"That makes absolutely zero sense." Chase muttered while using a chair to lift himself up from the floor. "None of my ex-wives would ever do something like that."
"All your ex-wives wanted to kill you, no?" I snapped back.
Glaring for a moment Chase pointed a finger at me but dropped it. "Touché."
Still confused Anika, Resines and Kazemyth shared looks between themselves before a blue
[Hell-king: Trivium Voodoo, messages, 'She snitched on us to Sathuna! Get back quickly before we all get punished!']
Scoffing slightly Kazemyth shot a look of disbelief but i shrugged it off. "What a strange relationship you two have with each other." He mumbled before escorting Resines out the bar. "Lord Chase, we should hurry or else you will be turned into a food again."
"You're lucky you are on vacation, Anika." Glaring between themselves the huntsman's and vampire had a short but fierce staring contest before Chase was forced to leave with Kazemyth and Resines.
Wondering what that was between them i simply thought it was Chase's attitude as a monster huntsman.
Changing attention i asked Anika, "how long do you have left of your vacation?"
Wondering why i was asking that Anika said, "until just before the months end. Why?"
"Just being nosy." Walking out from behind the bar i pondered for a bit before speaking up. "Any suggestions for what i should do until then?"
Flapping her leather coat for a moment before standing up from her seat. Anika seriously thought about the question before shrugging in defeat. "None that would be of any entertainment to you, Strife. There's very little I haven't seen you do already. My only suggestion for you would be to watch movies at the cinema or something."
Swaying side to side it wasn't a bad idea. "Sounds more fun trying to direct a movie in that time. But maybe if someone could come with me to tell me which movies are good I'd go."
"Aha, sorry, but i want to be boring until my vacation finishes." Patting me on the shoulder Anika walked briskly out the bar. "Try not to let Thorn influence you too much, Strife." Waving as she went Anika vanished into the busy city street as she opened an umbrella to guard herself from the rain.
Once she was gone my hand plunged through my chest ripping out a shadowy tail. "Keep influencing my mind like that and i really will let you be reduced to oblivion, Thorn."
Slipping out my fingers the shadow hid back into my chest before several intentions and feeling rather than words flowed into my head.
"Yeah, yeah, you're a perverted child i know this already. We've talked about this before, Thorn. You stay out of my free-will and I don't withhold your aether supply."
The quiet intentions grumbled like they were about to shout but quickly fell silent as Thorn unknowingly returned back to sleeping. Resting best he could to resist causality's effects that even i couldn't interfere with.
If it was me being affected by causality it would be easy to interfere or resist but when its another's thats another matter. In technological terms its like highlighting a short piece of code or text, the highlighted part knows its being edited or deleted but the area outside of it technically experiences none of the change like that change was always there originally. The outside will move about slightly like an afterthought depending on the change but thats it.
If there was an undo feature according to causality's principles then maybe I could interfere and protect Thorn without needing Sathuna's ritual in the first place. Such a thing doesn't exist in real life though does it? There's no returning something thats supposedly never existed.
Glancing at a mirror in the bar it immediately shattered into hundreds of cracks distorting my reflection from being anything visible to me. Not acknowledging the expected result i scratched my head. "...guess I'll stalk a bunch of kids on the
Waving my hand in the air several floating screens of light appeared. Sifting through the various tabs i moved past the forums, auction sites and other websites Thorn had left open before coming to the stream channel. Inputting a search i quickly found the stream the regressor himself was being streamed in with only a couple hundred exalted watching.
[you have joined a Stream. Surveyor: Ronik]
The screen fizzled for a second as it connected before igniting with colours. Showing something like an old school dojo full of unconscious martial artists while a daunting android sat behind a desk that had the plaque master embedded on it and two regular humanoids talked down at him.
"What do you mean you can't find, Cayden?!" Banging the table with her fist an elf girl with short salmon-pink hair shouted. "The oracles of the gods told us you were the last person to see him before he vanished on Tenricack!"
