Eternal Emerald Dragon

Chapter 865 - 864 - Timeshift

The spike in the dividing line did come as Lind predicted. If they had not sharply ascended at the forward speed they were moving, they would have brushed it or worse, slipped to the other side.

There was no mystery about their fate at that point.

Lind began to see the crew settling more comfortably in working with each other to the point no dragon treated hybrids any differently. The etiquette of cultivation realms remained but now there was more respect in both directions between both races.

He was currently in the power section going over the emergency thruster. It was a massive structure that channeled all the Qi into it to literally toss the Wings of Freedom in a straight line at full power and speed for about half a day at most.

The structural supports were currently more physical from his Forging but weavings were intertwined that would trigger the moment it was used. The whole point was to hold the ship together under the stress of the acceleration.

He was able to test the stress the 2 techniques could withstand but the thruster itself only had limited testing for obvious reasons.

"True Lord, I have the flow test here." A very young man came up to him. He was actually only 20 years old! He was in the Star Tier but he was from the Starshell Clan and they took very good care of their hybrids.

It was actually very cheap to raise a cultivator up to the Heaven Realm even in the current state of the Celestial Fields.

It also helped keep up their population numbers to keep the temple functioning generation to generation.

Dragons might live a lot longer than other races but not all bloodlines were equal. Lind was at the extreme end due to his progenitor status but take Wen, she would actually die before him even if she advanced to the Shard Tier that day!

"Leo, you know you can just use my name." He saw the bright smile and nod but knew it would not make a damn difference. He had hoped the younger ones would not be stuck on his title but it seemed Wen and the older dragons made it impossible.

He reviewed the numbers and was actually happy. The flow of Qi had been actually better than he had projected and the jade stone tubes he had created for the starship were working better than he had imagined.

He was about to put them down when he noticed something odd. Due to the lengthy time spent inside the ship and lack of exterior views, there was only internal time for the most part. It was essentially the first time since he was reborn that a clock was used on a regular basis.

Most towns and cities used bells and divided the day up by quarters or some other agreed division.

The pad should be at the same time as the panel behind him but it was off.

He had used the familiar 24 hour time scale but he knew it was not quite correct for the length of days he had been dealing with.

Regardless, there was now a good 3 minute variance but it should be impossible.

"Leo, where was this pad?" It was not solely used for displaying the test results but a stack of pads could be taken from a shelf to be used for many functions. It just had to be infused with Qi to activate and then set into a panel in the room it was being used in.

Once the panel synced with it, functions would be accessed from the tablet so long as Qi kept it going. When it ran out, it would reset. It was a limitation that nothing could be stored on it but he had no time to experiment beyond the current use.

It meant it should be at the same time as the rest of the ship.

"It was on the starboard side and up 1 deck." Lind frowned and moved towards the stairs. They both quickly got up but he felt no issue even as they approached the wall where a panel stuck out.

It had a large rectangular slot for the tablet, but he ignored it to bring up the details and frowned deeply.

The time on the panel matched the tablet!

[Wen, can you hear me?] He used his telepathic ability and felt her response instantly.

[True Lord! Is there a problem?] Her time to respond was perfectly normal so there was no issue that way.

[Where are you?] He now felt a pause that was a bit long but then she sent him a message.

[I am in my quarters.] She felt reluctant for some reason but he did not care.

[Access your personal panel and tell me what ship time you have.] Lind then sent messages to several other crew members until he got a decent sample.

Their responses shocked him.

"Leo, keep monitoring the tests but I want you to physically move to the other control panels and set up tablets each time. Do not ask me why, just do it please." He bobbed his blonde head and Lind quickly made his way up the decks.

He intentionally moved faster than normal and finally detected what he was looking for.

Time was moving at different rates!

[Helm! Stop the ship now!] He used his full power to send the message and was disturbed to feel the ship come to a sudden stop on his front foot but not his back one until a good 30 seconds later!

He got to the bridge and found the crew nervously waiting for him. He waved to them and smiled as he quickly began to run more numbers not only in the monitoring panel of ships power but exterior readings as well.

Even sitting still, he was noticing variances that made him breakout in a cold sweat.

His hands were blurs as panels and crystal levers were manipulated at a frenetic pace.

Wen and Hope both came running onto the bridge but did not interrupt him.

Finally, results began to display that confirmed his worst fears.

"Wen, open the communication relays and send the signal to listen." She nodded and took over from another dragon that had pale blue skin and partial scales showing on her hands.

A whistle sounded throughout the ship and all crew knew it was a call to listen to Lind or Wen giving out notice to the whole ship at once.

"Attention to all the crew. As some may have noticed or not, the time stamps on the tablets are not the same if you move far enough from where you started. It is not a mistake. Time is no longer a constant." His words made all the bridge crew's eyes go wide. He was sure the rest of the ship was similar.

"I had the ship stop and I am glad I did. As you know, the origin of the Cataclysm seems to refine all Qi, life, and Laws into oblivion. As we got closer, the dome rose as expected but that is not the only problem. Its effects are getting stronger." He then touched a control on his command chair that sent out the compiled results.

It showed that gravity, space, and time were no longer constant. They still existed, but they were not stable. Gravity spiked in different spots causing stress across the ship but it was not so bad it could not take it.

Space rippled which was more problematic but the weavings used to keep inertia relatively stable also helped protect them.

The issue was the last one. Time.

Lind could sense the issue but he had no way to really protect against it.

"Subjectively, our personal perception of time has not yet changed. We are all living in the same moment inside the ship, but objectively, time is shifting out of sync. For example, the bridge is about 10 minutes ahead of the aft thruster area but the main detection dish is almost 30 minutes behind the rest of the ship where we are sitting right now." The inconsistency stood out instantly.

The bridge, which was ahead of the detection dish was actually in the past compared to a place behind it!

"If it was just us perceiving time, we are safe, but that is not the issue. Timing is extremely important for the safe running of the ship. Qi has to flow at certain rates to supply power to artifacts at the right time. Discharging or taking in Qi has to be done at the right moment and duration to keep the Hacors stable. Many issues like that exist." Grim looks now faced Lind but that was not the worst part.

He sighed as he looked at Hope and the dragon with pale blue skin.

"While the ship blowing up is a major concern, that is not the only issue. It is entirely possible that as we get closer, thousands of years could pass in an eyeblink. Remember, I said only our perception is in sync. Objectively, time is passing in jumps in unpredictable ways." Wen suddenly looked pale as she looked at the 2 Heaven Realms on the bridge.

Hope was very young so there was a lot of leeway, but the pale blue skinned dragon was almost 4000 years old. For their race, that was not bad, but she was not of a high grade bloodline.

She only had 100 thousand years max to live!

She seemed to grasp it as she shivered where she stood.

"I want the senior members to join me at meeting room 2. We need to discuss our options." Lind put a hand to his throat to cut the connection and Hope shut it down.

"Have we failed, True Lord?" The young dragon spoke up and looked down but he honestly did not know what to say.

"That is yet to be determined. We have come this far, I am not giving up so easily." He swore to fly on his own if he had to but outside was an atmosphere that would not be kind to him and the limit of Shard Tier was quickly approaching.

His own lifespan was not infinite. If time completely broke down, he could lose half his body to natural death before he knew what happened.

He waved for Wen and Hope to follow him. They had to hope they could solve the issue or the worlds he had lived in were all dead.