A Failed Hero's Voyage Chapter 6: Chapter 6: Dragon of Space and Time

Read chapter 6 of A Failed Hero's Voyage by churro on NovelPedia.

Atherius locked his gaze onto the celestial dragon in human form, immediately recognizing that Mordor was no longer the same. Something fundamental had shifted, though he could not define it outright. Instead, he felt it, the mana gathering around Mordor was wrong. It was not being generated in any conventional sense, nor drawn from a known reservoir. It felt as though it were being summoned, yet even that word failed to capture the scale of what he was witnessing. No known source, no planet, no dimension, could sustain such an output. This was more mana than the world should allow, perhaps even more than the cosmos itself. A violent wind erupted from Mordor’s position, but Atherius did not yield. He planted his feet firmly, grounding himself against the surge as his cape whipped violently behind him. Raising a hand to shield his eyes, he remained composed, steady, and unshaken. Then he smiled, not in denial, but in understanding. Of course. Dragons were not merely beasts. They were living embodiments of creation’s principles. The five great dragons governed the fundamental elements, fire, earth, storm, water, and ice, each a sovereign force in its own right. But the celestial dragon stood apart, governing space and time, the two forces that bound reality itself. For humans, these were theoretical constructs, studied and debated but never truly mastered. Dragons, however, did not study such forces, they wielded them. And now Mordor was doing the impossible. He was not drawing from a single moment in time, but from all of them, every timeline, every possible iteration, every version of himself that had ever existed or could exist was being condensed into a single point. The result was catastrophic, a power that bordered on divine. Atherius’s grin sharpened as his focus deepened. The world around Mordor began to fracture as invisible seams split open across reality, cracking like glass under immense pressure. From Mordor’s mouth, a thin stream of crimson smoke escaped as his breathing grew strained, and his body trembled under the weight of what he had invoked. Even the broken horn on his head refused to regenerate, still suppressed by Atherius divine interference. To any observer, this level of power would have seemed overwhelming, impossible to contend with. But this was not an ordinary battlefield, and Atherius was not an ordinary opponent. He had been forged for this. Born with absolute divine resistance and perfect affinity, he stood beyond conventional limits. Every form of magic, every weapon, every discipline, mastered, refined and perfected. He was the apex of mortal existence, flawless and unbreakable. And because of that, he felt no uncertainty. He would win. Not by chance, nor by struggle, but by certainty. Slowly, the fractures in reality around Mordor began to mend as the shattered space sealed itself and the overwhelming surge of mana compressed inward, stabilizing around his form. Then he changed. His brown skin darkened as fissures spread across his body like cracks in glass, glowing with a searing crimson light. Energy pulsed beneath the surface, barely contained, surging with each breath he took. The world itself seemed to strain around him. Then his eyes opened, calm, measured, at peace. Mordor looked directly at Atherius and smiled. For the briefest moment, Atherius faltered. His expression shifted, a flicker of doubt crossing his features as a single question formed in his mind, ‘Why is he smiling?’ He blinked. And in that instant, something struck him from the side. Atherius’s eyes snapped open as his body reacted to the impact, catching only a fleeting glimpse of Mordor passing him by, no wasted motion, no flourish, only speed and precision. The strike had not wounded him, yet he felt it. The force behind it was undeniable, compressed, refined, and far stronger than before. Atherius drove his foot into the ground, carving a trench through stone as he forced himself to halt. The earth fractured under the p