This task was certainly more difficult than anything Eldrian had tried before. He had learned to control his own lifeforce. He could even... ''Who was it who trained me? I can remember someone helped me master...''


    The years spent on the Realm of Time meant years detached from his old life. Decades of observing all of creation. Years in which his sanity had been broken, and years in which he had slowly epted his new reality. Been born anew, as an observer.


    His heart had been so sure when he had tried to return to Earth, but now... Now he wasn''t sure why he had done that. Why had he left the safety of the Realm of Time?


    Time had passed. A lot of it. In Eldrian''s conscious experience, his life on Earth felt shortpared to everything else he had experienced. So short, that it almost seemed inconsequential. Like a fleeting dream he had had, once upon a time.


    Once upon a time...


    ''No, this is reality.'' He told himself, but his heart failed to believe it. After so long in solitude, it seemed strange to find that reality wasn''t solitude itself.


    But he knew it was the truth. He had seen the twisted truth beyond the face of "reality". And that didn''t make his life any less meaningful. That didn''t make his family... ''I made a promise to myself... What was it again?''


    There had been a reason for him to undertake the risk of returning. He couldn''t let it all end without trying to change fate. He couldn''t ept that his life, and that of his loved ones, would end without any voice of opposition.


    But... Eldrian couldn''t remember this reason. The time spent in the Realm of Time seemed to y over the rest of his life. When he tried to recall anything, thatwas the first thing on his mind.


    Despite how desperate his situation was, Eldrian''s mind continued to wander. His inability to recall things that he was so confident were important to him, slowly ate at his will. He knew there was something more, but he could not name it.


    And now, with to think. Death was waiting, but it was behind the door. His immediate situation had calmed, and his mind tried to make sense of things. And Eldrian wondered... and wondered... and wondered....


    Until he felt the cold scythe ced on his neck once again. A reminder that life was fleeting. That distractions were deadly.


    He had to leave his uncertainties behind. He had to focus on surviving. If he died now, then he would never find the answers to why he had risked it all.


    He had never tried to take lifeforce directly from other living things. But he knew it was possible. Vampires were the easiest to mimic. By taking physical parts, essential parts like blood, from their victims, they could gain extra power.


    Eldrian understood the reason well enough. And he didn''t need something moreplicated to trip him up. He couldn''t spare the effort to siphon the Elemental''s lifeforce directly. He would simply burn the Elemental''s bodies. Not with fire, but with pure mana.


    As always, his first few attempts were a failure. Resulting in powerful, but contained explosions. He had ounted for failures and cast protective barriers around his test sites. It cost him some of the mana he was saving up, but he was confident the investment would be worth it.


    The entire process was hardly that difficult. The far more demanding task was remaining focused. To not let his thoughts wander. To not try and recognize the people in his room.


    He knew they were his friends. He could feel that within himself. But his mind couldn''t ce them. This should have been so upsetting, so worrying, yet he felt calm. And this calmness was what truly worried him. ''What if I just ept this?


    Just ept this loss?'' He asked himself, and nearly lost focus.


    The explosion from thispse of control caused his friends to be blown away. None of them ended up heavily injured. But it reminded him once again that distraction was deadly. And not just to him. But to his friends too.


    With renewed focus, Eldrian continued. Soon, he managed to control the burst of energy.Channeling it into himself before it could go haywire. And once he had absorbed it into his body, he could take control of it in a much simpler way. Heck, he didn''t even need to take control. He simply continued to send it onward. Right towards the fissure inside his soul.


    This donation of a much purer form of energy stabilized the situation enough for Eldrian to breathe a sigh of relief. He was no longer in danger of dying by a mere distraction. But he was still in a terrible state. Using some of the mana he had gathered, he started healing himself.


    This task was difficult. The damage was extensive, and often not purely physical. The state of his body was a reflection of the state of his soul. The years spent in the Realm of Time had not gone by without any cost.


    He was not an ethereal being. He was born as a mortal, and his soul having aged decades upon decades, if not centuries, came at a cost. His soul should have died already, but luckily, this was not a definitive fact.


    To keep his soul from withering, he would need to stabilize it. To reconstruct it again. If he gave form to it, he could save himself.


    But doing so while there was a wormhole sucking all the energy he put into his soul right back out... that was the true challenge.


    "Why are you all so worried?" Eldrian tried to smile, but the muscles in his face were just as whithered and damaged as the rest of him. He couldn''t even form the words physically and had to use magic to speak.


    "What happened to you?!" Erik shouted. He wanted to move closer. To try and help Eldrian heal. But he had no idea what was going on. Or what he could do to help.


    "I saw something I shouldn''t have"Eldrian replied. He wanted to exin, but the fact that he couldn''t put a name to the faces in front of him bothered him far more. He knew they were his friends. He couldn''t ept any other fact. But...


    ''Why don''t I remember them!'' He shouted internally. Trying his best to not lose control. ''Maybe if I share the things I do remember, it will help me recall them?'' Eldrian thought.


    He went on to exin that he lost control of an experiment and nearly died. He tried to y it off as a joke, but none of his friends thought him very funny."I honestly didn''t think it would end up like this. The idea was simple. I wanted to integrate time into my soul. Link it to reality to give it more permanence."


    As he spoke, Eldrian realized that he was the only one to think this "simple". And, honestly, it wasn''t. But the concept had been. Make a mass of pure energy inside his soul that he could use to attract and anchor time to. Thus allowing his soul to have a real connection (separate from his conscious experience) with time.


    Or that had been the theory. A theory he now knew was impossible since the flow of time wasn''t a naturalw, but instead an arbitary one that Chronos had created and tied to all of creation.


    Eldrian was still extremely vexed by this realization. It turned everything on its head and made the crisis that Earth was facing look inconsequential. Of course, his first priority was still making sure his home survived. He had family and friends he cared about.


    He was sure he did.


    Even if he couldn''t recall anything about them.


    He looked at his friends and tried to remember all they had been through. All he had been through. His life on Earth. Yet, he found his past missing ''Why can''t I remember their names? I just...''


    As worrying as his lost memories were, he started wondering if it was truly important. Thinking back, Eldrian tried to recall what had happened before his experiment. But, honestly, he couldn''t remember. He had no recollection of the state of the war in ANW. Only that there was a major war and that it had stalled out.


    ''I know I have a sister... We were close, weren''t we?'' He asked himself. Trying to formte some memories he could use to build upon the rest. ''And I surely have parents, but...''


    ''And... and... did I have a girlfriend? No, I don''t think so.''


    ''I know I had a teacher, she was... a goddess, wasn''t she? No that sounds insane. Was I some horny teenager lusting after my teacher? That''s just sad...''


    ''And I had a partner. My best friend... But he wasn''t human. I remember a ck coat and green feathers... But... is that really possible?


    How can...''


    Eldrian wanted to focus on these memories. But he knew doing so would lead to him bing distracted. Yet, he couldn''t let them go. He had this fear that if he did... he would never remember them.


    ''Am I losing more and more of myself?'' Eldrian finally realized the truth. The void connecting him and the Realm of Time was consuming his soul. And his memories with it.


    And, clearly, it was consuming his oldest memories first. And that was where all his most important memoriesy.