Watching Cayden fall into the inverted waterfall of ink rising through the timeless void, all I could do was stare—confused, stunned.
I never imagined his life was an ingredient in the ritual. That he'd offer it up willingly.
The reason we were both taken to the castle a week ago... to meet Traveler... don't tell me—it wasn't some random summons. It was to complete him. To give him something only Traveler could give, so he could become the final piece in this sacrificial ritual.
[Notice: Space-time equilibrium has been restored.]
With the 's message, reality snapped back into place. No warning. No transition. One moment suspended in a collapsing void—then back again, grounded in the broken ritual chamber deep inside the mountain. The upper half of the cavern was still missing, the sky exposed and churning above.
Everyone stood in silence, stunned. Faces frozen mid-reaction. Still reeling from what had just happened—Cayden's sacrifice, the absurdity of it, the meaning lost on all of us.
"Oh, look who's awake," came Traveler's voice. His once glitching form of golden fire and silver roots melted into something more human, more stable. "Good to see the ritual worked."
From his chest, a raven-shaped shadow erupted like a released scream. It flared into existence and circled the chamber, its voice grating and gleeful.
"I'm back, bitches!" Thorn cried, flapping with wild energy. "Causality's not on my ass anymore! I'm off lockdown! And I can finally flirt with hot women again! YES! All is right with the universe again!"
"You can celebrate later," Traveler replied. "Now that you're fully healed. I'm still dealing with an Oblivion Hunter. Need to refocus before I get impaled again."
With that, Traveler's illusion blinked out of existence—and the mountain trembled violently. A blade of energy slashed across the sky, stretching for hundreds of miles, screaming as it tore the air apart and sent hurricane winds blasting down into the ritual cave.
The confusion only deepened. Was that what this was all for? The entire ritual—Cayden's death, the planetary invasion—just to heal Thorn?
And what did he mean by causality attacking him? What the hell did any of it mean?
The games of gods are truly beyond comprehension.
"Guess the finishing touch is my honor," Thorn cackled. Then, with one dramatic slap of his spectral wing, he struck the still-frozen Arthur Moonleaf and hurled him into the inverted waterfall.
The ink responded instantly.
It surged into Arthur's flesh—violently. Burrowing through every pore, down his throat, into his ears, into his soul. No sound escaped him. Only the silent contortions of agony as the black tide claimed him.
When it was done, Arthur lay collapsed atop the altar where the abyssal pillar once stood. Vandalized. Twitching. Shattered.
"Stop being a baby," Thorn scoffed. "We'll rewrite your memories in the next timeline anyway."
[Skill: Rune Arts — Spear Strike!]
A silver spear, etched with runes, whistled through the air and passed clean through Thorn's ghostly form. A knight in shimmering silver armor followed it, grabbing Thorn mid-flight and slamming him into the earth so hard it tossed the rest of us into the cavern walls from the impact shockwave.
"Good to see you back in one piece too, Silven," Thorn wheezed from the crater he'd made. "Temporal causality fixes itself fast, huh?"
Stunned, the silver knight paused. "What are you talking about?" he muttered. "What... causality fix?"
"Just kill him already, idiot!" came another voice—a demonic one. And a meteor wreathed in flames screamed toward us, howling with otherworldly fury.
[Skill: Alchemy — Demonise!]
Thorn's body erupted, shadows and silver fire surging as he transformed into a colossal black lion crowned with twin horns. He tore free from the crater tossing Silven aside and swung his massive paw. The meteor broke apart as he smacked a hooded devil straight out of it and into the cave wall with bone-crushing force.
"So good to be back, just so I can wreck you personally, bastard!" His shadow mane flared with silver fire as he slammed his horned skull into the devil, launching him out of the mountain in a blaze of rage and joy.
But before the devil disappeared, I caught a glimpse under his hood. His face—his eyes—were unmistakable.
Burgundy hair. Emerald eyes. The same as Cayden's.
"What the hell is going on?" I whispered. No one answered. We were all equally lost.
Even Silven, the angelic knight, looked stricken. His armor glowed faintly as he tried to understand. "Did... causality erase me?" he murmured. "How did I even get here?"
Before he could think further, a woman walked out of the air itself—drenched in ink across her naked body, calm as a whisper. She stepped down from nothing and wiped her mouth clean with one hand, letting out a long breath.
"That's the universe's causal fixture," she said casually. "Correcting events the way they should have happened, but refusing to change the past. Lazy, if you ask me."
Silven lifted his hand, calling his rune spear to him with a magnetic pull. He leveled it at her, voice taut with anger. "What was the goal of all this?"
"To save Thorn," she replied, cleaning herself with a pulse of magic. Her appearance shifted. Fresh clothes, pristine skin, as if none of the dirt had ever touched her. "And to build the future he and Traveler came from. Obviously."
