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Chapter 279: Temporal Spectres

Seath had long relied on his Innate Talent to manipulate time—accelerating and decelerating his own flow of time. He had mastered a range of time-related skills but none allowed him to manipulate the universal Space-Time continuum itself.

Travelling through time, whether to the past or future, was a feat far beyond his reach. That was, until he awakened the Timehowler Bloodline—an extraordinary lineage belonging to one of the rare species deeply attuned to the time element. 

The Timehowlers race were fabled for their natural affinity with the flow of time, possessing abilities most could only dream of. Seath had yet to undergo the full Bloodline Metamorphosis, a transformation that would unlock the bloodline's true potential, but the knowledge he had gained since its awakening had allowed him to tap into some of their formidable abilities. 

The most outstanding among those was the Timehowlers' iconic skill: the power to traverse the Space-Time continuum itself, moving briefly through both past and future.

Yet even with the incredible powers his bloodline promised, Seath knew that such ventures were fraught with danger. His inherited knowledge urged caution, warning him of the Temporal Spectres— unkillable entities tasked with guarding the fragile threads of time itself.

They roamed the Space-Time continuum, ensuring that no lifeform, no matter how powerful, disrupted the natural order. Those who lost their entire lifespan to the Temporal Spectres were doomed to join their ranks, mindlessly wandering for all eternity, forever hunting intruders, just as they once were.

The knowledge passed down through his bloodline had emphasised that over and over—tampering with time came with great risks, and even the most skilled of Timehowlers had fallen prey to those guardians of time.

Despite those warnings, Seath had been driven by the desire to push his newfound Time-elemental knowledge to its limits. After countless attempts and failures, he had finally succeeded—if only for a moment—in slipping into the Space-Time continuum. His ability allowed him to step backward by a few seconds, a tiny ripple in the grand flow of time. 

But the moment of triumph quickly turned to disaster. Though he succeeded in stepping into the past, he was powerless to change anything. It was as though he were a phantom, a mere observer without any physical presence in the timeline he had entered.

The real terror began when his reckless intrusion into the past drew the attention of the Temporal Spectres, who had sensed his breach, and their pursuit was unrelenting. No matter how he tried to escape through the folds of time, they had been faster. 

Their cold, eerie presence haunted his every step, and in his desperate attempt to return to his present, Seath had been forced to pay an unbearable price—thirty years of his life, ripped away by the Spectres' touch. The experience had left him shaken, and with a vow never to meddle with time so recklessly again.

Yet there he was, standing near Jay, who seemed to have done the impossible. The man had achieved what Seath had failed to do—he had not only traveled through time but somehow managed to alter it without suffering the catastrophic consequences Seath had endured.

The questions swirled in his mind: 'How had Jay avoided the Spectres? How had he broken the rules of time without the same devastating cost?'

Jay approached, his expression a mix of calm and contemplation. He had clearly sensed Seath's inner turmoil, even catching flashes of the memory—the terrifying pursuit by the same Temporal Spectres Jay had encountered not long ago.

Through that, Jay discovered their name and the devastating price of crossing paths with them. He understood the toll they took—draining one's lifespan—with Seath being one of their unfortunate victims, though lucky enough to survive and recount the ordeal.

Breaking the silence, Jay spoke with quiet authority. "I brought you here for a reason,"

he began, his voice steady but laden with significance. "I need your help to understand the ability I just used. It's different from anything I've known. If you're ready, I'll share my memory—of what happened just seconds ago."

Seath's mind surged with curiosity. Though the terror of his own failed attempt still lingered, the chance to learn how Jay had mastered what he could not was too tempting to resist.

With a cautious nod, Seath signaled his readiness. In the next moment, he steeled himself as the flow of Jay's memory washed over him, vivid and unfiltered.

In that moment, Seath experienced everything through Jay's perspective—how Jay's consciousness had been drawn into the mysterious weapon in his hand, pulling him ten seconds into the past. 

He watched in astonishment as Jay controlled his past self, altering events there and, in doing so, reshaping the present. The implications of what Seath had witnessed left him frozen, his mind racing to grasp the magnitude of such power.

