Those time travelers that year

“?, ?? . (Unavoidable, unstoppable.)”

“, (under the shadows)”

"?? (At the time of destruction)"

The bone dragon struggled to break free from the Fiery Demon's flaming whip, but was immediately rammed by the demon. Sensing the increasingly powerful fire element and the destructive force of the intersecting fel energy in the space, the flames on the Fiery Demon's body suddenly swelled, transforming into a black and dark green hue. Its body grew even larger, and with a single sword strike, it pierced through the bone dragon's skull, pinning it to the stone wall.

“I am the Great Cataclysm.”

[Destruction Warlock Spell - Cataclysm]

Far exceeding the so-called master-level destruction spells, intense flames erupted from countless cracks in the ground within a space spanning thousands of square meters. This was genuine lava, and the accompanying explosions tore through rocks and overturned the earth. Even the mountain trembled beneath the rolling flames. This was only because Charles himself had suppressed his power, and his magical energy was also insufficient; otherwise, with this destruction warlock's spell, it was not impossible to recreate the moment Deathwing tore the earth apart, reenacting the prelude to a true cataclysm.

A long chapter of 3,000 words, please click, recommend, and favorite!

38. Dragon Soul

The flames subsided, leaving behind a world akin to hell. Charred stone walls, shattered foundations, and swirling red and black light on the ground. The ground itself had been melted by the destructive fire, and the surrounding air was thick with demonic curses. Anyone caught unprepared, even a single breath of the air would be instantly killed by the cursed magic contained within it. Yet, the creator of all this, Charles, walked upon it unscathed; even though the temperature beneath his feet was hot enough to ignite a person, his shoes remained completely undamaged.

The Balrog grew even larger, severing the bone dragon's head amidst the raging hellfire. It then tore the entire bone dragon to pieces, leaving behind only a pile of charred bones and a head—the very bone dragon that could breathe deadly cold.

Charles canceled the Balrog's magic, reclaimed his own, and slightly replenished his own power. This allowed Charles, who had exhausted most of his magic after casting this destructive spell, to recover a bit.

"Hehe... Hahahaha!" Charles suddenly burst into maniacal laughter. "Now let's see how you dodge, you reptile!" He spread his fingers toward the spot where the black crater had once been (now filled with the dust of flames). A painful howl rang out, and a semi-transparent white mist rose from the scorching ground, then formed a dragon's head in mid-air.

"No, no..." The dragon's head, no, the soul of that bone dragon just now, howled in agony. "No, you're not Duwakin, why? Why? No!!!!!!!!!!" Shar didn't want to pay attention to the nonsense of this dragon that had been dead for many years. He directly chose to capture the dragon's soul. As an immortal race, this dragon's soul far surpassed that of any mortal. Even in death, the soul would not be annihilated. However, facing a warlock who toyed with souls, this dragon, which had lost its body, could not resist Shar's actions of pulling at its soul. "Impossible, how could a mortal use such power!" The power of fel energy tore at the dragon's soul. It felt the destructive power within and couldn't help but feel fear. But no matter how much it struggled, it was of no use.

The cursed magic contained in the wide-range spell had also damaged its soul, leaving it extremely weak. Having been dead for many years, it already possessed most of its power and was now utterly powerless to resist Sharl's fel energy. Soon, amidst wails, the dragon soul was drawn into Sharl's hand, transforming into a crystal. Within the crystal, the faint outline of a roaring dragon's head could be seen. Holding the crystal, Sharl began to scorch it with sacrificial fire, intending to completely obliterate the dragon soul's consciousness. He didn't need a slave; he only needed knowledge of dragons and the runes required to learn dragon roars.

