The Emperor's eyes narrowed coldly as he withdrew from the space Karsu had just left. There wasn't a hint of worry in his gaze, only a look of arrogant satisfaction that adorned the corners of his soul. Whatever that broken Karsu did, it wouldn't change anything in the end. He, the Emperor, represented absolute power, the unyielding past, which would crush any attempt by the future to rise. He knew with his ancient intuition that Karsu wouldn't give up easily, but he believed that no matter how great Karsu's abilities, they would be helpless before the absolute laws of the world that he represented.
"Oh, Quranos," the Emperor called out in a hollow voice, carrying nothing but absolute command, his eyes following the movement of the solid barrier separating the two worlds. "I'm tired of waiting. How about a game of chess?"
Quranos smiled his usual smile that concealed a thousand secrets. His cold eyes watched the barrier for a moment before he turned to the Emperor. "As you command, Your Majesty... or rather, he who holds your title." Naturally, the gleaming white pieces were on the opposite side of the board. Quranos began the game with a quiet white pawn move, while the Emperor stared at the board, uninterested in what was happening far away from him. In his depths, he saw Karsu, those faint flashes of realization, but he arrogantly ignored them. What could a broken being do in fifteen minutes? Nothing worth mentioning. Then Quranos looked at the Emperor and moved his pawn two steps forward.
"The Demonic Emperor Karsu, he is truly terrifying! He is the perfect example of adaptation! He's simply brilliant. Moments ago, he discovered that he was nothing but an embodiment, and was on the verge of perishing into non-existence, yet he endured and adapted with superhuman speed! This is truly a huge match with the original Karsu. I can hardly believe he's just an embodiment!" Quranos said, looking at the Emperor, then moved the white bishop, opening a long path.
A silence heavier than any nightmare settled in the space Karsu found himself in. It wasn't an ordinary silence; it was a heavy weight descending upon his soul, pressing down on every beat of his blood-stained body. He no longer felt pain, but rather the coldness of absolute realization that began to grow within him, like a strange seed sprouting in barren land. His eyes were dim, but behind that darkness, a flicker of understanding began to creep in, an understanding that transcended the limits of his decaying body.
"This space..." Karsu whispered to himself, his voice barely breaking the stillness of his inner world. "It's shaped by my perception. Just as I summoned the sword... but I couldn't use its full power then. My body... couldn't bear it."
His eyes relaxed, then suddenly widened, and a cold spark erupted from his depths. He remembered the Emperor, his powers that required absolute bodies, his manipulations of all kinds of immense Quz. He knew that the Emperor hadn't just appeared out of nowhere to become like this, and that his current powers were the result of countless years of evolution and experience.
"I couldn't match him, not because of my inherent weakness... but because my body wasn't prepared to accept the types of Quz I possess or could produce. The Emperor, with his hundreds of years of existence, built a body that could withstand it. I... I must build a body that can withstand, or find a way to circumvent this limitation."
His breathing quickened now, but his mind remained eerily calm. He raised his palm towards the void surrounding him, confident that this space was a reflection of his consciousness, but also connected to the power of Quranos's barrier, the source of absolute knowledge that he did not possess himself.
"The first step, then, is to strengthen my body. I must be able to bear the powers I will unleash." He pondered. "And to do that in fifteen minutes, I must accelerate my perception. An energetic elixir... that's the solution."
"Summon: Energetic Elixir – Blue Type – Pure – 99% Concentration."
The void convulsed, then slowly split open, as if the sky itself had opened to welcome the birth of something new. A small vial emerged, gleaming with the color of the deep ocean on a dark night. Without hesitation, without blinking, Karsu drank it.
And suddenly... time stopped.
No, the outside world didn't stop. Rather, his thoughts raced at a fantastic speed, transcending the concept of time itself. Seconds no longer had meaning; minutes became eons of continuous thought.
"Now that I've temporarily strengthened my body, I must accelerate my perception to the maximum."
"Complete Slowness Quz. Give me four times the speed of thought."
