Master of Time

Everyone is actually going to the same place regardless of whoever they are – except for those that somehow managed to elude Legion.

Yes, there are people who managed to elude Legion.

It is very interesting to know.

I had assumed that legion had gotten every living person in the world, including newborns and infants, but I guess I was wrong in that assumption.

As a new person appears in the arena area below, I wonder how those people manage to avoid Legion in the preparation stage?

I am unsure, but I could theorize through the process of eliminations. It is more or less what I am doing right now, to be honest.

Eliminating all the supporting actors until only the main casts remain.

My burning eyes narrow at the new balding man. And within a second, I know his entire history. He is obviously worthy just like Bill Clinton, but I will let the world be the judge of that. By which I mean the Australian people.

"John Winston Howard. You do believe that you are worthy of salvation? Worthy of stepping onto the path towards enlightenment and become one with Origin?"

It is actually tiring repeating the same phrase over and over again. Boring too.

I have to spice thing up every now and then to keep thing interesting. Interesting for me.

It is already terrifyingly interesting to the remaining people of the world.

Like Bill Clinton, the Prime Minister of Australia trembles in fear. I didn\'t get the Queen, but I suppose he will do. It is close enough since Australia still acknowledges the Queen as their monarch.

And just like what had happened before, regardless of whatever John answer is, the Australian people will get to see for themselves.

I will obviously vote for or against him based on whichever side has more people for me to burn. In all honestly, it didn\'t really matter since whether they vote for or against him, they will all go to the same place.

But still, it is to drive the fear of me into them. And it is working very well. They are terrified. But they also have hope.

Hope for a chance for salvation. False hope, but still hope, nonetheless.

As the people watches the slideshow and judges the 25th Prime Minister of Australia, I turn my mind to those that eluded Legion.

How they manage to do so eluded even me.

It is obviously not through the usage of any form of advance technology since I would have known the instant they did. It is very hard to disguise advance technology from me unless their technological level is far beyond my comprehension.

That is a possibility.

It also feels implausible for anyone residing in this reality to wield technology more advance than what is available to Legion.

Thanks to the near limitless computing power, my technology is actually more advanced than the 31st century in many areas, so beating Legion in technological prowess is just not possible.

And even if it is possible, I would have known.

Legion didn\'t even notice that he has missed a handful of people until he finished analyzing everyone\'s memory and constructed a Human Collectiveness. HC for short.

Also stands for hardcore.

It is pretty hardcore, considering I now have the combined knowledge of 6.2 billion people.

That beats Wikipedia any day.

And as such, several people are found within the Collectiveness only visually. They are not part of the Collectiveness, and they are not being infested with micromachines like everyone is. This means that Legion has never devoured and molested them for their delicious genetics.

That shouldn\'t be possible since the spherical drones are equipped with many advance sensors, giving them the ability to hunt down anyone and everyone regardless of where they are. Even those hiding deep beneath the sea within their nuclear submarines are captured and molested.

For those elusive people preventing themselves from being captured by Legion, they must have power or ability capable of surpassing or maybe bypassing my technology.

It is likely to be magic from my knowledge. Most certainly due to the ongoing devastating effect of the Curse of Decay in this reality.

They might even be responsible for the magical curse itself.

I do hope that they are since I really want to have a good chat with the culprit. I do not see any reason for them wanting to render an entire universe void of life.

Perhaps there is no reason at all other than wanting to kill all life in the universe.

But if that really is the case, then why haven\'t they shown themselves to me and everyone when I had publicly discredited them and offer humanity salvation? Do humanity even matter since it is only one sentient race amongst countless other throughout the universe?

They might not even care since they never did show up to see their beautiful work in the future.

Or maybe they did, and I didn\'t look hard enough.

It could also be because they are being overly cautious since they haven\'t detected any magical energy radiating from me whenever I use my godlike power.

Everything I have demonstrated so far is purely technological. And my time power is not really magic, as whenever I use it, no magical energy or residue could be detected.

But then again, for them to sense my magical energy and aura, they have to be pretty darn close. They are not anywhere near the coliseum right now.

How strange.

They are actually scattered all over the world since Legion is keeping an eye on them for me now that I know who they are. So far, they didn\'t seem to be bothered of being spied upon by me.

But it is likely that they didn\'t know they are being spied upon.

Avoiding being captured is easy since you now who or what you are fighting against. Being spied upon is different. You have to actually find the spy first.

Nevertheless, there are just so many possibilities and explanations to why these people aren\'t heading to here to confront me. They might even be enjoying the show. Or their original self might have already left this reality behind.

Did I say original self?

Yes.

That is to differentiate these people from the original.

I know for a fact that I am not powerful enough to reverse time across all realities simultaneously, so if the culprits have already left this reality, reversing time would not bring them back to this reality.

It doesn\'t really work that way.

Logically, it should, but if it does, it would mean that they didn\'t go to that reality in the first place.

Therefore, to prevent a paradox from happening, a temporal clone would be created when I reversed time of this world.

The temporal clones would reenact exactly what the original versions had already done, leading to the exact moment they would leave this reality.

But since my action has changed the future of this reality, the temporal clones could no longer reenact what their original selves had already done, thus their current course of actions is entirely of their own freewill.

It is very bizarre.

And did I just create temporal clones of those who are responsible?

