The sun blazed like a forge-god's hammer upon the anvil of the heavens, its golden fury gilding the prince's long blonde hair as it whipped in the wind. Atop his destrier, clad in armor of pristine white and azure that gleamed like fractured skies, he thrust his sword skyward—a radiant arc of gold that caught the light and hurled it back as defiance. "Charge!" His voice cracked the air like thunder chasing lightning, noble and unyielding.
Knights in blue plate thundered past, their boots churning the blood-soaked earth into mud, banners snapping like the jaws of storm-beasts. The prince's horse reared, neighing a shrill challenge that echoed off the jagged mountain flanks, while war cries erupted from a hundred throats—raw, guttural roars that drowned the distant clash of steel and the guttural snarls of the wretched beasts ahead. Hooves drummed a heartbeat of doom, shaking pebbles from the crags, the air thick with the iron tang of sweat, dust, and the acrid smoke of siege fires licking the beastmen's fortress walls.
"Prince!" The shout cut through the din from behind, where an old warrior with snow-white hair streaming from beneath his dented helm spurred his mount forward. His armor, scarred and heavy with the weight of forgotten campaigns, clanked rhythmically against his horse's flanks.
The prince wheeled slightly, his blue eyes sharp as glacial shards beneath his visor. "Yes, General? Any news on the flanks?"
"They just started, sire," the general rasped, voice gravelly from years of bellowed commands and inhaled battlefield ash. "Right now they're threading the hidden passageway through the mountain—shadow-silent, to gut their fortress from within." He reined in close, the horses snorting steam in the charged air, flanks heaving.
The prince's gaze drifted, lost for a breath in the swirling chaos of dust devils and dying light, his jaw tightening beneath the stubble-shadowed helm. Then he snapped back, resolve hardening like cooling steel. "Good. Then let us proceed and aid our men in diminishing the numbers of these wretched beasts. It is our destiny to claim what's ours." He whipped the reins, and his destrier surged forward with a bellow, muscles rippling under sweat-glossed hide, carrying them into the fray's maw.
"God have mercy on our souls," the general murmured, shaking his head as memory's cold tide pulled at him. He followed, spurs biting deep.
In the prince's mind—and now bleeding into the general's, like ink staining vellum—the war's genesis unfurled. Halls of luminous white marble veined with azure, the court of blue tapestries whispering of ancient pacts, and at its heart the throne of hammered gold that drank the light like a star's thirst. There sat the old king, robes pooling in sapphire and gilt folds, his face a map of wrinkles carved by crowns too heavy. Beside him, the prince in simple white linen, unarmored yet regal as a blade unsheathed.
Knights in silver armor knelt in a armored crescent, helms bowed to the flagstones that hummed with the court's latent magic.
"It seems they truly broke our trust," the prince said softly, his voice a calm sea before the gale, fingers drumming the throne's arm.
"They took my daughter?!" The king's roar shattered the hush, veins bulging like storm-rivers on his neck as he half-rose, fists clenched white-knuckled.
The prince turned to the arched window, where the moon hung bloated and silver, casting elongated shadows that clawed at the stone. "Then the treaty is no more."
"THEN WE WILL TAKE THEM, ALL OF THEM, AND ALL THEIR LAND!" The king's shout boomed, echoing off vaulted ceilings like the first crack of doom, his throne shuddering as he surged to his feet.
And so they were here now, beasts' howls mingling with the screams of the dying, the mountain pass a throat swallowing armies whole. The general shook off the reverie, spurring after the prince into the cosmic churn of fate's unraveling weave—destiny's thread, gold and bloodied, pulling taut.
In the Headquarters of the Numen of Continuity, suspended like a crystal-veined cathedral amid the swirling nebulae of forgotten timelines, Avry hunched over her obsidian table. Archaic tech hummed beneath glowing runes—crystals pulsing with stolen starlight interfaced with holographic screens that flickered like captive auroras. Papers fluttered in the recycled air currents: fragmented timelines scrawled in paradox-ink, beastmen roars transcribed into waveform spikes, mountain passes mapped in blood-red overlays. Her fingers danced across the primary screen, swift as a thief in void-shadows, pinching timelines to stretch, swiping beast-furrowed paths to realign, eyes darting through cascades of data—charges, flanks, betrayals—in a blur that mocked mortal haste.
The air tasted of ozone and eternity's faint metallic bite, consoles whispering binary prayers while distant cosmos wheeled beyond the viewport, indifferent to the fray.
"HOTSHIT!" Her scream shattered the hum, body jolting as a firm hand clamped her shoulder—warm, callused, reeking faintly of respair smoke and unraveling fates.
She whipped around, elegant features twisted in feral glare, silver-streaked hair whipping like comet tails. "If Gray dies, this is your fault!" Avry snarled, voice spiking from professional clip to raw venom, finger jabbing accusatory at the intruder—likely some tech-seraph or fellow navigator, their face half-lit by screen-glow.
The hand's owner smirked, unfazed, grip lingering just long enough to irk. "Now you know how I feel when you do it. Annoying, right?" Their tone dripped smug reciprocity, eyes glinting with the weariness of those who juggled multiverses.
