Every once in a while, there comes a point in life where you look back at all the choices and decisions you made. And somehow, there's always at least one point at which you find yourself regretting something.
Winston Heath did the same at this moment.
As the ice cold potion slid down his throat and his spirituality began to rumble and turn chaotic, he deeply regretted the fact that he was attempting his ascension at such a point in time.
There were a number of reasons for this, but two in particular stood out.
First was obviously, the Axis that was on his tail.
As for the second...
Winston felt a strange tingling sensation all over his skin as the potion began to break down inside him.
In the real world, the people looked up at the sky anxiously. The storm had still not receded and had instead turned into a floating mass of stone that floated mysteriously in the sky.
The person who had referred to himself as 'the strongest ranker in the tower' had also disappeared. In such a situation, the high rankers stationed on the floor as well as the ruler in charge of the area began to make their way towards the floating object in the sky.
As the ruler approached the floating mass in the sky, he looked into the horizon and his hackles stood on edge.
The administrator is watching... it seems pissed for some reason. He thought to himself while sweat began to appear on his temples.
Shaking his head, he reasoned that if the administrator hadn't directly intervened, the situation was probably under control. Besides, it wasn't like that mysterious person from before had done anything destructive.
For some reason though, he seemed inclined to believe his words when he said he was Phantaminum.
One of the high rankers approached the floating mass of stones and sought to extend his hand, intending to touch it.
"Wait. It might be dangerous." One of his companions warned. It was a female advanced ranker who seemed to be from the Khun Family.
The high ranker sneered in response.
"There's no shinsu fluctuations on it. Don't be such a baby." Evidently, decades of power and security had turned him arrogant and full of himself.
The ruler didn't say anything. He wished that the man would gauge out the extent of the danger beforehand so he could plan accordingly.
As the High Ranker's hand brushed against the rough stone surface, something strange happened.
The man turned to stone as well.
It happened in an instant. None of the people present could react. In the next second, a pristine stone statue stood before them. The hand which had touched the mass of stone seemed to have melded into the structure. His entire forearm was swallowed up.
Everyone gulped unconsciously. They didn't freak out. All of them were battle hardened and knew how to keep their calm.
Yet, what happened next shook them to their core.
The stone cracked.
And the entire structure exploded.
Boom!
...
Winston found himself getting inexplicably lost in the fogs of history. His mind fractured and his avatars began to return to him all at once. One by one as they all flowed back to him, each of them 'gifted' their shinsu derived beyonder powers to the historical projection of Sylvain that had been stolen from history.
For the first time since he has created the Wheel of Fortune avatar, he began to distinctly feel the presence of the river of fate. He saw space and time fracturing off into hundreds of millions of different images, like the tributaries of a river.
Immediately, his senses swept through the entire tower and his eyes 'gazed' at every single floor there was.
He saw even beyond the 134th floor and all the way to the top of the tower, where the stars resided.
And finally, he saw the space in which he had entered and began to sense the 'door' of the tower.
The worms inside him began to mix up and twist into various abstract shapes.
At that moment, the space around him trembled with movement.
His eyes widened in alarm.
The fogs of history began to twist as if they were alive and the image of a man appeared in it's midst.
It was a man Winston had gotten all too accustomed to seeing.
Phantaminum gave him a small smile and his mouth opened.
Winston's mind was swarmed with the language of foulness and his rampant spirituality began to erode at a rapid pace. Along with that, the entire space seemed to be under some form of corruption, invading his body of heart and mind and trying to gain its influence on him.
Following that, Phantaminum looked at his body undergoing rapid decay and change and softly muttered something.
"All forms of decay in the tower are magnified."
The new 'order' that the axis had established hastened the destruction of Winston's psyche. Because of his nature, all forms of 'order' 'He' would establish would be able to span the entirety of the tower. Naturally, the order was equally as indestructible.
Winston looked at him at once and blinked out of the historical void and back into the present.
The city scape sprawled under him again. Slowly but surely, Winston felt as if he was losing himself.
The second reason he was regretting his own choice was because of this exact reason.
The ritual as it stood, was incomlete.
Phantaminum himself had never made an appearance in the present world.
It was only Winston himself who had appeared as Phantaminum in place of the Axis himself. Enough thought it could initiate the ritual, it was inherently incapable of finishing it. Winston would only lose himself in the process.