To sum it up, the people who have managed to avoid Legion are temporal clones of the originals. Even if they are not the original versions of themselves, they still wielded the same power as the originals.

As that is the case, I doubt that they fear me due to the impossible amount of magical power required to cast a curse that affects an entire reality. Not just a world or a solar system, but an entire reality.

That is beyond level of standard Gods from what Eliana had told me.

But what if they are beyond Gods level? I am an Aspect.

They can\'t be Aspects or Primordial. I am sure of that – relatively sure.

If they are Aspects, they would greet me and then proceed to muscle me into being their little brother or something similar like a gothic loli, who should be my cute little sister instead.

Terra is not behind me, is she?

Phew.

In addition, Aspects do not stick together for very long since the Primordial might think that we are up to something no good and attack just for the heck of it.

The same could be said in reverse, logically speaking.

Since they aren\'t neither Aspect or Primordial, I don\'t really have anything to fear. At least I don\'t think so since they haven\'t even notice Legion is spying on them.

They might be magical powerhouses, but they have never seen the power of technology.

Legion does not detect any magical energy radiating from them, but that isn\'t saying much. They could have suppressed it in a number of ways.

And since they haven\'t notice me spying and are paying attention to the television screen, I should act ignorance until I decide to drop a bunch of tactical nukes on them. I wonder how they fare against my technology?

It should be interesting.

The results are finally in for John Howard since the slideshow has ended. I didn\'t bother to comment throughout the whole time since it is unnecessary.

As for the result being displayed by the three banners, it is only 12% for and 8% against.

An overwhelming 80% remain undecided.

The Australians are playing shifty after witnessing for themselves what had happened to the previous two candidates and their supporters. I will teach them that there is no loop hole. I mean the world as they will be \'dead\'.

Just like before, I close my eyes to debate with the imaginary collective.

And once I open my eyes again, I begin to speak.

"We are in an agreement, John Winston Howard. We acknowledge that you have done much for your people. You are worthy of salvation and be allowed to join the path towards enlightenment."

The Prime Minister of Australia couldn\'t be happier. White light surrounds him and sends him into the spatial dimension along with all of his supporters. His family are amongst his supporters.

"No. Wait. I change my mind. I change my mind."

"Please. No. Oh God. No. Ori. Please no."

"Spare me!"

"No. I don\'t want to die. I don\'t want to die."

Those that votes against the Prime Minister wail in anguish, as they know what is about to happen. It no longer brings me any satisfaction hearing their screaming and pleading.

However, the utter shock and surprise of the undecided did as flames also envelop them and begin to burn them to ashes.

"Wait! I didn\'t vote. Why am I!? Ah!"

"No! No! Ah! Ahhh! Ahhhhhhh!"

"Why? Why!?! Save me! Save me!"

The world watch in silence as the entire continent becomes devoid of people. Not completely devoid of people as there are two of those elusive people are there. They are also surprised at what I did, but that is all. They are not shocked or horrified like everyone else.

"If you do not stand up for what you believe in, you are not worthy of salvation."

I speak up as Selene chooses another candidate at random. Flames swirl within the arena, spitting out another person. From his attire, he is from Cuba.

And just like before, I question whether he is worthy of salvation and let the Cuban decides his fate. It did not matter what the result is to me, but at least the number of undecided plummets to barely 1%, so everyone gets the message.

With one swoop, I wipe out Cuba since the undecided are also get burned.

China is next on the list, and remarkably 80% of the people vote for their communist leader. Nationalist at work here. I decide to let them all burn just to hear their curses. And they sure can curse.

India follows suit after several more countries, reducing the remaining population of the world to just 400 million people.

I realize that once all the state leaders are dealt with, the only people remaining is in the United States and North Korea. More specifically, those that remain undecided since I didn\'t torch those in the first two rounds.

Of course, I have planned for the United States. I didn\'t for North Korea.

I will fix that right up without anyone noticing, right after I take care of South Korea. Honestly, no one really pays attention to North Korea anyway, so the rest of the Korean people are gone.

Finally, it is the Queen\'s turn.

"Elizabeth Alexandra Mary. Do you believe that you are worthy?"

I ask and stare down at the woman in her 70s. I have shortened my little speech since it is a mouthful, and by now, everyone already know what I am asking about anyway.

"May I call you Max?"

Queen Elizabeth II asks. I allow her to. I wonder if she is trying to warm up to me, but from her surface thought. It is because she did not accept the Ori as Gods.

"No one can decide whether I am worthy but my people, Max."

Elizabeth speaks up. The holographic banner flickers to display what the people think of her. England obviously loves her, and so is the rest of the world.

They are willing to stand with her and die with her as their Queen.

I smile faintly from my throne. It is a genuine smile.

And it has been a while since I smile at anyone.

I am aware that the Queen has nothing to do with Diana\'s death. She truly loves the princess like one of her own, and despite knowing who has killed Diana, she is unable to bring herself to admit the truth as it would tear her family apart.

And I decide not to either. She is too old for this. I am too old too.

"No, Elizabeth Alexandra Mary. You will prove to us that you are worthy."

The moment I said that, flames swirl around the arena before converging towards her, ominously. And seeing that, the Queen closes her eyes and accepts her fate.

However, no burning pain comes.

And when Elizabeth finally opens her eyes again, a golden sword greets her.

A sword in a stone.