-12 hours ago-

Somewhere in a vast old-growth forest near the towering peak of Mount Gol, a sudden flash of blinding light erupted in a sun-dappled glade. In an instant, Cid materialized two feet off the ground, suspended in mid-air for a heartbeat before gravity reclaimed him. He crashed to the forest floor with a thud, the impact jarring his bones and forcing a grunt of discomfort from his lips.

As he lay sprawled on his back, staring up at the canopy of leaves swaying gently in the breeze, a wave of realization washed over him. The towering trees, ancient and wise, surrounded him like silent sentinels, their gnarled roots twisting through the earth. This was not the place he had intended to arrive.

Cid: "Ughhh, oh, I fucked up," he groaned, his voice a mix of intense pain and frustration.

He winced as he shifted slightly, feeling the dampness of the forest floor seeping through his clothes. The scent of rich earth and moss filled his nostrils, a stark contrast to the sterile air of the library he had left behind.

Before this moment, Cid had executed a risky maneuver to temporarily ensnare Johannes with his reality arithmetic. This power allowed him to manipulate the numerical value of things around him, though it could not directly influence individuals. Instead, Cid had ingeniously used his power to manipulate the space in front of him to create an invisible barrier, a subtle distortion that Johannes, in his reckless charge, had unwittingly collided with.

In the heat of battle, Johannes had lunged forward, intent on delivering a decisive blow, but he had failed to perceive the trap that lay in wait. The moment he crossed the threshold of Cid's carefully constructed space, reality arithmetic sprang into action. Drawing upon the immense power contained within the Book of Grand Design, Cid initiated a complex calculation that compounded the flow of time within the bubble.

What should have been a mere fraction of a second in that space was stretched into an eternity, transforming that fleeting moment into hours. Within this temporal bubble, Johannes was suspended in a surreal limbo, where time flowed differently, and any attempts to escape would be met with an impenetrable barrier.

Cid estimated that the time bubble would hold Johannes captive for up to twenty-four hours, a precious window that provided him with more than enough time to make his escape.

From there, he sprinted toward the university's teleportation room, his mind racing with the implications of his next steps. When he approached, he spotted two guards stationed at the entrance, their expressions a mix of boredom and alertness. He knocked them out easily enough and gained access to the room.

Once inside the teleportation room, he recalled Scarlett's contingency plan, a meticulously crafted strategy designed for this moment. He needed to alter the runes to redirect the teleportation coordinates to a location far removed from the university's usual destinations.

He tried to follow Scarlett's specifications, infusing the symbols with his own energy to modify their meanings. Each stroke of his finger ignited the runes with a vibrant glow, transforming the circle into a conduit for his escape. He could almost hear Scarlett's voice in his mind, urging him to be precise and deliberate.

The teleportation circle should have transported Cid to a secret bunker located outside the city, with the added safeguard of destroying itself after use to prevent anyone from following him. However, a significant flaw in this escape plan quickly became apparent: Cid was in excruciating pain. The throbbing agony coursing through his body made it difficult to concentrate.

In his haze of discomfort, he miscalculated the modifications, and when he activated the circle, it became clear that he hadn't sent himself to the intended destination. Panic surged within him as he realized the self-destruction modification might not have triggered either. If that was the case, his pursuers could easily analyze his modification and trace his teleportation to discover where he had gone.

The only small mercy in this chaotic moment was that he hadn't made a catastrophic error that would have resulted in him teleporting into a solid object, which could have killed him instantly. Instead, he found himself in an unfamiliar location.

Cid groaned as another wave of pain surged through him, a stark reminder of the toll his recent actions had taken. When the Book of Grand Design had intervened, it had been an excruciating experience as it rapidly reattached his arm and shielded him from further harm. That pain had been intense but had faded long ago, leaving him winded yet functional. The agony he felt now, however, was a direct consequence of him creating the time bubble to trap Johannes.

Time was regarded as a prime order, a fundamental force of nature that could not be meaningfully influenced by mortals or even gods. Among the prime orders, time was the most unyielding; while some prime orders allowed wizards to bend the rules somewhat, time remained inflexible and absolute. The Book of Grand Design had warned him of the severe backlash that would accompany any attempted manipulation of time through any powers, yet he had pressed on, driven by desperation at the time.

