Extra's Death: I Am the Son of Hades

Chapter 777: Temporal Strands

Beelzebub’s evolution was complete.

The butterfly drifted through Neo’s Cosmos with slow, steady movements.

Its wings spread out like translucent sheets of light, and each flap carried the weight of impossible forces.

With one flap, it sent a wave through the timeline.

The response came back immediately, and what it sensed made the creature pause.

Neo’s Cosmos… was brittle.

It wasn’t a simple fracture or a temporary instability.

It was the kind of brittle that came from too much strain.

Neo had pulled people from different Cosmos (Elemental Universe) and placed them inside his own, over and over, across countless events.

Every time he did that, parts of their Fate, Life, Death, Time, and other internal quantities failed to transfer completely.

Each Cosmos was designed to be a closed system.

Everything inside it had a consistent fate line and a consistent temporal record.

But Neo had forced his Cosmos far beyond those limits.

The butterfly let out a sharp, thin cry as it examined the cracked structure of Neo’s Cosmos.

Then it flapped again.

Ripples spread across time like shockwaves hitting a quiet pond.

But the butterfly didn’t see a flowing river.

It saw something else entirely.

The “River of Time” was actually a mass of countless temporal strands woven together.

Those strands weren’t flowing.

Many were broken.

Many were disjointed.

Some hung in mid-air like snapped wires.

The ripples from the butterfly’s wings reached those broken strands and reacted.

New, temporary strands formed — pseudo-temporal strands — and fused with the real ones.

They acted like supports, and crutches.

Their only job was to stabilize the whole structure, even if just for a short while.

The butterfly flapped a third time.

In an instant, its body stretched across distance, collapsing space as if distance didn’t exist.

It appeared beside Neo, who was inside the ruined Golden Domain.

Its body was huge — bigger than galaxies — but its presence felt gentle.

Neo sat cross-legged, still lost somewhere between thought and meditation.

He had no idea how long he’d been in that state.

When he finally opened his eyes, he smiled.

“It’s good to see you, buddy.”

Beelzebub released another shrill cry, a sound that echoed through the broken golden domain.

Before Neo could say more, a new presence took shape.

Black mist gathered in front of him, forming a human-like silhouette.

The air distorted around the figure.

“I see you’re finally ready to move, Heavenbreaker,” the being who called himself ’I’ said. “Is this truly your choice? What exactly are you trying to achieve? You already know you cannot take my Authority. Without that, you cannot kill me. So what is your goal here?”

“My goal?” Neo repeated.

He looked at ’I’, and his expression lost all warmth.

A cold, steady gaze replaced it.

“How would you feel,” Neo said quietly, “if everything you built with your own hands started to crumble, ’I’…?”

Those words made the black mist tighten, as if ’I’ frowned behind the fog.

But he didn’t speak.

Neo didn’t wait.

He raised a hand and shattered the Independent Space.

The Golden Domain reconnected to the Shattered Horizon in the next second.

Chaotic energy surged in immediately, spreading through every crack of the broken golden domain.

Neo turned toward the vast expanse of the Shattered Horizon, and the first thing he saw made him go still.

Armies.

Endless armies.

Trillions — maybe quadrillions — of beings stood across the shattered landscape.

Gods, demigods, ancient awakeners, and World Avatars lined up in formation like a wall stretching across eternity.

“So this is the army you prepared?” Neo asked.

’I’ was already gone.

A figure stepped forward from the front of the grand army.

Golden armor covered his body, and glowing runes spiraled around him like a halo.

He raised both arms as if addressing every universe.

“Everyone!” he shouted, his voice echoing across the Horizon. “This is the Devil! The one who threatens all we know! If we do not stop him now, not only our universe but every universe will fall into ruin!”

Countless voices murmured behind him.

“The Saviour has guided us!” the leader continued. “He has taught us the truths we needed! He has given us the power to stand here today! With his guidance, we can defeat this Devil and seal him forever!”

The armies roared in agreement.

Neo didn’t respond.

He only gave a short exhale.

“Saviour, huh?”

He didn’t bother commenting further.

Beelzebub’s wings twitched.

He was ready to attack with a single flap.

But Neo reached out and touched the butterfly’s wing.

“Don’t do that,” Neo said.

Beelzebub froze.

Neo understood immediately what the butterfly had evolved into.

Beelzebub now possessed a fundamental Authority:

Temporal Erasure.

Anyone below Stage 7 could be erased entirely.

