There was something to be said about enjoying the simple pleasure of routine. A passionate gardener liked tending their plants each day. A zealous priest might take comfort in the routine of prayer each morning.

And Orodan loved dying over and over again while fighting impossible odds.

It was routine, really.

A routine hammered into his skull quite literally, as the Mage’s conjured black hole ground down against his face while another ground against the back of his head, trapping him from both directions. All while a passage leading right out of System space was conjured beneath him, which he promptly fell into.

The two opposing black holes crushing him detonated with terrifying power, sending him to that familiar darkness and ending the loop.

He awoke to the keening wail ringing in the night sky of Ogdenborough. The new knowledge that even conjured black holes could be devastatingly powerful now filled his mind. Little wonder the gigantic one the invaders were ferrying towards System space was so incredibly dangerous.

And the loops went on and on, with Orodan determined to crack through this wall with stubborn determination alone.

Diplomacy was an option, but he was Orodan Wainwright.

The very thought of approaching Glyphward Fortress peacefully with the Prophet respectfully accompanying him was a laughable notion. The zealot, even if capable of some sort of redemption, still needed a corrective beating for all the wickedness it had propagated. So he saw no issue with dragging the base cur along each loop for his introductions.

Alagameth and surprisingly enough, even Almyra, had some reservations about that. But those were quickly quashed once they realized he wasn’t exactly lopping the Eldritch-plagued Administrator’s head off, but merely capturing it. Their objections vanished within a few loops, with Zaessythra’s voice helping sway them as she was entirely used to his training methodology by now.

Nonetheless, a lack of dissent from the others did not change the fact that it was a genuinely difficult trial; a truly titanic mountain to surmount. An obstacle made so by Orodan’s typical insistence upon absolutely refusing any allies, additional equipment or stratagems for this fight.

Certainly his four companions made their own attempts at facing the Mage before he did, but they fared far worse than he. Of them all, Zaessythra and oddly enough, Talricto, proved most adept even if they both inevitably failed.

The half-dragon’s strange power had an unfaltering ability to reach the Mage no matter what defenses the wizard conjured. And the dimensional phase spider’s wily ways of hiding between the boundaries and frustrating the spellcasting Administrator were in some aspects even more effective than anything Orodan did during his fights.

Unfortunately, just as Zaessythra could strike at the Mage, so too could her opponent strike back at her. Her powers, while causing excruciating pain of a sort even Orodan had to respect, did not prevent the counterbarrage of lethal spells which ended her immediately. And Talricto, evasive and skilled at Dimensionalism as she was, could amount to no more than a nimble annoyance to be swatted away.

All of them besides Alagameth died of course. The spatial spider openly professed to not having the stomach for enduring death after death. Which was fair enough.

Save Alagameth, his other companions had pointedly insisted to him that he not prevent their deaths during these loops. It was… one of the harder requests he’d acquiesced to, but Orodan’s warrior honor would not allow him to deny another’s honest choice. Still, seeing them annihilated at the particulate level while he stoically stood back and waited his turn was not entirely pleasant. Made worse by the fact that Incipience of Infinity allowed him to very clearly see the souls of the deceased even after death. Though it did raise questions in his mind when he saw Talricto and Almyra’s souls drifting towards the nearest soul nexus while Zaessythra’s appeared oddly… conflicted, facing a pull from within System space and one from beyond.

Orodan did not like the implications of that.

That aside, his comrades’ deaths were the fair if unpleasant arrangement he was forced to accept. For he would be a massive hypocrite if he wanted his own gauntlet of fights against the Mage while not allowing them theirs.

And the reason for that being that if he could not defeat the Mage honestly, toe-to-toe, then he was unworthy of having a place alongside the System’s defenders in facing the Invaders. He would not use the cheap trick of having the fortress’s defenses against Kalmiron that he had the first time, and he would not allow for the fight to drag on long enough that the Reject felt tempted to opportunistically intervene.

No cheap tricks, no environmental opportunities, no allies. Nothing more than the sort of honest death looping he’d started this journey with long ago when facing the archer in Scarmorrow.

This insistence on a fair fight meant that it was also a very difficult fight. Dragging the Prophet along and hurling it right towards Glyphward also had the effect of making the Mage take him very seriously right from the start too.

And so the loops went. One after the other.

“Mage! Come out! I have an offering!”

Orodan lasted almost eleven minutes.

