As the shinsu began to flow at a slow pace, the frozen time resumed and the historical void again became accessible to Winston. The essence of the sequence 2 ritual was to return a lost part of history back to the present.
The forgotten part was right here, the axis Phantaminum. However, what qualified as 'returning to the present?'
Naturally, if enough people of the present age were to see the returned part of history or a sufficiently powerful party was to spectate the return, the lost piece of history would be considered as 'returned to the present age.'
Sadly, Winston who was both a part of the current era due to his own self and no longer a part of the current era due to the effects of the sequence 3 ritual that was resonant throughout all his avatars was no longer eligible. As per his intuition, such a superposition that his avatars were in could lead to unforeseeable changes in the ritual. Sometimes, having too many avatars was also a bad thing.
And so, there was only one thing to do.
The innumerable avatars that had appeared in the air began to leap into the spirit world one by one and some into the historical void. The ones that were left disappeared into the astral world. Their faces were all a mosaic of colours, resembling Phantaminum's own face.
This state was not a result of their own transformation; but it was the shinsu forcibly transforming their looks under the effect of deception!
The shinsu gradually began to speed up and Phantaminum came to his senses again. Spreading his arms out wide, he breathed out and all the negative effects on his body were dispelled.
With an angry expression, he began to move towards Winston's main body.
However, to his surprise, he found himself moving in the complete opposite direction!
"What the?" His eyes narrowed in thought.
This was the 'order' established by the Justiciar and the Black Emperor. The intent to 'move towards Winston' was therefore distorted to 'move away from Winston' and thereby magnified. The intent of moving itself was distorted into an 'unwillingness to stop.' To top it all off, the Justiciar established a rule on Phantaminum.
All 'axes' all prohibited from stopping.
It formed a certain order that could only allow Phantaminum to move through a certain direction at any given time. And so, it caused Him to move ahead with an uncontrollable speed!
Winston who was watching this calmly raised his eyes to the historical void. The avatars that had escaped into the void began to shed their powers and became inert for a moment; gifting their shinsu derived abilities to other avatars. Just as they did that, they all collectively ascended to the sefirah castle in their astral forms, leaving their bodies safely in the void.
When they appeared ahead of the long mottled table and the collection of chairs, they each combined into three distinct beings, writhing with worms and maggots. They took their adjacent seats with the one with the largest count of maggots seated at the seat of honour.
One by one, the uniquenesses of the three pathways appeared before them. There was a crystal monocle enveloped by fog, a blank mask without any features and a pair of eyes that seemed to be forged from starlight.
They each grabbed a uniqueness, with the one at the seat of honour grabbing onto the star forged eyes and placed it over their faces.
Meanwhile, Winston's main body who was observing all this suddenly saw his own head getting decapitated by the surrounding shinsu. Not only himself, he felt that the danger extended to every single avatar!
Instantly, his figure expanded and turned into paper; which was soon turned into tatters by blades of shinsu.
As he appeared a kilometer away, he felt a being approaching from all angles.
Just as he felt it, the space around him shattered, turning into a space time storm!
The area was enveloped by a swirling darkness that swallowed by past, present and future and all manners of directions and coordinates.
The dimensions that lied lower and higher from the 3 dimensional plane shattered instantly and the figure of Phantaminum was thrown out without a moment's notice.
In the higher dimensions, the concept of 'opposite' may not necessarily be opposite. And with Winston's avatars spread all about, Phantaminum could view all of them connected at a singular point to the 'main body' in a higher plan of existence. As the spiritual body threads that were merely illusory in nature in the normal plane became tangible, Phantaminum could spread out his influence over the 'story of their battle' through them, turning the death of the main body or any singular avatar into the death of all of himself.
The axis had realized that breaking through the power would only necessitate Winston to make another form of order. And so, he promptly leapt into the 11th dimension, escaping the order entirely, yet never breaking it as well.
Phantaminum held out his hand and Winston felt his spirituality swell and his body of heart and mind turning chaotic. As long as they were both in the space time storm, his established 'order' was irrelevant and Phantaminum could freely engage with his main body!
The moment the space time storm ended, 'He' would leap back into the higher dimensions and be able to target every single avatar simultaneously!
Phantaminum smiled. Only now was he realizing that Winston had never showed his true capabilities. Perhaps he had been always vigilant. Perhaps his intuition was always at work, preventing him from revealing the full extent of his abilties.
If not, Winston's avatars which number in the tens of thousands, each holding such powers would never lose to Enryu, strengthened by Phantaminum as he was.
Winston too realized the pain of having to fight an axis. The power of reigning over a 'story' naturally meant that they could do anything so long as they were not overruled by another more powerful force.
With a smile, Winston spread out his arms and maggot seemed to escape from his hands. They binded with the surrounding shinsu and transformed into more avatars, instantly turning the situation into a one versus many!
Phantaminum had a sickening grin atop his face that spread from ear to ear. He laughed maniacally as the world seemed to crumble around him. The shinsu that was being swept in the space time storm began to gather atop his fingers.
In the next moment, the shinsu dashed out at speeds imperceptible to even Winston himself, transforming into minute threads that spread apart throughout the entire floor!
Since Winston had only deceived the shinsu of this floor, he could not travel through the shinsu to arrive at the other floors. And since all the shinsu was frozen, even the historical void on the other floors was effectively blocked. Since that was the case, all of his avatars were, in one way or the other, on this floor itself.
Right as He did that, the space time storm began to tremble. Something broke through the barrier between the spirit world and the material realm and a massive sun bloomed between them. Phantaminum and Winston were instantly swept inside it; trapped by the burning plasma.