……

When the Cataclysm spell erupted, it shook the ruins, causing the stealthy mage to pause and look back. After a moment's hesitation, she decided to follow Charles's advice and continue. Staying behind wouldn't offer much help; the terrifying magical fluctuations she'd just witnessed clearly didn't originate from a dragon reduced to bones. Although she knew Charles was incredibly powerful, she hadn't expected him to be this… terrifying. Yes, terrifying. The destructive aura emanating from behind gave the mage a sense of impending annihilation. Even if this power wasn't as abundant as the energy of the Eye of Magnus, it was far more violent and destructive. Besides, she faced considerable trouble; the ghouls within the ruins wouldn't easily let her proceed.

However, wielding the Fireball Staff and having the Ice Servants standing guard in front of her gave her some confidence. At least the ghouls couldn't easily shatter the Ice Servants, but the fireballs from the Fireball Staff were enough to ignite any of them. The arrows were also blocked by her [Ebony Armor] spell. If it weren't for the strange sound and blue wind that had appeared earlier, which had weakened her magic, she would have had an even easier time.

Similarly, deep within the ruins, the creature hiding there also discovered the power of the Cataclysm spell's eruption—enough energy to tear it apart. Now, all it could do was delay the approaching figure, hoping the ghouls in the ruins could kill her, giving it enough time to absorb the power of the remaining two mage souls to activate the power of its artifact staff.

Ovira's journey was fraught with peril. Liches, lich specters, trolls, the Wraith Mother… Heaven knows why there were so many different kinds of monsters in this ruin… She stumbled and fell along the way, her potions and scrolls nearly depleted. She only had one scroll left—the Undead Destruction spell—but then, at a stone wall resembling an altar, she encountered a lich death lord. Her ice servants were shattered to pieces in just a few blows by the lich death lord, and her fireball staff was sent flying by a roar. The Way of the Roar… So the ancient Nord legends were true; there really was a roar, and humans could indeed learn this power that should belong to dragons.

Now, struggling against the ghoul death lord, Ovira was considering whether to use the last scroll to save her life, but what would happen to the monster that made the eerie noise if she used it? Just as she hesitated, she slipped and fell to the ground. Then she watched as the ghoul death lord raised its battle axe, about to bring it down on her.

A beam of red light struck the ghoul death lord first, throwing him away and causing him to drop his battle axe.

"Here you go!" A familiar voice rang out. Ovira instinctively looked up and saw Charles running out of the passage she had come from, picking up her fallen fireball staff and throwing it at her. Ovira caught the staff. Then, seemingly to vent her anger from being chased so wildly, the mage continuously summoned fireballs with her staff, bombarding the ghoul lord. In the continuous explosions, the ghoul lord temporarily lost his ability to retaliate, the shockwaves suppressing him. At this moment, Charles activated his [Guardian Ring], pinning him firmly against the wall, unable to move…

In the end, the ghoul death lord had turned to dust, at the cost of the mage's staff being completely destroyed.

"Looks like I'm not too late!" Charles walked over and helped the mage who was about to collapse.

“But I need to rest…” Ovira leaned against Charles with a wry smile.

"I also have this potion I brought from the College of Winterhold, enough for you to recover your strength immediately, Miss."

Do you have any mana potions?

Yes! What's wrong?

"Give me all of them! I'm going to teach that bastard a lesson! If it weren't for him, I wouldn't have lost my magic and been bullied so badly by a ghoul!"

39. Dragon Lich

The final boss in the ruins is a dragon lich. Decades ago, the chief mage of Winterhold, in his youth, came to these ruins with his companions to explore them. They discovered the Staff of Magnus and the dragon lich slumbering within. A battle ensued. Using the Staff of Magnus's power to drain mana, the mage team suffered heavy losses, ultimately perishing there. Only one survivor, severely wounded, escaped the ruins. Afterwards, that survivor used magic to seal the ruins' entrance, imprisoning the dragon lich within.

So, the strange incidents where the mage suddenly lost all her magic power were actually caused by a dragon lich hiding in the ruins using the staff's true power to drain a mage's magic completely in one fell swoop. It seems that back then, a dragon lich easily annihilated a research team composed of several skilled mages, all thanks to the staff in its hand. However, judging from what just happened, it appears that this staff has limitations; at least the dragon lich couldn't freely use that blue storm that could drain magic power from a great distance and accompanied by sound.

