231 Time Balance Technique

Stepping out from the other side of the portal, Yuan Chen was greeted by a bizarre and fantastical space.

This place combines architectural styles from the Void, Icathia, and Shurima. Located on a land filled with creep, fangs, and swallowed by the Void, it is dotted with numerous ancient Shurima buildings.

These fungal creeps, originating from the Void, entwine around these enormous houses or statues, constantly moving towards the uncorrupted areas. But whenever these creeps reach the other side of the boundary, they rapidly lose their form, either retreating or annihilating at unimaginable speeds.

They kept entering, but those who entered were constantly being squeezed out and annihilated. This strange spectacle made Yuan Chen squint his eyes.

"Time magic..."

Some exclamations of surprise came from behind Yuan Chen.

Surrounded by the glow of arcane runes, Ryze exclaimed in astonishment, "This actually exists..."

Although many people know about time magic, whether it actually exists has been a hotly debated topic among mages for thousands of years.

The most important reason is that so-called time magic is mostly a set of patterns that many arcane mages and elemental mages accidentally discovered while studying magic.

Through summarizing these patterns and attempting to reproduce them, some mages believe that time magic is real.

But in reality, no one has ever truly mastered the magic of time...

But now, feeling the Void creep constantly encroaching, only to be annihilated upon contact with subsequent creep due to the reversal of time, is precisely the evidence many mages who believe in the existence of time magic cite.

In other words, when the same organism and an object exhibit two completely different time flows in their physical bodies, they will be annihilated in the long river of time itself at the moment of contact.

However... although some mages have reproduced this technique, most of them are based on a combination of Elemental Magic and Arcane Magic.

But now, both the laws governing the operation of Magic Itself and the process of creep collapse have exceeded Ryze's previous understanding in terms of their methods.

It's like boiling water. Boiling with charcoal is boiling, and boiling with controlled nuclear fusion is also boiling. But the meaning they represent is completely different.

Looking into the distance, at the center of that time distortion field, stood a colossal clock tower... The clock tower itself shouldn't have been that big. Although it was only a distant glimpse, Yuan Chen was fairly certain that at least two-thirds of the massive clock tower's structure had been temporarily erected in later periods of time.

This can be seen from the structure of the clock tower itself.

Below it is an ordinary clock tower, about thirty meters high. It is very traditional, mostly made of yellow sand reinforced by solidification magic, resembling a pyramid, but much taller.

Above that, the nearly sixty-meter-tall building is filled with a mathematical beauty that is difficult to describe in words.

Numerous rhomboid, square, and other massive structures floated in the air without any support.

Those must have been a series of houses or research labs. Connecting these strange houses were numerous rectangular stone steps floating in the air.

They weren't connected; they were simply arranged and floating in the air. Around the clock tower, numerous collapsing and overturned buildings and the corpses of monsters also floated about.

Perhaps they weren't physical entities... because although their bodies were covered in wounds, they weren't fatal... more likely, they were simply fixed in this space.

And this clock tower was the only thing that maintained the integrity and order of the entire country, city, and city-state at the moment of its destruction.

The structure built upon the understanding of solidified time in the time that followed connected with the entire chaotic realm. The clock tower, as intricate as a gear, stood at the moment when Icathia was corrupted by the Void and everything collapsed.

It's like...

"It's like an abstract painting... completely imaginative."

Ryze shook his head, a hint of emotion in his eyes. He opened his palm, and the surging arcane energy instantly cleared away the surrounding fungal carpet.

Without pausing, Ryze strode directly into the stable spacetime field.

Aren't you worried about the danger?

Yuan Chen asked with some curiosity.

Ryze shook his head at this, then said, "It's safe... It's a little embarrassing to say, but this is the power I awakened after coming into contact with runes."

"No matter how sophisticated, rigorous, or secret the magic is, or even if it exists or not, as long as I see it and it still originates from the World Rune, then I will definitely be able to master the methods to decipher and use it."

"I may not have your foresight and vision, but when it comes to the present moment, I won't easily admit defeat."

After speaking, Ryze paused, then shook his head and said with some emotion, "Although I can master the methods to break and use them, just as you said, epic and legendary quality class magic often requires unique extraordinary power."

"Without these extraordinary powers, even if I knew about them, I couldn't use them; at most, I could only break them with arcane magic..."

"That's normal; even a skilled cook can't cook without rice."

Hearing Ryze's words, Yuan Chen looked completely understanding, but then added:

"So here's the question... Since these are magics that originated from the World Rune, then you, who have mastered the World Rune, surely can't extract similar extraordinary power?"

"Knowing and using are two different things."

Ryze shook his head and said:

"Even the teacher who led me down this path fell into corruption under the World Rune, becoming a puppet of power... I cannot indulge or relax."

Furthermore, it cannot be used without due consideration. Otherwise, it will only mislead more people about the power of runes."

Ryze clearly didn't want to dwell on the matter any longer. So, after speaking, without waiting for Yuan Chen to reply, he raised his hand and fired an arcane blast at Yuan Chen.

Yuan Chen did not resist, allowing the arcane impact to contact his body.

Unharmed, Yuan Chen could feel a ball of continuous defensive magic slowly being released within his body, spreading throughout his entire being.

"Time Balance Technique"

Seeing that Yuan Chen did not resist, Ryze smiled slightly and then said:

"It can balance an individual's time, unaffected by the 'Collapse of Time'... Although it's imitated using Arcane Magic, it's enough to penetrate this veil before us."