Winston who had been prepared appeared outside the storm within a blink, leaving an afterimage behind to engage Phantaminum. The sun was soon swallowed up by a deep darkness and the power of storms. Numerous brass eyes appeared in the air around it, locking onto it with the power over knowledge and the void shimmered with foul language and power. Under this foul power that seemed malevolent and evil in nature the sun transformed into a deep black colour that was empowered by the beings it held. It transformed into a miniature form of the abyss! The avatars of the Abyss, White Tower, Tyrant, Darkness and the Sun appeared one by one around the sun; using their door pathway abilities to magnify the seal.
The Primordial Demoness who stood among a collection of mirrors formed from the remnants of a fractured part of the astral realm spread out her hands. Using the door pathway abilities as a medium, the space time storm around the seal began to distort, and the shinsu turned restless, slipping away from Phantaminum's control.
Manipulated by her beauty, the shinsu began to morph all the rules along the floor, and the space time storm began to turn to stone.
The Mother avatar appeared on the surface of the blackened sun which had deep swallowed by the deep darkness and storms. With a smile, she surged out with power. Hundreds of paper figurines appeared in the area around her and began to bloom with various forms of plants that bound themselves to the stone and the darkness.
From the astral realm, the Justiciar proclaimed with a solemn tone - "Breaking out of seals is prohibited here."
Right beside it, the Black Emperor magnified the proclamation of the order, turning the sun into a cage for the axis.
Swept in the chaotic space time, Phantaminum shielded himself from the onslaught and clicked his tongue in annoyance. Although Winston lacked the necessary authority to hurt him in any meaningful way, shinsu was in essence a form of axis field. Combined with Winston's own abilities, such a seal was playing on almost all of Phantaminum's perceivable weaknesses.
Although it seemed as if ages had passed, in truth, from the moment the shinsu began to flow again; only the time of 5 seconds had passed!
In the perception of the people below, nothing seemed to have changed yet in the sky.
With a smile, Winston used his powers to transform into Phantaminum completely. The deception was magnified by the Black Emperor, allowing him to speed up time to it's natural state!
Instantly, the people below began to take notice of the anomaly in the sky.
Amid the bustling metropolis, where various rankers and advanced rankers were going about, they all looked up at the sky where a black dot had appeared, swirling and bellowing.
'Phantaminum' calmly stepped forward and smiled at everyone present down there.
Already, he began to notice various cameras and pockets beginning to look towards him; it was a doing of his Visionary and Wheel of Fortune self. While he had been busy pushing the axis back, everything had already been prepared.
'Phantaminum' looked towards the horizon, where the colossal body of a serpentine animal was writhing in the air. The administrators of all floors had instantly took note of them the moment the shinsu in the tower halted. Yet, they refrained from doing anything.
'Phantaminum' pulled his gaze back and lost his smile.
With a dignified expression, he spread out his arms and calmly said, "The top ranker of the tower is back!"
The seed planted by the Visionary in the sea of collective subconscience instantly went bloomed. Everyone that stood under them, all throughout the metropolis had a single thought.
Phantaminum?
Winston felt the power of the ritual take effect.
At the same instant, the seal behind began to wane and the storm began to show illusory cracks as if it could collapse at any moment.
Far above, somewhere infinitely high up; the avatars that had finished with putting on the uniquenesses and managed to get a hold of their power began to draw the power of the sefirah castle.
From the long mottled table, they gazed down at the figure of 'Phantaminum' standing in the sky before a large sphere of chaotic space time.
Collectively, they pressed their hands and pressed down onto the table. And the gray fog around them began to churn. The sequence two potion that was behind them was summoned and appeared in 'Phantaminum's' hand.
At that instant, just when the seal was about to break, grey fog appeared in the sky and began to move uncontrollably. The powers of 'sealing,' 'fooling,' and 'deception,' instantly took effect. The seal instantly stabalized and became far stronger than it had been. The deception instantly strengthened and all the avatars which could only maintain an illusory facade of Phantaminum became concrete and 'real.'
Inside the seal, Phantaminum stumbled and his eyes became unfocused as if His intelligence had been forcibly lowered.
Winston leapt into the spirit world and lost the image of the axis. Since he was about to advance, he could not take any chances. The avatars would undergo a qualitative change the moment he began ascension. In such a state, the moment Phantaminum got a hold of him, he might lose control on the spot.
As such, the chance had been prepared.
From the moment Enryu had summoned his avatars, this plan had already been set to motion. He deliberately let all his avatars appear weaker and die to return to him. Then, using the revival provided by sefirah castle, he regained life and began to throw everything at Phantaminum. The only reason he hadn't summoned power from the sefirot was to buy this single moment.
The consciousness of the avatars that had ascended to the castle returned and everyone focused on the seal, strengthening it with their power one final time.
With Phantaminum sealed and with the ritual under effect, Winston uncapped the bottle, held the potion to his lips and downed it in a single gulp.
...
A/N: How was that? This is the first time I'm getting to write Winston going all out against someone. I normally have a lot of trouble writing fights but this one was quite good. Beyonder fights are as fun to write as they are to read.
Also, this chapter was supposed to be uploaded yesterday, but I was tired as hell and forgot to upload it at the time. Then, it occurred to me that I might as well upload when the week resets and so, here we are. Apologies for the late upload.
Same deal as last time; 500 stones for bonus chapter. Normal upload with a one day gap from today.
Anyways, comment your thoughts and leave a review. It keeps me motivated.
Cheers~~!