“Mage! Come out! I have an offering!”

He lasted eleven minutes and one second.

“Mage! Your spells are pitiful and your conjured black holes an embarrassment! Come out so I can give you a proper beating!”

Unlike the other loops, the Mage exited Glyphward far quicker this time. And Orodan lasted seven minutes instead of eleven. Key difference being that the Administrator had no qualms with viciously unleashing the fortress’s defensive arrays upon the brazen challenger while simultaneously slamming him with spells.

And given that the defenses were meant to keep even Embodiers out… they were damned good at suppressing him while his spellcasting foe slaughtered him.

Perhaps he had pricked the wizard’s pride with that remark?

Each loop was a day long. A length of time the Department of Looper Affairs had shortened things down to after much optimization. Where the alliance had once needed multiple days to construct the array for travel to the Crimson Sink Galaxy and to prepare the remainder of their force for the invasion of Narictus, it was now down to a day only.

Which meant that Orodan had roughly eighteen hours of training time in-between each attempt at the fortress. An ample amount for the refinement of techniques, research into fields which would benefit him and advice from relevant experts.

“Hearing about it is one thing, but never have I seen someone so gleefully joyous about walking headfirst into the barrel of a cannon. You realize you are basically walking into his prepared kill field each and every time, yes?” Kalemar Cosanox asked, bewildered as he read over the report of the latest loop Orodan had dictated and the Intelligence Service had put to paper.

“That…” Orodan said with a grunt as his body struggled to get sound out when ablaze with the pure white igniting flames of Vitality Refining. “…is the point.”

[Vitality Refining 26 → Vitality Refining 27]

“Let me guess… good training?” Almyra asked, focused on her own toils with the Mantle she bore. “At one time I might’ve derided that. Yet your method is oddly effective; seeing you struggle so… it is rejuvenating. To think that such a mad pursuit can yield fruit, ridiculous. Mayhap I really was going about things the wrong way in my own loops.”

There was no complaint in her voice; fond exasperation if anything.

The previous looper had begun working a lot harder after seeing Orodan happily march to his death the first few times. He was not privy to her inner thoughts. Whether it was some realization that time looping needn’t be a hopeless burden with an unbreakable ceiling or the osmosis of hard work leaking through to her, he did not know. But her sheer effort had increased twofold, and Orodan would daresay her finesse with that Mantle of hers was improving.

If he was determined to smash through the Mage and be allowed entry into Glyphward, then she was adamant that no other candidate besides her be good enough to wield the Reject’s Mantle.

His death looping, a thing normally seen only by himself and Zaessythra, now came with the novel phenomenon of being witnessed by others. And it was apparent that it affected them quite deeply.

Zaessythra was not at all surprised. She simply sparred him on the regular, explored more of her own powers and focused on self-study herself. She had been with him the longest of anyone, since he had taken over and empowered the time loop mechanism with his own power.

Almyra and Talricto saw what he did… and they worked harder as a result. The previous looper especially, having the weight of the Mantle upon her shoulders that she was striving to be worthy of.

Alagameth however was of a far more subdued sort.

Orodan could not and would not blame the spatial spider. It was old. Ancient. Millions of years of age. An Embodier.

And it had forgotten that feeling of being hungry and desirous of advancement at the cost of extreme effort.

The spatial spider was glad to help, but it had specifically shied away from a willingness to challenge the Mage to a solitary duel the way Orodan’s other companions had.

It was… entirely understandable.

He did not know exactly when the Embodiment of Space had advanced to become an Embodier, but from the way Alagameth spoke about it, a few hundred thousand years at least. And where had Orodan found it in the first place? In the deep void between galaxies where it had been sitting in an isolated space, meditating on insights… and avoiding other Embodiers.

It had even fled whenever the Living Crystal had come by back when Orodan was death looping against that old foe.

Advancement was a perilous thing for this reason. Too long spent meditating, too much time passing without a fight? It could make one soft… stagnant. This was an especially greater risk for those who needed a long time to get from one level to the next.

It was hardly a problem unique to Alagameth too. Orodan had seen this on Alastaia; Grandmasters who had lived for milennia and became soft and unused to actual life-and-death combat. Masters who lacked that furious drive for growth and were outperformed by younger, hungrier Elites who lived on the edge more than they did.