Avry's jaw clenched, a flicker of vulnerable exhaustion cracking her practical mask—Graydowle's borrowed soul threading through her thoughts like a frayed lifeline, his amnesiac confusion echoing in the data storm. She shoved the hand away, turning back to the screen where the prince's charge pulsed red-hot, beasts un-making in paradox-fire. But the interruption lingered, a pebble in the cosmic boot.
What pulls Avry deeper into the data— a glitch in Gray's thread, or a whisper from the Void's negation? Or shall we cut back to the battlefield?
It was from a woman who understood exactly how striking she was, her presence shaped as much by her bearing as by the clothes she wore. Her skin held a deep warm richness that seemed to gather and bend the light around her. Short curls framed her face in a soft, unruly halo, dark as ink yet threaded with vivid blue streaks that glimmered whenever she turned her head. The contrast pulled attention to her eyes, a deep storm-blue that carried both sharpness and curiosity, and to the gentle curve of her bulbous nose that gave her face an expressive, open warmth.
Her outfit grounded her in a world that felt half-modern, half-myth. A fitted bodice of midnight blue wrapped her torso, its neckline rising into a small standing collar that framed her throat. White fabric crossed the front in a lattice of tight lacing, each pull precise, sculpting the garment to her shape while adding a stark brightness against the darker hues. Below the waist, the blue fabric spilled into a long, divided skirt that moved like layered water when she walked. The front opening revealed a panel of pale cloth over black leggings, the contrast giving her silhouette both elegance and readiness, as though she could shift from ceremony to action without changing a thing.
Thick bracers wrapped her forearms in supple brown leather, worn smooth at the edges as if touched often. Matching boots rose to her knees, the laced fronts stitched in crossing marks, each knot deliberate and functional. The leather hugged her legs closely before ending in rounded, sturdy soles made for traveling terrain rather than performing on polished floors. She now smiles as she puts her hand in Avry's chair.
Avry's smirk curled like a crescent moon slicing nebulae, her violet eyes flashing with wicked promise as she leaned back into the holographic glow. "Yeah, I know—and if you're thinking I'll stop, you're fatally mistaken. I'll just find new ways to scare the living shit out of you. Haha, just you wait, Kaunreid!" She pivoted fluidly to the screen, fingers resuming their arcane ballet, timelines rippling under her touch like water disturbed by void-tentacles.
Kaunreid leaned in closer, elbows digging into the back of Avry's chair with casual invasion, her own tech-augmented gaze—irises ringed in luminous script—scanning the battlefield feeds: blue knights carving through beast-hordes, prince's gold sword a comet-tail in the chaos. "I'd like to see you try, Avry. And you're so unfair! You didn't even introduce your new revisionist to us. How dare you!"
"No need," Avry shot back, not missing a data-beat, her voice laced with protective barbs. "You might scare him off."
Kaunreid scoffed, breath warm against Avry's ear amid the console's low thrum and the faint, crystalline chime of incoming paradox-alerts. "Excuse you? You're the one who scared him off, snatching that nightmare mission. He'll really die there without me surprising you."
"Nah, you're underestimating him," Avry replied, a faint smile ghosting her lips—rare warmth cracking her weary pragmatism, Graydowle's instinctive grit flickering in her mind's eye like a half-remembered star. "Just wait and see." She paused, brow arching. "Wait an eon—aren't you supposed to be with Hefbriox? He's with you now, remember?"
"Oh, you know him and his endless preparations," Kaunreid groaned, rolling her eyes skyward to the viewport's star-strewn void. "He's off somewhere calibrating, calculating, and shit. Heard he's called in for a possible promotion. So I'm free now—and thriving! At least your block isn't boring as his."
"Well, good for him!" Avry's tone dipped sardonic, but her mind whirred, gears meshing with opportunity. "So what do you do now?"
"Reviewing for the next respair—which I already did, but this hefty-one-hell-of-a-heck Hefbriox wants it again, just to make sure. Ugh." Kaunreid's fists clenched air, silver bracers glinting. "But I swear, if our roles ever exchange, I'll shove him straight into the pits of hell."
"Hmmm... I see." Avry's face ignited, eyes alight with scheming fire, the weight of Gray's thread pulling taut in her thoughts.
She swiveled halfway, gaze sidelong. "How long do you think you'll be free?"
"A long time, I think. Why?"
"Hmmm..." Avry spun fully, chair creaking on rune-etched floors, her expression a velvet trap. "Can you do me one last favor?"
Kaunreid's surprise bloomed wide-eyed. "Oh, I know that face, Avry—and I won't like the words after it."
"Please?" Avry wheedled, vulnerability peeking through her elegant armor. "I'll help you deal with Hefty after this, I swear!"
"Alright, fine. What is it?"
Avry glanced left and right—shadows pooling in console crevices, no eavesdroppers—then cupped her hand to Kaunreid's ear, whispering hot and urgent, words like contraband timelines.
"N-No wa—"
"SHH!" Avry's finger sealed Kaunreid's lips, sharp gesture silencing the nebula's hush.
Kaunreid exhaled, resigned mischief sparking. "Okay, fine. But what's the situation first?"