Charles handed all the mana potions he was carrying to the mage and said to her, "You should rest for a while and try to recover your mana..." Ovie stretched out her hand and took the mana potions Charles handed over, nodded gratefully, and then drank the mana potions.

Charles then raised his sword and looked at the stone-wall-like altar. He had seen this kind of altar in the Coldfall Mountains; it was inscribed with dragon roar runes, but unfortunately, apart from dragonborn, no one else could directly read the information on it. It was the same back then; no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't read the dragon roar runes on the altar in the tomb in the Coldfall Mountains.

Of course, things are different now; he has a new method to try. Charles looked back and saw that Miss Ovira was sitting on the ground, resting against a wall, her back to him. Taking this opportunity, Charles walked directly onto the altar and arrived at the stone wall engraved with runes.

The crystal created from the dragon that hadn't fully resurrected appeared in Charles's hand. As soon as Charles took the crystal out, he immediately felt the runes engraved on the stone wall begin to resonate with the crystal in some way. Then, Charles saw golden and blue light surge from the only intact rune on the stone wall and flow into the crystal he had purchased.

“It seems my idea was correct…” Looking at the soul stone in his hand, crafted from the soul of a dragon, Sharl confirmed his guess. The so-called Dragonborn don't actually possess dragon blood; rather, their souls are, to a great extent, identical to those of dragons. Or rather, their spirits overlap with those of dragons. This is why Dragonborn can directly read the runes of dragon shouts and learn shouts in a short time that others might take decades to master. Because their souls are, in essence, dragon souls.

It's no wonder that when Dagon sought to annihilate the crisis, he meticulously planned to wipe out the entire Dragonborn royal family. The power of the Dragonborn isn't carried by their bloodline, but by their souls. As long as one remains, they can summon the power of their origin at any time—the power to become an avatar of the Time Dragon God. Whether it's Alduin or Akatosh, they are essentially one, and the Dragonborn originate from Akatosh himself…

This also explains why, once the Dragonborn embarked on the path of destiny and gradually awakened his own power, those demon gods would eagerly rush to his aid. What they wanted was the Dragonborn's soul, not the person himself.

"Hmm!" Charles retrieved the Soul Stone and continued to cleanse the consciousness within with magic. However, Charles also discovered that he was completely unable to erase the dragon's consciousness. Every time he was about to destroy that consciousness, new power would surge in to maintain the dragon soul's consciousness from being obliterated. "This must be the rule in Skyrim, right? Only the Dragonborn can truly kill a dragon. In other words, only by leaving can you destroy the consciousness inside?" The Soul Stone in his hand had, unsurprisingly, imprinted the dragon's roar on the stone wall, but it was unusable for Charles. The extremely weak dragon soul inside was still resisting Charles's power. "Well, it's still a gain. At least I got a Time Roar rune, which is the most meaningful dragon roar in Skyrim."

After putting away the soul stone, Charles turned and walked towards the female mage, who seemed much better. After resting for a while, Ovira had recovered to her best condition and was ready to venture deeper into the innermost area to deal with the troublemaker. It was best to eliminate him before he unleashed his new power to directly drain mana.

……

The two ventured deeper into the innermost area, which was a high platform—at least before the city was swallowed by the mountains. At two different points on the platform, two semi-transparent figures were transferring energy to a humanoid creature floating in mid-air on the other side of the platform. This creature wore dark gold armor, a tattered dark red cloak, and a mask.

That's a dragon lich.

The staff that the dragon lich was holding was the target of this mission: the staff known as the Staff of Magnus.