Understanding the rigid nature of time, Cid knew that any attempt to control it would likely be fraught with failure. During his battle with Johannes, he had meticulously run through every possible scenario using the Book of Grand Design, striving to employ reality arithmetic in the most conservative manner possible. His calculations revealed a grim truth: attempts to reverse time were destined to fail, efforts to stop it would also invariably collapse, and attempts to speed it up would almost always end in disaster. The only option that held a glimmer of hope was slowing time down, which, while still fraught with uncertainty, offered a slightly higher probability of success among his limited choices.

With this in mind, Cid had carefully restricted the scope of his manipulation. He resolved to slow time just enough to create the illusion of a standstill, but not to halt it completely. He focused on a very small area, just large enough to encompass Johannes, rather than attempting to affect the entire world around him. This precision was crucial; by limiting the effect to a confined space, he hoped to minimize the backlash that could arise from such a monumental undertaking.

Moreover, Cid only compounded enough time that it would last only a few hours before the fabric of spacetime began to revert to its normal flow. Even with these stringent limitations in place, the Book of Grand Design warned him that there was still only a fifty-fifty chance of success. The stakes were high, but he flipped that coin and won, successfully slowing time down.

The moment Johannes was ensnared in the time bubble, the backlash hit Cid like a tidal wave, crashing over him with an intensity he had never experienced before. It was the worst pain of his life, eclipsing even the excruciating ordeal of having his arm severed and reattached. This was an entirely different level of suffering.

He knew the backlash would be bad, but even still, he was not prepared.

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Every cell in his body felt as though it were being set ablaze from the inside out, a relentless inferno that consumed him whole. Each slight movement sent shockwaves of agony coursing through him; even the simple act of breathing felt like a dagger piercing his chest. Blinking was a torment, and the very act of thinking became a struggle against the overwhelming tide of pain that threatened to drown him.

There were no words to adequately convey the depth of his suffering. He was trapped in a tortuous existence within his own body. Even after he had fled the battlefield and teleported away, the torment clung to him like a shadow, refusing to relent. His body continued to scream in protest, a cacophony of anguish that echoed in his mind.

With a determined grunt, Cid forced himself to rise, despite the searing pain that coursed through his body. Each movement felt like a battle against his own flesh, but he knew he couldn't afford to linger. The uncertainty of whether his pursuers could trace his teleportation gnawed at him, urging him to put as much distance between himself and the university as possible.

As he steadied himself, Cid scanned the horizon, his gaze landing on the imposing silhouette of Mount Gol in the distance. The mountain loomed majestically against the sky, its rugged peaks shrouded in mist, and he felt a flicker of hope. It was far removed from civilization, a place where he could find refuge and conceal himself until he could recover from the brutal backlash of his time manipulation.

Cid began to move, each step a painful reminder of the toll his actions had taken. He navigated through the dense underbrush, pushing past branches and foliage that seemed to claw at him as he passed. The forest was alive with sounds—the rustling of leaves, the distant call of birds, and the whisper of the wind—but all he could focus on was the mountain, his beacon of safety.

As he trudged onward, hours slipped by, each one feeling like an eternity. The pain in Cid's body showed no signs of abating; if anything, it seemed to intensify with every step he took.

He began to clutch the side of his body, where the pain had become particularly acute. It felt like a searing fire, radiating outward from a central point, and he couldn't shake the feeling that something was seriously wrong. Each jolt of agony sent waves of nausea through him, making it difficult to focus on anything other than the relentless discomfort.

Cid continued his arduous trek, Cid's foot caught on a gnarled tree root that jutted out from the forest floor, and in an instant, he was sent sprawling. He landed face-first in a patch of thick, cold mud, the muck splattering across his skin and soaking into his clothes.

Cid: "Ahh, damn it," he cursed, his voice muffled by the mud. He lay there for a moment, stunned and disoriented, the pain in his body momentarily overshadowed by the shock of the fall. The cool earth felt oddly refreshing, but the humiliation of the mishap washed over him.

With a groan, Cid attempted to push himself up, but found the effort excruciatingly difficult. The pain radiating through his body felt like a vice, tightening with every movement. As he struggled to regain his footing, he glanced behind him and noticed something peculiar: his right shoe lay several feet away, and it appeared to be filled with a large stone.

Confused and alarmed, Cid quickly pulled up his pant leg to inspect his foot, only to be met with a horrifying sight. His foot was gone, replaced by a grotesque stony stump where his ankle had once been. The flesh that had once connected him to the ground had transformed into a rough, gray stone, and it was crumbling away like ancient ruins. Panic surged through him as he realized the severity of his condition.