The battlefield churned into a maelstrom of chromatic fury, where the prince's blue-armored knights slammed into the vanguard like a glacial avalanche. Foes erupted from the haze—humans twisted by ancient curses: lizard-skinned brutes with scaled heads hissing venom-fog, fur-eared skirmishers with whipping tails slashing feral claws, dark-hued warriors in obsidian, emerald, and crimson leathers wielding jagged blades that sang through the air. But amid the kaleidoscope of war-paint and hides, red dominated—blood arcing in hot sprays, pooling in boot-sucking mire, painting the earth in universal accusation. Steel clanged on scale, screams twisted with roars, the air thick with copper reek, sulfurous beast-musk, and the wet rip of flesh parting.
In the heart of it, Graydowle staggered—wild-haired, his borrowed frame slick with sweat and splatter, purposeful rags clinging like second skin. He bolted, ducked a sweeping axe that hummed death-close, dodged a lizard-jaw snap, screaming through pants. "No no no, where am I?" The words tore from him, confusion a knife in his gut, instincts firing without context, the world's clamor assaulting like a paradox storm.
"Great! You're still alive!" Avry's voice bloomed inside his skull, crisp as headquarters crystal-chimes, laced with her volatile relief—professional edge fraying to raw glee.
Gray's head whipped wildly, eyes darting amid blade-flashes and crumpling bodies, boots skidding on gore-slick stone. "Hi Gray—can you hear me?"
"Avry! I'm gonna die!" He dove low, crawling under crossed swords clashing thunderous overhead, gravel biting palms, heart hammering like a void-quake.
"Nope! You're doing a great job already," she assured, words tumbling eager yet blind. "Though I can't see what you see, or feel, hear, taste—err, anything you do, I don't know—but of course you can do this!"
Assurance curdled to annoyance in Gray's chest, a spark amid the panic. He surged up, bolting anew through the melee. "Can't you help?"
"Sadly, no. I can only talk from time to time, to provide info you need as a navigator, it's not an easy task you know like I really have to synthesize all information from this world's previous records up to your current situation."
"What? Then why'd you put me here?" His dodge clipped a fur-tail lash, sending him stumbling.
"It's the perfect shortcut! Everyone's too busy killing each other—no one notices you popping in. Otherwise if anyone saw you, an anomaly of reality just appearing suddenly, you'd have to erase their memories. Or them."
"You're serious?"
"Yeah—and this war's the greatest opportunity. The targets of royalty are here, and and they're vulnerably reachable."
"This war? With the targets? Avry, where am I, and who are they?"
"Oh right I forgot, welcome to the Kingdom of Tartaellion. You're here to stop the Adopted Prince."
"Stop the Prince? Who? Why?"
Her voice steadied, navigator's cadence weaving lore like thread on a loom. "The Record says he'll unleash this world's greatest dark storm—powerful magic conquering all souls. But that power unbalances everything; the Void takes root, consumes it all."
"Alright, that's a lot... but damn it I have no choice—Avry, how do I stop him if he's that powerful?"
"That... I can't answer now. It's a confusing, long story—but you'll know soon. What matters is that everything changes with you here. You're the odd one of abnormality where there's literally a ripple of change even for the smallest things you do. And with that goal, we adapt—because these records won't match with an unaccounted variable like you and for every divergent paths made, duh."
"Wait... so... what's the point of you?"
"To navigate your choices. I'm a navigator, Gray— I study the past tragedies, and blend with your experiences, where I'm learning from history to rewrite the future. On the other hand, you're the revisionist: the supposed independent thinker, adaptable in any world, using my info to carry out the mission to make things right."
"Oh no, make things right? Everything's going wrong!" He vaulted a fallen knight, breath ragged. "Well things are going wrong right from the start. You really leave me with no choice Avry despite telling me that I am the ripple of change, alright, tell me everything about that Prince. Let's find him."
"Now we're talking! He's a beautiful hottie—long yellow hair beyond usual cuts, white-skinned, tall, lean-muscled. As a prince, he's easy to spot."
"Easy to spot? How?" Gray craned amid the slaughter, eyes piercing the blood-haze for that golden beacon.
A deafening hum split the carnage, vibrating through bone and blood-mire like the birth-cry of a dying star. "Oh, he is," Gray muttered, gaze snapping upward through the melee's red haze. There—the prince, white-and-azure armor aglow, levitated skyward on unseen currents, long blonde locks streaming like solar filaments. Warriors froze mid-slash, heads craning in awe and dread as he ascended, a false god amid the slaughter.
Arms spread wide, the prince tilted his face to the heavens, eyes igniting crimson—glowing slits of infernal hunger. "This is a battle of power! And the power of my blood is the strongest!" His hands clapped to his chest, birthing a red orb that smoked and sparked, swelling monstrously—pulsing veins of crimson energy throbbing like a harvested heart.
He hurled it aloft; it hovered, tendrils lancing to his palms. Arms unfurled in grand invocation, and he unleashed—a wave of red smoke billowing downward, exponential plague devouring the field. It kissed a gray-chainmailed warrior: flesh froze, twitched in seizure, then blood erupted from eyes, nose, mouth, yanking his shriveled husk skyward into the orb's maw. A iron-plated knightess hacked gore, body desiccating to husk as her essence fed the glow. Smoke ballooned, screams fracturing as foes fled—no colors mattered now, only the universal red tide claiming all.
"Avry, how do I stop that? That monster?"
