Volume 5 – Chapter 18 (in-editing v3)

Volume 5 – Chapter 18

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Present Day

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Aaron Bartram was the closest thing Humanity had to a Titled Deity.

The Conceptual Power known as Vector did exactly what its namesake implied: it allowed Aaron to manipulate the vectors of anything within arm’s reach, at the speed of thought.

He could take a grain of sand and transform it into a weapon of mass destruction in a fraction of a second, altering the very forces that bound its existence at a quantum level.

Aaron’s singular Mastery over this Conceptual Power allowed him to fundamentally manipulate reality, in a manner comparable to the reality warping beings that called themselves Gods.

It was an incredibly esoteric ability, a power that only Aaron, and Aaron alone, possessed.

And it was that same power that also made him incredibly difficult to kill.

Any attack sent his way could be sent back, by virtue of his preternatural understanding of his surroundings. From Magic Spells to Weapon Energy, from powerful Artifacts to long-range Curses, the type of attack didn’t matter – by the very nature of the laws that governed existence, everything had a vector of some kind.

Ergo, nothing could hit him if he didn’t allow it.

It was why Aaron proudly wore attention-grabbing, gleaming white armor, and a fluttering red cape.

It was to make a statement, a rallying cry against all those who would see humankind perish.

When you came for humanity, you came for him.

The undefeatable.

The untouchable.

Commander of the Round Table.

The White Knight.

His very existence served as a deterrent, a very intentional projection of power.

It was thanks to Aaron that humanity managed to establish itself on the Third Layer, gaining a foothold in the City-State of Axellion. It was his leadership that saw the disparate humans on the Third Layer unite, under the formation of the Round Table, creating a lasting bastion in this region that would go on to survive his eventual death in the first timeline.

His death at the hands of Jay sol Arget had always been a mystery…

A mystery that Micheal was now well on his way to solving.

‘It doesn’t matter how powerful you are, not when facing someone with infinite time.’ A Time Loop, as paradoxical as that sounded, made perfect sense.

‘That’s how the Strongest Human died.’ Micheal thought, grimly.

‘Jar sol Arget just kept trying, over and over, across Time, until he found a method that worked.’  

Micheal blinked as his attention snapped back to the present, focusing back on the conversation.  

“To know your every waking moment is utterly without meaning…” Vesper opined, the smile fading from her face.

“It’s infuriating.” Her eyes quite literally glowed as she stared Micheal down.

“And so, I, and my previous Loop’s selves, have created a chain of information, cataloging important details from each Loop. They pass down what they knew, and I too shall pass down what I knew, until we are free.”

As she spoke the word ‘free,’ the air itself began to fluctuate, stray orbs of Mana floating around the young Void Noble.

“I refuse to let my fate be decided by anyone but myself.” She snarled, veins throbbing as she spat the words out.

“I see.” Micheal interjected, his mind racing.

Vesper von Atlas was a name that went down in infamy in his first life.

The act of patricide, killing her own father, destabilized the southern regions of the Third Layer, allowing untold chaos to foment as the Duke’s sworn bannermen rebelled, cascading into a Layer-spanning war that only grew harsher with the onset of the Rush, where billions of other beings began to arrive on the Third Layer.

‘The Northern territories are already a lost cause.’ The Red Line, as it came to be known, was an alliance of Void Nobles led by the Hero Allmaster, the Lord of the Helianor Principality to the North.

The Red Line stretched across more than a dozen City-States, overseeing thousands of miles of floating islands. There, the Void Nobles actively genocided any non-Void Natives that they encountered.  

‘Rumor had it that Vesper killed her father due to a disagreement over her engagement.’ Micheal had never paid much attention to the matter. Studying Void Noble relations hadn’t exactly been a priority for him in his first life.

Slowly, bit by bit, he was beginning to unravel the cause and effect of Vesper’s tumultuous life in the first timeline.

