A faint smile appeared on Aglea's face, as if she had anticipated all of this. "It's finally here. I've been waiting for quite some time already."

She had noticed how Lana had been struggling earlier, but she had resisted the urge to intervene as she was intentionally placing Lana in a perilous situation, thereby forcing Erwin to his limits.

When time was completely still, space could be warped.

This was the overarching message of the fourth chapter of "Laws of Time and Space".

Hence, Erwin hadn't arrived in the air using his normal space split technique. Instead, he had forcibly warped space during that instant in which time had stood still, and as a result, all he had to do to rise up to the heavens was take a single step.

That was why Onean's Boundless Purgatory had suddenly faded. It wasn't because she had run out of magic power. Instead, it was because time had stood still.

For the average person, it would be impossible to understand these concepts, but all of the combatants locked in battle in the sky at the moment were among the most powerful beings in this world, so they had a slight inkling of what had just happened.

Theoretically speaking, was it actually possible for a single person to stop time in such a massive space? Was this something that was achievable at Erwin's current level of power?

Alternatively, one could ask if the man in the sky really was still Erwin.

His eyes were filled with cold detachment to the entire world, as if all of the lives around him were nothing more than cloud and smoke. It was as if living beings and inanimate objects were no different in his eyes.

This wasn't the first time that Onean had seen Erwin in this state, but for some reason, she couldn't help but feel like something was different this time. She couldn't quite put her finger on exactly what had changed, but she couldn't shake off that nagging feeling, either.

This was why she had wondered to herself if that man was still actually Erwin.

No one knew just how much time had to spend before he finally grasped the essence of the fourth chapter. It seemed that he had lived in this world as normal just like everyone else, but in reality, far more time had passed for him than for others. Was it 10 years? 100 years? 1,000 years? Perhaps even Erwin himself didn't know the answer to that question anymore. This wasn't just an analogy, where a single instant could feel like an eternity. Instead, Erwin really had gone through the grueling experience of enduring the passage of countless years in the span of no more than mere seconds for everyone else. The deeper he delved into the concepts presented in "Laws of Time and Space", the more he would unwittingly fall into a state where time stood completely still. This type of situation had become more prominent as he began to explore the third and fourth chapters of the book. In the beginning, he had failed to notice this phenomenon, and he had only become alert to it after he had noticed bouts of sudden-onset mental exhaustion. After that, he noticed that his personality had become progressively more surly and apathetic, and his emotions could only be triggered by committing excessively over-the-top acts to emphasize to himself the importance of those emotions. During that incident in Finklan, he had killed Lucidy without any consideration, and that was an example of this. At the time, it seemed like he had killed Lucidy due to a rush of blood to the head, but in reality, it had something to do with his increasing apathy. He had to commit that "reckless" deed in order to emphasize to himself just how much Onean meant to him. However, how many human relationships were there that could stand the test of time?

He could remember something clearly on this day, but that didn't mean that he would still remember it 10 years later. Even if he could remember it 10 years later, there was no guarantee that he would still remember it 100 years later. What would happen if he were to fall into a time vortex that spanned over thousands or even tens of thousands of years? This was a question that he was often asking himself. He didn't dare to ask anyone else, not even Onean and Lana.

He was trapped in a constant state of worry and conflict, glad that he was making progress in time and space magic, but also concerned that this progress was taking his humanity away from him.

He didn't want to become a monster that was completely devoid of human emotions, a monster by the name of "god".

Back when he had written "Divine Enquiry", the inspiration hadn't just come from a dream as he had proclaimed. Instead, he had felt himself truly sinking toward a certain abyss. He was like a lost child who was at a complete loss for what to do, watching helplessly as he aged rapidly while slipping toward that bottomless abyss. For Erwin, this was a type of injustice. Perhaps he would've much rather remained in Sarus his entire life, living out his days as a useless second-generation noble. Of course, it was also a type of injustice for the entire world that an anomaly like Erwin had appeared in it.

If there were any things that still tethered him to this world, then they had to be power and women.

At this moment, Rochea was threatening to take one of those things away from him.

The fact that someone was trying to take away one of the few things that he was still attached to instantly caused the apathetic and nihilistic persona residing in his heart to rise to the surface.

...

Looking up at Erwin's face, which was half-concealed under the shadow cast by the moonlight, a sense of inexplicable fear welled up in Rochea's heart, and he couldn't help but gulp nervously.

Martial artists at his level had very accurate premonitions when it came to death, and he could sense that he wouldn't be leaving this place alive.

He was beginning to regret the derogatory remarks that he had made earlier.

Only now did he come to understand that all beings dabbling in the powers of time and space were complete and utter monsters, monsters whose powers couldn't be judged through conventional measures.

"If I'm not mistaken, time stopped for a moment just now, didn't it?" Rochea asked as he looked up at Erwin.

Erwin looked down at him with an aloof expression and didn't say anything.

In his eyes, there was no need to explain anything to these foolish beings.

No one in this world could understand what he did.

