[aspect: creations prowess — railgun rifle!]
Tumbling across the steel surface of the planet the kralscell of invention in his suit of advanced armour repositioned himself before slapping a metal hand on the ground. Constructing an army's worth of guns from the metals in the ground all aimed at his pursuer.
Cloaked in rainbow light wielding a strange sabre similar to a sceptre, the kralscell of memory swung her blade with a powerful swing imbued with the energy of time. Drawing forth a future that had already happened as all the weapons aimed at her were split apart with projections of herself showing how.
"Kralscell of invention! Known as the [ingenious contriver] across the
Before the kralscell of memory could finish her command several explosives ejected from the ground right beneath her. At the same time an electrical field that stopped all time flow in a small area caught her letting the explosive detonate right into her body with a force capable of erasing a small city off a map completely.
Huffing through his metal helmet the kralscell of invention spoke with a warped voice not his own. "The steel core belongs to none. As its connection to a physical body it is our obligation to ensure its safety from captors such as yourself, archon of deliverance."
Emerging from the smoke the kralscell of memory showed she had used her rainbow blade and cape like shields to protect herself from the explosion with pieces of shrapnel lodged in her skin.
Noting her focus wasn't on him at the moment the kralscell of invention, currently berserk under aether's control, she was looking at a boy with dark hair and chiseled face dressed in white apostle garbs of
"Offer: cease your attacks and you can leave with the CGA ranger's you brought to this planet." The kralscell of invention announced.
"Hah!"
Tossing off her musketeer hat. The kralscell of memory laughed back at the offer while her beautiful face was grinning with rage while her golden and sapphire hair flowed in the air.
"You destroy this world by planting the empyrean here coincidentally as i had business with the sword god of this planet? If anything it makes me think you're part of that terrorist group the Erroneous Virtues!"
Sharpening the rainbow light around her sabre with her fingers the kralscell of memory got ready for another confrontation.
"I will take you down and get answers for your actions today. Even if you're currently as mad as that traveler bastard."
Clenching his fist the kralscell of invention sent a signal through the planet that traveled across to right by where Arthur Moonleaf and his two injured ally's. Building a gun right behind him that shot ARthur in the back with blue plasma and burnt his insides.
"No!!" Twisting around in a shock the kralscell of memory couldn't believe that the kralscell of invention would use such an underhanded method.
Being too lost in her shock to notice the suit of metal jettisoning to her now with a giant hammer before it slammed against her back and nearly crushed her into the ground. Almost impaling her on the multiple spikes protruding from the steel floor before she used her sword to remain upright.
[aspect: regression zero - rewind]
[aspect cancelled!]
"What?" Stunned her powers of time had been completely erased, the kralscell of memory quickly realised the source. "What the hell is this hammer? It blocking me from accessing the local time and siphoning my internal aether?"
Without an answer the kralscell of invention kept simply hitting the kralscell of memory down with the hammer before the spikes in the floor shot up.
Nearly impaling Memory before she escaped and darted after Arthur as he and the two other
Not pursuing her the kralscell of invention simply stood in place. Not being taken further away from the empyrean and the world tree made of various metals. Its trunk and roots a shining silver of irons, silvers and platinums along with other grey metals. While the world tree's leaves were made from various colourful metals of bronze, gold and so forth.
Taking a moment to scan the area however he immediately noticed something off within the growing world tree.
[aspect: taken devourer - bow fang!]
Before he could move to save the empyrean, a black star briefly shone from the hollow inside the world tree where the empyrean was shining its blue light from. Firing a black arrow right at him before it expanded into the shape of a bird and greeted him beak to helmet.
"Whats up, dumbass!"
"The parasite shadow?!"
Crashing into the kralscell of invention and tearing off his armour with a silver blaze. Thorn expelled silver flames from his blackened ghost feathers covering the whole area in solar flares of silver melting the metal ground.
Thorn's body expanded into a massive phoenix intensifying the silver fires as the area they spread to melt the land immediately as the heat worsened. With a massive flap of his wings Thorn blew away the kralscell of invention, his suit of advanced armour melting off from around him as his short brown hair, goggle covered eyes and long ears of an elf were revealed before he was sent flying miles away in a single infernal gale from Thorn.
[stigma: equal correlation - sequence: 9.4!]
Stood in the hollow cavity of the metal world tree a black bow made of writhing ink made from my [aspect's] essence was held in my right hand.
I lowered the bow being a little surprised, "Culkin must of still been resisting the empyrean's influence if he was repelled that easily by Thorn."
Emitting metallic clanging sounds behind me as its blue light radiated with intense energy, the [fail-safe dial empyrean] was banging and clanging the metals composing the world tree. Trying to influence the world around it to defend itself from me but without a host or physical body that was impossible.
While empyrean's may appear crystalline on their own their forms are purely made of non-physical elements being closer to a ghost or plasma if not a holographic form of dimensional energies.
