rift Zone appeared to be an endless expanse of swirling distortions, stretching across the horizon like a storm of shattered glass.
The ground of this zone seemed to pulse with a powerful time energy, shifting between vibrant rebirth and haunting decay. In certain spots, time accelerated, causing the landscape to age hundreds of thousands of years within a heartbeat, crumbling into fine dust before miraculously reforming in an endless cycle of renewal.
Meanwhile, other areas lay in eternal frost, frozen in a perfect stillness that held its breath.
This was the most dangerous place in the Divine Realm. A land where time fractured and rewrote itself, where even the strongest hesitated to tread.
From their hidden dimension, Vyrinox and Zarrakis watched quietly. While Zarrakis was watching calmy, Vyrinox couldn't hide his impatience, his fingers twitched restlessly
They both knew the truth.
Even with their guidance, Varos wouldn't last long. Not here. Not in this accursed and forbidden territory. The forces at play were far beyond them, beyond even many of their own kind.
So why waste their time? Why let him struggle in a battle they were certain he couldn't win?
Because that was the point.
If Varos was to stand against a Primordial, if he was to truly step beyond the limitations of mere Ascendants and become their knife, he had to prove himself in the face of the impossible.
He had to endure a trial that even weaker Primordials had hesitated to face, a trial that separated those destined to rise from those doomed to fall.
This was not a test of survival, but a test of worth.
Varos gaze swept across the landscape, and the sheer chaos of time phenomena became clear.
A single misstep could mean instant annihilation or, worse, an eternity trapped in a moment that never ends.
Even without stepping inside these time phenomena, he could feel the crushing presence of the overwhelming temporal energy.
He had to find a way through. Turning back was not an option. He conducted several scans, pushing his mind to its limits to find a path where time was less chaotic.
Months passed, and each moment felt like a struggle against a changing reality.
Finally, after much effort, he discovered a narrow path of stability hidden in the chaos. However, just as he tried to move toward it, he felt a strong, primal warning.
This place was dangerous, not like the unstable areas, but in a worse way, it was like a trap waiting for him.
He hesitated, was this truly the right path, or was his guess of a trap waiting to catch him true?
His mind was a whirlwind of possibilities, and it was also overwhelmed by the constant stream of visions which made it difficult for him to concentrate.
The visions didn't even let him have the simplest thoughts sometime.
He desperately needed some clarity and peace to navigate through it all, a way through, and soon.
Fortunately, he had a something to decrease the intensity of the visions. He reached into his pocket dimension and retrieved a single golden leaf, its surface pulsing with a soft, ethereal glow.
The moment it was exposed to the outside world, a subtle ripple spread through the air, creating an invisible domain of enlightenment around him. Within this space, everything became clearer.
His thoughts sharpened, the rate of comprehending the laws increased and his focus heightened to a thousandfold.
But Varos didn't bring it out to comprehend the laws, that was not his goal and he couldn't do it if he wanted to.
He wanted to alleviate the relentless visions that tormented his mind.
Through sheer luck, he had discovered the leaf's hidden effect long ago, during the journey, when he first stumbled upon the ancient tree that bore them.
The moment he neared the tree, the relentless bombardment of his visions had significantly weakened.
The agony had dulled, and for the first time since the beginning of the visions, he had found some clarity.
However, acquiring them had proven to be quite difficult. The leaves were bound to the tree by a powerful force.
He had only managed to pluck a few thousand leaves before the tree vanished without him even noticing.
Now, he had only a handful left. Most had been used to dampen the relentless torment that clawed at his soul, letting him have moments of peace and moments to breathe.
As the leaf's radiance bathed him, the sharp, mind-splitting pain that had threatened to consume him slowly subsided. His thoughts became his own again, no longer hijacked by echoes of memories he had never lived.
However, what Varos failed to notice, or what he could not possibly notice, was that with every use of these leaves since his first time, something deep within his soul was changing.
It was subtle at first, his soul was strengthening, layer by layer, as if reforging itself without his knowledge.