As long as the speed of his thought was sufficiently fast, fast enough to match the passage of time, he could make his own consciousness something that stood still for all of eternity.

Similarly, if he could make the elemental matter in space move as quickly as the passage of time, then time would stand completely still in that space. Of course, this was only a theory that was relative to time.

How could he accelerate the movement of elemental matter to match the speed of the passage of time?

Having used his light shield in battle on many occasions, Erwin gradually came to discover that whenever he withdrew his light shield, the rate at which elemental matter filled the space previously within the light shield was the rate of the passage of time.

Given his current level of magic power, he was able to accomplish this as long as the space wasn't too vast.

As soon as time fell still, the conditions for spatial manipulation would be met.

As for the concept of spatial manipulation, that was also very easy to understand.

As an example, the journey from Sarus to Finklan would normally take several months to complete via airship, but what if the two cities were directly adjacent to one another? In that case, even traveling by horse-drawn carriage, it would've only taken half a day at most to get from one city to the other. It was as if the two cities were connected by a rope, and under normal circumstances, one would only be able to travel between the cities by getting from one end of the rope to the other. However, Erwin had the ability to tie the two ends of the rope together through brute force.

This was why Erwin had been able to rise up into the sky from the fortress wall in just a single step.

While it was established that space could warp under these conditions, did the same apply to one's mind?

This was a question that Erwin had considered, but he realized that it was far more difficult to control his own mind than it was to control the elemental matter within a certain space. Thus, the problem of how to control his own mind was still an extremely profound one for Erwin.

Even if he had infinite time at his disposal, if he couldn't control the direction of his thoughts, then that time would just be wasted.

Thus, Erwin thought of the concept of "coordinates".

Coordinates were very applicable when it came to time and space, but how could he establish coordinates in thoughts?

This was a question that he couldn't think of an answer to no matter how hard he tried.

In any case, when it came to the understanding of the essence of this world, and that was why he couldn't be bothered to explain these concepts to others. Even if he had the patience to explain these things, there was no guarantee that anyone else would be able to understand.

Hence, even when faced with the most powerful beings in this world, like Aglea and Sword God Buu, Erwin was still completely apathetic and even a little arrogant. Perhaps he was far from reaching their level when it came to the usage of power, but when it came to the understanding of this world, the gap between them was simply unfathomable.

This was also why the powerful beings of this world were always extremely wary of those who controlled the power of time and space. No matter how powerful one became, they were still living within the boundaries of this world, doing everything in their power to reach the pinnacle that was comprehensible to man. However, some people were attempting to shatter the boundaries of this world, and that was an extremely dangerous endeavor.

After all, all humans feared the unknown far more than they feared what was already known.

To the people of the world, these unknown elements were like a scroll that was yet to be unfurled, but Erwin had already seen everything that the scroll had to offer, and that was the basis for his arrogance.

He had no intention of speaking with Rochea. Instead, he took another small step forward in silence.

Before Rochea had a chance to even move, a ball of chaotic magic energy struck him on the abdomen.

Erwin pressed his own face close to Rochea's, staring at him as if he were watching a dead person.

Rochea was looking back at him with his eyes wide and his cheeks ashen, looking as if he were staring at a deity of death.

Even though he had reached the pinnacle of martial techniques, he had only become as fast as humanly possible. Ultimately, he was still bound by the limitations of speed. In contrast, Erwin was directly exerting his influence upon space itself, warping and traversing through space, so it was impossible to react even for a martial artist of Rochea's caliber.

An agonized howl rang out across the sky as Rochea was sent flying through the air.

Before he even had a chance to stabilize himself, Erwin had already appeared behind him, and a beam of intertwining light and darkness pierced through his chest.

Erwin's Finger of Destruction had well and truly dealt a severe wound upon Rochea.

If it weren't for the fact that Rochea had positioned his Falltumn dagger behind him in the instant that he was sent flying, he would've already been dead by now. In this dire situation, his instincts as an elite martial artist had taken over and saved his life. If he had reacted in response to visual cues, then there was no way he would've been quick enough to save himself.

Rochea quickly glanced down at his own chest, and he knew that this injury wasn't enough to kill him, but his survival certainly wasn't ensured if he were to continue fighting this monster.

Thus, he made the smartest decision of his life, which was to run!

He pressed down onto a spring bolt on Appless, and green mist instantly began to permeate around him.

Erwin was just about to land the killing blow, but his brows furrowed slightly upon seeing this, and he didn't dare to act recklessly.

By the time the mist faded, Rochea was already nowhere to be seen.

Half a kilometer away, Rochea was flying through the clouds as quickly as he could, terrified that the moonlight would expose his location.

He couldn't even remember the last time he had been forced to flee for his life like this, nor could he recall the last time he had failed a mission. Both of these things hadn't happened for the past few decades, and never did he think that he would be forced into such a sorry state by such a young group.

He pulled Falltumn out of his sleeve before taking a look, and a pained expression appeared on half of his face as he saw the hole that had been punched straight through the dagger's blade.