She stepped toward Arthur, giving him a soft nudge with her foot and watching his shattered form tremble.
"Fascinating to learn," she added thoughtfully, "that you and the devil currently being used as a chew toy are from that same future. Traveler keeps so many secrets... even from me."
Then, sighing as if exhausted by the drama, she pointed at Arthur. "It's pointless to explain," she said. "You'll forget all this when the regression ends. Which, if I calculated correctly—and I always do—will happen in... about five minutes. His soul and the controller I've placed onto his [aspect] are still in the process of melding. Once that's done I'll have full control of Arthur's regressions and be able to retain my memory after each universal regression just like Traveler can."
A bright green light gathered at the witch's fingertip. She fired a bolt of pure magic pierced Arthur's chest, killing him instantly.
Silven seethed, fists clenched. Rage radiated from his silver-white armor. He understood now—what Arthur truly was. A regressor. A life meant to end. Meant to die again and again in order to create a timeline neither he nor we had chosen. All for Traveler's desire to ensure Thorn's existence.
With a sigh he released that rage. Impaling his spear in the ground and taking a seat crossing his legs on the floor.
Surprising the witch as she asked, "what are you doing?"
"Waiting." Silven said firmly. "There's no way to stop the regression now that you've killed, Arthur. I'm not irrational enough to act out when nothing will be the outcome. Even if i kill you it's clear the regression will make it like nothing happened. But let me promise you this, witch. Even if its not by my hand, karma will come and take everything from you."
"How astute." Amazed by Silven's gall the witch waved her finger conjuring a table with two cups of tea on it before she sat across from Silven. "I know. Everything i love and cherish will be taken away by my own hands by the end of this story." Offering a toast the witch said, "I'll ensure a happy tragedy for you in destiny's course, [sentinel of the dreaming]."
Blowing through his helmet Silven raised a teacup off the table and tapped it against the witches cup. "How did you ever convince Strife to work with you?"
"Like i did with all the
"And what is Strife's wish?" Silven asked.
Cupping her teacup in both hands the witch sighed loudly. "To sleep at peace." Chuckling she found it absurd. "It's an impossible wish, ironically. He can't sleep. He can't know peace. But he trusts me to find a way. What a madman the Traveler is, isn't he? Trusting a lying schemer like me."
Silven sipped his tea and mumbled with quiet delight. "That he is. That he is."
***
Blasting through a train car, Strife went hurtling across the sky—shattering through floating rail lines and several speeding trains before clawing himself to a stop, his gauntleted fingers tearing through the top of a mile-long train.
He barely had a moment to breathe.
Drallknit flew in at Mach speed and crashed both neon swords onto Strife, the weight of a planet behind them.
[Skill: Anti-Matter — Kralscell Killer!]
Strife barely reacted in time. He summoned a warhammer with telekinesis, managing to block the incoming blades—but the force still tore through the train beneath him. The shock vibrated through his body, making him cough blood inside his helmet.
Then came the punch.
The Outer God's spare arm slammed into Strife's helmet, shattering its faceplate and revealing the bloodied, mad grin beneath. Strife tumbled, rolled, and rose, eyes burning.
"I didn't crawl out of hell just to bow to a graffitied statue with a sword fetish! Bring it!!!"
[Aspect: Taken Devourer — Telekinesis!]
[Skill: Sephiwrath — Ninth Gate of Malkhut!]
A divine howl tore through Strife's bones. His veins ignited. His flesh boiled. His armor melted and peeled as radiant gold and silver markings carved themselves into his skin like divine scripture wrought by wrath.
Strife hit his zenith.
Weapons—all weapons—ripped from the world. A sea of steel and ruin swirled above him. Swords, halberds, axes, glaives, daggers, hammers—launched like a divine storm called to judgment.
Drallknit didn't flinch. "Show me all that you are, Kralscell."
He spun, cloak lashing like comet tails, twin neon blades orbiting him in a blur. Swords clanged and shattered. Axes sparked off his stone flesh. Blades slammed and broke against his rune-laced mannequin body.
But not all were harmless.
A few—old ones, bathed in soul and godflesh—cut deeper. He bled smoke. His joints groaned. His grin only widened.
Drallknit was loving it. Discovering joy in pandemonium. Infected by the madness he fought.
"Hahaha!" Strife howled with manic glee as he dove through the weapon storm, snatching a jagged axe mid-air and swinging it into Drallknit's torso. The blow landed—deep—and sent cracks spiraling down the knight's chest, marring the art painted on the Outer God's body.
Drallknit only laughed harder. "Ahahaha! What kind of god fights like this?!"
