Monarch of Time

Rock and the middle aged man were among the first ones to come to work everyday. The man's wife was pregnant for 6 months and his child would soon be born, so he had to work hard to make ends meet both for his wife as well as his unborn child.

Time flew and soon, noon arrived.

Rock was about to finish with the 5th floor and take a break for a few minutes to rehydrate himself, since working under the scorching sun for hours was never good, especially with a body as weak as his, when coincidentally the middle aged uncle also stopped for a break. They started descending the half completed stairs that connected the 5th floor to the 4th, and they had to cross atop a wooden plank to reach the 4th floor.

While they were walking atop the plank, a huge rumbling sound and a tremor started to shake the entire building. Who could expect an earthquake at the worst possible moment, especially one of such magnitude that started shaking the entire structure of the building down to its foundations !?

Rock saw the middle aged uncle walking unsteadily to the other side, terrified of the earthquake that was taking place, but before he could get to the other side of the plank, his right foot slipped as he lost his balance!

''NO!''

Just as he was about to fall down and crash, from the 4th floor directly to the ground, Rock rushed from behind and pushed him using all of his strength, causing the middle-aged man to almost fly to the other side, saving his life with that push.

Just as the man landed on the other side, even more intense rumbling came from the gap above Rock's head. A huge mass of debris buried him to the ground and half of the building itself collapsed. The middle aged man starting to roar and cry and as soon as the rumbling stopped and the opposite side of the building collapsed while the one he was on miraculously stayed intact. He run down as fast as he could and used his bare hands to remove the pieces of rock, glass and concrete that buried Rock.

But it was pointless, the debris was practically a tower at this point, since half of the building had collapsed.... it was already a miracle that the other half stayed standing and didn't fall along with it.

The middle aged man was still crying, his hands bloodied from the pieces of glass stuck in them but he was still removing the debris hoping to save Rock. He felt so guilty that the kid exhanged his life so he can stay alive. He kept going until the other workers came over and stopped him.

Rock had seen the debris fall on his head and understood exactly how unlucky he was as this was practically certain death, yet he didn't regret saving the man. The middle aged uncle was the only one who had shown care for him, and the thought that went through his mind as he was being burried by the rocks was ''Ah it's good since uncle lived.. but it's truly unfair that my life will end like this''. The rumbling continued for a while and Rock's vision turned dark as he blacked out.

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Rock tried to slowly open his eyes as his mind started to regain its consciousness, only to discover that his head was about to split apart from a terrifying pain he was feeling. He started wailing left and right as he couldn't feel anything other than the splitting headache that was about to rip his mind apart.

What Rock hadn't noticed was that his body wasn't buried under any rubble or debris, but was lying on the ground with his face up, on a patch of red grass, right in the middle of a huge thunderstorm with thunder and lightning striking the ground all around him.

The bones on both his arms and legs were broken, his head bleeding from behind, and his clothes were tattered and full of blood. There was a huge wound on the left side of his chest probably made from a sword or a saber judging by its size. Luckily for Rock, it was still a few inches away from his heart.

He felt as if something was forcefully being stuffed in his brain, but there was not enough room for it to fit and his brain was about to burst.

Just as a bolt of lightning was about to strike his head and end his life for the second time today, a space tear appeared above him as the lightning was swallowed and disappeared inside it.

At the same time, a stone slowly left the space tear in the air, and as soon as it appeared, heaven and earth suddenly fell silent.

A few miles away, the people of Blue Forest-city had all gone still. Pedestrians were frozen mid-walking, people inside the restaurants were frozen while they were chatting and laughing or eating, stall owners haggling to sell their merchandise were immobilized, and even the fire in the taverns and the food that stall owners used to cook, were all in a frozen-like state.

Bolts of lightning all around Rock were stopped in place like a painting in the air, as if the very heavens themselves were afraid to move the moment that this stone appeared.

The triangle-shaped stone released a blindingly bright azure light that destroyed the black clouds and the bolts of lightning frozen mid air around Rock, along with everything else in a radius of one mile of Rock.

Rock suddenly felt the change in the environment around him and finally opened his eyes, forcibly suppressing the head splitting pain he was feeling which had slowly started to ease, only to see a blue like light from a triangle shaped-like stone right above the space between his eyebrows, plunging itself right inside his head.