# Chapter 26: Wrong Time
"According to current methods, Chaos can absolutely never be utilized by humans."
Boom, boom, boom, boom—the sound of the earth's crust being torn apart by brute force echoed through the nearly liquid air, spreading across most of the world within just a few minutes.
This was a world of complete darkness.
There were no stars, no sun. The frozen surface, under an absolute low temperature of minus one hundred degrees, was harder than diamond. The violent winds formed by the shattered continent stirred waves through the atmosphere that had nearly frozen into solid blocks.
Upon the glacier, Priest endured extreme fear and trembling, standing on the only intact patch of ground. A warrior who had already reached the Gold Realm could survive such extreme cold and could also see in absolute darkness—so he gazed, gazing at the glacier before him.
The vast glacier that covered the entire world, stretching for hundreds of thousands of miles, was now shattered into pieces by someone's brute force. Priest watched as the glacier and the earth's crust were torn apart by a massive steel figure, forming an incredibly wide and deep valley. This valley had no visible end, nor could its depth be known. Its edges disappeared beyond the horizon, as if the entire world had been torn apart.
Perhaps the world really had been torn apart.
"Priest, do not harbor any illusions. You must carefully remember every word I say."
A grand, deep voice, like that of a deity, came forth. Priest quickly lowered his head to show he was listening. At the same time, from the corner of his eye, he saw that the earth's crust, harder than steel, was being torn like paper before the giant god, ripped into strips of rock shell, then shattered into countless dense dust particles that merged into the towering, massive body.
"According to all the means and technology we currently possess, Chaos can absolutely never be utilized by us."
The giant god was feeding—he devoured the world, crushing rock layers as massive as mountain ranges into pieces, merging them into himself. As he spoke, the giant god tore off another huge piece of rock shell tens of thousands of meters long, like tearing off a strip of meat.
Priest sensed an unparalleled gravitational disturbance. His throat moved as he swallowed saliva, because he saw that the massive rock shell, larger than the highest peak in the Mycroft World, instantly turned into a cloud of silver dust, then disappeared into the giant god's deep, dark mouth.
Soon, the rift valley became a deep valley, and the deep valley became an abyss. Vast lands capable of housing tens of millions of people were devoured bite by bite by the giant god like a cake. And during this process, his calm voice echoed through the atmosphere.
"I only say this to you, Priest. You are different from others, different from my other students. So I must remind you to always be vigilant against anything related to Chaos."
"W-what exactly is different, Teacher?"
Even though an uncontrollable trembling ran through his entire body due to fear and shock, Priest could still calm himself down—he took a deep breath, pressing air at minus one hundred degrees into his lungs. The extreme cold helped this young warrior calm down, and then he asked loudly: "Why are you telling me this?"
Always able to stay calm and muster courage. This was Priest's strength, and also the reason he could become the giant god's student.
"Because of choice. Priest, you are different from your senior brothers and sisters. Because they chose to stay in the Mycroft World, they will remain within the Empire, becoming strong ones who guard their territories and maintain order and peace."
The giant god did not stop eating. He had come to this extremely cold frozen planet precisely to 'eat' most of the surface rock shell and extract the planet's metal core as a pastry to supplement the nutrients of his inner world. The giant god spoke slowly and calmly: "But you are different."
"You chose to become an adventurer exploring the distant unknown. You chose this path, so you are more likely than them to encounter the Chaos hidden within the multiverse, more likely to touch the other side of the world."
And more likely to keep up with my footsteps.
Priest saw that in the dark world, a fierce storm suddenly arose, as if some enormous existence was rapidly stirring the atmosphere. He pushed his legs hard, crushing the ice layer, anchoring himself firmly in place like a wedge.
And the next moment, Priest saw the giant god turn around, lowering his head to meet his gaze.
What kind of eyes were those?
Priest found it hard to describe, hard to articulate. They were like two tiny suns, releasing infinite light and heat... but the radiance of these suns was twisted by an invisible gravitational force, shaped into a hazy, blazing stream of light. It flowed gently along the corners of the giant god's eyes, forming regular and mysterious patterns on his cheeks.
"Do not use Chaos. Do not approach Chaos. Do not attempt to control it, nor attempt to transform it. If you cannot destroy it, then seal it as quickly as possible, or leave. This is the relationship between Chaos and us—mortal enemies to each other."
