Slayers: Alive

Slayers: Alive 48

Slayers: Alive

Episode 116: Undead! Prisoner of Pain

At Wolf Pack Island, quiet and stressed, Celo entered Beast Master's throne room. "I have brought a report from our latest investigations concerning the Sea of Chaos."

"Very well, I'll listen to it now, as for you," she looked at the small ancient dragon who sat on her lap. "Go put into practice what I've taught you." After a moment of consideration, Val seemed to decide that if granny Zelas said this was okay, then it had to be okay and thus went off to do as she said. Besides, it sounded like something his father would approve of too, though perhaps not so much his mother and uncles. "Fang!" Zelas called out, not merely with her voice, but also through astral space.

"Yes, master?" Fang appeared in his almost human form with the fox ears and tail in an otherwise human looking body.

"Go make sure the wolves don't eat Val while he's picking on them," Zelas commanded with an amused grin. The wolves needed to build character anyway and Val needed to practice mischief, so it was a win-win situation from Zelas' perspective.

"Right away!" Fang went off to take care of his assigned task.

"Proceed with the report," Zelas prompted.

"Yes..." Celo began. "These lives which we live, in theory, we have lived them many times, subconsciously changing every time we live again. This theory fits with the information learned during the Darkstar incident. As long as there exists life, that is sentient beings, a new timeline will arise from the Sea of Chaos if the world is ever destroyed, thus making it impossible to end this cycle unless everything is reduced to nothing. In which case, there would also be no chaos. The Sea of Chaos is a more intense chaos than even ours, it holds everything, it is the resting place where all goes until it once again becomes part of a new world. All timelines, including that which we are living now, will eventually become part of the Sea of Chaos, and from there the next timeline will be created. Thus in the end, I believe there is no need to rush. Let this timeline last eternally in chaos or at least for a long time."

"This is all good to know. However, have you been able to find any information concerning those timelines and the Stillness?" Zelas inquired.

"As far as we know, the Stillness is awakening for the first time now. Those timelines and this one, all the timelines are part of the world," Celo elaborated. "Time does not need to make complete sense as many believe, because beings of chaos such as the living creatures of this world, monsters, dragons and even humans, can exist outside of it without realizing it. Those timelines, if I was to try to explain it, are our past or possible future, possibilities such as the many that exist. It is said that Ragradia had the power to look into those possibilities and use that knowledge to influence which path of possibility was to be taken. However, knowing does not mean controlling and sometimes even the best choice is not enough for victory, as confirmed with the Aqualord's fate. As for the machine I was working on, it is progressing as planned and the studies so far support the initial theory."

Celo fell silent after the explanation, but he still looked like he had something to say, thus Zelas impatiently inquired. "Is this your full report?"

"Yes, Lord Beast Master," after another tense and unsure pause, Celo added, "may I inquire about Tiffany?" Zelas had gone to see her before she went off to pick up Val and after a private conversation between the monster lord and the golden dragon, Tiffany left with Zelas and did not return. The part that worried Celo the most was his wife's parting towards him, it made it sound as if she was never coming back.

"Investigations found out something interesting about the Stillness, especially about the End." Zelas began with a seemingly unrelated revelation that was actually closely related to Tiffany's whereabouts. "The Stillness is nothing and it is its contamination with chaos that allows it to exist. The End is locked away in a being of chaos, thus even if the other two pieces, Lamentation and the Void are defeated, the End will bring them back. All three fragments must be destroyed to defeat the Stillness. The golden dragons have been researching as well and I've had spies keeping an eye on that. Milgazia found something interesting recently in an old legend that was all but completely lost. Everything fits together like pieces of a puzzle."