“And your… previous selves. They mentioned us?” Micheal waved at both him and Shin.

Vesper nodded daintily.

“You are my Grandmaster with eyes of blue.” Her eyes flickered towards Micheal, and then to Shin.

“And his fallen friend, who has yet to fall.” She frowned.

“In every Loop so far, you’ve clashed with the Unseen one. However…” Her frown deepened.

“This Loop is different.” She tilted her head slightly to the left as she studied Micheal.

“How so?” Micheal returned, the very spitting image of placid calm.

‘I need to choose my words carefully when I speak to her.’ The ramifications of being trapped inside a Time Loop were already running through his mind. Anything he said to Vesper, presumably, could be passed on to the next Loop, should they fail to break free.

“You two are here early.” Vesper motioned, pointing at him and Shin.

“We are?” Micheal’s eyes narrowed ever so slightly, while Shin looked back and forth between them, unwilling to interrupt.

Vesper nodded back.

“Before you go any further, I’d like to ask you something.” Micheal continued, holding up a hand. Vesper silently nodded her ascent.

“How many Loops have passed, by your reckoning?” Micheal forced down a small sense of dread, controlling his emotions through pure strength of will.

Vesper took a moment to reply, her lips pursed in thought.

“I cannot say for certain. It’s possible my chain of information has been disrupted at some point… but…” Vesper spoke quietly, her voice a bare whisper.

“Since I started keeping track and passing that information on…”

“This should be the 74th Loop.”

That revelation hit Micheal like a physical blow.

’74 Loops.’

It was shocking, in many ways.

‘It means we failed to stop him… 73 times.’ Micheal felt bile rise up in the back of his throat.

‘My efforts were not enough. I was not enough.’

Once more, the fate of humanity was at threat due to the accursed beings known as Titled Deities.

“My previous iterations have spent prior Loops analyzing the formation of this temporal anomaly.” Vesper continued.

“It took several Loops before I found out the cause. Initially, I suspected Eon. He visits my father a day before the Founding Celebration.”

Shin perked up, recognizing the name from Micheal’s explanations prior.

“The King of Heroes?” Shin questioned.

“Yes, the very same!” Vesper smiled sweetly at Shin.

“He possesses Stratos, an Artifact capable of influencing the very fabric of Time itself.” Vesper shook her head.

“However, no matter how hard I tried, I could find no motive or reason for him to form this cursed Loop. Eventually, I thought it might perchance be caused by the Void, or some sort of natural cause.” She sighed.

“That was, until I realized that there was another factor at play. A disruptor.” Vesper snarled.

“An agitator, manipulating events from the shadows. At first, I was uncertain.” She said with a frown.

“But as the Loops began to diverge, it was the only explanation I could surmise. Someone was intentionally changing things, from Loop to Loop. And it all centered around two things.” She continued, turning her gaze towards Shin.

“Killing you.” She pointed at Shin.

“And killing the White Knight.”  

Micheal kneaded his forehead as he processed this information, fighting down a headache.

‘He’s after Shin? Why?’ Clearly, it had something to do with Micheal’s actions as far as intervening. He already knew that Jay sol Arget was targeting Aaron.

Shin, in the meanwhile, donned a studied frown as he heard the bad news.

“Well, that’s not good, huh?” He rubbed his shoulders, awkwardly.

“Mm. Quite.” Vesper nodded.

“When does it happen?” Micheal queried, his voice drawn.

They were definitely on the backfoot, now, but their situation wasn’t hopeless, not yet. Simply knowing about the existence of the Loop was important, because that meant they could still change things.  

“Well, it was supposed to go down 8 days from now.” Vesper leaned back, shifting daintily on her plush white chair.

“The Founding Celebration.” Micheal instantly made the connection.

“Yes.” Vesper nodded.

The Founding Celebration was a massive festival held by House Atlas, celebrating the founding of Castle Atlas and formation of the City-State of Axellion. Their lineage held a long, storied history tracing back hundreds of years through the sands of time. It was an incredibly important event, one in which the Duke utilized to cement his power and authority, with a display of military might and power that lasted four full days.