Boom!! Two fireballs were hurled by Sharl, striking the souls of the two mages who were channeling power into the dragon lich. In Sharl's perception as a warlock, the two controlled mage souls were consuming their own soul energy to supply the dragon lich. If there were no mistake, the dragon lich couldn't truly wield the Staff of Magnus's full power, but could only use it through a compromise. And that compromise, without a doubt, was through the soul, especially the soul of a mage brimming with magical power.

The explosion of flames instantly annihilated the two controlled souls, freeing them. The immediate loss of soul energy caused the dragon lich to roar. Well, it had no vocal organs and didn't utter a sound, but the two did hear a furious scream.

The dragon lich pointed his staff at the two of them, and a beam of light shot out from the tip of the staff, striking the female mage.

"My mana is draining!" Ovira cried out, quickly hiding behind a rock to avoid the streak of light. "That staff, that staff is Magnus's Staff..."

"I know!" Charles also hid behind the rocks. "Don't you want to teach that scheming guy a lesson?"

"How to do it?"

"Later, I'll knock the staff out of its hand, and you can use the scroll of Undead Destruction to hit it. Although it won't destroy it directly, it will be enough to make it suffer, and you can also prepare a more powerful one."

The dragon lich wasn't just skilled with his staff; once the two hid behind the rocks, he unleashed a barrage of frost magic upon their hiding place. Ice blades and frost storms shattered the rocks into pieces.

At this moment, Shar emerged from behind the rock. Seeing this, the dragon lich tried to use the power of its staff to strip Shar of its energy. However, Shar beat it to the punch, casting a disarm spell that knocked the staff from its hand. Then, the female mage unfurled the scroll of Undead Destruction, and master-level magical energy spread out, azure light sweeping across the platform, instantly igniting blue flames on the dragon lich's body.

Although both are undead creatures, the dragon lich, being at the pinnacle, won't be directly obliterated by the Undead Destruction spell, but it will still be affected. This effect prevents it from retaliating for the time being. That's enough; next, the mage unleashed a powerful Fireball spell right in its face.

At that moment, Charles used a summoning spell to pull the staff that had fallen to the ground back to him.

"No!" A roar rang in their ears as the dragon lich, freed from the effects of the Undead Destruction spell, let out a hoarse howl.

"Your mask is mine!" Charles chuckled coldly, taking out a soul fragment. This fragment was taken from a bandit he'd casually killed while running a race against a master-level destruction spellcaster. It's worth noting that one of the bandits was a rogue mage. Charles channeled the soul energy from the fragment into his staff. A blue ripple swept towards the dragon lich, instantly obliterating its prepared spell. Furthermore, its body began to crack. This monster, which relied on magic to maintain its cursed immortality, met its end after being stripped of its magic.

Ovira used a final bolt of lightning to tear the dragon lich's body to shreds. Then, this monster, who had lived for countless years and was once a mage of the Dragon Cult, vanished into thin air.

The mage breathed a sigh of relief after the dragon lich was defeated.

"Here you go!" Charles casually tossed the staff to Ovira.

"Oh!" Ovira quickly caught the staff. "...Thank you, Mr. Gret."

“It doesn’t matter, I have my spoils anyway…” Charles said, walking towards the spot where the dragon lich’s corpse had crumbled, and picking up the only intact mask. Then, when Ovira wasn’t looking, he secretly extracted the dragon lich’s remaining soul and created soul fragments from it.

40. The Old Roll journey comes to an end

The final leg of the journey went quite smoothly. The mage obtained the key artifact for saving the School of Winterhold—the Staff of Magnus—while Charles acquired the dragon priest mask he had coveted, along with the soul of a dragon lich and the dragon soul of a dragon that had not yet resurrected, using it to record a dragon roar. It could be said that these gains far exceeded his expectations. At least before setting out, Charles's focus was solely on the dragon lich, and he hadn't anticipated any new discoveries.

This was a rewarding run for everyone, except for one elf who was blocking the exit and got blasted to smithereens by a single Fireball from the Shire. Everyone got what they wanted. All that's left is to return to Winterhold and deal with that reckless and suicidal Thalmor spy.