[Skill: Pantheon Collapse — Apostate Blow!]
His blades shifted—neon turned to void, soaked in something wrong. With a scream of delight, Drallknit cleaved through the storm, closed the distance, and slashed through Strife's shoulder—severing muscle and plating alike. Then he headbutted him. Bone crunched.
Strife stumbled, coughing red and black. "You're starting to learn how a fight's really supposed to be," he growled.
Drallknit swung again. Strife caught the blade in his gauntleted palms. The eldritch edge cut through his hand—but he didn't care. He pulled Drallknit forward—and headbutted him back.
Skull met stone.
A thunderclap. The air warped.
Both staggered. Both grinned.
"The kind that hates being god," Strife said, licking blood from his lip.
"You're a walking psychosis," Drallknit replied, touching a crack across his blank stone face. "But I'll admit... I've never fought something so beautifully deranged. There's such inspiration in madness. I've never seen it... until now."
[Skill: Painted End — Armageddon Fall!]
"I'll use that inspiration to draw a death worthy of you!" Swinging his two longswords like paintbrushes in his four arms, the Outer God sketched a meteor of anti-matter into existence—moon-sized—and dropped it on top of them both.
Before Strife could escape, Drallknit's blades flew through him—briefly killing him. The wounds in his chest closed. Revival triggered. But he was already beneath the descending meteor. It crushed him—and then detonated in a roar of anti-matter, sending his corpse smoking down into a passing train.
Strife revived mid-fall. Anti-matter expelled from his body. His armor regrew. He snapped his neck back into place and rose, dragging several weapons toward him with telekinesis.
Drallknit dropped down on him, blades crossed in an X—pinning Strife's gauntlets and stolen weapons between them. Gravitational shockwaves detonated outward, collapsing the rail network beneath.
Miles of floating rail and hundreds of trains imploded—dragged into black spirals of Drallknit's making.
As they fell the two glared at each other as they plummeted through the sky and slammed into the surface of the planet.
Both were ruined.
Drallknit cracked and bleeding outer god essence, distorting reality around him. Strife drenched in blood, armor deformed from constant self-repair. Neither could take much more.
But both had loved it.
This duel. This conversation of weapons. This chaos. This respect born of fury.
Yet only one could leave.
An Oblivion Hunter is made to hunt oblivion. And a Kralscell is made to bring it. Respect couldn't change the outcome. Only one would survive.
"Let's end this properly!" they both roared.
[Regalius Breaker: Eternity's Garden!]
[Regalius Breaker: Puppeteer's Glorious Show!]
They poured their souls into the attacks, igniting their [Regalius Breakers]. Reality and reason bent. Their worlds collided.
A garden of wrath bloomed behind Strife—an endless crimson mausoleum, overgrown with warped golden trees whose vines were braided nooses, and whose flowers sang the dirges of nightmares. The cracked ground birthed blades like seeds hurled by an angry god.
Drallknit's world descended like a corrupted curtain. His puppet show was forged from fractured souls. He was no longer one being—but a chorus of himself, puppet-shaped reflections yanked forward on strings of lightless matter. His movements twisted beyond logic, each strike a spiral of violent grace.
Then the worlds clashed.
A garden of fury met a theatre of finality. Stolen weapons pierced puppets, and puppets shattered stolen weapons.
Two barbed whips lashed out from Strife's hands, coiling around Drallknit's limbs and tearing his stone arms from their sockets.
Drallknit carved months off Strife's life with every blow, painting them into the stage as new acts in his annihilation play.
Their [Regalius Breakers] consumed one another.
Strife drove a dozen ghostly halberds into Drallknit's chest.
Drallknit opened Strife's torso with a void-dipped gesture, puppet strings tearing his bones out of place mid-combat.
They didn't scream. Didn't beg.
They just fought.
Mad grins carved across their broken faces.
Then—finally—their power waned.
The two imaginary world's cracked. The garden wilted and the theatre collapsed.
And the two monsters charged. No powers. No skills. Just fists. Just fury, as crumbling dimensions collapsed around them.
Strife's gauntlet slammed into Drallknit's face, caving it in—launching shrapnel into orbit.
For a breath, it felt like victory.
But Drallknit's palm, glowing with anti-matter, sank into Strife's chest—fingers curling around his central heart. The madman choked, eyes wide just as a flying sword, its edge soaked in anti-matter, tore through Drallknit's skull and disintegrated his vision before he dropped lifeless.
His head was now a squashed grape.
Strife's heart was halfway out of his chest, blood gushing like a fountain of war.
The Oblivion Hunter and the Kralscell died in each other's arms—still trying to kill each other—kneeling in a crater of annihilation with no bottom.
And for a moment, on the torn planet. There was peace.