Meeting the giant god's gaze, Priest remained silent for a long time, as if immersed in the shock of the other's infinite power. But just as the giant god turned back, intending to end his guidance to his student and continue his lunch, Priest spoke as if possessed by some impulse.
"Even... with power like yours, Teacher?"
A long silence fell over the frozen world.
Then came a faint, barely perceptible laugh, tinged with a hint of admiration.
"Even after I emphasized this so strongly, you still harbor hope. I like that about you... As for me."
The giant god said in a thought-provoking, low voice: "At least I can say that I am still trying now, not giving up."
...
Priest suddenly woke from his dream.
"Damn... was that a nightmare..."
He groaned softly, then turned over and stood up from the primitive vine hammock—his head hurt, making it hard to think clearly. Priest muttered: "No, not a nightmare... it was Teacher's teachings."
But what exactly the teachings were, he couldn't remember no matter how hard he tried.
"Whatever. It's just a dream."
After a moment, having sorted out his thoughts, Priest raised his head and met the gaze of the spellcaster on night watch across the campfire. They nodded to each other in tacit understanding, saying nothing unnecessary.
This was the third day since the Elite Squad had arrived in this unknown alien world, and the second day since they had temporarily reconciled with the group of elves who called themselves the 'Watcher Tribe.'
The eastern mountain range stretched with rolling hills and undulating peaks. Among the fallen leaves and dead branches of the endless forests, there were numerous underground caves. Except for a few high-ranking members, most of the elves lived in the caves closest to the Mother Tree of Life. Priest and his companions were now also living in a cleaned, ventilated cave.
"I wonder when those elves will finish their discussions and decide whether to cooperate with us."
On the other side of the campfire, the mage on the early morning night shift closed his magic book. He sighed and said helplessly: "These long-lived races really are close relatives of turtles—slow and sluggish in pace."
"They will agree."
To this, Priest shook his head and said softly: "If they had been hesitant from the start, why would they have placed us five Gold-ranks next to their own tribe? If they did that, even if they mobilized their entire tribe to kill us, they would inevitably suffer losses they couldn't bear—elven reproduction is a very difficult matter."
"True."
The mage didn't argue or seriously agree. He just casually responded, then turned his head to look at the faint sunlight appearing at the cave entrance—outside the cave, dawn had arrived. This was their third day in this alien world.
Meanwhile, Priest sighed, recalling the scene from two nights ago.
In the dense forest, nearly a thousand elite elven hunters and sharpshooters had surrounded the five members of the Elite Squad. Under such circumstances, even a group of Gold-rank magical beasts would likely meet their end. But Priest and his companions were five Gold-rank human professionals who had mastered various combat techniques and magic. Even if they hadn't fully grasped their Glory Force, they were not something these elves could take down without casualties.
Just as the group was confronting nearly a thousand elven hunters, the leader of these elves, a druid wearing a large crown of antlers, appeared in the center of the crowd. His appearance broke the silent standoff between the two sides.
"You... are humans?"
He asked in surprise: "Not Chaos monsters?"
With such an opening line as the beginning of communication, the subsequent conversation naturally didn't lead to immediate fighting over a disagreement.
After a series of tedious and repeated questions and answers, the two sides, who had been at odds, barely ended their confrontation and roughly understood each other's situations.
For Priest and his group, they learned that these elves came from an elven tribe calling themselves the 'Watchers.' This was an unusually young elven tribe, including their leader, with no member over three hundred years old. They lived around a gigantic Tree of Life, using caves formed by the tree's roots as dwellings. Their daily life consisted of picking fruits, hunting wild beasts, and fishing at sea.
Overall, it was a very primitive but very united elven tribe.
The reason they had initially ambushed Priest and his group was that they had mistaken the team members wearing Mana Armor for alien monsters lurking near their territory.
Just as the Eight-Legged Fungus Clan had never realized until the end that Priest and his group were wearing armor rather than covered in exoskeletons, the Watcher elves, who had never seen armor or even so many metal objects, naturally couldn't understand what 'fully enclosed Mana Armor' was. Coupled with the fact that Priest and his group had been recklessly destroying trees to clear a path through the forest, the elves were convinced that these were terrifying alien monsters.
The differences in civilization, race, and technology were so vast that such nearly impossible misunderstandings could occur.