Varos, oblivious to this, scanned the chaotic temporal phenomena, his eyes tracing the erratic flow of time as distortions weaved in and out of existence.
As he was scanning, the visions struck, attempting to claw into his soul, but the domain of enlightenment dulled their intensity, keeping him anchored in reality. His soul grew slightly more powerful than it was previously.
He then focused again; Studying and analyzing the unpredictable time phenomenon for years, he observed the patterns, the rate at which the anomalies manifested, the intervals between their appearances, searching for an opening, a flaw, anything that would allow him to navigate through this unstable region.
But, despite his efforts, no answers revealed themselves.
Growing impatient, he reached into his dwindling supply and withdrew a second leaf. The golden glow once again enveloped him, its warmth settling over his mind.
The moment the golden glow enveloped him, the visions didn't lessen.
Instead they intensified like a dam breaking, they poured into his mind with a fury he had never experienced before.
His soul literally burned and before he barely had a moment to register the mistake his world shattered.
A sudden spike of agony erupted in his skull, as if red-hot needles were being driven into the very core of his already burning soul. His breath hitched, a strangled gasp escaped his lips. Then came the second wave.
It wasn't just pain. It was an invasion.
His body arched violently, every nerve set ablaze as something ripped through him. A force; cold, relentless tore at his consciousness like razor-sharp claws sinking into flesh, prying apart his very essence, pulling him into a maelstrom of anguish and chaos.
His lungs seized, struggling for air that refused to come. His vision blurred, flickering between reality and an abyss of formless horror. Searing tendrils of torment burrowed into his bones, his veins, his marrow; deep, deeper, until it felt like he was being unraveled from the inside out.
A scream built in his throat but died before it could leave. Instead, only a broken, breathless choke escaped as his muscles spasmed violently, his limbs twisting against his will.
The visions were no longer visions. They were inside him. A thousand voices shrieked, whispered, roared, all at once. Some cried in agony, others laughed, twisted and wrong.
Memories that weren't his flooded his mind, drowning him in an ocean of sights and sounds he had no claim to. The battlefield. The destruction. The final scream.
For the first time, a dark thought surfaced, a whisper, insidious and tempting. Suicide. The idea of ending it all, of escaping this endless torment, flickered in his mind like a dying ember. But then, he stilled himself. "No I can't fall here, I have much to accomplish" he screamed in a determined voice.
His teeth clenched, his hands dug into the ground, shattering the divine stone beneath him. He would not break. He would not succumb.
And yet, amidst his struggle, something else surfaced. A voice. Not his own.
"Soon!" a guttural laugh escaped his lips.
"I shall return!"
The words were filled with madness and certainty as they reverberated across thousands of miles. His own voice, but not his will.
Meanwhile, Zarrakis, watching the scene happen, narrowed his eyes before turning sharply toward Vyrinox. His voice carried a rare tone of reprimand, laced with irritation.
"You want to break the tool before we even wield it? Why are you increasing the intensity of the visions?"
Vyrinox, seated calmly, lazily twirled a tiny wisp of deception energy above his fingertip. His expression remained unreadable as he responded.
"Of course not." His voice was calm, but there was an undercurrent of impatience. "But we don't have all the time in the world to wait for him to crawl his way through this trial."
He let the energy dissipate before fixing his gaze back on Varos. "The remnant is growing stronger. If it reaches a point beyond our control, it will jeopardize everything."
Zarrakis exhaled sharply, but Vyrinox wasn't done. "And beyond that," he continued, voice edged with urgency, "The other Primordials will not sit idle. Every moment we waste, they grow stronger too. If we wait too long, our carefully laid plans will mean nothing."
Silence stretched between them.
Zarrakis' expression remained cold, but he didn't argue further. Because he knew Vyrinox was right.
If the fallen primordial reawakened before the planned time, it would result in disaster.
The balance they had so carefully manipulated would crumble. Their preparations; meticulous, ruthless, and precise,would be rendered meaningless.
And worst of all, the knife would cease to be and it would be hard to find another knife that has potential like this.