PART I: BEFORE THE SEALING OF THE BLACK MAGE

Chapter 13: The Seal of Time

In the last days of the war, the Black Mage and his Commanders prepared to siege the Temple of Time. As the sole restriction on the Transcendent of Time was that they could alter the fate of anyone but themselves, Rhinne knew that she couldn’t stop the Black Mage from taking her power. However, she attempted to create a new future by creating the Child of the Goddess through her teardrops, who she hoped would succeed her as the Transcendent of Time in the distant future. Rhinne handpicked loyal priests to take the child to safety and watch over it in a different dimension that she created with her time magic, thereby masking the power of time within her child from the Black Mage.

Soon after, the Black Mage arrived with his Commanders and attacked the Temple of Time. During the battle, the Demon confronted a wounded Temple Keeper and told her that she was the last one left. Claiming that the Black Mage would seal her Goddess away, he asked her to surrender rather than throw her life away in vain. The Temple Keeper refused and foretold that the Demon would soon find himself in the same situation as her, to have his loved ones killed just as a means for someone else to fulfill their goals.

Undeterred by her words, the Demon struck her down before proceeding to confront Rhinne. Arkarium then blinded Rhinne, while the Demon stunned her in place, allowing the Black Mage to steal her Transcendent powers by using the Abyss Crystal, which had been formed with the power of darkness after his awakening as the dark Transcendent of Light. Using its ability to steal the power of divine beings, the Black Mage took the power of time from Rhinne and used it to seal her in ice within the Temple of Time.

(A/N: For a long time, there were two conflicting versions of the sealing of Rhinne. The Silent Crusade storyline shows that Rhinne was frozen in ice within the Temple of Time, much like the Heroes. However, Zero’s storyline shows that Rhinne was trapped in Mirror World. The Silent Crusade revamp revealed that Rhinne remained frozen within the temple until the Black Mage broke free from his seal, after which he recruited Will as a Commander and gave him ownership over Rhinne and her successor. With the power of time, Will recreated the dimension where Rhinne had hidden her child into Mirror World and split the child into two halves.)

As the Abyss Crystal would need to recharge for many years before it could be reused, the Black Mage decided to hide it in a secure location where no one could find it. With his new powers over time, the Black Mage opened a portal to a subspace that existed between Maple World and a parallel world called Friends World, which loosely mirrored the people and events of Maple World.

Though both Maple World and Friends World existed within the same dimension, a dimensional barrier separated the two worlds that made it impossible to travel between them. For this reason, the Black Mage stored the Abyss Crystal in the subspace between them, thereby ensuring that no one would be able to take the crystal before the time was right.

(A/N: The lore about the Abyss Crystal and the existence of Friends World as a parallel world in the dimension of Maple World came from the Heroes of Maple revamp. The Abyss Crystal was originally called the Transcendence Stone, and the Black Mage initially had no relationship to it, as he just took Rhinne’s powers directly, with the Transcendence Stone’s origins remaining shrouded in mystery. The Transcendence Stone was always said to have existed in Friends World, which was originally a separate dimension altogether, rather than a parallel world within the same dimension as Maple World.)

Soon after, the Black Mage sensed Tana’s existence in Kritias and recognized that she was a Transcendent of Light with the power of creation. In order to prevent her from escaping, he used Rhinne’s powers to travel back in time to Kritias of the past, moments after Hekaton’s Ascendency failed. He then ordered his forces to invade Kritias, ensuring that any trace of Tana’s existence would be erased in the siege, and finally sealed Kritias away into a pocket dimension, where time would stand still for its citizens until the time came for the Genesis Ritual.

However, using the stolen powers of another Transcendent caused the Black Mage to weaken. Furthermore, it caused an Interdimensional Portal to appear in Maple World. After conquering the Temple of Time, the Black Mage decided to set into motion the fateful events that would cause him to be sealed. He praised the Demon’s contributions in the battle while deliberately ignoring Arkarium’s efforts, knowing that it would make Arkarium jealous of his rival. While the Demon rested after the battle, the Black Mage ordered the other Commanders to destroy the rest of Ossyria. 

Arkarium went to the southern region of Leafre, where he attacked the Demon’s family and killed his mother. This caused Damien’s latent demon powers to awaken, resulting in the destruction of their home. Impressed by his power, Arkarium convinced Damien to join him by claiming that it was Damien’s awakening that had resulted in his mother’s fatal wounds. He presented an illusion of Damien’s mother preserved in time and explained that only a Transcendent had the power to revive the dead. However, he also said that the Black Mage would have full control over the new Transcendent of Time after Rhinne and suggested that they could turn back time to revive his mother, but only if Damien swore his loyalty to the Black Mage.

With Damien as his underling, Arkarium hoped to use him as insurance against the Demon. When the Demon awoke after the battle, he heard the news of the attack on Leafre during a meeting and rushed to his home, only to discover that it was in flames. Furious that the Black Mage had broken his promise to leave his family alone, the Demon stormed into the Temple of Time. After running into his servant, a pure-blood demon named Mastema, he ordered her to deliver a letter to the Heroes that outlined his betrayal, as well as logistics of the troop deployment in the Temple of Time.