"You kill him."
"Easier said than done."
"Necessary, Gray—no matter the cost."
"But he's killing everyone with his... red. Just how powerful is he?"
"Red? Blood magic! Listen—whatever happens, kill the Prince." Urgency cracked her voice, navigator's calm fracturing.
Gray bolted wordless, smoke's crimson edge swelling, screams truncating closer—devouring the world.
"Avry! Can I outrun that power?" He sprinted with scattering soldiers, lungs burning void-acid.
"You can't. It's not the blood magic you're outrunning—it's them." Her tone iced over.
"What?" Panic crested as shrieks peaked.
"Die for me!" The prince bellowed, arms thrusting, eyes blazing red anew.
"Avry, get me out!" Gray howled, tripping hard—face-planting into gore as pandemonium reigned: no war now, just stampede, elbows gouging backs in blind flight.
"No, Gray. Sorry. But you'll thank me. I have ideas."
"Ideas? Tell me now! I'm gonna—"
Red smoke engulfed him. Vision drowned crimson. Blood-stench choked his world.
He gasped awake in blue halls—azure tapestries, marble veined sapphire. "Now everything's mine," a resonant voice echoed omnipresent.
Gray spun—there, the prince lounged alone on the golden throne, surprise flickering his perfect features.
"You."
"What? You're here?" The prince surged up.
"Where am I? What's this?"
"This cannot be—you're immune? No!" Palm flared; red-light sword materialized, gripped vengeful. "Die!" He lunged.
"No!" Gray flung up a hand.
Blackness swallowed all. Eyes snapped open amid corpse-piles, battlefield reeking death. He staggered up; distant, the prince descended from his float, glaring.
"What's happening?"
"Gray?! Holy demonic shit, you're alive! You ghosted me a minute!"
"Avry, something weird—"
"It's starting, Gray. Every one of them will try to kill you now."
"You're kidding."
"No. Run—again."
The corpses twitched, rising jerky—gaunt husks with life-sucked faces, cheeks hollowed like void-cratered moons, dead eyes igniting in crimson glow that fixated on Gray hungrily.
"Shit." Gray snatched a fallen sword, heft cold iron.
"Run to the Prince. Kill him. No matter the cost."
"That's your idea?"
"Yes—and why I dropped you here."
"Impossible! He's too powerful!"
"Yes, but he burned his magic, he's out of it. You're alive, and he stopped. You can do this"
"But... that's..." Gray trailed, spotting the prince striding closer, glare lethal.
"Got better ideas? Besides not dying?"
"Hmmm..." He grabbed a second sword. "You're right. Me or him. Free them all—and he dies, now." Face hardened, amnesia yielding to primal resolve.
"Good. Do your thing; I'll study."
Gray parried a corpse-lunge, shoved it aside—swords whirling in desperate ballet: swing cleaving skull, duck under claw, roll past stabbing spear, jump decaying slash, spin through duo-thrust, scream defiance amid outnumbered shambling. The prince closed, summoning red-light blade anew, charging with aerial leap—slashing down godlike.
Gray wheeled, crossed blades blocking the strike; his off-hand sword pinned in a headless corpse-torso. "Who are you? Who are you to defy my plans!" Prince hammered again; Gray parried late—shoulder bruising hot agony.
"I don't know! I don't even know you!"
"Then why are you doing this?!" Another strike; Gray shoved back, dodging rear-flank corpse, reversing to gut it chest-deep.
"Because you have to stop!" Gray roared, thrusting.
He glanced up, grinning feral. Prince faltered, confused—then checked behind: headless corpses ringed them. Looked up: heads rained, tumbling from severed necks.
An impact to the first skull cracked atop prince's helm, staggering him. Another thudded gut; he reeled, eyes wide.
Gray loomed, plunging sword into chest. Prince groaned, coughing crimson froth.
"You—how—"
"You're too high up that you don't expect to fall." Twist—heart pierced. Last rattle escaped; prince slumped.
Corpses collapsed worldwide. Gray knelt, heaving exhaustion, world spinning.
"Avry. It's done."
"Wait—what? That was quick! Nice! Okay, now—"
Thwack—arrow bit his bruised shoulder. "Wha—"
"Bring them all in!" The old general bellowed, bow drawn taut.
Gray locked eyes, flashed weary smile—then darkness claimed him, unconscious amid the reclaimed silence.
Graydowle's eyelids fluttered open to a vast, shimmering expanse—an ethereal headspace unbound by gravity or horizon, where nebulae swirled lazily like bruised silk against an infinite black canvas. Crystal spires from the Headquarters of the Numen of Continuity pierced the void here, their facets pulsing with borrowed starlight, casting fractured rainbows across the non-corporeal floor that rippled like mercury under his gaze. The air hummed with a faint, electric tang, as if ozone and forgotten memories were conspiring to condense into form. His body felt weightless, a phantom ache throbbing at the back of his skull where the arrow's memory lingered like a half-remembered wound.
"Gray? Gray!" A voice sliced through the haze, urgent and laced with frayed edges. There she was—Avry, materializing before him in sharp focus, her elegant frame clad in the practical weave of navigator's leathers etched with glowing continuity runes. Worry etched deep lines across her face, her emerald eyes wide as she reached out, shaking his shoulders with hands that felt both solid and spectral.
