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Too Calm For Too Long I
🕑 Added 2022-07-06 14:34:43 +0000 UTC.................
Chapter 137: Too Calm For Too Long I
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There is a quote Ian has come to live very much, Against boredom even gods struggle in vain. It holds true quite well, and it again goes back to the words in Ian's mind, words he can't remember who they were told by.
I've met a few immortals in a mortal's clothing, but I've met a lot of mortals in an immortal's clothing. One thing Ian knows for sure, he doesn't want to be a mortal in an immortal's clothing.
However, that's exactly what he was at the moment. He is most certainly an immortal, but he is also a mortal. An immortal form but a mortal mind... Is there an irony greater than this?
It's just like boredom, Ian knows of tales and dreams of gods who died due to boredom, either directly or indirectly. Most gods he came across so far felt more like mortals, controlled by circumstances and destiny.
And Ian was no exception. There is however another quote that says the cure to boredom is curiosity, so Ian found himself barely bored in his journey for answers.
He was curious to such a point that he was able to bear what many would call torture. You see, the rose of speed allows Ian to basically become a speedster, in mind and body.
It allows his mind to work at a speed inconceivable to the normal mind to the point it distorts Ian's view of time.
While for others, only a year passed, for Ian, it felt like a hundred years because there were very few moments across the last years where the rose of speed was left diactivated.
He exploited the hell out of the speed force, something very few would be able to do due to just how torturous the experience is to the human mind.
Imagine a snail moving before you on a branch. Imagine it was raining. Slow down the scenery bu a few hundred times and wait for a drop of rain to reach the snail. Await for the snail to make any noticeable movement.
That was basically Ian's daily life by choice. According to what he remembers, such a phenomenon wasn't rare for the Flash, it was just hard to control.
For Ian however, it was under perfect control. For the Flash, it was a process that usually lasts an hour every month or so without his control, and it almost drives him insane with boredom.
Can you imagine watching someone speaking, but every word takes an entire hour to be spoken? How can one not go crazy due to that?
Moreover, Ian upheld himself to living that way for an entire year simply out of necessity. He fought boredom not just with his curiosity for answers, but also because of necessity.
It was also those two things that got him to understand just how broken the speed force is. It also made him wonder why the Flash isn't just the strongest being in all of existence.
It only took him a second to come up with an answer. Not everyone is as committed as him, and certainly, no speedster would be able to handle what he went through.
Such are the ways of necessity. It drives one to achieve things they wouldn't be able to do otherwise.
And well, he did achieve a lot in the last year while staying out of trouble, mostly isolating himself in the House of mystery with the girls.
Just like now, Ian was resting in a strange land, a chaos of colors. He had his back leaning against someone else, both had a book in their hands.
The other person was Raven, adorned in a purple pajama while Ian had a white one. She definitely looked older, like she had grown up quite a lot despite not a lot of time passing since she left.
And she wasn't actually there. It was Ian who was with her, in her dream, literally. It was a cozy dream, the best of dreams for her.
And it was a common occurrence as Ian checks up on her from time to time, going into her dreams through the house of mystery.
All he does is what he's doing now, studying next to her in silence, sometimes she rumbles about her experiences, and he listens.
Sometimes, they talk about magic and other things, but they mostly enjoyed the company.
And like always, he leaves silently, going back into the house of Mystery. Dreams are real physical entities in the realms of dreams. They're real, a place reachable by the willing, but most dangerous of realms.
The House of Mystery brought a lot of surprises to Ian, most thanks to him feeding it his Death force endlessly. One of which was its ability to send Ian to certain dreams, only the ones that have a connection to him.
It not only allowed him to visit Raven without restraining whatever she was preparing to face Trigon, but it also allowed Ian to communicate with any being that dreams of him.
Such an example was Athena. One could say they became quite the good friends, playing games of minds together about one time a week.
Athena was extremely competitive, Ian not so much. Still, he did his best to accommodate her fighting spirit as there was a lot to learn from her.
She was truly a frightening goddess because even with the rose of speed, he still found it extremely hard to defeat her in the mind games.
She wasn't the goddess of wisdom for nothing as Ian continued to grow stronger and stronger by the day, the vessel of speed growing endlessly, meaning his thinking and comprehension speed already increasing.
Yet, despite all of that, he had only come to be even with her, sometimes losing and sometimes winning. He had come to understand why she was largely considered to be the most dangerous of Olympian gods.
On that note, the House of Mystery also changed a lot in appearance. The dimension became much more orderly, becoming one small Island on which the house is situated.
It doesn't look as chaotic as before though Ian can change it at any moment. All it takes is an order, he gave the entity known as the House of Mystery way too much for it not to give him absolute control of it.
Well, it was more like he took away the ownership, gaining absolute control without any need for consent. One might even say he was participating in the act of... Nothing, he had full consent.
Ian came back to the rejuvenating air of the dimension. How could it not when all Ivy did was to leave her touch on it, basically changing the island into a jungle, and decorating the house with nothing but plants.
"Finally!"
Ian reacted instantly, catching the figure jumping at him as if he had predicted it. In reality, Harley jumped at him like a rabbit was a daily occurrence since he told her about a gift he was preparing for her.
He allowed himself to fall back gently with her, and even let her shower him with kisses like always, "Where is it?"
Ian let out a sigh, "Like I've been saying for the past three months. When it's ready, I'll give it to you alright?"
"But you have been saying that for three months!" Harley complained.
"Yup, I shouldn't have told you about it, but there is good news... It should be ready in less than a month." Ian smiled. Even he was feeling a bit of anticipation because he was finally getting out of the house.
"Really really???"
"Yup, really." Ian nodded, getting another shower of kisses from her as she giggle and mumbled.
"Wahhhhh, finally!!" She then went to sleep, right there and then. She was the kind of person that would lose the desire to sleep in anticipation of what was to come, and she could finally have peace of mind.
"Really? I guess I also need to relax..." Ian followed after her, closing his eyes in sought of sleep, finally turning off the rose of speed. Time was finally moving normally in his preception.
It was also important to note that this is the first time he went to sleep in months. To a certain extent, he was preparing himself for the life of immortals, what he perceives to be a true immortal.
Whether his perception is right or not remains unknown, something he hopes his sought for answers can solve... Unfortunately, there was no rest for the wicked, "Hm?"
Comments
I'd say quite high, definitely in the high brackets but still far away from those that can reshape reality as they wish.
How strong is ian now in the dc universe hierarchy