The Demon then headed to the Black Mage’s throne room, but was stopped by Arkarium outside the door. When Arkarium refused to step aside, the Demon began fighting against him. Before they could unleash their full power, the Black Mage opened the doors to allow the Demon entry, after which Arkarium left to go hunt down the Heroes. The Demon engaged in a fierce battle with the Black Mage and managed to destroy his protective barrier, but he was ultimately no match for his former master.

Meanwhile, Arkarium arrived to see Mastema delivering the letter to the Heroes. Arkarium attacked Mastema, who was gravely wounded, forcing her to take on the form of a cat in order to survive. Using the information from the Demon’s letter, the Heroes began formulating their strategy to invade the Temple of Time. However, Aran was soon wounded while protecting the survivors of the Commanders’ attack on Ossyria, leaving the remaining Heroes to plan their attack on the Temple of Time without her.

With the Black Mage’s enormous army of dark creatures quickly closing in on their location, the Heroes decided to evacuate the refugees to Victoria Island before facing the Black Mage. While Freud and Mercedes oversaw the evacuation, Phantom, Luminous, and the pirate hero pushed ahead to first deal with the Commanders.

Soon after, Aran awoke and found Freud and Mercedes finalizing the details of their plan. After hearing about the situation, Aran decided that she would stay behind and hold off the Black Mage’s army on her own, despite Freud and Mercedes’ protest that it would be nearly impossible for her to do so on her own. Nevertheless, Aran insisted that she would be able to handle it and promised to catch up to the others once the refugees had evacuated.

The Heroes then met with Athena Pierce and informed her about the plan, though a worried Athena noted that Aran was already injured. After Freud reassured Athena, he turned to Aran and told her that he had initially planned to send Aran to safety aboard the refugee ship, knowing how stubborn she was, though he told her that he trusted her to handle things on her own. Mercedes then asked Aran to keep Athena and the others safe before Freud teleported them to the Temple of Time.

Aran then single-handedly held off the Black Mage’s army, allowing Athena and the others to escape. After seeing that Aran had no intention of fleeing with them, Athena asked her to keep Mercedes and the other Heroes safe. Aran then rushed to the Temple of Time, where she began covering the other Heroes by holding the line, while Freud and Mercedes began facing the Black Mage.

Elsewhere, Phantom, Luminous, and the pirate hero began facing off against the Commanders, with Phantom breaking off in order to go after Lotus and Orchid. He engaged in a fierce battle against the twin Wing Masters and savagely attacked Lotus, putting him into a coma. As Phantom disappeared, Orchid vowed to revive Lotus and took his body away from the Temple of Time.

Meanwhile, Luminous and the pirate hero headed towards the Black Mage’s throne room when they were stopped by Guwaru. Just as they were about to fight, Magnus appeared from behind and stabbed Guwaru, absorbing the spirit magic inside of him in order to permanently lengthen his lifespan, which had been cut short by Kaiser’s attack. Declaring that he was done with Maple World, Magnus left and used the newly created Interdimensional Portal in order to return to Grandis.

The pair then entered the throne room, where they saw Afrien and Mercedes unconscious, and Freud heavily injured. Freud told them that the Black Mage’s power far exceeded their own, and that they could not hope to defeat him. Instead, he hoped to use the remaining Seal Stones in order to seal the Black Mage away by having them absorb the stolen Transcendent powers, thus creating a powerful Seal of Time, though he added that it was merely a theory, as the Seal Stones had never been used in such a way before.

He used a spell to freeze time, allowing Luminous to place the seals around the Black Mage. However, Freud then informed them that there was one more component needed to activate the seal: the time of one living person. After a heated argument, the pirate hero chose to become the sacrifice. His time was absorbed into the Seal Stones, causing all traces of him to vanish from memories, photographs, and any other object that proved that he once existed. However, as Freud had created the spell, he remained aware that some person must have been sacrificed in order to activate the seal, though all knowledge about the pirate hero, such as his name and appearance, had been erased from his mind. 

Freud then told Luminous that in order to create the seal, they needed to force the Black Mage into drawing out his full power so that he would have no choice but to resort to using the Transcendent of Time’s power. After placing the spell on the Seal Stones, Freud undid the time freeze, and Luminous engaged in a fierce duel with the Black Mage. Luminous used the full extent of his light magic to counter the Black Mage’s dark magic, forcing the Black Mage to use the power of time. Immediately, the Seal Stones absorbed the stolen power and activated the Seal of Time.

As the Seal of Time began activating, the Black Mage attempted to shatter the seal. To prevent this from happening, Luminous charged forward to stop him. However, the physical contact between the Black Mage and the last remnant of his light resulted in a power transfer, and Luminous inadvertently absorbed a trace of the Transcendent’s dark power, turning one of his eyes crimson red. With the Black Mage sealed behind the Gate of the Present, the Heroes were summarily expelled from the Temple of Time and cast down from the sky into the burning land of Leafre. With the power of time sealed away with the Black Mage, the Interdimensional Portal in Maple World also disappeared.