All of the Duke's bannerman would be invited, as would their Knight Commanders in turn. It was the single-largest gathering of military forces that would occur each year in the southern regions of the Third Layer, at least as far as Void Nobles were concerned.

‘It’s so soon after we arrived.’ Micheal thought with a frown.

‘It’s clearly intentional.’ Jay sol Arget must’ve started this Time Loop with the intention of ambushing them as close to when they arrived on the Third Layer as possible.

It made sense, when he thought about it.

If you had the power to loop Time, why give your enemy any room to spare?

Micheal would’ve done the exact same thing if their positions were swapped. It was only logical.

“Yes. This is where, in every previous Loop, you two first showed up.” Vesper’s eyes narrowed as she gazed at Micheal, matching his stare.

“But not this one, here. We’re early.” Micheal returned.

“Indeed. Curious, is it not?” Vesper giggled, raising her silver fan to cover her smile.

“Why?” He asked her, hoping for an answer.

“That, I don’t know.” Vesper shook her head, closing her fan with a loud snap.

“You and I, we’ve never spoken face to face before. This is the first time I’ve managed to make contact with you.” She added, causing Micheal to come to a pause.

‘If she’s lying, I’d have no way to tell.’ Her appearance thus far was the very picture of honest innocence, but it was difficult to fully trust her, not knowing what he did about her original life in the first timeline.

“How does he kill Aaron?” Micheal responded, his mind racing as he began to think, trying to come up with countermeasures.

“I don’t know.” Vesper’s tone gained a harsh edge as her frustration bled through.

“I don’t know how he’s managed it, but during the Founding Celebration, the Unseen One found a way to lure in a powerful Foreigner, who disrupts the Festival, alongside two Apex Void Predators. It’s the single greatest disaster Axellion has ever faced.” Vesper spat, emphasizing the slur associated with all newly-arrived non-Void Natives.

“The chaos obliterates much of Axellion, turning it into a battlefield that destroys everything I know.” Her voice was quiet as she went on,

“I cannot chance any disruption to the chain of information I’ve built. The risk is far too great, and this has left me blind to the truth of what occurs.” Vesper audibly ground her teeth, spitting the words out venomously.

“All I know is that when the dust settles, your friend is dead.” She pointed to Shin,

“The White Knight goes missing.”

"The King of Heroes is enraged."

"And my father is crippled."

“And... 12 days later.” She continued, her voice dropping.

“The Loop draws to an end, and everything begins again.”

There was a moment of silence as Vesper’s words settled, a quiet tension resting in the dour calm.

After a moment passed, Micheal broke that tension, asking about something that was bothering him.

“You mentioned a powerful Foreigner. Who?” He frowned as he spoke, already considering the worst case scenario.

‘Surely not…’

Of the countless races brought into the 7 Layers, there were many instances of individually powerful beings capable of altering the fate of an entire species. Titled Deities were an obvious example, but other individuals, like the Lord Justiciar of the Farians, were capable of singlehandedly shifting the course of their species’ history.

There was one name in particular Micheal did not want to hear, a singularly powerful individual that climbed to the Third Layer during this time period.

“Yes, I don’t know much about them, but I do know their name and title.” Vesper tapped her fan against her chin.

“I think it was…” She paused.

“Kyvenval.”  

“The so called God-Emperor of Kalos.”

‘Of course it’s him.’ Micheal suppressed the urge to groan as he kneaded his forehead again.

The Supreme Ruler of the Kalosian species homeworld, Chosen in the First Wave, and the leader of one of the few species to maintain its ruling government across the 7 Layers as they climbed upward.

A callous, arrogant warrior who was renowned for his hobby of collecting Legendary Artifacts.

And… what truly made him so fearsome an opponent…

Kyvenval was a Speedster.

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