The empyrean's giving a flashy display but while its still mid-process of sprouting its world tree to anchor itself into the physical dimensions. It's actually at its weakest currently even if its influence can draw in all the metals of the planet.
"You going to do the smart thing like the last time we were in this situation or make me work for it?" I asked the gem.
The glowing blue gem that was a shaped like a cog with a clock dial on it shifted in contemplation before exploding sapphire blue light with a deafening howl into my face. Billowing wind through my clothes like wind from a thunderstorm filled the cavity in the world tree.
"I figured you'd do that. At least you're smart enough to not exhaust yourself by forcing a physical body into existence like the [cadenza note empyrean] did before."
[aspect: taken devourer - bow fang!]
Lifting the writhing black bow of ink back up i pulled back the silver string as a fang-like arrow manifested in place before shooting an invisible machine in the chest and exploding with golden light. Sucking in and crushing all the other invisible machines that were sneaking up on me until there was nothing left but an electrified static in the air.
"...not giving in easily, are you?" I said, before pulling back the bowstring of the inky bow once more. Three fang-like arrows manifested this time before shooting them into the sky with such force the shockwave of release broke the metals inside the tree cavity.
Flying through the air the three arrows flew past Thorn and struck his opponent about to slip past him. Freezing over his power suit with the first arrow before the second and third arrow added gravity onto his body and crashed the kralscell of invention down into the metal world.
'I had it sorted, pisspot! Stop stealing my victims!' Thorn raged telepathically into my ears.
"The empyrean's being difficult. I'm trying to negotiate with it."
'Stop negotiating with the cog-gem and just take it already!' Thorn shouted in my head again.
Sighing loudly i tapped the bow's arch against my right shoulder while spinning a strange arrow between my left hands fingers. "Well, that makes this boring then. Being an archer did make this fun for a little bit at least."
[an aspect of fate is reversing time!]
[aspect: taken devourer - takes the time!]
Feeling the time flow of the world and universe still around me. I looked around wondering what happened before realising its source.
"Arthur's having his first regression? I thought I'd have to kill him myself to start it. I'll say what i will about Culkin but he does know how to get a job done."
Loosing the bow i made it disappear before paying special attention to the universe around me. Time was beginning to rewind itself on a supposed to be impossible scale on not just this world. Not the galaxy. But the entire universe. Anything that has ever existed was about to go backwards in time and not have any idea about it.
With such powerful time manipulation even the exalted with incredible affinities for time laws won't notice a thing. Its only because of my immunity to most causal laws that I'm able to exist as an outsider and witness everything flowing in reverse.
Looking down from the tree i saw the dead Arthur Moonleaf cradled in the weeping arms of the kralscell of memory. Her powers of time pouring into him trying to resurrect him but the regression he started was too powerful to be stopped by such a desperate resurrection method. Even if it was a kralscell attempting so.
The rewind began to speed up rapidly, and the world tree i was within had disappeared to before it began to grow. With the Wanxia planet back to full health with mystical vegetation and its denizens returning to life having the metal in their bodies ripped back inside them as time continued to march in reverse.
"This is a weird sight." Thorn muttered, matching my thoughts as he arrived back by my side.
The time reversal also showed it was Culkin himself who brought the empyrean to this planet while lost in a trance from its influence on his mind.
My arm reached out to grab Culkin and the [fail-safe dial empyrean] but there was no effect as my fingers just passed through him. It was like putting my hand through a stream of flowing water and expecting myself to be able to keep hold of its flow instead of slipping through my fingers.
"So time can't touch me but neither can i touch time as it's like this." I muttered while Thorn landed nearby shrinking his large size down. "That means i won't be able to restore people's memories of different timelines with something as simple as a blessing then. Unfortunate but fair i guess. A story needs some difficulty."
As the process continued parts of the human body i used like a shell deteriorated, trying to be taken back along the reversal of time. Letting streams of golden flames and extending silver roots creep out from beneath the gaps in my skin before my immortality regenerated the wounds to contain my true body within this human body once more.
Unable to do anything i could only watch Culkin walk into his spaceship in reverse with the empyrean as it controlled him before his ship flew backwards out of the planet. while time across the whole universe simply kept going backwards by several years by the minute until it stopped.
The universe was paused for a moment as if it were a computer before unpausing everything and the time flow returned to normal.
Just a couple minutes ago i was trying to coerce a literal multidimensional star into submission within a world tree made of metal. But now i was just in the middle of a random dirt road with multiple archaic people dressed in rags passing by and immortal cultivators flying past on oddly shaped devices or magical creatures.
"How far back do you think we've gone?" Thorn asked as he jumped up to my shoulder in his regular raven size.
Scratching my head i thought about it aloud. "At best twenty or so years. The earliest will probably be a few days after we first stabilised Arthur when he was born as the Fate Prodigal. If we go to Laegii we'll find out when his checkpoint is."
Blowing out a loud sigh it was impossible to hide my displeasure. "Living through the same years over and over again. This is going to get boring really quickly."