Power of Runes Chapter 420: The Realm of Eden - End of Volume 4

"Now that I am clothed, where the hell am I?"

Ash scanned his surroundings with curiosity, his eyes gradually sweeping over the immense void that enveloped him.

To get a better grasp of his environment, he softly detached from the planet's pull and ascended into the boundless vacuum, letting his awareness stretch to its utmost limits.

Yet, nothing in his view matched anything familiar to him.

Not that he had ever truly known the starlit expanse anyway.

"Hmm... let’s see..... let me sense the anchor I left on Elysia. Previously I had way too little energy to leap across light years, but now that I have infinite energy, using the anchor I can just directly go back, no need to waste too much time wandering around."

Ash gradually shut his eyes and turned his senses inward, then projected them outward through the colossal spans of cosmos, meticulously searching for the anchor he had set on Elysia to enable an immediate return.

But upon probing for it, he detected absolutely nothing.

The anticipated link that ought to manifest in his mind was entirely absent.

Ash halted briefly and repeated the effort, this time delving deeper as he pushed his senses further, probing for the slightest hint of the anchor's existence.

Still, the outcome stayed unchanged.

He discovered zilch.

A subtle tension crept into his features as he checked the details of his skill Transcendent Step to verify his anchors' condition.

The display that appeared was straightforward.

[0/3]

No anchors existed.

The realization emerged softly in Ash’s thoughts, and though his expression stayed serene and impassive, a swift cascade of deductions was already racing beneath that steady facade.

Still, he refused to let those notions descend into alarm, for he was no longer the old Ash. His psyche had weathered endless trials, granting him the discipline to hold his mind firm amid the unknown.

Rather than rushing to judgments, he chose to test another element first.

Ash projected his senses once more, this time via the bond linking him to Snow.

Nearly at once, her essence registered.

Ash leisurely directed his sight toward Snow's location, despite the void there holding only far-off stars and infinite blackness. Via their tie, he perceived the staggering gulf dividing them, a span so immense it seemed beyond measure despite his enhanced senses.

Yet he soon grasped that she couldn't serve as a teleportation anchor, since the skill demanded a formal anchor, not a vital link.

With that avenue closed, Ash pursued a different tactic.

He endeavored to speak to her straight through their bond, projecting his words along the channel that had always bridged them swiftly.

But no response arrived.

A mild scowl gradually etched on his face.

Ash then tested further by merging his awareness with hers, seeking to view through Snow’s eyes as he had done repeatedly in the past.

However, the instant their perceptions aligned, his sight brimmed with pure blackness.

No forms, no glow, no discernible environment.

Just perpetual dark.

"What is even happening..?"

Ash whispered softly while refocusing on the tie to Snow.

From all he could detect, Snow seemed utterly unharmed. Her presence pulsed steadily without injury, showing no traces of frailty, agony, or peril in the vitality flowing through their connection.

Nevertheless, she ignored his calls, and peering through her vision yielded only unbroken shadows, betraying nothing of her location or sights.

Ash persisted beyond that initial setback, experimenting with multiple means to rouse her mind, to stir her consciousness.

Yet every technique proved futile.

Snow stayed mute.

In truth, Ash had called out to her repeatedly while in the Soul Space, but the vast disparity in time's pace between realms meant his messages hit her in a frantic blur.

To Snow, they would register as garbled chaos, too swift and jumbled for comprehension.

Acknowledging this route blocked too, Ash turned to a fresh option.

He pictured Akumia’s realm in his thoughts, aiming for a straightforward jump there.

But after numerous attempts, his countenance shifted at last.

"I cant sense it. Even after visualizing it clearly, I cant teleport there. Don’t tell me... is the world destroyed...?? What the hell was Ray even doing? Even if he has no Runes, he was still supposed to be powerful!!"

A touch of annoyance tinged Ash’s tone as that dread flickered through. In that instant, he utterly missed a basic truth: his own meddling had warped Akumia’s destiny beyond repair.

Due to his alterations, Ray might never have grown potent enough to halt the realm's fusion into the New Realm, no matter his efforts.

As he pondered his next move, Eva abruptly reached out.

Owing to time's mismatch, he sensed her words, yet they bombarded too fast for decoding.

"Tsk... first I need to find a solution to the time difference problem. Otherwise there would be no point even if Eva tries to help me."

"There is also the problem that Eva cannot perceive anything from the outside world. I was originally planning to search for a way to create a formation that would allow her to sense the outside environment, but with the new ability I obtained, [Consciousness Link], I can simply connect my senses with hers. That way she can see and hear whatever I perceive. I can always create that formation some other time."

"Right... lets connect with her and ask for her opinion. Who knows, I might get some ideas through her perspective. Every person’s perspective is different after all. But first, lets see whether this skill can bypass the time difference."

With that in mind, Ash triggered the skill right away, forging the link toward Eva and binding it to her soul directly. Their profound bond made the union effortless.

"Can you see what I am seeing?"

{- - - - - - - - - - - - - -- - - - - - }

Ash shook his head slowly.