Hells, Orodan had been the young and hungry Adept and then Elite who had killed complacent enemy Masters and Grandmasters who had forgotten the feel of real fighting.

Thus, it was only natural that the same thing applied to Transcendents and Embodiers too.

Zaessythra had been locked up as a book, desperate for freedom and with a new lease on life upon regaining a body. Plus, Orodan’s mentality rubbed off on her. Almyra was the previous time looper before him; she had to have had a certain level of ambition and drive by necessity to get anywhere and face the overwhelming odds arrayed against her. And Talricto was an exile with a perilous habit of thievery which necessitated being ready at all times.

Those three had drive and ambition.

Alagameth… was lacking something in comparison.

“Your scrutiny causes me feelings of unease, Orodan Wainwright. Why do you stare at me so? I hope you do not intend to direct those white flames at me as a form of training.”

Right… perhaps openly observing someone for the past second while his body was consumed by blinding white fire could be seen as a bit intimidating.

[Vitality Refining 27 → Vitality Refining 28]

“Don’t worry about it,” Orodan replied. If Alagameth would not fight… then just like Malzim, Orodan would do the fighting for it. “You know, your insights into spatiomancy are the greatest of all arrayed here. Time and experience are qualities of their own; you should not worry as much as you do.”

He had gotten somewhat more familiar with the subtle expressions of the man-sized spiders he kept company with, so it was amusing to note Alagameth’s sudden but swiftly clamped rearing of the front legs, as though bristled.

“Worry? Why would I worry? We have you fighting alongside us,” the spatial spider replied quickly. “Though I will not claim to understand why you refuse to use the full range of your abilities against the Mage.”

A fair question. After all, if Balance Maker was capable of forcing a stalemate against a Boundless One with the loop mechanism turned off, then he was fairly confident it could do the same against the Mage. Of course there was one critical problem with that…

“A whetstone is meant to sharpen a blade, not be broken by a hammer,” he replied without losing focus on his vitality refining. “A sword without a whetstone is a dull implement. This battle is that whetstone. If I were to simply use the hammer of my full skillset against the Mage, what would I learn? What gains will I carry over when time comes to face the Invaders?”

Even the cautious Alagameth saw the logic in that line of reasoning.

Balance Maker aside, he had other tools, but Kalmiron had answers for them. The Time Compression aspect of his Smite of Abrupt Deliverance? Not really useful against the spellcaster who had, long ago, managed to hop onto his compressed time field even when it was at maximal power. Domain of Perfect Cleaning? The Administrator’s Mantle countered the reality-bending abilities of that. Incipience of Infinity to simply overwhelm the Mage? Any amount of power great enough to do so would have enough power coursing through his body to kill Orodan too.

But the real answer was simple.

Orodan really needed to bring Eidolon of Violence to the Embodiment-level.

He had brought so many skills together to forge it in a critical mid-battle moment of need, but its most important function was its ability to crush both Infinity and Cleanliness and bring them under heel. The Eidolon of Violence, was at core, truly him.

However, as both Domain of Perfect Cleaning and Incipience of Infinity grew, he had the feeling that he was approaching a threshold where that original problem would recur as the balance was lost.

And given what had happened when he tried powering the time loop mechanism himself and when Cleanliness went out of control… he was in a race to bring his latest Celestial skill up to par before the other two crossed the threshold.

Which was why he was so insistent on finding alternate methods of advancement; why he was determined to beat Kalmiron through the honest clash of sword and shield alone.

For if he did not…

…then who knew what havoc Infinity and Cleanliness together could wreak if they both crossed the peak of Embodiment without anything to keep them in check?

He had nearly lost himself against both concepts in separate situations. Orodan wasn’t keen on finding out what it would look like when both came together and took him over together.

So he trained, and he died.

And his skill levels increased slowly but surely.

Loop after loop, death after death.

“Mage! Come out! I have an offering!”

“I smell it off you. A time looper… what do you want?”

“To face you in honest combat as warriors do!”

He lasted twelve minutes.

“Mage! Come out! I have an offering!”

“I smell it off you. A time looper… what do you want?”

“To teach you how to hit harder with those pathetic parlor tricks you call magic.”

Nine minutes of survival this time even when the Mage was rightfully angered and unleashed Glyphward’s defenses upon him.

His survival was measured in minutes.

But with each loop…

…that timeframe grew.

And so did his skills.

Something which reached a tipping point after the eight-hundred and forty-seventh loop of this training.

