THE GOD EATER

Those words seemed to induce a grave realization within his mind. But the realization was incomplete. It was too big for him to articulate in a short amount of time, so his mind froze in the process.

His mind remained frozen like that for a long time. He didn’t know how much time it was because he couldn’t think. A thought of great significance was trying to come out of his mind, and it was taking all of his mental resources to give birth to it.

He was stuck in the process of producing that thought for an unknown amount of time. But when he saw the other black cube start swimming towards him, every piece of the puzzle clicked, and understanding flared into life in his mind.

”He is me, and I am him. We are one, whether in the past or the future. This is the fourth dimension.”

As this seed of understanding blossomed in his mind, he stopped seeing himself as an entity confined to the third dimension, allowing many versions of himself to appear in his vision.

His vision opened up, and he saw the different versions of himself in a line. One was behind him in the spot he started from. There was another one ahead of him.

There were many more versions beyond these other two, but these two were the ones he could see very clearly. They were also the only ones he could interact with.

With his experience so far, all of these should have been impossible. But he knew that he was right, so his voice was full of conviction as he said, ”Across time and space, I am me.”

As he spoke, he tried to connect all of the versions of himself into one. Unfortunately, he was lacking something, so the best he could do was to make the black cube behind him collapse.

His current body also collapsed. The two versions didn’t disappear completely, though. They left behind potential that merged into the cube ahead of him.

This third cube also collapsed, using the combined potential of the three of them to jump across the distance between it and the next cube in line. The distance that had taken him an eternity to cross was thus crossed in an instant.

Likewise, the fourth cube collapsed and merged with the fifth cube. Again and again, the cubes merged into one another, going up the line through the fourth dimension.

Up ahead of the line was their goal. Their goal was a version of himself surrounded by matter, energy, and force. It was reality which the sea of nothingness lacked.

Since he was unable to link the different versions of himself directly, not all of them knew the truth about their singularity across time and space.

Most of them were still in the darkness, swimming to reach the other black cube. They were doing what he had done earlier when something suddenly crashed into them from behind, enlightening them and spurring them into action.

With more of them combining their potential, they got closer and closer to their goal. Just like most of them, their goal was also ignorant of what was going on.

From the perspective of their goal, he had just entered the third heaven when Fenrir jumped out from the River of Time and merged with him, infusing him with memories of the future.

Apparently, Fenrir had used the Rewind Metac to sail up the River of Time into the past. Unfortunately, Fenrir couldn’t pass the barrier into the Sea of Worlds because it was now a bona fide 3-D Supreme Metac.

The Sea of Worlds refused to allow Fenrir to enter it even through the River of Time because it was now 9,9,9(x,y,z), not the 9,9,1(x,y,z) that it was before. So Fenrir had to appear here at the entrance of the third heaven.

After reviewing the memories that the Devouring Supreme Metac brought, Loki’s face became grim, and he said, ”I have to escape.”

He didn’t want to have a child, but he knew that he couldn’t escape from the guardian. His attempt to run was to avoid Black Chain and avoid the fate of being killed.

As for the fact that Fenrir had left him alone in the future, he didn’t care about it. When he gave it some thought, he shrugged and said, ”I am fine, and that’s all that matters. Now that I’ve reversed time, he never existed, and as long as I avoid Black Chain, that event will never happen.”

However, just before he could turn to leave, something slammed into the 4-D prototype within the Spark of Power.

”What the...” he began before he froze.

The memories of his experience in that abyss of darkness washed over him, baptizing his mind, but it also froze him in place. He seemed to reveal everything that led up to his realization of the truth of the fourth dimension. But the more he understood, the more confused he became.

From his perspective, he had spent an eternity swimming over to another version of himself. But in reality, everything that happened only took an instant of time.

The confusing part was that he thought that where he was was the fourth dimension. But it definitely wasn’t the River of Time, so he wasn’t sure where he was anymore.

’Was there time at all in that darkness, or was everything in my mind? What is time anyway?’

’If I view it from my perspective alone, that void in darkness that I was stuck in was actually the space where the Spark of Power was, so I had never actually left the Spark of Power as I thought.’

’That void was also the space where Astra was currently. But while I was there, I didn’t notice Astra at all. There was only me and myself.’

’What is that place? Why couldn’t that egg access it, but Astra could? Black Chain’s ability also had no effect on my power from there.’