At that moment, a dim gray ray appeared before him, solidified from motionlessness for thousands of years. It resembled a silkworm, but ancient and wrinkled like an elder, with two red eyes glowing like embers. This was the "Complete Slowness Quz" that emerged from the depths of the barrier. A dark blue aura struck the area around Karsu's head, and Karsu felt his brain expand, his perceptual abilities stretching to their utmost limits. The remaining fifteen minutes were no longer fifteen minutes; they had turned into a full hour of absolute clarity, of concentration that no human had ever reached. In this hour, known only to him, Karsu stood before the true unknown.
At the Chessboard
The Emperor moved his black knight, pushing it towards the center of the board. He watched the barrier with hidden scrutiny, noticing the subtle changes in Karsu's energy. He wasn't surprised.
"What a stubborn one!" the Emperor muttered in a low voice, barely audible to Quranos. "He wasn't content with just strengthening his body... he went on to accelerate his perception. This Quz... the Complete Slowness Quz... only those who have reached the peak of spiritual consciousness can use it. This Karsu... hasn't he died enough to start breaking his limitations?"
The Emperor raised an eyebrow, a malicious smile forming on his lips. "But what next? Will he begin desperate attempts to attack? Or will he continue playing in his illusory world?"
Quranos, with infuriating calm, moved his white pawn one step, without lifting his eyes from the board. He said nothing.
At Karsu's Side
In the hour of expanded consciousness, Karsu opened the palms of his hands, as if receiving something magnificent.
"Now that I have enough time and endurance, it's time to find the right mixture. I can't improvise at this crucial moment." Karsu thought clearly. "This space connects to the barrier that surrounds it. The barrier possesses immense knowledge that surpasses my own. I will exploit this knowledge."
Karsu muttered, and this time his voice was closer to a royal command, yet carried a hint of hidden desperation.
"Summon every herb, tool, ingredient, and elixir I've ever heard of, read about, or seen, from any source... in any time. Draw this knowledge from the barrier that surrounds us."
And the sky exploded!
It wasn't a sonic explosion, but a visual one. Tens of thousands of glittering vials, intricate roots, countless stones, liquids of strange colors, plants that seemed to be from other worlds, ancient notebooks covered in forgotten symbols, pieces of primitive technology, feathers of extinct birds, and even sparkling stardust! They rained down around him from every direction, as if he were submerged in a sea of alchemical and scientific knowledge.
But his eyes, despite the momentary awe, remained fixed, searching for something specific amidst this flood.
"So much! This is endless! The number of experiments is infinite. This is impossible... I won't accomplish this even if you give me a hundred lifetimes! I need a way to narrow down the options."
Karsu slowly turned, a faint, cold smile gracing his lips.
"Alright, it's time to exploit the barrier's knowledge."
Suddenly, a bright light appeared before him, but it was easy on the eyes, as if an eye had opened in the void. It wasn't a dazzling light, but a calm pulse, forming in the middle to resemble a small, glowing silkworm, floating in the air like a living being. This was the "Partial Knowledge Quz."
Karsu spoke to it: "Partial Knowledge Quz... show me only the compositions with a success rate exceeding 50%."
The components began to vanish at an astonishing speed, fading from existence as if they had never been, until only... 54 elements remained. His eyebrow shot up sharply, but his chest remained still.
"54 left... that's a big step. But... even with this hour of mine, it's impossible! I cannot perform this huge number that will exceed billions of possibilities and experiment with all of them in one hour. I must know what type of fusion is required."
Karsu spoke again to the Partial Knowledge Quz, his eyes fixed on the glowing entity: "Tell me, Partial Knowledge Quz, how many components are needed to fuse the correct composition? Is it a binary, ternary, or more?"
The Partial Knowledge Quz pulsed twice, then sent a clear signal to Karsu's mind: "Binary."
Karsu exhaled with hidden relief. "Binary! That's much better than ternary or quaternary!" Karsu sighed, pondering for a moment, then: "Oh, how pathetic I am! If I were at my peak in the past, I wouldn't have needed this nonsense. My current level doesn't allow me to summon a Quz higher than three levels. Directly requesting the fusion method requires at least a fifth-level Knowledge Quz. In my previous life, before returning, I was a sixth-level Quz master, so I could have done it easily. But now... no."