"A-Avry?" Gray said as he stood up, his voice echoing strangely in the boundless chamber, legs unsteady beneath him as if testing the reality of this dream-woven realm. Instinct tugged at him—familiar, yet adrift in amnesia's fog.
Avry stepped back, exhaling sharply, her posture shifting from panic to that volatile mix of relief and command. "Great, you're not dead. Now how did this happen?" she asked him.
Gray blinked, fragments of battle flashing like shattered glass in his mind: the prince's sneer, severed heads tumbling from the parapets. "I don't know, there was an arrow—wait how are you here? Where am I?" he asked her, his gaze darting to the cosmic backdrop, where distant galaxies wheeled in silent judgment.
Avry's lips quirked into a weary half-smile, her fingers flexing as if weaving invisible threads to anchor her projection. "To your headspace, when you're unconscious and not dreaming, we can have this opportunity to talk. But I'm just virtually here since your headspace is connected to the headquarters," she explained, gesturing to the crystalline intrusions that hummed in sympathy.
His eyes lit up, a spark of boyish wonder cutting through the confusion. "Wow that's great! Now tell me why can't we have the same power for such respair?" Gray said to her, the word 'respair' rolling off his tongue with instinctive weight, evoking half-glimpsed visions of rewoven timelines.
"Cause we can't dummy! And besides, tell me what happened? How heroic you were of slaying the prince! You're a prince-slayer now! Did you jumped and twirled mid-air? Did you tricked his moves and magic? Did you kiss him or something?" Avry said in excitement, her voice pitching high, hands clapping together as her exhaustion cracked into rare, infectious glee—eyes sparkling like twin supernovas.
Gray chuckled, rubbing the back of his neck, the sound bubbling up warm against the chill void. "Well I wish I did kiss him but... I just threw their heads at him from above," he said, but Avry's jaw dropped and she rolled her eyes, her elegant practicality slamming back into place like a shielding ward.
"Ugh! That's creative but that's not cinematic at all! You could just at least—damn forget it! And then you were struck by an arrow?" Avry said, waving a dismissive hand, though a flicker of admiration lingered in her tightened jaw.
"Yeah and now we're here. Uhh I wonder can you like maybe put me in a trance of like lucid dreaming I think that's gonna be cool," Gray said to her. A pause gripped him, brow furrowing as realization dawned unbidden. "Oh wait, how do I know what lucid dreaming is?" he asked himself, the question hanging like a paradox in the air, his mind grasping at threads from erased realities.
Avry leaned in, her virtual form sharpening, voice dropping to a grave timbre that resonated through the nebulae. "Alright Gray, now listen to what I'm about to tell you. You did a great job, even though it's anticlimactic but you did it, you killed the Prince, you stopped the supposed hundred year invasion of humans against all other races here," she explained, her words weaving solemnity into the dreamscape.
"Nice! Does that mean that the war is done? We saved the world?" Gray said, but Avry chuckled, a low, knowing sound that rippled the mercury floor.
"No silly, wars don't end in single acts, it extends onto the frayed echoes of vendettas across fractured timelines and before you know it, old hatreds respawn like voids devouring light anew."
Gray nodded slowly, the philosophy sinking in like cosmic gravity, his wild hair drifting in an unfelt breeze. "I see, what should we do now?"
"Well, from the records, the forces of the Prince, I mean his pawns, would be able to bring exact revenge with the powers of his five fiends. And that they are all capable of such potent malignant magic of control and manipulation," Avry continued, her tone sharpening to a blade's edge.
"So the Prince's necromancy earlier is not the end of it? What the hell?" Gray reacted, his fists clenching, a surge of instinctive fury heating his insubstantial veins.
Avry's eyes gleamed with purpose. "Now I came here to show you this in person." She opened her hands to him, palms glowing as ethereal energies coalesced. A floating hologram bloomed between them—a black necklace with an onyx jewel, its facets absorbing light like a microcosm of the Void itself, pulsing with necrotic hunger.
"This is the necklace of Armageddon, it'll be formed once the five fiends meet and share their power, to which again you're immune of. Your job is to destroy this necklace because this necklace would be able to revive the Prince and give all their life and power to him."
"Five fiends? Where would they be?" Gray asked, leaning closer, the hologram's chill brushing his skin like unmaking frost.
"Hmmm... they're supposed to meet hundred years from now once the invasion was done but since the Prince died, they'll probably all be called forth immediately. And they'll be in there in the Castles of Royalty. Where you, and the other immunes are probably held in captivity right now," Avry explained, her projection flickering faintly as distant headquarters energies strained.
"There are other immunes? Are there other Revisionists like me?" Gray asked, hope flickering in his chest like a nascent star.
"Nope. I hope you get to know them or possibly work together before you're all executed by the Royalty," Avry said to him, her smile wry, masking the weariness of one who had navigated too many unravelings.
"Oh yeah I killed the Prince. But can you tell me anything about those other immunes? I'd love to know them! Maybe they can do the physical stuff with me cause I'm not really great at it," Gray said to her, eagerness lighting his purposeful yet wild features.