#

[Laboring 82 → Laboring 83]

A hammering overhead blow struck the metal plate, courtesy of Orodan’s fist.

The plate locked into place with a snap. He wasn’t sure if the part was meant to do that, but neither Clyburn nor W78 were complaining so he ignored it.

For over eight-hundred loops now, he’d been training and laboring. Orodan was now the third best laborer in the entire Alastaian alliance.

An absurd thought despite having a Laboring skill of only 83, but it was true. Among all the assembled factions of the alliance, nobody cared enough to labor as he did. Which made sense, since he’d been Laboring from a very young age. Whether it was cleaning the orphanage’s floorboards in order to get extra portions at meal times, or doing labor around town alongside Old Man Hannegan, Orodan’s hands had not been idle.

In fact, the only two beings above him were both construction units from the Unity who had been fashioning buildings and doing labor for many millennia. And even then, one was a Master and the other a Grandmaster. He would be closing the gap on them in time.

“Well placed, though I suppose it would be somewhat shameful if you couldn’t manage it perfectly after two years of practice, Mister Wainwright,” Clyburn Anderthorn, chief engineer of the entire Collective praised, peering at his placement through thick protective eyewear.

The man was a Transcendent engineer.

Orodan had been completely blindsided by that ascension to Transcendence, not expecting it at all. If anything, he’d assumed it would be Fenton, Edrosic or perhaps Talricto who would have advanced first. But, the now chief engineer of the Blackworth Collective had proven him wrong.

The cultural and knowledge exchange between the Collective and the Unity had allowed the man to rapidly flourish and fill in multiple gaps in his model of understanding. It was to the point where the Blackworth Collective’s ships were so overwhelmingly strong that the alliance had opted to hold them back from obliterating Narictus with a synchronized volley.

The infantry and mages would learn nothing that way.

“Good training for my Laboring,” Orodan replied calmly, smashing another plate into place. “Two years of it in fact.”

Eight-hundred and forty-six loops had passed. Orodan was now on the eight-hundred and forty-seventh. With each loop lasting roughly twenty hours, it really had been more than two years of death looping and invasions. Not just for him, but the entire alliance.

[Vitality Refining 48 → Vitality Refining 49]

“Blindin’ me worse than a bat at noon ser…” Fenton grumbled as the young man swiftly began enchanting upon the piece snapped into place. “I stopped gainin’ Disorientation Resistance levels two-hundred loops ago.”

The side effect of training Vitality Refining while working

“And yet, you refuse to put on protective eyewear like Clyburn,” he replied and then grunted. “I approve of the training. Grow stronger, and your eyes can stare at even the sun.”

Which, Orodan’s were capable of. Unfortunately for him, his natural toughness, vitality skills and general resistance to pain meant that he would not be acquiring the Disorientation Resistance skill anytime soon. He was just too strong to be affected enough that it was meaningful training.

Fenton though, had grown by leaps and bounds over the last eight-hundred loops. The lad’s combat abilities had risen, yes, but most remarkable were his enchanting abilities.

The boy- no, the young man, had been the first person Orodan encountered when setting foot upon Lonvoron long ago. And even then he’d always known that Fenton Penny had something remarkable to him. A level of talent in the art of Enchanting that nobody else he’d ever seen possessed.

Now as a part of the time loops, with his mother healthy and alive, and his father alive and present at the start of each loop… Fenton’s true genius was given room to shine and that gap was practically insurmountable.

[Enchanting 95 → Enchanting 96]

As though perfectly on time, another level gained. He hadn’t even touched the actual Enchanting skill itself over the course of these eight-hundred plus loops. The level he gained now and the one he had gained a few-hundred loops ago came purely from watching Fenton work and feeling something click inside him as a result.

And the worst part was…

…Orodan still didn’t understand a twentieth of what Fenton was inscribing onto the metal.

“What in the hells Fenton… you’ve told me often enough what this does, and I see it plainly with my own eyes, yet even now I can no more glean its meaning than a dog can understand poetry. I see the four-dimensional aspect of it, and I see the pathways for world-energy conductivity… but this script…”

“…I still can’t believe you use chicken scratch as a script.”

Clyburn snort of amusement could be heard from across the room, as could W78’s beep of acknowledgement, as though commiserating with him about how ridiculous it was. Yet, there was nothing ridiculous about it.