"Lumine, settle down." Holding back the girl a boy with pitch black hair and a distant look gently pulled her back and stepped in her way.
Staring back at us from across the table unhappily through its visor. A steel android shaped vaguely like a knight huffed out a breath of steam through its faceplate. "You shouldn't take what your viewers on the
[fury across the river, yells at the android asking why it thinks its so smart?!]
[Saturday schemes, assures the pilgrim that this android knows where Cayden is!]
[the majority of viewing deities are accusing the android of lying.]
Seeing the
[Saturday schemes, asks if the android is brave enough to say that to his face?]
"I have partners in the
[Saturday schemes, tuts his tongue before exiting the channel]
Thinking of sending a message I quickly replaced my
[maddened knight of imagination, asks how life is?]
Stunned briefly by my message through the channel Sifo Ren's imposing stature faltered. Silently asking himself why i was suddenly watching Arthur Moonleaf's personally stream. Unlike the other exalted watching he was the only one who knew this name was tied to me.
Arthur and the elf girl were too distracted talking with each other to notice Sifo Ren's surprise.
[maddened knight of imagination, asks 'platinum star' how he ended up here?]
"Message me on a private channel if you want to know that so badly..." Withholding himself from saying my alias Sifo Ren slapped a steel hand onto his visor. "You always appear out of nowhere like this."
[maddened knight of imagination, says he was bored but is even more bored now.]
[maddened knight of imagination, says he might just visit now if he stays bored.]
Some of the other exalted watching the stream began to notice my conversation with Sifo Ren using the messaging system and began to wonder why Sifo Ren was so spooked by the declaration.
"This was part of the script anyway. Hopefully she won't mind me ignoring a page." Sighing through his face Sifo Ren lifted a metal fist igniting its elbow thruster before punching the boy right into his side while off guard and launching him through the wall out the building.
"Wh-what are you?!" The elf girl raised her magical staff to fight back but with a precise cut of his metal hand Sifo Ren shattered it. "My staff..."
Grabbing the girl by the face he swiftly tossed her out the wall where Arthur Moonleaf hurriedly ran and leapt off a car before catching her and landing back on the ground.
Growling the regressor asked, "the hell are you doing?! Why'd you suddenly attack us?!?"
[maddened knight of imagination, says he is no longer bored]
[seraphim: justice is vengeance, contemplates who maddened knight of imagination could be]
"You should vacate the stream channel now before you expose yourself." Sifo Ren whispered to me specifically before turning around to leave.
[maddened knight of imagination says, it won't matter if anyone does because of what will happen within a week.]
"Excellent point." Turning around Sifo Ren watched Arthur Moonleaf leap back into the building. "But that is no excuse for me to be careless."
[an aspect is directing fate!]
"You damn kralscell worshipper... I'll kill you!!!" Drawing his sword Arthur Moonleaf's sword was draped in rainbow energies as time itself condensed around his sword to sharpen its edge.
Watching through the
[maddened knight of imagination, says to be careful to not let the sword touch you.]
Taking my suggestion seriously Sifo Ren scanned the weapon with his visors optics being surprised as he noticed the same thing as i did. "Its only at a second ring sequencer's level but the energy around that blade could kill most unkillable entities. Its like a pseudo finality-matrix. Similar to your spear and gauntlets."
[maddened knight of imagination, inflates his weapons worth saying they're on par with most pure finality matrixes.]
[skill: star armour — adaptability]
Arthur leapt in and Sifo Ren engaged his combat systems to resist against the time warping abilities of the sword as it banged against his wrist before he swiftly slid his fist down the blade and smashed it from the handle.
"Argh!!!" Arthur's fingers were now mangled but before he could recover Sifo Ren lunged his bloodied hand forward punching Arthur back out the wall he was originally punched out from earlier and into the building across.
Observing where the blade cut him Sifo Ren saw that a minor amount of rust and degradation had spread through a small portion of his forearms armour like the time of the material had been sped up by several decades or centuries in that instant.