The transformation didn't stop there. As he stared in disbelief at the stony remnants of his ankle, he could see the creeping encroachment of the petrification, a very slow, insidious crawl of stone that was making its way up his leg. The flesh beneath the surface was being consumed, replaced by the cold, unyielding material.

Cid: "Not like this," Cid gasped, his voice trembling with fear. He could feel the weight of despair pressing down on him, threatening to crush his spirit. He had fought so hard to escape, to survive, and now this?

Reminded of the unique pain radiating from his side, he went to pull up his shirt. As he did, a wave of dread washed over him. He saw his little finger had also succumbed to the petrification, transformed into a grotesque imitation of its former self. He held it up to his face, his heart racing as he stared at the stone-like appendage. It resembled a finger from a statue, cold and lifeless, and as he gazed at it in horror, he saw a sudden crack form.

Before he could react, the tip of his little finger broke off, falling to the ground with a dull thud before crumbling into even smaller fragments. Panic surged through him, and with a shaky hand, he continued to lift his shirt, bracing himself for the worst.

Just as he had feared, patches of flesh along his side had turned to stone, the transformation spreading like a dark stain across his skin. Some areas were already crumbling away, exposing raw, bleeding wounds beneath. Blood trickled down his side, mingling with the remnants of his flesh.

In that moment, Cid came to a harrowing realization: the cost of manipulating time was far greater than he had ever anticipated. He found himself grappling with the consequences of his actions, both physical and emotional. Naively, he had believed he had already endured the worst of the backlash, but he had never imagined it would manifest as a slow, agonizing transformation into stone.

The fifty-fifty chance of success the book had told him was not his rate of success to his ability to manipulate time; rather, surviving using reality arithmetic on the concept of time. The Book of Grand Design had warned him repeatedly about the dangers of tampering with time, long before Cid had gotten the idea, and now he understood why. The stakes were far higher than he had comprehended, and the consequences of his hubris were unfolding before his eyes.

As he felt the petrification creeping further up his leg and into his side, a cold dread settled in his chest. The coin flip he had once viewed with cautious optimism now felt like a cruel joke. He was no longer certain that he had succeeded at all; instead, it seemed he had merely delayed the inevitable. If the transformation continued at this rate, he would die.

Cid looked around desperately, his heart racing as he searched for any semblance of safety. His gaze landed on a small alcove nestled within the gnarled roots of a nearby tree. Summoning every ounce of strength he had left, he crawled toward it, using the limbs that had yet to succumb to the petrification.

As he squeezed into the alcove, he pressed his back against the rough bark of the tree, gasping for breath. The coolness of the wood offered a momentary comfort, but the relentless pain coursing through his body was a constant reminder of his dire situation.

In that moment of vulnerability, Cid couldn't shake the feeling of hopelessness. The agony radiating from his side made it nearly impossible to concentrate, which made it also impossible to use numerology magic. The magic required to decode the Book of Grand Design. Without that knowledge, he was left with no clear path forward, no way to devise a solution to his predicament.

He closed his eyes, trying to block out the pain and focus his thoughts. But the throbbing in his side was relentless. Time was running out, and soon he would turn to stone, or his body would succumb to the damage from the petrification.

In that moment of despair, when it felt as though all hope was lost, a glimmer of possibility flickered in Cid's mind—something he had completely forgotten amidst the relentless agony that had consumed him.

He reached beneath his robes and pulled out the small bell crafted from bone, a gift from Scarlet a while ago. She had instructed him to channel aether into it and ring it if he ever found himself in dire trouble, promising that she would come running to his aid.

Recalling her words, Cid focused intently, summoning the aether within him. He directed the energy into the macabre instrument, waving it back and forth with urgency. To his astonishment, the bell, despite being made of bone, resonated with a clear, vibrant tone that echoed through the forest like a regular bell.

He continued to ring the bell, pouring his aether into it with fervor, each chime a desperate plea for help. The vibrations filled the air, and for a moment, he felt a connection to something greater than himself. But as the pain from channeling the aether intensified, he knew he had to be cautious. He pushed through the discomfort, ringing the bell until the strain became too much, and he finally stopped, panting heavily.

Cid sat there, engulfed by despair and fear, the weight of his situation pressing down on him like a suffocating shroud. The pain coursing through his body was relentless, but it was the uncertainty of his fate that truly gnawed at his spirit.

Cid: "Mr. Li… Scarlet… please help me…" he mumbled weakly, his voice barely above a whisper.

(Author's Note: The alternative title for this chapter is "Don't fuck with time!")

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