Endless Ocean: Survival Begins with a Dugout Canoe

An unexpected encounter. Shi Ming’s first instinct was to fight!

But then he remembered he had just inherited Ron’s destiny and had essentially become the Sovereign himself. ’If I can use this usurped fate to bluff my way through this,’ he thought, ’it could create all sorts of opportunities out of thin air!’

His ability to adapt was immense.

He instantly slipped into character.

’I’ll play the part as long as I can. If it doesn’t work, it’s not too late to improvise.’

As Shi Ming felt the flow of time slow, the Time Giant, Candela, turned his gaze upon him. Spacetime shattered, and the giant stepped through the breach.

In the Endless Star Sea, powerhouses with abilities tied to destiny were exceedingly rare; each was a true gem. Those with time-related abilities were rarer still. But to have mastered both time and destiny, and to have reached a realm beyond that of a Pillar Stone—in the entire Star Sea, there was only one such being!

"Your Excellency."

In Ron’s body, Shi Ming bowed his head before the towering giant.

Right now, Shi Ming was Ron.

’My actions have to match Ron’s character.’

But inwardly, he was already plotting his next move. ’I just took over Ron’s body. If the Time Giant Candela doesn’t notice anything amiss, then this is my chance. I’ll observe him up close, find his weakness—’

And then,

’—and stab him right in the back!’

During their last exploration, which involved using lifeless constructs, Ron had always stood behind Candela like a lackey. It was the perfect position from which to stab him in the back.

...

...

...

"Ron, where are your twelve Destiny Treasures?" The Time Giant’s voice was layered, seeming to echo from other timelines.

"Your Excellency, I left them with my people."

"Oh?"

"The Cosmic Country is now facing a powerful enemy. That man, Shi Ming, will not rest until one of us is dead. My people feared his retribution, so I left the twelve treasures with the Star Queen."

Candela nodded.

He said nothing more.

He himself had no such thing as a people; he always acted alone.

"Let’s go. We follow the guidance of destiny."

Candela shrank his body, the 30-meter giant reducing his height to four meters, now only a meter taller than Shi Ming. He turned and was about to step into the Teleportation Vortex.

Shi Ming followed close behind.

Maintaining a reverent posture, he raised his head, his gaze fixed on the Time Giant’s back. A faint light glimmered in his eyes as he secretly activated his Eye of Destiny.

’Eye of Destiny, gather information.’

Shi Ming had gathered intelligence on several pseudo-gods before, but due to a lack of face-to-face opportunities, the information his Eye of Destiny collected was always broad and imprecise. Now that he was observing who was possibly the strongest of the five pseudo-gods up close, the intel his Eye of Destiny was about to provide would be crucial.

[BEEP.]

[Organizing intel. Report generated.]

[Candela]

[The favored child of Destiny, the adopted son of Time, a former Divine Warrior, and the strongest combatant among the Pillar Stones.]

[He is the one and only Time Giant in the Star Sea. He was a Nirvana-rank being from the moment of his birth, possessing six powerful innate abilities. Over tens of thousands of years, his innate ability ’Rhythm of Time’ evolved into the numbered Nirvana skill ’Time.’ After the gods fell, Candela seized the divine authority known as the Sand of Destiny, allowing him to break through from a Pillar Stone to a pseudo-god.]

[Nirvana Skill: Time (Numbered Nirvana Skill, No. 9)]

[Nirvana Skill: Calamity Lock]

[Authority: Sand of Destiny]

[Divine Country: Gold and Silver Island]

[Innate Abilities: Rhythm of Time (Evolved), Calamity’s Echo, Time Leap, Reenactment of the Past, Sound of Entanglement, Gold and Silver Era.]

[Treasures: ...]

[...]

[Note 1: Candela was once the Second Speaker of the Pillar Stones and the strongest warrior of the Divine Council. Back then, no being in the Star Sea dared to provoke him alone. Council members would rather have faced the punishment of the relatively merciful gods than the wrath of this Time Giant.]

[Note 2: Candela’s six innate abilities have existed since his birth. Aside from ’Rhythm of Time,’ which evolved into ’Time,’ the other five have not reached the Nirvana rank. However, his affinity with them is already perfect. When Candela uses his innate abilities, there is no wind-up, and the cost is minimal.]

[Note 3: Under his ’direct gaze,’ destiny and time hold no secrets whatsoever.]

[Note 4: Therefore, there is no room for wishful thinking.]

???

’There’s no room for wishful thinking?’

’Does that mean... he already knows something is wrong?’

’If that’s the case...’

Shi Ming struck from behind Candela without warning. The Sword in the Stone, fueled by thirty million points of Spiritual Power, shot from his hand with god-slaying momentum. Driven by that terrifying Spiritual Power, it thrust unstoppably toward the giant’s back.

’Heaven-rank’ skill!

Backstab!

...

...

...

The Sword in the Stone was incredibly fast, and the distance between Shi Ming and Candela was less than three meters. To be safe, and also as a test, he had even used a Time Pause Rune from the Four-Dimensional Sanctuary!

Unfortunately, the Time Giant walking ahead of him was completely unaffected by the paused time.

He stopped walking and turned his head to the side.

The golden arcane Runes on his shoulder suddenly flared, bathing that entire side of his body in the light of 24-karat Gold. ’Time,’ the ability that evolved from the innate ability ’Rhythm of Time,’ activated instantly, suppressing the Four-Dimensional Sanctuary.

Time stop?

Such an amateurish display!

The golden light radiating from the Time Giant’s body cast a golden filter over the world in Shi Ming’s eyes.

Through this filter, the gold seemed to transform into chains that could bind everything. On this ice planet, the omnipresent, biting wind stopped howling. The pristine ice fell silent, as if shackled. Even temperature ceased to transfer. Time itself, suppressed by gold, came to a complete stop, turning a single instant into an eternity.

This was the numbered Nirvana skill! Time!

Its effect was brutally simple.

Forward.

Stop.

Reverse.

Unlike the Four-Dimensional Sanctuary that Shi Ming possessed, ’Time’ was not activated through Runes.

Strictly speaking, Candela’s heart, his blood, and even every fragment of his genes were composed of countless overlapping clock faces, sundials, hourglasses, and other symbols and totems of time. If he wished, he could deconstruct his very cells into these elements, allowing him to advance, vanish, reverse, stop, or leap through time as he pleased...

He could even manipulate the timeline, rewinding the time in his immediate vicinity by a day, a month, or even a year!

However, wantonly altering the timeline would incur backlash from the Star Sea, a price his left side had to bear. Year after year, Candela’s golden body had been tempered until it was comparable to a supreme defensive treasure, capable of withstanding any ordinary backlash.

Under the control of his numbered Nirvana skill, ’Time,’ the flow of time was paused.

Yet the Time Giant himself remained completely unaffected.

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