"Such an incredible power wasted on an overconfident human." Sifo Ren said disappointed.
"You didn't kill him did you?" I asked as i walked into the dojo the fighting was going on in. Putting my hand across my brow to try and get a better look at the smoke where Arthur was sent flying.
Glancing at me with brief surprise Sifo Ren quickly calmed down once he realised it was just me. "Negative. Enough force was used to incapacitate a second sequence superhuman. Equal to knocking out a greater mammal such as elephants, whales, or yale with a single punch."
"As precise as ever, Sifo Ren." I complimented before leaning on a beam.
"The regressor is still important to Sathuna's plans in a weeks time. He cannot be extricated from the story so soon." Ejecting the arm guard Sifo Ren removed it before the rust spread onto the rest of his metallic body. "My role here is simply to leave a trail for him to follow to pursue me towards the ritual site."
Blowing out my nose i found the situation whimsical oddly. "Won't be that hard if you just kidnap the girl."
"Correct, but there is the issue of the guardian exalted secretly protecting them." Sifo Ren noted.
[skill: astral third eye — detection]
Seeing what the android was talking about i was annoyed that it was someone i was familiar with. One of the messiah's of sins that serve Clarity. They must be trying to gather the three prodigals to begin Clarity's seven trials to refine them. With the three of them so scattered at three different ends of the universe it makes sense they haven't started yet.
"I can handle them—" stopping myself mid-sentence I remembered that i decided to play the role of a god-king until the end of this regression. "On second thought. One of my apocalyi can get rid of them."
Sifo Ren's head turned with a gritty mechanical twist like something snapped as he looked to me in restrained shock. I almost never called upon the aid of my apocalyi army unless i was fighting against another army after all. It makes sense he'd be surprised.
"I'm playing god-king for a little while." I said answering Sifo Ren's silent question.
"That answer still makes no sense." Sifo ren responded dryly. "Your aid is greatly appreciated however. Energy fluctuations show their sequence strength is superior to mine while i am in this inferior backup body."
"Sune, Omiss. You two are up." At my beckoning the nine-tailed fox girl and a dragon-like chicken—a cockatrice—with blazing black wings like thruster jets darted off. "Keep yourselves hidden from the regressor."
"That just means we get to kill them outside the city!" Sune celebrated before tearing through the dojo's ceiling and the dragon-chicken jetted after her.
Scanning with [astral third eye] it wasn't long after that i watched Omiss tackle the messiah with his beak before Sune grabbed them to stop them from escaping from her before Omiss' wings charged and boosted off into the horizon with a supersonic boom.
[aspect: taken devourer - take the sound!]
Telling the job was done after a quick nod from me Sifo Ren ejected a drone from his chest and it flew if. Quickly capturing the pink haired elf as she tried to heal Arthur with a strange form of blackened light magic.
"No!! Arthur!!" Screaming as the drone wrapped its arms around her teh elf gathered magical energy to resist but it shocked her with an electric pulse immediately knocking her unconscious.
"L-Lumine!" Arthur cried out trying to pick himself up but immediately collapsed with his broken body into a puddle of his own blood amidst the rubble.
Walking out to the broken wall Sifo Ren collected the unconscious girl madding slightly after checking her condition. "Arthur Moonleaf, the regressor and proxy to the exalted [memory of swords], if you wish to see your companion alive again. Do not follow me. Once her use has been fulfilled by the [witch queen]... you may collect what remains of her."
"I'll kill you, Enjindron!!" Arthur cursed in a bloody mess of desperation. "I'll kill you if you break even a hair on her body!!! You hear me?! I'll make you wish you made a toaster!!"
Ignoring the string of shouts and curses Sifo Ren walked past me with the girl still being held by his drone. "Lets go. I imagine you wanted to come with me?"
"Only way I'm finding out the rituals location early." Following the android i grew a strange glowing feather of amber and silver light from my left wrist before stabbing it into the elf girls head. "Lead the way."