Conversely, the elves also learned that the five members of the exploration team were castaways who had accidentally entered this forest, and the mountain's changes had nothing to do with them—at least, after the group swore solemnly, the elves expressed noncommittal attitudes, seemingly either believing this nonsense or simply not caring.
"The sacrificial mountain was originally forged from silver iron. The teachings left by our ancestors indeed said so. But as time passed, the silver iron rusted, wind and sand blew, burying it, and finally it turned into solid rock."
This was the original words Priest and his group heard. That antlered elf said this to them, appearing not at all surprised by the restart of the Space-Time Hub.
To be honest, this left the Elite Squad, who had been on high alert, extremely puzzled—they also realized that the mountain range they had been on, which was the location of the Aklafa Hub, was exactly what these elves called their sacrificial mountain. But now that the sacrificial mountain had collapsed, they weren't the least bit surprised, not even showing any shock or panic.
Did they even consider that mountain a sacred mountain?!
What was even stranger was the contradiction these elves showed in their level of civilization.
According to Priest's speculation, the elves in this strange world should be like them—accidentally stranded here due to a spatial teleportation error during the final battle of the Era of Radiance over thirteen hundred years ago. In other words, they should be descendants of the original elven colonists. But if they really were elven colonists, there was no way they could have become this primitive, living in caves!
Elves were long-lived races. The lifespan of a single generation might be longer than the duration of most human kingdoms. Their knowledge inheritance was far more stable than that of short-lived humans. How could a mere thirteen hundred years turn a group of elves into such primitive beings?
Priest had even seen these elves using bone arrowheads. They had lost even ironworking technology!
However, regarding this strange contradiction, these elves themselves provided some explanation for the group.
"You're curious about the scar on my arm?"
The antler-crowned elf leader, when the exchange ended and both sides temporarily stopped confronting each other, extended his arm. He had long noticed that Priest and his group often stared straight at the wound on his right hand, so he laughed generously: "This is alien sickness—those dead gods in the sky often drop parts of their flesh down, eroding the beasts or elves in the forest. If you're scratched by the flesh or infected monsters, basically no one can escape... Mine is still mild. It'll probably take a few decades to kill me."
"Cutting it off doesn't work either. This thing transfers to other parts of the body. Countless ancestors proved this with their lives."
The antler-crowned elf called the nine giant beasts in the sky 'dead gods.' He said this very generously, as if he didn't care at all about his own lifespan. He even joked with a companion beside him: "I'm probably close to breaking the record for the longest-living leader, right?" "Not quite."
Based on this information, the exploration team could barely understand why these elves had lost their inheritance so quickly, degenerating to such a primitive state—if the first generation of elven colonists had mostly died from Chaos erosion, and the remaining elves also frequently died from Chaos erosion, then even a long-lived race couldn't maintain the continuity of civilization.
It was also for this reason that these elves, after noticing the Elite Squad falling from the sky, had identified them as infected alien monsters. The black Mana Armor indeed didn't look like righteous equipment; at first glance, it gave off a dark and oppressive aura.
As for why the elves could recognize humans, the reason was simple—according to them, hundreds of years ago, humans also lived around the mountains of this world, but recently they had completely disappeared, presumably having gradually gone extinct.
"To be honest, the situation here is stranger than we imagined."
Priest temporarily stopped recalling. He shook his head, unsure whether he was speaking to the mage across the campfire or to himself: "The recorded history of the Era of Falling Stars totals eight hundred and thirty-nine years. Adding the unknown period, roughly eighty to one hundred and thirty years of primitive chaos during the resistance against the Black Forest beast tides after the Sanctuary opened, plus the three hundred lost years before the Sanctuary opened—that adds up to just over twelve hundred years. Even counting other possible margins, it's at most thirteen hundred years."
"Even if these elves, due to 'alien sickness'—mild Chaos infection—have shortened lifespans, they still have about two hundred years of life. Thirteen hundred years is only six or seven generations for them. There's no way they could have forgotten so thoroughly!"
As Priest spoke, the others also woke up one by one. The mage, who had been staring at the cave entrance, lost in thought, lowered his voice and murmured softly: "Maybe it's not just thirteen hundred years?"
"What do you mean?"
Priest keenly heard the mage's muttering. He asked in confusion: "Are you saying that these elves were already living in this world before the final battle?"