Not killed.

Not defeated.

Erased — past, present, future — gone from the timeline itself.

Neo had seen Eternals use this kind of power.

But he wasn’t here to erase innocent people who were being manipulated.

“These people aren’t the enemy. They’re just being misled,” Neo said.

The armies roared.

“Attack!”

Tides of power surged forward like exploding stars.

Neo released his World Energy.

It burst outward in a massive wave, stretching in every direction.

The Shattered Horizon pushed back immediately.

Chaotic energy inside the horizon resisted his expansion.

On top of that, many Gods used techniques that ignited Neo’s World Energy like oil catching fire.

Neo could feel the drain.

’He really prepared everything possible.’

’I’m burning far more energy than I expected.’

Attacks rained down on him.

Several of the enemies were Realm Divinity Gods.

Each one was stronger than the former Supreme Leader of the Alliance.

Neo did not pull these beings into his Cosmos yet.

If he did, the paradox created during regression would be catastrophic.

Instead, he simply froze their time.

But Neo knew what would happen next, and it did.

The people he froze were pulled out of the timeline.

’I’ altered their pasts, adjusted their memories, changed their personalities, and sent them back through different routes in the past.

They reappeared behind Neo, in front of Neo, and beside him, attacking in new ways.

Each repetition felt like trying to grab sand that kept slipping through his fingers.

Unless Neo used Darkness Firmament, Beelzebub, or dragged them into his own Cosmos, ’I’ would keep rewriting their past over and over.

And Neo didn’t want to kill them.

So the loop continued.

They attacked.

Neo froze time.

’I’ rewrote their past.

They returned and attacked again.

Over and over.

Neo continued burning energy, but his World Energy kept expanding despite everything pushing back.

One-tenth of the Shattered Horizon.

One-eighth of the Shattered Horizon.

One-fourth of the Shattered Horizon.

One-third of the Shattered Horizon.

And then the entire Shattered Horizon was covered in Neo’s World Energy.

But when his energy reached the edge of the universe, it stopped completely.

It couldn’t go further.

Neo knew why.

“A universe is a closed system,” he said quietly.

Every universe had its own timeline and its own fate.

You couldn’t force your World Energy beyond it unless the universe itself cracked open.

The people inside the universe were bound by their native timeline.

Their destiny, their origin, their end, all was locked inside that system.

Neo turned to Beelzebub.

“Beelzebub,” he said.

At the command, the butterfly flapped its wings.

The universe trembled.

Beelzebub reached into the River of Time belonging to that universe.

Because of their connection, Neo saw what Beelzebub saw.

A river.

Endless.

But silent.

Unlike what everyone else believed, the River of Time wasn’t flowing.

It was made of countless temporal strands bundled together.

Each strand represented the life of a single person.

The start of a strand was their birth.

The end was their death.

Everything in between — every moment of their life — existed inside that individual temporal line.

When all the strands were seen together, it created the illusion of a flowing river.

But there was no flow.

It was frozen.

Time didn’t move forward.

Events moved inside the strands.

People saw motion inside the strands and misunderstood it as time flowing forward.

Neo watched the frozen structure for a long moment, and came to the realization,

’Each temporal strand is the timeline of one person.’

’And every strand exists as its own small scale universe.’

The logic was simple but heavy.

One person meant one universe written in thin threads.

And right now, Neo knew Beelzebub could destroy any of those strands if he wished.

All of them, if he pushed himself.

But neither of them moved in that direction.

Neo lifted his eyes slightly, and the firmament behind his pupils shifted.

He activated Eyes of Echoes Firmament.

The world around him sharpened.

The details hiding inside every temporal strand became clear.

He could see the life of a person from birth to death like it was a recorded script.

Every choice, every change, every influence.

Nothing was hidden anymore.

’Good. Everything is behaving the way I thought it would,’ Neo thought.

’Time to begin.’

He exhaled quietly.

Then he activated the Concept of Water he had copied from Elizabeth, and then evolved: Tyrant Firmament.

With this Concept, he could reach for temporal strands individually.

He could hold them.

He could, if needed, alter the content inside them.

He didn’t have to travel to the past anymore.

He didn’t need a time loop or a world rewind.

Now, rewriting a person’s timeline meant simply editing the strand in his hand.

From the shadows of the Gap, ’I’ watched Neo grab one temporal strand after another.

’I’ couldn’t hide the tension in his voice.

“What is he trying to do…?”