The silence in the room felt suffocating. Duchess Elara remained frozen on the edge of her son's bed, her hands gripping her own trembling knees.
Elara's world had just been rocked by two massive tremors in quick succession.
First, her youngest son confessed to marrying a male beastfolk.
Second, and this was the one making her Grand Mage instincts scream was what had just happened to her magic spear.
Elara closed her eyes for a moment, taking a deep breath to calm her racing heart. She pushed her son's romance to the corner of her mind. There was a far more urgent and terrifying anomaly of power she had to confirm.
Elara's sharp blue eyes snapped open, locking instantly onto Calian, who was still standing there hugging Wolvin's shoulders.
"Calian..." Elara called out, her voice sounding hoarse, losing its usual authority. "Forget about your crazy marriage for a moment. There is something even more nonsensical that just happened right before my eyes."
Elara pointed a trembling finger at the gaping charred hole in the wall.
"That spear..." Elara said slowly. "You didn't deflect it. You didn't use a shield. You didn't even divert its path with wind magic."
The visual memory replayed in Elara's mind. The spear stopped abruptly in mid-air. Total stillness. Then Calian pulled Wolvin away, and the spear resumed its straight path.
"That object stopped as if the reality around it was frozen." Elara said. "Answer me, Son. What exactly did you do?"
Calian fell silent for a moment. He glanced at Wolvin, then sighed in resignation. There was no point in hiding anymore. His mother had seen everything.
"You didn't see it wrong, Mother." Calian answered calmly. "I didn't touch your magic. I simply stopped the time around that magic."
Gasp!
Elara's heart felt like it skipped a beat.
"Time?" Elara repeated, her voice squeaking.
Calian nodded. He raised his right hand, where a faint purple aura still glowed.
"The priests at the Central Temple were right when they pronounced me 'Empty'. I don't have a mana core to control natural elements." Calian explained. "But they were wrong about one thing. I am not empty. I possess a Blessing."
Calian looked at his mother seriously.
"Back then, no comprehensible writing appeared on the crystal." Calian continued. "But only I could read the writing that was there. What I read on that crystal was [Time Loop]."
Elara swallowed hard. "[Time loop]? You... Can you turn back time? Change the past?"
"No, Mother." Calian denied quickly. "I am not a God who can alter history. I cannot return the time that has passed, and I cannot fix what has already happened in the past."
Calian's face turned cold, his aura sharpening.
"However, I can make people eternally young, stop time, manipulate time, make myself and others immortal, and also manipulate someone's age."
Calian continued his explanation. "I can stop time on specific objects or areas around me, like your spear earlier, Mother. I can trap my enemies in an eternal time stop, where they will be stuck forever in the same moment unable to move forward until I cancel the magic. And in that moment, I am free to do whatever I want to the target I stopped."
Elara staggered back. Her body slumped weakly onto the mattress. Her face was deathly pale.
Even though he couldn't change the past, the power to absolutely control the "present" was a terrifying thing.
Instantly, memories of her husband, Duke Maxwell's arrogance, rang in Elara's ears. The words the Duke always repeated to compare his three genius children with Calian, whom he considered a failure.
"Alaric awakened his Golden Sword Aura when he was ten." the Duke had said when condemning Calian in the past.
That was the symbol of absolute physical strength. Alaric's [Sword Saint] could slice through steel as if it were water. His speed was unmatched.
"Beren was able to strategize advanced warfare at eleven." the Duke continued.
That was the symbol of tactical intelligence. Beren possessed the Blessing [War God's Mind]. He could predict thousands of enemy moves before the war began.
"And Clara... your older sister, was already contracted by an Intermediate Fire Spirit when she was your age." the Duke sneered at little Calian.
That was the symbol of mass destruction, a [Fire Spirit Wizard]. Clara's fire could burn down a battalion in an instant.
They were called the "Golden Trio of Larvin." The Pride of the Empire.
But now, standing before her was a user of [Time Loop], who was none other than her youngest son who had been discarded by his father.
Elara's brain performed a rapid calculation that made her shudder in fear.
Alaric could slash as fast as lightning with his Golden Aura? Useless. In front of Calian, speed had no meaning. Calian could freeze Alaric in a time stop before his sword was even drawn from its sheath. Alaric would merely become a helpless golden statue.
Beren was a strategy genius who could predict the future of war? Futile. Strategy takes time to execute. Calian could trap Beren's army in an eternal time stop, leaving them standing in the same spot forever, unaware they would be killed in an instant.
Elara gazed at her son's handsome face looking back at her. Clara could summon Fire Spirits to burn everything? Pointless. Fire needs time to spread. In Calian's halted time zone, Clara's fire was nothing but a cold, harmless still image.
Duchess Elara held her forehead again, massaging it slowly. The powers of his three siblings still bowed to the natural laws of this world. But Calian's power? Time was absolute authority. It was the domain of the Supreme God. He indeed couldn't go back to the past, but simply by freezing the present, no being in this world could touch him.
"By the Gods..." Elara covered her mouth with her hand, her eyes tearing up as she looked at her youngest son.
Her husband was wrong. His three siblings were wrong. The whole world was wrong.
The child thrown into this West Pavilion was no trash. He was a true monster. His power made the "Golden Trio's" talents look like child's play.
"Calian..." Elara swallowed hard, her voice trembling violently. "Your power... in the face of your time control, Alaric's sword, Beren's strategy, and Clara's fire... they all mean nothing."
Elara stared at Calian with a mix of fear, awe, and deep regret.
"All this time... they threw a God into an isolated place like this." Elara whispered, realizing the painful irony. "If your Father knew... if the world knew you held absolute power over time, they would surely try to use you, Calian."
"They must not know, Mother." Calian cut in firmly. He looked at his mother seriously. "It is enough that only you and Wolvin know about my Blessing. Let the world continue to think I am trash. I prefer to live peacefully with my wife than be made into a weapon of mass destruction by the Empire."
Elara fell silent for a long time, looking at her son who now felt so alien yet so majestic. Then Elara began to speak again.
"Calian, I hope you keep the Blessing you possess a closely guarded secret." Elara muttered weakly, massaging her temples which felt like they were about to split. "My head still hurts. My youngest son has a sexual deviation, married a mele beastfolk, and turns out he possesses a God's Blessing that could make his siblings kneel helplessly with just one look. Truly a beautiful day..."