***
Standing beneath the inverted waterfall of ink, I watched its currents spiral upward. Defying gravity, reality, and sense. It flowed with supernatural energy, seeping into the folds of time itself, reaching for the very veins of causality that governed the universe.
A thunderclap echoed through the heavens. I glanced left, peering into the
Then, a powerful double-fisted blow sent Traveler hurtling from the train. But the train curled unnaturally in the air and dove after him, its trajectory guided by mad will alone. A deafening crash rang out as Traveler's fist—burning with [Gilded Epitaph Graffiti]—collided with the front of the train, slamming him back onto its roof.
Former mountain walls quaked as the blast wave rolled outward, dropping a smog of dust and fallout across the ritual site. Coughing, I waved the haze from my face.
"Traveler's doing this on purpose, isn't he?" I muttered.
Behind me, rapid footsteps carved through the dirt and smoke—an attempted ambush.
[Aspect: Wolven Diamond — ambush trap!]
I didn't need to move. The floor lit up, and a wolf's crystalline jaws burst forth—biting into the assailant with a vicious snap. Screams followed as they were flung into a wall and crumpled like a puppet cut from strings.
"About time you all showed up," I said, checking my wristwatch. Five minutes left. Just five more until the final ingredient was ready for the ritual. "I was beginning to think the maze was too much for you."
"Cayden!!!" Ben Lakes roared.
Arthur Moonleaf dropped beside him, panting. His friends weren't far: Dante, revolvers already drawn; Vex, both swords ready; Fallice gripping her scalpel; Quinella clutching her staff. Arthur rose, bathing his sword in iridescent light.
Quinella's eyes widened, her gaze drawn to the black waterfall behind me. "What are the trying to accomplish with that... heretical thing?" she asked, her voice quiet and edged.
"Victory," I subtly answered.
The crew looked between themselves in confusion. Ben asked the question hanging on all their minds. "Victory against what?"
"I haven't the faintest clue." I shrugged. "My teacher didn't know either. Maybe Traveler knows, but he never says a damn thing. All I know is this ritual is meant to stop that fool from undoing everything."
I pointed at Arthur.
A crack of tension rippled through the crew. They'd only just learned—likely during Traveler's twisted games—that Arthur was a regressor. That he had hidden such a truth? It fractured the trust they'd built with him like brittle glass.
Arthur ignored their stares. His voice seethed with fury. "Where's Lumine?"
I motioned to the right and all their heads turned.
Chained to the wall, an elf girl hung limp. Pink crystal veins spreading across her skin, glowing with malignant power. The air around her twisted with ominous aether.
Vex bolted across teh floor carrying Falice and i spoke calmly. "After Traveler killed the Kralscell of Flowers, its spirit... somehow found Lumine. Don't ask me why. It's not even an upending. My guess? The universe doesn't like what we're doing and forced a new Kralscell to rise. Lumine just drew the short straw."
[an aspect is directing fate!]
Arthur's rage boiled over. Eyes bloodshot, he charged, cloaked in prismatic fury. "I'll kill you!!"
[skill: rune arts — detonation rune!]
Sliding beneath him, I slammed my palm into his chest. A rune flared. He exploded backward.
[skill: alchemy — world mould!]
I stomped the ground. The stone rose into a shield just in time to deflect Dante's bullets. "No more talk, huh? I only needed to stall another minute."
"Shut it, traitor!" Arthur roared, diving down the wall.
I pulled a short-sword from my hip and a pistol from my side, clashing with Arthr midair. His rainbow fury poured into the mountain, infecting the ritual's magic with his rage.
Quinella's voice snapped, "Arthur, stop! He's—"
[skill: alchemy — transmutation!]
I fired a bullet shot mid-turn. The bullet unraveled into webbing, sealing her mouth shut. Then, I redirected Arthur's own momentum and sent him tumbling into Vex.
"No spoilers, please," I muttered. "You'll ruin the finale."
[an aspect chooses violence!]
Ben charged, fists blazing with yellow fire. I blocked with my sword, parried with my arms, then slipped through his guard and pointed the pistol at his head. I fired. He ducked, fleeing as I let off a barrage of bullets—then snapped aim sideways and popped Quinella in the temple with a rubber round. She slumped instantly.
"Hey, what happened to Seer? She was your hostage, wasn't she?"
Dante's revolvers clicked behind my skull. "Eat shit," he hissed.
But before he could pull the trigger, a blur of blue carved through his guns. The revolvers fell apart in his hands, and a frozen blade sliced across his chin—sending him crashing to the floor.
[an aspect breaks the frozen limit!]
Seer stood beside me, huffing. "You left your back open, fool."
"I knew you'd have mine, fanatic." I grinned.
As the enemies closed in. Falice tending to Lumine, Dante drawing new weapons, Arthur burning with rainbow rage. Seer asked, "What's the end goal?"