He remained unable to decipher her speech.

Seeing the time gap still hindering talk, he pulled back his awareness and withdrew into his Soul Space.

**

Upon reentering his Soul Space, Ash instantly spotted Eric and Eva gazing at him with odd looks.

Eric stood agape, while Eva seemed petrified, eyes bulging as if blinking escaped her.

For an instant, Ash puzzled over their stares and glanced back instinctively, suspecting some oddity behind him. But with their focus locked solely on him, comprehension dawned gradually.

He swiftly inspected himself.

Then it clicked.

His form in the Soul Space had transformed too, mirroring his external human shape.

Eric blinked repeatedly, as if verifying the sight's reality.

"...What the hell happened to you?"

Disbelief laced his tone as his gaze roamed Ash’s features, hair, and back, growing ever more dubious that this was his prior companion.

Eva responded far otherwise.

When Ash’s eyes met hers, she dropped her gaze and averted it, a soft flush coloring her cheeks while she feigned nonchalance after her bold stare. Her fingers toyed nervously with her sleeve as she tilted her head aside.

She manifested in human guise. Indeed, after years fed by Ash's soul, she could appear as a 15-year-old girl.

Ash observed their responses momentarily, amusement bubbling within.

A subtle grin played on his lips, a quiet thrill of delight stirring as their shock amused him like a kid's prank success.

Briefly, memories of old contrasts surfaced—back then, he hid his allure to dodge troubles.

Now, the reverse thrilled him.

Eric appeared mentally stalled, Eva scarcely meeting his eyes.

Ash cleared his throat softly and shook his head, banishing those whims.

This wasn't the moment for frivolities.

Graver issues loomed.

It required effort, but Ash drew Eric and Eva from their daze. Their glances still flicked to him, doubting this was their familiar Ash.

Once composed, Ash recounted his external ordeals in detail.

He detailed Snow, the eerie void through her eyes, and Akumia’s potential doom.

Eric and Eva reeled in horror at the notion of a world's obliteration.

But the dismay faded swiftly.

Long exposure to Ash's impossibilities had numbed them; a realm's end felt plausible now.

Grasping the crisis, Eva described her view via Consciousness Link.

Yet time's chasm yielded only static snapshots of Ash’s vista, updates lagging eternally, rendering it worthless for live sight.

Concluding this futile, Ash prioritized fixing the time rift.

Unsurprisingly, Rune of Time sprang first to mind.

He had grasped 260 glyphs, needing just 100 more for a full symbol of 360.

Insights from those glyphs confirmed this symbol could bridge communication across time flows.

Still, slowing Soul Space's tempo likely demanded a loftier symbol from Time's deeper facets.

With outside woes stalled, Ash tasked the Unicorn pair with homing solutions while he tackled runes.

Sure, he could traverse space bodily, but it'd drag eternally despite his might.

Worse, aimless void drifting promised tedium.

Resolved, Ash reentered the rune-filled dark realm.

There, a fresh notion struck.

He exited momentarily to spawn a Blood Clone externally.

This duplicate held half his strength, lacking the inner universe. He dispatched it to the dark space for rune study.

But upon entering's time surge, the clone's controlling consciousness buckled under perceptual overload, straining their bond severely.

Ash cut the tie before worse befell.

He deemed the trial a bust.

Then epiphany hit.

Foregoing live links, he'd peruse the clone's recollections post-facto.

Via Soul Library, Ash delved the clone's archived experiences, witnessing its rune encounters vividly.

This let him relive the clone's trials.

Alas, yields disappointed.

The clone grasped zero runes.

Endless stay yielded no insights; why eluded Ash, but failure stood clear.

Affirming this barrier, he delved inward for personal rune pursuit.

Midway, a key variance emerged.

Consciousness held firm.

Past efforts drowned him in knowledge floods, blacking him out.

Now, influx trickled measuredly, preserving awareness fully.

The shift mildly startled but aligned with his upgraded form.

Ash gauged his pace.

Zero-point-one percent of a glyph per hour now.

No more deluges; data seeped hourly.

Thus, one percent's time plummeted.

Prior: 119 years per percent.

Now: circa 30 years.

Assuming nonstop focus.

Vast leap nonetheless.

Factoring time flows, one percent equaled one outer week.

Full rune: two-and-a-half outer years.

Verification bred quiet elation.

Without delay, Ash resumed delving.

Some 35 years later, he mastered Time-Bridge, the Rune of Time's first complete symbol.

Versatile in use, it chiefly forged steady temporal bridges across divergent time streams.

Leveraging this, Ash devoted five more years crafting a formation encircling Eva’s core, forging seamless consciousness ties.

Now Eva could reach him freely, time gaps nullified between Soul Space and beyond.

The setup let her toggle it off at will via core control.

Thus, amid Ash's outer battles, Eva could pause the link, exploit time dilation for deep probes, then relay findings upon resume.

Just one utility example.

Formation perfected and tested, Ash consulted Eric and Eva on return paths.

They delivered.

Intrigued by their viable scheme, Ash materialized outside.

All this while, his body ha