"Oh about that... well... they were not important so probably their information were omitted from the logs cause they were inconsequential from the previous reality, they were killed immediately when the Prince found out some people are immune to his magic. But now things changed and that the royals want to study you all before they kill you, especially you who killed their Prince."
"I see, I hope they're easy to get alo—"
"Oops things are getting colder now here, I guess you're waking up, bye Gray, talk to you later! Goodluck!" Avry said with a smile and waved at him, her form dissolving into motes of light as the headspace chilled, crystals dimming like dying embers. Gray felt his eyes grow heavy, lids drooping as the dream-realm frayed at the edges, pulling him back to the brutal tangibility of captivity. He blinked once, twice, and the void rushed in.
Graydowle's eyes snapped open to the assault of dank reality, the dream-veil shredding like cosmically torn fabric. Cold stone bit into his palms as he sat up from the dungeon floor, chains clinking faintly against his wrists—rusted iron manacles that reeked of mildew and despair. The cell was a cramped coffin of bars, torchlight flickering through gaps to paint jittery shadows on slime-slick walls, while distant groans echoed from adjacent cages like the lamentations of unmade souls. Avry had been right; captivity's grip was ironclad, the air thick with the metallic tang of blood and unwashed fear, blue moonlight seeping through a narrow barred slit high above, bathing his wild hair in spectral glow.
"Greetings prisoner." A deep voice rumbled from the gloom, commanding as thunder rolling through nebulae. Gray turned his head, heart lurching—there stood the armored white-haired man, his plate mail gleaming unnaturally silver, etched with runes alien to the kingdom's knights he'd felled on the battlefield. It was the General, broad-shouldered sentinel to the fallen Prince, eyes like polished obsidian fixed upon him.
"What..." Gray uttered, throat dry as void-dust.
"Or should I say the Prince-slayer? Tell me, who are you that you were able to do such thing?" the General asked, his voice a velvet blade, arms crossed over his chest as he loomed beyond the bars.
"I... shit... I don't know," Gray uttered with honesty, his mind a whirlwind of amnesia, grasping at phantom threads while his body tensed, muscles coiling instinctively.
"You don't know? Why would you kill the Prince in the first place?" the General pressed, leaning closer, the air between them thickening with suspicion.
"I think I... I know, sorry, I'm an orphan and was hired to kill the King to make a living," Gray lied to the General, forcing a shrug, but the General squinted his eyes for a second in suspicion, jaw tightening like a ward against deception.
"An assassin? What fool immediately reveals that? I don't believe you. Maybe I should form my question in this, what are you?" the General asked with a more firm tone, his gauntleted fist rapping the bars, sending vibrations humming through Gray's bones.
"A-And if I don't answer?" Gray asked, defiance flickering in his chest despite the chill creeping up his spine.
"You're executed immediately. But if you cooperate and get to the bottom of this, there might be the smallest chance you'll have a little longer life, but then of course you murdered a royalty so you'll be executed eventually too. You don't have a choice," the General explained, his words inexorable as entropy.
"Fuck! Really? After all those things I did I'll just die. Might as well accept it," Gray said and rolled his eyes and turned around, feigning defeat, his back to the bars as frustration boiled beneath his skin.
"But alright, I'll answer of course, it's more fun that way. I'm a messenger of the Gods, and..." Gray thought for a second and turned his body back to the General where the General seemed convinced with the locked-in stare, so Gray smiled surprisingly, weaving the half-truth like a respair thread.
"A half lie to be more convincing, I like that Gray," Avry's voice echoed in his head, a sly whisper threading through his thoughts, warm amid the dungeon's freeze.
"I'm immune to his magic because I'm not of this world. I'm sure you're very familiar with the myths and magics so if you have a hard time believing me then that's on you," Gray continued, holding the General's gaze, his voice steady as cosmic law.
"And... I'm also like paid—I mean rewarded for uhh killing some people that are ordered to me by the Gods so yeah what I said earlier was really... true, right?" Gray said, layering the fabrication with earnest confusion.
"You're insane, if you're that powerful why did you let yourself be captured easily? You cannot be too much of a fool as a messenger of the divine!" the General demanded, stepping forward, armor creaking like grinding paradoxes.
"Hmmm... it's to send you all a message in this kingdom err once the time is right," Gray said to him, improvising with a cryptic nod, his mind racing through half-remembered lore.
"Can't you at least tell me right now what message is that? Is it a prophecy? A warning?" the General asked, who seemed to be convinced of his lies, brows furrowing in intrigued hunger.
"I'll tell you when the other immunes are with me," Gray answered and had a serious stare to the General, eyes narrowing like a Revisionist's unmaking gaze.
"You know of the other immunes? I see. What God do you serve then?" the General asked, intrigue deepening the lines on his weathered face.
"Zu- oh yeah Zeus, the God of Thunder, Weather and... calamity!" Gray told him, the name bursting forth unbidden, a mythic echo from erased timelines jolting through his amnesia.
What? Zeus? How'd I know Zeus? Gray asked himself, a shiver of dawning incomprehension rippling his frame.
"Zeus? Then I hope that that God of yours would be able to understand why we have to lock you in here. We have a God of our own that we revere in this dominion. But do not worry, we'll abide by that and so you'll meet them soon," the General said, straightening with reluctant respect.