I glanced at my watch. "We'll both find out in... three minutes. Also, it's about to get weird."
"How weird—?"
[Notice: Planetary space-time equilibrium of Trannorri has stopped responding.]
An eldritch pulse erupted from the black spire. Space bent. Time collapsed. Clocks and gears flew through the air like panicked birds. Mountains flickered in and out of existence. Gravity failed. The ground forgot which way was down.
The world itself broke
I grabbed Seer before we were ripped apart. Arthur, Ben, Dante, Vex, Fallice, Lumine, and Quinella were all flung through the nonsensical landscape. Only the ink waterfall held form. Its inverted cascade the one unshifting truth in the madness.
"This weird," I muttered belatedly.
Seer clung to me, eyes wide as she watched the planet turn itself inside out. The cave we'd been in no longer existed. Only a non-euclidean void filled with clocks and gears wired to glowing magical diagrams on drifting stone.
"This is more than weird, Cayden," she said, voice shaking. "This is existential collapse."
"It's only going to get worse," I warned. Just before a rainbow tackled me, tearing Seer from my grip.
Arthur's fist cracked across my face in a blur of fury before I managed to toss him off.
Drifting through weightless space, I caught myself on a floating chunk of stone. Above, Seer fought—blocking Vex's swords and Dante's bullets in a tight dance of survival.
"I need to get back to the pillar... This terrain makes that practically impossible. Why couldn't I be one of those demons with wings?" I muttered, then noticed Arthur stabbing his sword into one of the ticking clocks floating through the void. "And he needs to be at the pillar too."
"Cayden!!" Arthur roared, seething with naked animosity.
"Shouldn't be too hard to lure him," I mumbled like it was some cursed joke.
Bounding forward, Arthur charged his blade with rainbow might. I dodged, letting the strike ripple across the warped air. The rainbow surge of weaponized time was absorbed by the glowing magical circuits, nudging the stagnant gears around us into motion.
"Why'd the Crusaders take Lumine?!" he shouted, hurling a wave of rainbow energy.
I raised a runic shield, pretending to defend, diverting the energy of his attacks on me into the spell diagrams and circuitry floating around in the white void.
"She trusted you! She thought the world of you! And you betray her—to them!"
"She was obsessed with me. Chased me out of Laegii like a lost puppy," I replied, unmoved. "I rejected her love multiple times. You'd think the dumb elf would get it—but I don't feel anything for her. Meanwhile you were falling all over yourself trying to impress her, and she ignored you the whole time. Kind of pathetic, honestly."
[An aspect directs fate with unbridled wrath!]
"CAYDEN!!" Arthur's aura exploded. Rainbow energy surged around him, pushing his body to the brink as he chased me through the collapsing dimension. "I don't care what you felt! I won't let you toy with her—or me! Like we are beneath you!"
He swung. I dodged. His blade detonated the space where I'd just been. Just before I kicked off his face and landed atop the altar at the base of the ink pillar.
"But you are beneath me," I said calmly. "Unlike you, I don't need to cheat to win at life. And Lumine? Eh~, not my type. Too much of an entitled princess."
His aura howled. The rainbow light had grown hot enough to stir the gears, heating the dead time and coaxing it back into motion. He didn't even notice that I was using him—using his rage, his power—to accelerate the final stage of the ritual.
Checking my watch, I saw the final countdown: less than a minute before the last ingredient—me—had to be added in a very specific way.
I dropped my head, crouched low, and sighed. "Fuck. I'm starting to sound like Traveler..."
In the distance, Lumine stirred. Fallice had finally plucked the dream feather from her hair, and consciousness returned like a violent tide.
"Wha... what's going on? Wasn't I just on Terra with Arthur?" Lumine asked in a daze.
"It's a long story!" Fallice squealed, ducking beneath a blast of demonic ice. "Short version? That psychopath's trying to destroy the universe and he's almost done!" Fallice pointed with her tiny finger, guiding Lumine's gaze.
Across the void, she saw me and Arthur. Locked in a brutal exchange. I was parrying him with my short-sword and firing alchemical bullets from my pistol. While Arthur roared and swung his rainbow blade, unknowingly fuelling the ritual's endgame.
Lumine's eyes sharpened. "I'm going to help him!"
"Gugukieee!!"
Something climbed onto the platform behind them. A monstrous ink-spirited knight, one of Traveler's apocalyi, rose like a shadow out of the abyss. It slammed its armored limbs down, pinning both Lumine and Fallice with brutal ease before howling straight into their faces.
"Grieeee!!"
"So... the mad man was watching for variables after all," I murmured. Teh hint of a grin creeping up my cheek.
Traveler wasn't just dancing with the Oblivion Hunter. He had eyes here too. Ink-spirits stationed to keep this on track... or off it, if needed.
