Chapter 7
Chapter 7: Looming Threat
The air in the slums of Aeon City was thick with the scent of smoke and damp earth, the remnants of a recent rain shower still clinging to the crumbling streets. Three weeks had passed since Elias had made this place his refuge, a world where time manipulators were scarce and the powerful had long abandoned the weak. He had learned to blend in, to navigate the shadowed alleys and the makeshift marketplaces, where the desperate traded scraps for another day of survival.
In these weeks, Elias had met three people—three anomalies in their own way, just like him. People who had nothing, yet carried themselves as if they still had everything to fight for.
---
Aria Whitmore – The Storm That Refused to Break
Elias had first encountered Aria Whitmore on the third night after arriving in the slums. He had been scouting the outskirts, searching for a quiet place to rest when he spotted a group of bandits cornering someone in an alleyway. The moonlight illuminated the scene in silver and shadows, and there she was—a tall, slender girl with long black hair that cascaded down her back in tangled waves.
Her piercing violet eyes burned with a defiance that contrasted sharply with her ragged clothes. She looked fragile, as if she had barely eaten in days, but there was no fear in her expression. Even as the bandits circled her, wielding rusted weapons and sneering threats, Aria stood her ground.
Elias had never been one to interfere in matters that weren't his, but something in him reacted. Before he even had time to think, he moved.
The fight was over in seconds.
Elias was faster. Too fast for them.
The last man standing had tried to beg for mercy, but Elias simply stared at him until he turned and fled. Aria never said thank you, only studied him with those unreadable violet eyes before turning away, muttering, "I didn't need help."
The next morning, she found him again.
She tossed him a stale piece of bread. "For the trouble," she said, sitting beside him on a crumbling rooftop, her hair fluttering in the morning breeze.
And that was how it started.
Aria never asked about his past, and Elias never asked about hers. But there was an understanding between them—two people who had lost too much but still refused to break.
---
Reed Calloway – The Eyes That Saw Everything
Reed was trouble, Elias realized the moment they met.
Tall and lean, with hazel eyes that sparkled with mischief, he had an aura of someone who knew things he wasn't supposed to. His messy brown hair was always untamed, and his clothes, though patched up, were clean, showing that he took care of himself, unlike most in the slums.
Reed found Elias first.
"You walk too stiff," he had said, grinning as he blocked Elias's path in one of the narrow alleyways. "You think you blend in, but you don't. Not to someone like me."
Elias had considered knocking him out and leaving, but something about Reed's unshaken confidence made him pause.
Instead of prying, Reed simply smirked and walked away.
The next day, he returned with valuable information about Elias's past movements—things Elias hadn't even realized someone could track.
Reed wasn't just some scavenger.
He was a survivor in a world where information was power, and he had made it clear he was willing to share that power with Elias—for a price.
Elias didn't trust him.
But he kept him close.
Because Reed knew things. And Elias needed answers.
---
Nina Whitmore – A Flicker of Light in the Darkness
Unlike her older sister, Nina was all smiles.
She had golden-brown hair, big innocent blue eyes, and a curious nature that never seemed to fade, no matter how harsh the world around her was. She had followed Elias around the moment she saw him with Aria.
"You don't look scary," she had told him bluntly, her tiny hands clutching a wooden toy she had salvaged from the market. "Are you really a bad guy?"
Elias had stared at her, baffled.
Aria had groaned, "Nina, don't talk to strangers."
"But he's not a stranger," Nina pouted, then turned back to Elias. "You saved my sister, so I like you now."
That was the start of his unofficial adoption into their small group.
Nina was young, but she wasn't naive. She understood the slums in a way that even Elias didn't—the unspoken rules, the silent exchanges, the danger that lurked beyond every corner. And yet, she held onto hope, something Elias found strangely admirable.
She reminded him of something he had lost long ago.
Maybe that was why he let her drag him into her world.
---
For the first time in years, Elias found himself surrounded by people who didn't ask too many questions—who didn't demand anything from him. They were misfits, just like him.
And maybe, just maybe—he was starting to belong somewhere.
But deep down, he knew it wouldn't last.
The planet Velmora had long been ruled by one absolute truth—time was everything. It dictated status, power, and survival. The world was divided into three primary sectors:
1. The Capital Zone – The land of time nobility, where those with lifespans exceeding 10,000 years ruled. It was a place of grandeur and luxury, where time manipulators thrived in palaces made of crystallized time essence, living centuries without aging a day.
2. The Middle Sector – The common world, where people with lifespans ranging from 500 to 5,000 years resided. It was a place of academies, commerce, and battlefields, where talent was nurtured and only the strong advanced.
3. The Slums of Aeon City – The forsaken land, where those with lifespans below 200 years were cast away. It was a place of waste and ruin, where time held no mercy, and survival was a gamble played daily.
This was where Elias had spent the last three weeks.
The slums weren't just a place for the poor—they were a dumping ground for the unwanted. If someone was born with a weak lifespan, they were sent here. If a powerful family had an untalented heir, they discarded them here. If someone fell out of favor in the Middle Sector, they vanished into the slums, lost to time.
It was a broken place, and no one cared to fix it.
Despite being plagued by starvation, crime, and hopelessness, there was one man who held the title of the strongest in the slums.
Seth Turner.
He was a relic of a forgotten past, a 92-year-old man with the power of a 50-year-old time manipulator. By the standards of the world, he was weak, barely strong enough to be noticed. But in the slums, where there were no real fighters, he was a legend.