"1431 experiments... and the time? Just an hour. That's also impossible... not enough to even try a small fraction of them. I must find a loophole. A loophole in the agreement."
Silence fell again. It was a heavy silence, full of defiance. But Karsu did not panic. Instead, he fell silent... then slowly, agonizingly slowly, opened his eyes, indicating a decisive choice. He remembered Quranos's conditions, word for word.
In the sky, a massive hourglass of light appeared, its golden grains of sand slowly dwindling, announcing the remaining time. It pointed to "9 minutes and 45 seconds."
He smiled... that smile understood only by those who knew the depths of his soul, the smile of a being who had found a way out in the tightest of places.
"The agreement... it didn't mention how I should die. Only that I must die. If I die, I get another fifteen minutes. In this space, I can control everything... even my death."
He raised his index finger, and with the blood of an old wound on his chest, he drew a precise and complex matrix. Then he muttered a special spiritual incantation, and pierced his own heart.
He killed himself.
In the next moment... he found himself in a new space. Clean. Raw. Bearing no trace of blood or fatigue. As if time had been reset from the beginning.
But... the hourglass in the sky pointed to only "9 minutes and 40 seconds." The time hadn't changed!
"What?!" Karsu was shocked, his consciousness racing against time. "Suicide alone doesn't renew the time! Death must occur at the exact moment the time runs out, a fraction of a fraction of a second after the deadline! If I die before that, the time is not renewed. And if I don't die, the Emperor will seize me. And he won't kill me... he will torture me until he breaks my soul!"
All options vanished before him. He had to spend the remaining fifteen minutes, then at the critical moment between life and death, find a way to renew the time. This was the true challenge.
At the Chessboard
The Emperor's hand froze in the air above the chessboard. He felt a sharp fluctuation in the barrier, stronger than ever before. His eyes widened in shock, then narrowed with extreme caution.
"What is this?!" the Emperor roared, his voice shaking with a slight astonishment he wasn't accustomed to. "He wants to reactivate the deadline! He's renewing himself...? Impossible! How?!"
Quranos watched the Emperor, the corner of his lips turning up slightly in a barely visible, hidden smile. He calmly moved his white knight, capturing the Emperor's knight. "Checkmate."
"But... this means..." the Emperor muttered, ignoring the game for a moment, his mind racing to try and understand what Karsu was doing. "He found a loophole in the agreement! It didn't mention how to die... he can commit suicide to renew the deadline! This is madness! Does he intend to commit suicide 1431 times?! This being... he truly is an embodiment of my ancient death, refusing to surrender even to the simplest laws!"
The Emperor looked at the glowing hourglass in the sky. It pointed to "only two minutes" remaining. The Emperor smiled a greedy smile, like a monster's maw opening.
"Time is running out, old Karsu! I won't let you commit suicide. I will catch you, and I will break your soul!"
As the last second of the hourglass ticked away, the Emperor moved. In an instant, he vanished from before the chessboard, covering tens of meters, then hundreds of meters through the mental space. He stood now, his shadow completely covering Karsu, extending his gigantic hand to seize him, to break his soul forever.
But at that crucial moment, when the hourglass announced its last second, and before the Emperor's fingers touched his body, the Emperor felt a faint flicker.
"It's too late, Emperor," Karsu whispered, his voice barely audible, as the matrix he had drawn on his heart glowed with a deadly light, then exploded, reducing his heart to ashes in a fraction of a second.
He died.
And at that moment... the hourglass stopped, then suddenly flipped over, and its golden grains of sand began to flow again, announcing another fifteen minutes.
"Huh?!" the Demonic Emperor gasped, his eyes almost bulging with rage, then "Hahaha! So that's how it is! Excellent, excellent! Keep going, your fate won't change no matter how hard you try."
Time had already run out for the Emperor, unlike Karsu, who had found hope!
Back to Karsu - The Spiritual Abyss
The first experiment... a failure.
Suicide.
The second... a failure.
Suicide.
