"Well, it's a little more than just for fun...y'know," he picked up a figure resembling Mo Huai on the board, "I don't disagree with you and your cause. I'm sure if I was in your situation I would do much the same."
Hou spoke, his voice smooth like butter, "So why are you against it, why do all this? Other than fun, like you've said."
Zhou Tian let the piece fall back into place, "You two know who I am, I was once the very strongest in this world and I may yet be...and you know that I had supposedly split myself into my children?"
Hou and Hamar nodded, they had heard the story and despite some doubt, assumed it was mostly the truth.
"Well that is true but those people," pointing his thumb behind himself to the people he had hidden, "they brought me back and gave me this power. I must help them. Though that contract only applied to this self they had pieces together."
He looked to Hou's Celestial body, "My children lived and have plotted against me, culminating in this final battle. You, Hou, were the ultimate piece. You were given help by someone from the outside and my greatest son."
Hou swallowed, "The Nascent Soul."
"Exactly, though it didn't go exactly as planned I assume, it worked out. The Inner True World was born and you have the authority to kill me."
"But that still doesn't answer the question, why let it all happen?" Hamar countered.
"It's as simple as I said, fun. I had a taste of absolute power and what did I do? I killed myself to form my children. Given that new lease of life and power, why would I let the same thing happen? I couldn't do anything specifically against what *they* want but I didn't need to do my all."
Hamar shifted in the chair, looking down at the table before him, "I see...I will stop you."
Hou chuckled, "I agree Hamar," he turned to Zhou Tian, "You won't win."
"Perhaps not, perhaps so. We will see, won't we? Let's watch what happens down there," he gestured to the table they had all begun taking interest in.
***
In the outside world, Araxis slowly recovered and took began watching directly. He was doing his daily life as the magic tower head, but at any free opportunity he would look inside the blue orb encased in the bronze armillary sphere. Into his creation, hoping that the worst does not happen, that Hamar and Hou will be able to stop *them* from escaping.
He fondled a small crystal, "This is all so much..."
***
Zooming into the smallest scale, inside the artificial world two sides fight intensely. Each side compromised of a small number of elites.
Mo Huai hold out his hand, shouting back, "William! Stay back, you're strong but not enough...not here!"
A volcano shot up from the ground and lava reached out in the shape of a hand. Mo Huai flung his hand, miasma coalesced into a separate arm which kept the lava down.
"Run!" He shouted while his face strained. It was complete chaos, and he was ill suited for this. He fought wars with numbers not with strength!
How did it all go wrong?
Just a few moments prior...
"ITS MOVING!" Earth Di shouted upt it Mo Huai and William, the reverse formation already hit out a strange upwards but now the entire structure moved!
Mo Huai turned around, seeing the rumbling of the ground he responded quickly through the pin & string artifact connection the three had, "Leave the formation, come up and prepare for combat!"
Earth Di nodded and abandoned his post, quickly burrowing to the surface. He came to where Mo Huai's and William stood, "It must be activating fully." He said aloud.
"..."
"Why are you looking up?" Earth Di looked curiously, seeing nothing in the sky.
"In a single attack my student appears to have killed one of their mid-elders..or three of them? Two? Two plus one?"
"That's good, what do you mean?" Earth Di raised his eyebrows, below the rumbling grew.
"The plan was for him to only start moving in the end game...this must mark it, the start of the end."
"Alread–" Earth Di was cut off from a wave of energy from below. The Reverse Formation activated. Though instead of the power it was planned to be used for, it was activated by Zhou Tian.
The wave of energy forced laws to stay still, freezing even the elites in place as it took those with low causality and teleported them away. They were not important in the end game. The weight of their Causality kept them pinned until it passed and only those key players were left, the fight had started instantly.
Back to the present, the enemies had quickly moved. Unlike the other elites who had not yet moved out, Mo Huai and Earth Di were deep in enemy territory. They were the first to be attacked, and the first to attack.
Though the elite who should have been stationed there was instantly killed by Hamar, another quickly arrived; back to the present fight with a volcano spewing to kill William.
"DIE!" They thrashed their arms, laws shot out and twisted in the air, forming explosions!
Earth Di stopped his foot down, attempting to control the volcano that had formed below, his laws were running low however. Even with his level of comprehension and absorption power of his Spirit Stone Soul, he could barely contain the lava; instead turning it into a manageable shape.
William, surrounded by hundreds of Miasma soldiers, looked around nervously. He drew his hand and a weak aura snowstorm formed.
It could protect him from the little blobs of magma but if Mo Huai's miasma hand faltered, he would be burnt to a crisp before his aura could do a thing to stop it.
"William! Use the token, if the Grand Formation is still active, you will be sent to somewhere safe...or safer" he shouted while controlling thousands of miasma soldiers manually, keeping them alive in a battlefield of elites. Their basic self control would be useless.
Mo Huai bit his tongue, inside his chest a Spirit Stone pulsated. He looked around at the opponent, sent a bunch of miasma soldiers to block their vision and in that moment of respite–
Rip! He tore the Spirit Stone from his chest. It was filled with Cognition laws he had gotten from various sources, including but not limited to the spirits he had taken from the Solar Lands.
He bit into the crystal, much like Earth Di did previously, and his mind emblazened with energy. His comprehension of laws was useless without the ability to thinks and utilise them, but now he was in peak mental condition!