Chapter 17: Fate and Time
The fight between Brial, the Celestial God, and the Grim Reaper was intense and one-sided. Surely, the Seeker Elder had realized mid-battle that adaptive powers were nothing compared to the Supreme Law of Death—let alone the Twelve Supreme Laws.
Brimel was fighting blindly and was unable to unleash his full potential due to the weak body his avatar had. His lack of the Law of Time was what caused the death of his grandson, Aris.
Had Gyreen foreseen this misfortune, he would have descended with his own body—or, better still, rejected the idea of Aris participating, even if it meant facing the consequences of defying Saerah.
Realizing both his fate and that of the Wild Capital, Brial sent out his consciousness to look for Saerah.
After hours of searching, he finally found her in a secured space, but couldn't access her mind—the space was encrypted. So he sent a psychic wave, transmitting all the intel to Saerah for backup.
The Grim Reaper looked around and saw the corpses of various creatures, but none belonged to his race. Sure enough, his race had gone extinct. He didn't think much of it; he only wanted complete control over all the Supreme Laws. That way, he could erase Li Fen's consciousness from existence, gaining permanent control over the physical body. Only then could he reshape it into his own racial form.
On the battle bed lay a cloaked being—the same one who had watched the match between Aris and Li Fen. After watching two gods defeated by the Twelve Complete Laws at only thirty percent, he scoffed and muttered to himself, "Seriously, Saerah, are these the kinds of weaklings you associate with? I'm surprised."
He stood, wanting to finish what those so-called gods couldn't before the prophecy came to pass.
Then, suddenly, a blue rift opened in the sky, emanating supreme energy. From within came purple energy blasts heading toward the Reaper.
By this point, the walls of the third-class city were in ruins, and craters of various sizes covered the ground. The battle between the two gods and the Reaper had left the place in utter chaos.
Seeing the force of the blasts, the Reaper recognized real power and raised his hands to deflect them, adding layers to his force field. His hollow eyes showed no sign of panic.
The blasts struck him, hurling him toward the battle bed and creating the largest crater on the field. His force field was shattered, and from his now-torn hair and the visible strain of his anger, it was clear he had felt that attack.
Emerging from the rift was none other than Saerah herself. Her white hair defied gravity, floating gracefully as if in space. Her blue eyes shone like the sun itself. Her armor, made from heavenly steel, covered her forearms, lower legs, chest, and hips. The rest of her body was adorned in heavenly attire of white and gold, with parts of her chest and thighs exposed. Her beauty was so immense that neither mortals nor gods could resist her charm.
As for why the force field that kept Brimel and the Seeker Elder at bay couldn't withstand a single attack from Saerah, it was because the Supreme Law of Fate and Causality had been applied to the energy—making it inevitable.
It enforced a destined outcome where an attack must connect, regardless of defense, distance, or interference. Once declared, reality aligned so the strike could not miss—time, space, and probability all bent to fulfill that destined result. This was the power of the Law of Fate.
"It seems not every being is a waste in this era," the Grim Reaper remarked, rising from the rubble.
"This will be interesting," the cloaked figure said to himself, summoning popcorn from thin air and shielding it with a green sphere to keep it from burning under the immense pressure.
The air itself trembled as two godlike forces collided—Fate and Time, laws that no universe could contain. Saerah hovered in the air, her aura bending the firmament, golden threads of destiny weaving around her form like living serpents. With the Supreme Law of Wisdom, she knew the only way she could win was through the Law of Fate and Causality; aside from that, the entity before her surpassed all her other laws and lacked only the Laws of Time and Death.
Across from her stood the Grim Reaper, dark mist coiling around his scythe as countless hourglasses floated behind him, each turning upside down, resetting the flow of time again and again.
Saerah's eyes narrowed. "Your thread should have been cut long ago."
The Reaper's hollow voice echoed. "Threads can be rewoven. Time obeys me now."
He swung his scythe—instantly the world froze. Dust hung still. Sound vanished. Time halted. The Reaper moved freely through silence, his steps echoing against eternity itself. He appeared before Saerah, his blade inches from her heart.
But before contact, a single golden strand glowed behind her. Fate rejected the event. The scythe phased through her as reality rewrote itself, declaring her survival absolute.
Saerah's lips moved though sound did not exist. "Inevitable Reversal."
Her golden thread wrapped around the Reaper's shadow and rewound the destined moment—reversing roles. Now he stood frozen mid-strike while she walked through paused time.
With one motion she raised her hand, her threads converging into a spear of light—the Spear of Certainty—and threw it.
But as it neared, the Reaper's hourglasses shattered. Time fractured again, splitting into infinite repeating moments. The spear struck him a thousand times and yet none at all, each impact undone by another time layer.
The Reaper, amazed, said, "You cannot hit what exists in all timelines."
Saerah closed her eyes. "Then I will decide which one is real."
Every thread of destiny around her ignited. She severed the false futures, collapsing them into one—the destined now. The Reaper's movements stopped as the chosen reality solidified around him.
In that moment, Saerah's spear pierced through his chest.
The Reaper gripped the weapon, his hollow eyes glowing. "Fate decides the outcome. But I decide when it ends."
He twisted his scythe, and time reversed once more—but this time, Saerah's golden threads followed, unaffected, coiling through the reversal like roots through soil.
Both laws clashed endlessly—each moment rewritten, each outcome denied. The battlefield shifted through seconds, years, and eons, collapsing and rebuilding with every strike.
At last, both forces reached equilibrium—Time halted, and Fate stilled.
Only silence remained, the sky split between gold and black.
Saerah couldn't help but realize how weak she had grown over the millennia. Against her fellow entities, she might just be the weakest. Her trump card was the Law of Fate and Causality, but the Reaper had used only Time—despite also possessing Fate—meaning he had shown mercy.
And from the looks of things, he was done showing mercy.
He raised his hands, and all Twelve Laws merged together. "A few more centuries, and you might be able to last a day against me. For that, I will end you with all Twelve Laws, to show my respect."
The fused laws struck her, turning her celestial body into golden dust.
The cloaked figure seeing this, smirks and rose to his feet.