"I see, thank you and... I hope your God forgives you too for those innocent lives you've taken and that senseless war you all started," Gray replied with much spite in his voice, venom lacing each syllable, his fists clenching against the stone.
"What is your name?" the General just asked, unfazed, a predatory calm settling over him.
"Gray. You?"
"Kinston. It's nice to meet you Gray, I'll make sure you'll eat up those words soon enough as our wrath for your murder will take place," the General threatened with a smile then he stood up, towering silhouette blotting the torchlight.
"Sure. You know what you all did, monsters," Gray said to him, spitting the words like cosmic rebuke.
"Hmm. See you soon, and never, Gray." The General then left with a smirk on his face, his boots echoing down the corridor like the tolling of unraveling fates.
Gray slumped against the wall, scanning the dungeon's misery: iron bars veiling starved prisoners in shadowed cells, their groans a symphony of hollow despair, chains rattling like futile prayers. He turned around and saw the small iron-barred opening as a window where the blue moon hung bloated in the midnight sky, its light a cold promise of judgment.
"This cannot be it. Avry?" he talked to himself, voice a raw whisper amid the groans.
A chime resonated in his skull, crystalline and sharp. "Yes Graydowle? Are you beaten up? What's happening?" Avry asked but sarcasm and a hint of small giggle could be heard from her, her presence a defiant spark in the gloom.
"I'm held prisoner! And this Kinston said I'll be executed soon. Do you have any records on how executions in this Kingdom will happen?" Gray asked Avry, urgency sharpening his tone as he rubbed chafed wrists.
"Of course I have. It's a public ceremony where you'll be with other criminals of the same crime. Darn I knew it, but have you met the other immunes?" Avry asked, her virtual timbre laced with tactical edge.
"I haven't. Why?" Gray answered, peering into the moonlit slit, mind churning with borrowed instincts.
"I see. Well I guess you'll just have to wait—"
A thunderous explosion ripped through the dungeon's bowels, the floor buckling like parchment under a god's fist. Stone screamed as it sheared away, ancient mortar crumbling into a maw of dust and shadow.
"AHHHHH!" Gray exclaimed as he fell, the world inverting in a vertigo of freefall, chains whipping wildly, heart slamming against his ribs like a trapped star.
He opened his eyes amid choking grit, buried under rubble's crushing weight—jagged boulders pinning his legs, air thick with pulverized rock and the acrid bite of arcane discharge. Chaos reigned beyond: stone walls rent asunder in jagged wounds, screams piercing the din like frayed timelines, frantic footsteps pounding in a frenzy of liberation and terror. A sharp pain lanced his arm, hot blood welling through torn fabric as his vision unblurred, revealing torch flames guttering wildly in the melee.
"Shit. What now—"
"Hey! We have to get out of here!" a voice cut through the bedlam, urgent and ragged. Gray turned his head, dust-caked eyes locking on a man in threadbare rags and a brown tunic, sweat-slicked face taut with effort as he heaved at the massive stone slab trapping Gray's legs, veins bulging like strained ley lines.
"Thank you—"
"Thank the heavens you're still alive prince-slayer. Urgh!" the young man groaned as the stone shifted with a grinding roar, tumbling free in a cascade of debris.
He slung Gray's arm over his shoulder, hauling him up with desperate strength, the contact grounding amid the swirl of panic—skin warm, breath heaving in unison.
"Can you walk?" the young man asked, steadying him as shouts of guards echoed closer.
Gray tested his leg, flexing gingerly; relief flooded him like respair's balm, the limb holding firm despite bruises blooming like nebulae bursts. "Yes. Let's go," Gray said to him as the young man bore his weight, and they lurched into motion, weaving through stampeding prisoners, the air alive with the clamor of chains snapping and opportunistic howls.
"I'm Pergfian, I was captured with you. Thank you really for your heroic act mister?" Pergfian gasped between strides, his grip ironclad.
"Gray. And thank you for helping me. You're an immune?" Gray asked him as they hurried to run away while other prisoners roamed around and ran, dodging fallen beams that smoldered with unnatural embers.
"Yes, I am an immune and—No no!" Pergfian exclaimed as several iron guards barreled toward them from the distance, spears glinting like venomous stars, boots thundering in pursuit.
They veered sharply, pivoting into the other direction of the hall, pace frantic, lungs burning with dust and exertion.
"Who did this?" Gray asked, glancing back at the armored tide closing in.
"I don't know, I don't even know where we should go but—"
"There!" Gray pointed to a room at the hall where it seemed to be a part of a library in ruins from fallen big blocks of stone, but there was a small opening where they could enter—a jagged breach amid toppled shelves spilling scorched tomes like spilled entrails of knowledge. They dove through, tumbling into shadowed sanctuary, the air here musty with ink and charred vellum. No pursuers yet; they collapsed onto the nearest sagging couch, chests heaving, sweat carving clean rivulets through grime.
"Pergfian, we cannot hide here forever. Sorry for being a deadweight to you," Gray said to him, wincing as he probed his throbbing arm.
"It's alright, I'm sure we'll be safe here for a moment let me just..." Pergfian rose, striding to the opening they had squeezed through, grunting as he shoved a colossal block of stone across it—muscles straining, the slab sealing their refuge with a finality like a portal's snap.