Several days later, the two returned to Winterhold amidst the falling snowflakes. The situation in Winterhold had stabilized, and the Academy mages, now free to focus on clearing out the magical creatures that had infiltrated the territory, worked with the lord's soldiers to bring the situation under control in two days. However, without resolving the issue with the Academy of Winterhold, these magical creatures would continue to appear.

Now, the academy's mages have pinned their hopes on the Staff of Magnus. Countless previous attempts have ended in failure, and the instructors and students have retreated to their territories. They are helpless against the magical energy that envelops the entire academy; they can neither approach it nor stop its spread. If this continues, the entire Winterhold territory might be engulfed and even destroyed. For this reason, the lord of Winterhold, unusually, berated and berated the academy's mages. In the past few days, many residents have chosen to leave Winterhold due to the crisis. The territory's population was already far less than that of other lords, and now this situation has led to further population loss. If this continues, Winterhold might as well be wiped out.

But the bad news didn't end there for the academy's mages; one of the academy's instructors, Mirabelle, ultimately succumbed to her injuries. Upon returning and hearing this news, Ovira's face darkened.

"This place was once the home of the chief mage, and a paradise for us scholars who pursue knowledge," Ovira said to the remaining instructors and surviving apprentices. "Ancano stole the Eye of Magnus and seized the academy; now it's time for him to pay the price." The mage raised the Staff of Magnus, from which a beam of blue light shot out, striking the magical energy surrounding the academy.

The magical energy that had rendered all mages helpless, even master-level spells, ineffective, melted away rapidly upon contact with the beam of light emitted from Magnus's Staff, like snow melting in flames. The barrier that had forced back the academy's mages and blocked the academy's path instantly collapsed.

Seeing the academy mages' excitement as the power enveloping the academy faded, Xia Er understood. After all, they had lost their homes to an outsider, were verbally abused without being able to retaliate, and had acquaintances die as a result. Anyone would hate the culprit to the core. It could be said that these academy mages had suffered an undeserved calamity. A routine archaeological expedition had resulted in the permanent loss of two senior mages—one the academy's chief mage, and the other one of its instructors. This was a major blow to the academy, which had enjoyed peace for so long.

But now it's all over.

Charles didn't go in; he simply watched as the mage led a group of academy instructors and apprentices into the academy with great fanfare. This was a private matter for the College of Winterhold, and had nothing to do with him. He could now remain uninvolved. Of course, his excuse for staying in the Winterhold territory was to help the academy's mages appease the enraged lord.

The Eye of Magnus, relied upon by the Thalmor spy, did indeed possess wondrous power, even allowing him to teleport to another dimension and become immune to all attacks. However, before the Staff of Magnus, the key to controlling the Eye of Magnus, Ancanor's self-righteous power abandoned him. Having lost the power of the Eye of Magnus, this high elf from Thalmor was torn to shreds by the enraged Academy mages. The catastrophe ended, and due to the departure of the Head Mage, the Winterhold mentors unanimously recommended Ovira, who had contributed greatly to the events, to become the new Head Mage of the Academy, leading this institution whose status rivals that of the nine academies of Skyrim.

About half an hour later, everything was settled. Then, Farada, the instructor of the Destruction Department, came out and announced to Lord Collier of the territory that the incident had been resolved, while continuing her work of guarding the academy gates and conducting the new student assessments.

However, many problems await the College of Winterhold in the days to come. Both the Imperial Army and the Stormcloaks will try to win over any useful forces, and with Skyrim still shrouded in the shadow of the Dragonflight, the mages of the College have much work to do.

——————————Divider Line——————————

After the Winterhold arc ended, Charles left without saying goodbye. He had already gained enough in this arc, even more than he had expected. He didn't care at all whether leaving without saying goodbye would cause any problems; after all, he was just a passerby in this world.

If he could, he could choose to leave the world of Skyrim now, but he's still a little reluctant to leave. After all, there are still many good things in this world, and the level of combat isn't the kind of world where world-destroying forbidden spells are used without restraint.