He could lie to the entire world, but in the end, he could not lie to himself.
And so, why had he initiated the ritual in the first place?
Of course, it was to throw Phantaminum off.
The Axis knew Winston needed to make certain rituals to ascend to a higher Sequence. Since that was the case, Phantaminum would surely avoid doing anything that might make Winston more powerful.
He had mused openly about the Sequence 2 ritual many times before. Expecting Phantaminum to not know about it was wishful thinking.
Even if the thought didn't cross his mind at first, it surely had after Winston announced to the entire floor about being Phantaminum.
And so, Winston took the gamble.
He initiated a false ritual. Since Phantaminum felt that he was already ascending, so he would do anything in his power to stop him.
Winston smiled as he looked at the void before him.
There, the image of Phantaminum appeared, openly before the gazes of everyone in the entire city.
With a maniacal smile on his rapidly distorting face wriggling with worms, Winston spread open his arms and exclaimed gleefully.
"Phantaminum!" His voice echoed on the entire floor, reaching the ears of every person through shinsu.
They all collectively looked into the air. Even in the far corner, the image of the Phantaminum appeared in the air. All his features were clearly visible and some fireworks seemed to be going off in the air to attract more attention.
Somehow, people could also see the image of a silver fish floating above the projection.
As all this happened, Winston felt the ritual take effect in full effect.
His mental level began to stabalize. But as expected, Phantaminum didn't let up.
With a smile, his mouth opened again.
The language of foulness instantly began to ring inside his head and the sea of collective subconscience began to swell, getting corrupted by a mental disease.
Winston felt that the effect of the ritual began to waver. Phantaminum swept his hands across the surface and the world seemed to pause.
Multiple strings of shinsu appeared in the air, launching themselves at Winston. Each seemed to carry the power not dissimilar to the Visionary, reducing Winston's mental state further.
Although Winston had always struggled going through rituals, given that he was ascending in all three pathways, this was another level of danger.
Every second, he could feel himself inching closer and closer to death.
Due to his chaotic spirituality and unable to use the corresponding authorities, he could not struggle helplessly and not even offer up a fight.
And so, he did the only thing that could save him now.
His arm sank into the void and pulled out a familiar deep blur needle.
With a casual swipe, Winston held the needle before him-
And drove it into his neck.
Not bothering with the sudden pain, he swiped the needle across his body.
Blood spurted, and Winston Heath died.
Beyonder characteristics spurted out of his falling figure. Everyone that was standing on the streets watched this with some level of awe.
And yet, Phantaminum watched this all with a mix of condescension and amusement.
He knew that since Winston was so ready to kill himself, he would soon revive. That was why his aim after his first revival were to capture him, not kill him; though he had certainly not held back.
Right as he was lost in his mind, a figure appeared behind him.
It was a silver fish, mounted atop a huge silver stele.
It was obvious that Phantaminum's intelligence which had been lowered had not completely recovered.
If it had, he wouldn't have missed the fish and it would have been the very first thing he finished. As for Winston, he would have taken appropriate precautions to prevent any suicide and would have opted to make him lose his mind during the ascension.
But now, he seemed completely oblivious to it.
The stele that the fish had arrived upon began to shine.
The first clause again became visible. Followed by the second, and finally the third.
As the clauses that sped up resurrection appeared, Phantaminum finally realized what was happening.
His eyes widened as the familiar gray fog descended onto the world and he lost his authority as the axis of the story, being completely suppressed.
In just another moment, the beyonder characteristics that had been spat out of Winston's body began to pool back into him and a bright light surged forth.
Winston's corpse came alive. Right as it did so, he flipped in the air and landed at the tip of a large spire at one of the largest buildings in the metropolis.
In a theatrical manner, he bowed to the axis who was suspended motionless by the sefirah castle's powers.
With a smile, his hand dipped into the void and he put on a halved top hat.
Tipping it slightly, he chortled.
"Sequence 2 Miracle Invoker, Planeswalker and Trojan Horse of Destiny at your service."
...
A/N: This was a bit stressful to write. Idk why. Not to mention I'm not very satisfied by it.
Anyway, throw some stones. Bonus chapter at 500 stones.