"There we go. Whew," he said and went back to Gray's side, slumping down with exhausted triumph.
"Now we can hide here forever? Thanks," Gray said and chuckled, the young man chuckled in response, a shared spark of defiance amid the ruin, their laughter a fragile ward against the encroaching storm.
"Where are you from—"
A loud vibration shuddered through the chamber, the air warping like heat haze over a dying sun. Gray's vision drained of color, hues bleeding into grayscale then void-black, reality unraveling thread by thread until only fathomless darkness swallowed them whole.
Everything plunged into silence as Gray blinked, the chaotic din of rubble and screams snuffed like a candle in the Void's breath. Bewilderment gripped him amid an open darkness of abyss—the familiar headspace expanse, its boundless black laced with faint nebular veins, crystalline spires from Headquarters glinting distantly like memory shards. No pain lingered; he looked at himself, body pristine as before the explosion, wounds erased, chains absent, the ethereal mercury floor cool beneath his feet.
"What? What the fuck?" He exclaimed as he looked around, spinning slowly, hands flexing in disbelief at the flawless flesh.
A pinpoint light ignited in the void, swelling into threads of white lines that splurged and exploded in fractal fury, weaving into humanoid form. "Gray?" a familiar voice pierced the hush, the glow solidifying into Avry—her navigator's leathers crisp, emerald eyes sharp with concern amid the cosmic drift.
"Avry?" he asked, voice echoing softly.
"You slept again?" Avry said, tilting her head, a wry edge to her tone.
"No! I was talking to someone! I was just sitting there and—"
"Someone? Who's someone?"
"Pergfian! The immune who saved me. And we were hiding and safe, it's impossible that I just fell unconscious," he explained, pacing the weightless expanse, frustration knotting his brow.
"Okay... that's weird. You sure that Pergfian guy did not do some magic or something?" she asked, arms crossing as nebulae swirled lazily behind her.
"No! We were just talking after the explosion! I was supposed to ask him where he came from to get to know him. He must be very worried now that I just slept suddenly," he replied, gesturing wildly at phantom rubble.
"Hmm..." Avry uttered while seemingly deep in thought, her fingers drumming against her arm. "Then he should've been waking you up immediately. Yet you're still here," Avry said to him.
"Maybe he's too kind that he wants me to rest?" Gray wondered, a flicker of doubt creasing his wild features.
"Hmmm, something's not right. Alright, just wait. I'll go back to HQ for a moment, I'll check," she said to him, resolve hardening her gaze.
Avry closed her eyes, her form flashing into white light as she dissolved into the ether, leaving Gray adrift in the humming void.
"Not right?" Gray asked himself, the words hanging like unraveling threads.
The light surged back, Avry rematerializing before him, stance rigid. "Fucking hell Gray. We might be doomed," she said as her eyes seemed to be widened and bewildered, hands clenching into fists.
"What? Why?" he asked, stepping closer, the air thickening with dread.
"There was a glitch phenomena! Shit shit shit. This cannot happen," Avry said and she bit her thumb fingernail while walking around, her elegant practicality fracturing into raw agitation.
"What do you mean?" Gray asked. Avry then looked at him with a cold stare, the nebulae dimming in sympathy.
"There was a loop. A reset. You went back in time," she said to him.
"What? How can such thing happen?" he said to her, mind reeling like a timeline snapped taut.
"It's a regression. An adversary of time and space that worldly creatures and revisionists like you cannot do—except for one."
"Who?"
"Saboteurs. Forces of the void with abilities that bends reality such as chaotic reincarnation. That saboteur died at the time you're with Pergfian and made a reset," she explained, piecing the paradox with navigator's precision.
"What?! Why didn't you tell me that such people exists!"
"Well they're truly rare and always infiltrate only when a reality's just about to collapse as the last will of the void. This is not supposed to happen, but what's important now Gray is that you find and stop this saboteur. That person is with you now since you mentioned there was an explosion," Avry explained and connected the dots immediately, her voice urgent as continuity runes on her leathers pulsed.
"Hell no. There'd be another anomaly of reality like me out there? I just started!" Gray complained, raking hands through his hair, amnesia's fog churning with newfound terror.
"We got no choice Gray. But the good thing is, you have memories intact from the previous fracture as a Revisionist. You have to use the knowledge of your previous timeline to investigate this Saboteur even if their death and regression is unprecedented," Avry explained to him, steadying him with a firm hand on his shoulder.
"This can't be, I'll be in a loop that I do not have control," Gray said, the weight pressing like unmaking gravity.
"And that regressor will probably hunt you too as you're now the famous prince-slayer. But we can do this, that powerful Prince got no match for you so this is not impossible."
"That was a worldly being! This one is more powerful! How do I kill someone that can just cheat death?"
"Of course we'll figure it out, but for now—it's getting colder, you're waking up," Avry said, her projection flickering as chill winds of reality intruded.
A bright light flashed over his vision, searing like a respair rift. Gray opened his eyes and blinked, staring at the familiar dungeon ceiling—cold stone unmarred, no rubble, no chaos. He sat up, a cold chill running through his spine, as he now faced the General Kinston once more, the white-haired warrior's gaze boring into him from beyond the bars.
"Fuck. Avry, you're right."