Re:Ant Lord
Chapter 235: Time-Span of a Breath

Chapter 235: 235: Time-Span of a Breath

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Kai crouched slightly as the wind sliced past his face, sharp and salty, every second of motion painting new stories across the skin of the sea. His senses were wide open. Hair floating in the air, eyes narrowed into slits, breathing slow but steady.

Each passing second fed him more details than most people processed in an hour.

Gull silhouettes wheeled in the distance, wings flashing against the amber sky, shrinking into pale smudges as Uroth surged away from land.

The salt tang in the air sharpened, thickening like rain soaked parchment, mixed now with something older— brine tinged with ozone and a strange, ancient metal scent.

The suckers beneath him pulsed, aura beneath them glowing stronger the faster they moved, beating in perfect rhythm with his own heart, as if syncing to him.

His system flickered with quiet activity behind his eyes.

[Ding! System Notification-

Environmental Scan Complete.

Gravitic Displacement: 1600% normal.

Hydromancy Activity: 44% of measurable high-tide thresholds

Mistfold Pressure: Stable at 3,012 ppm (Hazard Class: Unknown)

Aura Interference: None

Emotional energy Field: Calm, Non Hostile.

Note: Current location contains rare energy levels.

Recommend: Observation + Memory Logging (AUTO ENABLED) ]

"This zone contains traces of deep time aura. Potential for mythic encounters: HIGH." ]

Kai blinked once, then twice. "Three thousand parts per million in pressure shift? That explains the ear pull."

[System Remark: "Yes. Stronger than low level Rift Storm. Do not fall off. Drowning will be extremely painful." ]

"...Thanks for the optimism."

Beneath his feet, the tentacle’s surface shifted with each wave Uroth parted. What should have been slime and chaos was instead a graceful dance of muscles and ancient intelligence.

Small pools rippled between armored plates— some no wider than his fist, others big enough to sit in. And within them, Kai caught quick, fragmented glimpses:

A forest of corals shaped like glass goblets stacked in silence, as though awaiting some ceremonial drinker.

Eels that glowed from the inside out, like glowing threads caught in a current, twisting between crevices in living reef channels.

And ruins—yes, actual ruins. Shards of obsidian carved with symbols older than any script Kai knew, half buried in the flesh of this beast or sunk in the water below. Faces, fractured temples, idol fragments with eyes gouged out. Forgotten, drowned.

Monuments. Swallowed by the sea.

"What other wonders —or horrors— do you guard?" Kai whispered in his mind.

He knew the answer wouldn’t come from Uroth.

But the wall of black mist loomed now, close enough to feel the pressure. It was like a curtain made of ink— liquid shadow, swallowing not just light, but definition itself. No waves broke at its edge. No gulls flew near it. Even the wind seemed hesitant to push too close.

The last kilometer passed in silence. "This is the place..."

Kai’s thoughts whispered. "The edge of something greater." His instincts screamed to brace. Not for a fight but for something unexplainable.

He shifted his stance, body loose but ready, the way Mia had taught him to stand when approaching unknown terrains or wild beasts in the training camp before the desert rune mission. Every breath sharpened. Every nerve hummed.

[Ding! System Notice-

External Temperature: Dropping.

Surface Frost Detected at Joint Seams.

Armor Adaptation: Activating Passive Heat Layer.

Warning: Void Grade Mist Approaching.

Sensory Disruption: High

Recommend: Minimal movement. Absolute focus. ]

Kai clenched his jaw. Even the system was on edge.

Uroth slowed, momentum bleeding away like the tide pulling back before a tsunami. The frontmost plate of its body bowed downward, forming a sloped ramp.

Kai now stood just a few meters from the mist’s living edge. It pulsed. Like breath. Like thought. And then the voice came, not thunderous, but clear, intimate, undeniable.

"Step forward, but do not fear. My oath stands. No harm while the window remains."

The tone wasn’t a command— it was a contract, old and sacred, heavier than any stone oath.

Kai’s body responded even before his mind finished parsing it. He drew two fingers to the crest of his brow, tapping his head once in silent salute. To ancestors. To instinct. To the version of himself that would come out the other side.

He took one long breath and stepped forward.

His boots met something that should not exist. Black water that hardened like polished obsidian, crackling underfoot but not breaking. Where he stepped, small golden hexagons flared to life like stepping stones in an abyss.

[System Message- Surface: Temporary solidification via structured hydromancy field.

Safety Status: Stable for one individual.

"Mist barrier entry detected. All outward aura has been suppressed. Good luck." ]

"...Now you say that," Kai muttered.

Behind him, Uroth remained motionless, its immense, ancient head framed by night’s dark, massive eyes tracking him with eerie calm. No hostility. Only duty.

The silence ahead wasn’t just quiet, it was absolute.

"Come, Kai. Step into the still water; let me guide your feet. The window narrows as the stars rise." The voice told him.

Kai inhaled once more, his lungs stinging with chill. And then he crossed the threshold.

Kai’s boots as though they were alive, every step flicking a fan of faint gold hexagons that dissolved the instant he lifted his heel. The sea was gone; here, reality felt thinned to a single dark membrane, stretching away into infinity. Only the deep time mist and a single, patient voice accompanied him.

"Left, warrior," it murmured.

He obeyed without pausing, pivoting three paces toward what looked like empty gloom. A heartbeat later, the space he would have occupied ruptured— silent, perfect— a disk of abyssal water opening and closing like an eye. No splash, no roar. Just absence. A trap.

Kai exhaled through his teeth. "Hydromancy field... camouflaged sink vortex. Good to know." The system chimed, logging vectors and pressure anomalies for later study.

[SystemUnknown liquid void registered. Density: immeasurable.

Recommendation: Maintain guidance adherence.

Aura suppression: holding. ]

Another thirty meters. The air thickened until each breath felt like drinking ash. Kai let his soul and core pulse once, thinning the heaviness from his lungs. Far overhead —if overhead still applied— specks of dim violet drifted like slow snow.

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