For a while, he simply stood in place, marveling at what had just unfolded before him. Jay had somehow done what Seath had long believed to be next to impossible for someone in Tier-2. But as Seath's awe slowly gave way to focus, he noticed Jay's expectant gaze. 

Jay was waiting, silently seeking answers, though Seath suspected the man already knew more than he let on. Unbeknownst to Seath, Jay had already read his thoughts, effortlessly unraveling the speculation forming in his mind.

Seath took a deep breath before speaking, his tone cautious yet tinged with awe. "Your weapon... it's unlike anything I've ever seen," he said, trying to piece his thoughts together. "It didn't just send you back—it let you alter the recorded events in the Space-Time continuum until you returned to the present. Even the most powerful Time Innate Talent users, even those at Tier-10, can't do what you just did without losing some of their lifespan to the Temporal Spectres."

He paused, knowing the weight of what he was about to say. "However strong they are, most Time Element users can barely shift the past by a second or two. And even when they succeed, they're hunted down by the Temporal Spectres almost immediately."

Seath paused briefly before continuing, "The Space-Time Continuum is like an endless chain of snapshots, each one capturing a moment in time. Every passing second creates another snapshot, locking everything that occurred into place. The more powerful the Time Elemental user, the deeper they can access these snapshots, allowing them to reach further into the past to make changes. But…"

Seath's voice lowered, the memory of his own failed attempt still fresh in his mind. "But all they can do is alter a few of those snapshots before the Temporal Spectres come for them. And even then, time has a way of correcting itself. The changes they make are usually temporary, almost as if the present reality is inevitable, forcing the past to align with it."

He studied Jay, realizing that what he was describing didn't fully apply to what had just occurred. "But you... you didn't just alter a snapshot. You changed something substantial, and the Space-Time continuum didn't resist you the way it should have. The flow of time didn't correct itself—it stayed altered. And even more incredibly, you somehow kept the Temporal Spectres at bay."

Seath's mind raced, struggling to comprehend how it was possible. His eyes shifted to the weapon in Jay's hand—the power it held was unlike anything Seath had ever encountered, and it was clearly key to Jay's success. "That weapon... how did you come by it?" he asked, his voice filled with curiosity.

Jay remained silent, offering no immediate answer to Seath's revelations. Instead, he turned inward, piecing together the puzzle from the new understanding he had gained. Seath's insights had been invaluable, but there was one detail Jay needed to confirm for himself before he could draw any real conclusions.

He shifted his attention to the Lightning Jackal, the monstrous creature that lay crippled on the ground, its front legs severed. The beast was still conscious, though weakened. Jay focused on it, extending his mind to peer into its recent memories. 

To his surprise, the Lightning Jackal had no memory of delivering the clawed injury that should have torn into Jay's chest. For all it could recall, the attack had been perfectly aimed, but instead of connecting, a weapon—seemingly from nowhere—had materialized and blocked its strike. There was no recollection of Jay being wounded. The event, as far as the Jackal's memory was concerned, had never happened.

That revelation sparked a realization within Jay. He deduced that those within the limited range of the past he altered were unable to remember what had transpired in the present—because they had yet to experience it. 

When he changed the past, it became their new reality, while those outside the range had no awareness of the shift. From Seath's perspective, the Jackal had injured Jay, yet the wound mysteriously vanished, and Jay was no longer standing in the same position. 

Jay mused over the fact that the past he had rewritten only affected those within his 10-meter radius and the rest of the world continued as though nothing had happened, untouched by the ripple in time he had created. 

That realization sparked an idea—how to conceal his weapon, ensuring no one could see or learn about it, thus avoiding any potential trouble it might bring his way.

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Author Note: 

Exclusive artwork for every free chapter is now available on my PATRE0N page! You can find the link in my Discord server.

I'm thrilled to share that I'm taking a big leap forward! Alongside Earth's Alpha Prime, I've launched the first sub-book for EAP.

ALTER REALITY: Online

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The first ten to comment for new chapter releases will get '1 ADVANCED CHAPTER' for free on Earth Alpha Prime's Discord server.

In the discord server, I opened a private channel for those Top 10 candidates, where I posted the respective Advanced Chapter.

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Discord Link for 'Earth's Alpha Prime' :

https://discord.gg/maQC7xDBYZ

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