However, after careful consideration, he realized that all the artifacts in the sky were related to those demon gods, except for the dragon priest masks, which had no connection to them. The problem was, if Shar didn't intervene in the Dragonborn's affairs, he was destined to never obtain all the dragon priest masks... For a spellcaster, the dragon priest masks that Shar currently possessed were arguably the best thing for him.

Moroik is the name of this dragon priest mask, and its ability is quite simple: it increases mana regeneration speed by 100%. This is much better for him than other dragon priest masks.

"Enough! Enough! Being too greedy won't get you far!" After much deliberation, Charles decided to leave. For him, this journey in The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim could finally come to an end. Having made his final decision, Charles took out his pocket watch, opened the cover, and gently turned the hands. The hands began to spin wildly after Charles turned them, and the surrounding environment darkened for a moment. In an instant, the surroundings were replaced by an endless starry sky, and the entire starry sky was constantly receding...

……

Suddenly, a chill ran down Charles's spine, and he instinctively turned around to look behind him.

A shining star—that was the world of Nirn, the Elder Scrolls where Ciel had spent several months. And at that moment, in the River of Fate, which resembled a ring around the edge of that star, a pair of golden eyes looked towards the departing Ciel.

Akatosh, the god of time...

These were Ciel's last thoughts. Then the scenery before him distorted and blurred, and the power of the pocket watch carried him across the endless starry sky in an instant...

41. A Few Things About the Main World (1)

Sid Grete, the second son of the current Grete family and now the first in line to the throne—well, he has his foolish 'brother' to thank for that. Ignoring a promising future, he became obsessed with opera and books, and later even with so-called mysticism. He even openly defied his father, shamelessly declaring that conservatives had no future and that the lands should be returned to the royal family, joining the reformists… and thus becoming the current head of the Grete family. In his fury, Earl Grete stripped his brother of his heirship and banished him back to the lands.

And so, he, the second son of the Grete family, replaced his elder brother as the first in line to the throne—a windfall indeed. Although Sid didn't know this saying, he was overjoyed. In one step, he had directly entered the core of the family, stepping into true high society. This position should have originally belonged to his brother… but now it belonged to him.

As the heir, he had access to more high society figures and learned more about the world. In short, he was utterly unwilling to reform the country. With a hereditary land, as long as there was no rebellion, he was king, controlling even the appointment of officials and taxation. Who would willingly relinquish their power? Those newly emerging reformers, though called nobles, were, in the eyes of these long-established nobles with their inherited lands, nothing more than a bunch of nouveau riche. How could a bunch of peasants dare to try and rise to power? Thus, he became a staunch opponent, which made him increasingly valued by the contemporary Earl Gretel, who entrusted him with important responsibilities.

He has now become an indispensable figure in the salons of the entire capital, especially in the opposition salons. However, in his opinion, these salons are nothing more than so-called hookup parties, places for dirty illicit transactions. As for the so-called important ministers of the country and the future of the nation, they are nothing but the self-righteousness of these inflexible guys. It was only because he didn't want to associate with these low-IQ and short-sighted guys that he chose to leave long ago.

Unfortunately, Sid Gretel didn't seem to care much. He was currently in a salon with his female companion, enjoying elegant music and conversing with like-minded people. Looking at Lorena holding his arm, Sid felt genuinely proud, while inwardly despising his brother. Under the glittering crystal chandelier, Lorena's beautiful face captivated Sid. He had met Lorena at a private banquet, where he had attended in his father's place at his father's behest. There he saw Lorena in a green evening gown, wearing diamond-shaped black earrings, her captivating eyes sparkling with confidence.

From that night on, they became friends, friends in every sense of the word. Sid had even decided that after his 20th birthday celebration, he would propose to Lorena. She came from a minor noble family, and that family was also staunchly opposed to marriage; presumably, her father wouldn't object.