The Mirror failed to reflect anything but the 11-year-old prodigy.
Darcie Malfoy stared at herself, her lips arching up with every second. There was a great sense of accomplishment in a mere reflection, she realized.
This is hard, Kai thought, frowning within. Hanging between the boundary of Facelessness.
Kai had attempted it before, but not to this extent. Acting as both Darcie Malfoy and himself while wearing her face…
This was one of the ways Kai had devised to push his mastery over the Three Contrasts of the Faceless by another degree.
No Faceless Man, whether a Contestant or Character, would reject him being one of them now.
However, it wasn't in Kai's nature to be content with the current power he held.
Any power that he couldn't push further was never true power, to begin with.
Kai stared at the Mirror, then. He walked around it, observing it from all angles, and then returned to his starting position.
Hmm… Kai brooded, holding his chin. Nothing. Not even the barest hint of Black's presence on or within it. What actually happened?!
Kai wasn't overly worried about Black.
Worse came to Worse, he would just use D-Mail.
For now, he knew that if Black purposefully took risks then the Ad Infinitum believed that Kai could gain major rewards through them.
Otherwise, the AI would have never allowed the Item to go through with it without informing Kai first as the two were still not in Synchronization.
"Thinking of playing with time again?" Darcie's voice buzzed in Kai's ears.
Kai's head snapped up. His heart almost skipped a beat.
There she was, looking back at him — Darcie Malfoy, the Celebrity of the Wizarding World.
Even if he couldn't access his Stats with this face, he could still guess the true identity of the person smiling at him from the other side of the mirror.
"Timeline…" Kai worded, his poisonous, green pupils shaking.
By now, Kai had already confirmed many things related to the Deep Ones, Timelines, and organizations that remained out of the timelines as Overseers.
It was especially so after he regained his sealed memories.
There was a symbiotic relationship between the Timelines, the Bubble Entities, and an Outer One with the authority over Crawling Chaos — Nyarlathotep.
Neither the Timelines nor the Bubble Entities favored each other. And both didn't tolerate an Outer One's presence.
However, their presence in the Random World was just too crucial for their mutual existence.
The Timelines needed Bubble Entities for the potential invasion of an Outer One, who could cause invariable resonances between the timelines of different Random Worlds.
Such a process could render the timelines of both Random Worlds useless; dead, to be precise, birthing something new; an abomination.
The Bubble Entities needed the Timelines to replicate the Concept of Infinity; the source of their powers. They extracted their powers from Pillars, Mirrors, and Keys, becoming Unique and Infinite.
Regardless of their intentions, the existence of timelines was irreplaceable for them.
And, if a Timeline somehow tried to elevate its existence, without becoming an abomination, then it needed the help of external influence to bring out an early Karmic Dissolution.
That's where Nyarlathotep came into the picture.
As such, the Bubble Entity too tolerated such an Outer One's existence.
Yet, these all also acted as Parasites, feeding off each other.
That's why, in the case of Timelines, the less the Bubble Entities, the better. And in the case of the Deep Ones, the fewer variations in the Timelines, the better.
Nyarlathotep's existence was already unique if such an Outer One ever came into being.
Standing on the opposite spectrum of these symbiotic eldritch entities were Overseer-like Organizations.
The Timelines tolerated such things because, more often than not, they couldn't interfere with the fate of their own Characters; in turn, they also couldn't control any variations in those fates.
The Bubble Entities tolerated them for the same reason.
However, both Deep Ones and the Timelines remained wary of them, too, because of their potential and the beings who were such Organizations' members.
But, unlike Bubble Entities and Timelines, the Overseer-like Organizations abhorred the presence of an Outer One.
In the case of The Order Of The Immortal Lotus, this was the same. Not to mention, they didn't even know that the Outer One who had invaded their Bubble was not just an Outer One, but Nyarlathotep!
Darcie looked at her reflection gaining an eldritch vibe. "What do you mean?"
The Timeline chuckled. "Your precious Item doesn't exist in past, present, or future... anywhere."
Kai scoffed the moment he heard those words.
Then his heart skipped another beat.
The Ad Infinitum had just generated a possibility that he had buried deep within himself. His deepest desire came bubbling out, nauseating him to the greatest extent.
"Desires are not so innocent as people think them to be," Darcie's reflection told him, a small smile hanging on her lips. "Do you understand?"
Kai couldn't give two fucks to the Timeline right now.
He was busy working on theories and possibilities of Black seeing his deepest desire come true through the Mirror.
The Conclusion left him breathless.
Kai narrowed his eyes at the girl in the Mirror, regaining his breath after a while. "Why are you here? What's in it for you?"
Of course, Kai had already figured that the Timeline must have come to him because IT knew how to bring Black back.
"Some Bugs have invaded me," Timeline said, her voice chilling the bones. "I want them gone. Their presence here is against the Great Old Contract."
Bugs? Kai frowned.
Then he remembered. Those presences Black had sensed which then the AI had shared with him.
Contestants!
Kai had always wondered how they teleported to the timeline without him getting to know about it. Now he believed they had descended into the timeline through unconventional means.
But, he felt something fishy.
"What does it matter?" Kai asked. "Invasion or not, Bugs are Bugs. I refuse to believe that you can't deal with them yourself."
Darcie's reflection scoffed. "My existence is at a delicate point. Any momentary weakness can push me back to being a mere Mirror. That's where you come in, Nyarlathotep. If you want your precious Item back, then help me deal with them."
For a moment, Kai wanted to reject the Timeline.
However, if he was right, then Kai might not be able to regain Black… like ever. If even reversing time failed, then there were little things that could bring what didn't exist in time itself.
"I have conditions," Kai said.
"Of course, you have."
Kai ignored the blatant sarcasm. "First, I want to know what exactly happened with Black," he said, lifting his fingers one by one. "Second, I want to understand how the Mirror works. Third, I want to know how to make the Mirror mine."
Kai was interested in anything that could bypass his mindscape.
For the Mirror to break through his AI's defense and access his deepest desire, it might lead to unexplored possibilities to further advance the Ad Infinitum, increasing its Proficiency.
"You demand as if you can easily kill those Bugs," Darcie's reflection chuckled.
"…?" Kai shrugged. Why wouldn't he think that? They were just Contestants. Once he went all out, he could take care of any Bugs, no matter how powerful.
He was the Supreme Protector!
The Timeline lifted her fingers one by one, starting with her thumb. "First, you should have asked what it means to invade a Timeline. Second, you should have asked what it means to go against the Great Old Contract. Third…"
The Timeline closed the thumb and forefinger and then opened up her middle finger.
"… Third, you should have asked are you strong enough to survive against those Bugs."
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