The forbidden regions of the universe and the forbidden regions of Hortus shared striking similarities.
Both were made by the same primordial gods. But the former was more natural, perhaps something they left at their death, letting it form out of their own self.
The forbidden regions of Hortus were deliberate and made with the intention of being an experiment.
They were far more conducive to learning. And after learning from the Hortus version, Varian could advance to the cosmic version.
The most progress he made in these ten years was naturally in the domain of forbidden regions!
He once used God’s eye to check all of the universe’s space-time for the existence of God Emperor. He didn’t find the man.
But now, he’s going to do something more radical.
Varian activated his authority and the entire region hummed. The milky white glow turned silverly and the field of space-time grew erratic.
As the forbidden region of space-time, it could indeed affect the timeflow of the whole universe.
But that’s just too difficult. Varian couldn’t do it as a peak rank 2. And he’s sure even a peak rank 3 couldn’t do it, for even the Primordial gods made no such attempt.
Because in attempting to reverse time, one would have to face resistance from order and chaos as well as life and death.
To take them back to a previous state meant overcoming all the resistance of nearly the entire universe.
It’s just absurd.
He wasn’t here for that. There was a way to alter time flow to the past and not face all that backlash.
"To the past."
An impossibly long milky white current appeared above his head, symbolizing the flow of time.
Now, it was erratic and bubbled.
"A piece of my spirit."
Varian’s powers fully activated and a sliver of his soul rose.
Samsara quickly wrapped it in her power and kept it connected to Varian’s soul.
The spirit reached the long river of time and the power of God’s Eye was pushed to the maximum.
The universe stilled for a moment before Varian’s physical body exploded from the backlash.
The river continued to flow and gradually vanished from sight.
Meanwhile...
A piece of Varian’s spirit, purely as an observer, traveled back in time.
His soul was still in the present, slowly recovering from the backlash. And his body was also being reconstructed.
But he’s fully aware of this sliver of consciousness that was going back and back.
Boom!
"Is it a hundred million years ago? A billion?" Invisible to everyone else, Varian appeared in a chaotic city.
The slivers did not travel back with him. It felt a little weird, to be all alone. But he quickly adjusted his mind.
"Even though I couldn’t travel to the starting point, I’m almost there." Varian walked in the streets as he searched for the target.
Once the river of time appeared, he had Samsara lock onto God Emperor’s soul signature and point the moment it first appeared in time.
He tried to go back to that year, but time travel, even if with a piece of consciousness, got harder the further he went back.
"You scum! Your kind has no right to live in our streets! You cowards always surrender to the alliance bastards!"
There was a commotion on the street and Varian passed through the physical bodies of the crowd to check it out.
A few men with wolf tails and ears were beating up a boy with green frog-like skin. The boy was curled up, covering his head while the men raised their sticks once again.
The sticks, dripped with fresh blue blood, were about to fall down when a young boy covered in dust rushed, yelling. "Stop! Stop! Don’t beat him! Don’t beat him!"
The men paused for a moment before one of them kicked the new boy. "Why are you supporting the cowards? The alliance bastards are killing so many of our men. The Jai empire will be destroyed sooner or later if we leave these weaklings alive!"
The Jai empire destroyed by the alliance?
’Ah!’
Varian noticed the city once again. It’s chaotic. Chaotic in the sense there were so many people dressed up in armors, carrying weapons and fighting at every other turn.
Murders were happening in a few streets right now. And on the outskirts of the city, there were many, many bodies being burnt.
Soldiers in military uniforms were bowing to the burning corpses while a lot of women were wailing.
"The early days of the Jai Empire, when the alliance was still stronger." Varian muttered.
Those days, the alliance was more into internal conflicts and didn’t take the Jai seriously. They did fight Jai and seriously damaged them. But they showed no urgency to finish them off.
As a result...
"If this is the period, then—"
"Ahhh!" One of the men screamed as he clutched his abdomen and staggered back.
"How dare you?!" The other two glared at the boy holding a sharp stone.
The boy was slightly shaken by their yells, but looking at the curled up figure, he straightened his back. His dusty face showed an unyielding look.
"Maybe some people of his race are cowards and deserted. But he is not at fault for their actions. All of us will join the army once we grow up.
I don’t know if we, the Jai can win against the alliance. But if we keep this up, our infighting will only kill us before they do."
The men laughed in anger at his righteous words.
"So, forgive these weaklings? Live with them? With these..." The man’s face contorted as he pointed to the curled up figure. "Disgusting creatures."
"As long as they’re not causing trouble, why not?" The young boy said sharply. "We’re all people anyway."
The injured man walked forward, tightening his grip on the stick, his huge body shadowing the small boy.
Blood was still dripping out of his abdomen and the man asked with a grim face.
"If I beat you to half-death today and stop it tomorrow, it’s okay, right?" The adult man spoke absurdities to a child.
The boy’s face paled and he held the sharp stone closer to his chest.
"T-They are not the same." The boy stammered, hoping that the injured child would quickly leave. "His race had some cowardly warriors. But he’s not at fault."
The crowd watched silently. No one came to help.
"Then who is responsible for actions of a race? Their neighbors? The friends of those races? Who?"
The boy took a step back, face tense. "Y-You...why do you have to beat up our own people?"
"When is he ours? Just because we are in the same province, he is ours? Or the same empire?" The man laughed.
With him, the crowd laughed too.
Tears were beginning to well up in the boy’s eyes but he bravely nodded. "Yes. We are all members of Jai. Fighting is not good."
A military man walking away with two corpses on his shoulders paused at those words.
"You little bas—huh?"
The other two men realized this and quickly held his arm to prevent the attack from falling.
The military man took a step towards them. To quickly salvage the situation, the clever one blurted out.
"The alliance and us are all members of Eden. If they are one day weaker, should we also let them live, since we are all people?"
The young boy paused for a moment.
That itself drew boos from the crowd and a frown on the soldier’s face.
"Yes, if they stop fighting, we can all live together in peace, isn’t that great?" The boy said with sincere hope.
Boom!
The stick fell.
The crowd cheered and the military man spat before walking away.
The boy staggered back and collapsed. Blood was pouring out his head, drenching his hair and forming a small puddle under him.
"Tch. Traitors and cowards, what a combination."
As the other two raised their sticks, a bell sound rang out across the streets.
"Hurry! The military is coming to conscript us again!"
"Run! Run!"
The streets were quickly emptied.
The curled up figure stood up shortly after and he timidly approached the bleeding boy who collapsed face down.
Turning him over, he grew pale looking at the blood soaked face. With trembling hands, he wiped off the blood and checked his eyelids.
Realizing he’s still alive, the green-skinned boy ran off in a hurry.
Varian watched the fainted young face with a complicated expression.
This familiar face.
Thoren Aur Deus.
God Emperor.