The third...
The fourth...
The sixth...
The ninth...
The twenty-fifth...
Each time he sank into failure, he inscribed a matrix in his heart, and woke up to a new fifteen minutes. The pain faded, becoming nothing more than a mechanical act, but his mind worked fiercely, analyzing each fusion, refusing failure, and searching for the result.
In experiment number 302...
When Karsu fused the "Night's Fervor" plant – a dark leaf dancing like a ghost, containing the essence of dormant darkness, dense, heavy, devouring all light – with "Pure Illusion Nerve" – a thin strand glowing with a false gleam, representing endless flexibility and change, light, adaptable, capable of penetrating – the air changed.
It was no longer just air he breathed; it transformed into a dense liquid, shimmering with colors never seen before. Its color shifted, and black particles mingled with a mysterious light, as if darkness and light had merged into a new, unified core.
"This isn't a new Quz... this is a fusion to break the dissonance between great powers." Karsu thought with absolute clarity, his consciousness receiving a massive influx of information from the barrier. "I couldn't create it in the outside world, but here... in this space connected to the barrier, I can break the barriers between opposing forces."
Karsu didn't speak. He didn't breathe. He wasn't surprised.
Instead, he closed his eyes, and allowed the new essence to enter his chest. He felt the transformation infiltrate every cell in his body.
Suddenly...
His body began to crack from within... not as destruction, but as an organic transformation, like a cellular fission giving birth to a new entity.
And here he summoned the Quz of Fire, the Quz of Darkness, the Quz of Light, in addition to the Quz of Shadows, and finally the Quz of Water.
Five fundamental forces rushed towards him, each carrying its unique essence, all representing sharp contradictions:
* Quz of Darkness: Dense, heavy, devouring all light. Karsu needed its absolute, unyielding power, its impenetrable stability, but he knew its density alone would hinder him.
* Quz of Light: Pure, fast, repelling all shadows. He needed its supreme speed, its flexibility in change, and its ability to penetrate darkness itself, to balance the weight of darkness.
* Quz of Shadows: Elusive, mediating between light and darkness, granting the ability to conceal and adapt. Shadows were the bridge, allowing light and darkness to coexist instead of canceling each other out, giving the mixture the ability to color and camouflage, serving as a mediator that connected opposites.
* Quz of Water: Incredibly flexible, flowing around everything, representing the ability to adapt and penetrate. He needed the immense flexibility of water and its low density to break the excessive density of darkness and its lack of flexibility, giving the mixture unexpected fluidity and the ability to flow into the tightest spaces.
* Quz of Fire: Violent, transformative, destroying and regenerating, representing the driving force that merges contradictions and transforms them into a new form of power. Fire here is not just a destructive force, but a melting agent. It was the engine of energy, the flame that devoured differences and forged them into a new unity, burning away dissonance to create an impossible union.
These forces mingled. They didn't cancel each other out, but rather melted into a single crucible, under Karsu's control, who represented the meeting point of these opposing forces. The darkness, possessing immense density but lacking flexibility, began to merge with water, which was characterized by its immense flexibility and low density, giving it incredible fluidity. The shining light collided with the dense darkness, giving birth to forms invisible to the naked eye, capable of manipulating reality. Shadows were the bridge between them, giving the fusion the ability to vanish and appear. While fire was the catalyst, the flame that devoured differences and forged them into a new unity.
Something third was born. It wasn't just a Quz; it was a contradictory entity, yet terrifyingly complete.
A mixture of absolute blackness glowed with a faint white shimmer, like a star's eye on a moonless night. Its edges rippled like shifting shadows, and its heart pulsed with a dark silver liquid flowing like molten fire. It combined the weight of darkness with the speed of light, the flexibility of water with the sharpness of fire, and the strangeness of shadows. It was a non-existent, unexpected power, a power that could shatter reality itself.
And from within it, from the heart of that breaking that was not just a Quz, his voice was heard clearly, his voice having gained a new resonance, deep and impactful, carrying the weight of experience and a million deaths:
Karsu smiled as he said, "This... isn't just a Quz... this is a Break."