"At least I'm not doing all the work."
To my left, Vex lunged at Seer, his blade inches from her throat. My pistol aimed and I fired. The bullet shattering Vex's sword mid-swing.
Seer immediately countered when she realised what almost happened. Blasting a blizzard from her tachi katana. Encasing Vex in ice, then blasting Dante and Ben away with a sudden avalanche of frost and fury.
She shot me a sideways look, annoyed. "That makes us even now," she said.
Taking advantage of what he thought was an opening, Arthur swung his blade in a wide arc. I turned, focus snapping back to him, and easily redirected the strike with my short-sword throwing the barbaric man into the ground like a bull chasing a flag.
Again, Arthur lunged from the floor. Again, I parried. Each time, I guided the rainbow radiance of his empowered blade into the void being absorbed by the magical circuits connecting the black waterfall to time itself.
Come on... almost there! The climax was upon me. My purpose—my wish—about to manifest. The devouring of the universe within reach. Only ten seconds remained.
Feigning a misstep, I etched panic across my face. Arthur took the bait instantly, smashing my short-sword from my hand with a brutal overhead strike.
I let fear bloom across my expression as I raised my gun. Only for Arthur to grab it and crush the barrel in his fist. Before I could react, he used my own crushed weapon to punch me across the face, then kicked me down to the inverted waterfall's platform.
"Your pride was your undoing," Arthur gloated.
Blood spilled from my broken nose as I coughed and wheezed. "No... it's yours," I rasped.
He lifted me by the throat, choking the breath from me. Without hesitation, he leveled the point of his rainbow blade against my chest, right above my heart. Behind me, the ink waterfall roared—its inverted cascade humming with power. Around us, the gears, the clocks, the magical circuits spun faster and faster, awaiting the final spark.
Just as Arthur moved to strike a deafening terrified scream tore through the air.
"STOP!!!"
Arthur froze. His head turned, eyes wide. Standing beyond the gears was Quinella—alive, awake—and flanked by Fallice and a reeling Lumine, the ink-spirit's body crumbling behind them.
My own eyes widened. How? The bullet I shot her with was laced with concentrated Dream Feather essence. She shouldn't have woken up. No one ever had. So how did Quinella...?
"This entire space," she shouted, "the mountain, the planet, the galaxy—it's a massive spell! A blood ritual!" Her voice echoed through the collapsing realm. "Arthur, your powers have been fueling it this whole time—but if you kill Cayden now, it ends! The ritual completes! And the entire universe dies with him!"
[Aspect: Taken Devourer — Take the movement!]
"Not all of it," said a voice that shattered sound itself.
The void froze. Time stalled in its already fragmented state. None of us could move as even breathing became heavy and difficult.
From the nothingness, he emerged—walking where no ground existed. The Traveler. The kralscell of sentience.
He drifted past Arthur like a ghost on fire, a shape of golden flames burning within crystallised silver roots shaped like knightly armour. His ephemeral body glitching and stuttering in impossible patterns. Less a being, more a contradiction wrapped in apotheosis.
"It's just like the paradox of the Ship of Theseus," he said, voice both distant and deafening. "Same object. Different parts. The universe won't end, per se. It will be... reset. Slightly modified. All the witch has done is leverage the regressor's ability and hijack it. Thats the outcome she seems to want."
With inhuman calm, Traveler reached forward with his warped, crystal-root and golden-flame hand. He grasped Arthur's rainbow blade and shoved it through my heart with neither of us able to move against him.
Pain. White-hot. Burned through my chest as i felt the sword pierce my heart. But no scream came.
The blade pierced clean through, drawing the last remnants of paracausal energy still tethered to my soul. It flooded into the ritual circle. The circuits, the void, the ink waterfall—all of it. Arthur's own energy followed, dragged into the black cascade.
Before I died, Traveler rested a hand on my shoulder. "Rest well, tired soul," he murmured. "Your next lives will be nothing but exhausting."
I grinned, blood in my mouth. My wish of purpose was finally granted. The end I'd chosen.
"Here's one last gift for you, god." I lifted both hands. Extended my middle fingers and smiling through the pain while death stole me away. Then fell backwards into the black of the waterfall.
The inverted ink—liquified time—pulled me in. It disintegrated me, soul first. I was unmade, shattered, scattered. My essence fragmented and spread across timelines. The power I carried—the paracausal taint—used my very existence as the keystone to wrest control over time itself.
And then—just before I ceased completely—something pulled me out of the stream.
My soul, caught in a net of impossibility, was slingshot across the stars, hurled through aeons, and dropped violently onto a world I hadn't seen in lifetimes.
A world I remembered from my teacher's history books.
A world shaken thirteen times by the Kralscells only fifty-seven years ago.
Earth.