Seth was a tall, gaunt man, his skin like withered parchment, his hair long and gray, his eyes sunken yet sharp. He wore a patchwork robe—a remnant of what might have once been nobility—now tattered and stained with years of hardship.
He controlled the only method of survival in the slums—time essence redistribution.
Since time was currency, those in the slums could not afford to buy time as food. So, they relied on time crystals, rare fragments of solidified time energy found in the ruins of abandoned battlefields or discarded relics. If someone was lucky enough to find one, they would exchange it with Seth, who had a rudimentary ability to convert it into edible time energy—a liquid sustenance that didn't increase lifespan but temporarily kept people alive.
But nothing was free.
Seth demanded tribute, especially from women, offering them "protection" in exchange for their loyalty. Those who refused to pay were left to fend for themselves, which often meant death at the hands of bandits or starvation.
Some called Seth a guardian, others called him a tyrant. But in a world without mercy, no one was truly a savior.
---
One of the most terrifying truths of the slums was what happened to talented children.
Occasionally, a child would be born with an extraordinary gift, something far beyond their recorded lifespan. The nobles and academies in the Middle Sector hunted for these anomalies, taking them by force.
They were either:
"Recruited" into prestigious academies to be used as experiments or disposable soldiers.
Bought by time lords who needed younger, time-rich bodies to sustain themselves.
Sold into forced servitude, their abilities stolen from them through forbidden techniques.
This was why hope didn't exist in the slums.
Even if someone had talent, they were taken before they could use it for themselves.
The only way to survive was to stay unnoticed, to hide potential, to live quietly in the cracks of time's injustice.
---
Elias walked through the crumbling streets, hands in his pockets, his gaze drifting over the weary faces around him. He had already memorized the patterns of survival here.
1. People scavenged ruins in search of lost time crystals.
2. They brought them to Seth in exchange for sustenance.
3. Those who had nothing either starved or aligned themselves with the few who had power.
It was a system designed to break people, to keep them forever in servitude.
And Elias hated it.
But what could he do?
He was an anomaly, but he wasn't a hero.
Not yet.
The academy grounds stretched wide, a testament to grandeur and perfection. Students lined up in organized formations, executing precise techniques in unison. Weapons forged with time energy clashed against barriers, sending ripples of distortion through the air. The air buzzed with the hum of time constructs, weapons forged from pure temporal energy, their wielders exuding confidence.
A group of senior students surrounded a large arena, watching a high-level spar between two competitors. The combatants blurred, their movements flickering between the past and present, a showcase of refined time manipulation.
The match concluded with an explosion of compressed time energy, sending shockwaves through the training hall. The instructor, an older man with deep-set wrinkles and eyes that carried centuries of wisdom, stepped forward. His voice was calm yet commanding.
"That concludes the simulation. Disengage."
The moment he spoke, the entire scene flickered.
Students.
Weapons.
The massive training halls.
Everything shimmered and distorted, unraveling like a poorly woven illusion.
And then—nothing.
The grand halls collapsed into a barren metallic space, dimly lit by the glow of floating time sigils.
The academy was never real.
It was a fabrication—a perfectly constructed illusion designed for one purpose only: to lure Elias.
The supposed "students" faded into glowing silhouettes, their forms slowly dissipating into the air. Their purpose was complete. They were never real to begin with.
A row of cold metal doors hissed open as several figures cloaked in black stepped forward, walking through a massive corridor that led to a secretive underground facility.
---
The Council of Ten – The World's Hidden Rulers
Beyond the fabricated academy lay the true headquarters—a chamber bathed in dim golden light, walls etched with ancient time runes that pulsed faintly.
In the center stood a long obsidian table, where ten figures sat in a perfect circle, their presence suffocating.
These were not ordinary men and women.
These were the true masters of time.
Their robes bore the symbols of the highest Chrono Ranks, some exceeding anything Elias had ever heard of.
At the head of the table sat the Grand Chancellor, a man whose presence alone seemed to warp the flow of time itself. His eyes burned with centuries of accumulated wisdom and cruelty.
A heavy silence filled the air before one of them finally spoke.
"The experiment was a failure."
A deep sigh followed.
"We lost him sooner than expected. The anomaly proved to be... more unpredictable than we anticipated."
"It doesn't matter," another figure, a woman with piercing silver eyes, said coldly. "We know exactly where he is. He's in the slums."
The Grand Chancellor tapped his fingertips against the table, his voice slow and deliberate.
"Then let him stay there for now."
A murmur spread across the council.
"A couple of days?" someone scoffed. "Why waste time? We can retrieve him immediately."
"Time means nothing to us," a man with deep scars along his face interjected, a twisted grin playing on his lips. "We have transcended such trivial concepts."
The Grand Chancellor's expression remained unreadable, but there was a hint of amusement in his voice when he finally spoke.
"And yet, we are bound by its rules still. Some of us are already running out of time."
His gaze drifted towards one of the elder council members, whose skin had begun to wrinkle at an unnatural pace—a sign that his remaining lifespan was nearing its end.
The man clenched his fists, his lips pressed into a tight line.
"Then let's not waste what little I have left," he muttered. "We will take the boy. Now."
A sharp silence followed.
Then, a chuckle.
"Who do we send?"
A heavy smirk spread across the scarred man's face.
"No need for games. I'll go myself."
He leaned back, voice laced with amusement.
"The anomaly may have tricks, but against overwhelming power, tricks are meaningless."
His declaration was met with approving laughter, the council nodding in agreement.
The meeting ended with a single unspoken agreement—
Elias would not live past the next few days.