On one hand Orodan was impressed and proud, on another he was stupefied and bewildered in equal measure. And for someone who had reached a point where things didn’t shock him overmuch any more, that was saying a lot.

His disciple Fenton Penny had taken Orodan’s own absurd training exercise which he’d devised long ago, and then perfected it. The metal was filled with chicken scratch at every point.

It was absurd, ridiculous and plain insane.

It was glorious.

“Why wouldn’t I ser? From what Mister W78 says, them anomalies don’t quite like the sight of it. Makes their heads spin in a way they do to us,” Fenton replied.

“Information - Anomaly cognitive processing capabilities hindered. Pattern - chicken scratch, cognitohazard for memetic entities.”

Which was his metallic friend’s way of saying that those wicked and predatory things had their wits confounded by the sight. Not the most ludicrous notion in truth. For if Orodan was confused by the sight of chicken scratch… then it only made sense that those predatory Invaders would be too.

After all, chicken scratch, as an enchanting language, had no actual script. The chicken scratch itself wasn’t even the important part. The real principle behind it was the fact that enough willpower, intent and ascribed meaning could force any enchanting script to take any meaning the enchanter wanted.

It was ludicrously difficult of course. Orodan vividly remembered having multiple objects explode in his hands when he tried.

But he was Orodan Wainwright. He was no Fenton Penny.

For the duration of these loops Fenton had experimented with inscribing runes for contradictory things and forcing the opposite meaning. A rune of fire which instead produced ice. A rune of wind which instead created earth. And he even went further and did absurd things such as making a three-dimensional enchantment behave like a four-dimensional one and even did what Orodan had intended on doing long ago but not gotten to… enchanting the very air itself. A feat which had caused Orodan to actually spend an entire minute away from training just admiring the feat and paying it the respect it deserved.

His student had entirely and completely surpassed him in the realm of Enchanting now. In fact, he had a sneaking suspicion as to why Fenton had not reached Transcendence in the skill yet but would respect the lad’s personal decision and not voice anything.

All this was to say, while Fenton had adopted the chicken scratch as a symbolic gesture, to show that he was treading the same path as Orodan, it was the principle behind the chicken scratch which really mattered.

Will, meaning, intent. Not universal… but personal.

It was also how the High-Orast had managed to avoid being infected by the anomaly when it first made itself known during their very first invasion of Narictus.

Even without this device they were making, perhaps the real key to withstanding this memetic wickedness brought to bear by the Invaders… was finding that individual strength of will, that meaning.

Perhaps that was how Balastion Novar had managed to finally master the Eldritch.

How Orodan managed to bring both Infinity and Cleanliness to heel for now.

“Mister Wainwright? Something on your mind?” Kalemar asked, monitoring his training at all times and directing his assistants of the Intelligence Service to take notes on all he did.

“Nothing, just… an insight, that is all.”

#

“Why are you violent?”

“Because I like it.”

“You enjoy it?” the old orc philosopher asked.

“I crave it… deeply. As I have told you over eight-hundred times now. I savor the conflict, the struggle… the brutality, the vicious and untamed nature of it all.”

The sack next to him spoke, interjecting.

“A violent beast you certainly are, time looper. This… disgraceful behavior and your thuggish treatment of me are evidence enough of that.”

“See?” Orodan gestured at the sack. “Even it agrees.”

No amount of paintings shown by Edrosic would erase the natural dislike Orodan and the contents of the sack harbored for one another after all.

He thought it was a corrupted zealot who pursued an aim only to please a master it followed like a dog, and it thought he was a violent and barbaric brute. In his opinion, they were both right.

“We are not questioning your… cargo,” the younger orc, Egrash-Thal replied, uncomfortable with directly addressing the fact that the man-sized sack next to Orodan was speaking. “This discussion focuses upon you, Orodan Wainwright.”

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

“Indeed, let us focus upon him,” the sack spoke up. “The time looper. Likely the final one of his kind after his irresponsible and selfishly ambitious acts. He has destroyed the time loops and brought ruin to our sanctuary. If either of you has sense, you shall deliver him and I to Glyphward Fortress that we Adminis-krk!”

Orodan cuffed the sack upside the head, nothing harmful, just a corrective reminder to not speak out of turn.

“Forgive me. My cargo is awfully talkative today.”

The younger orc, Egrash-Thal, pinched the bridge of his nose and exhaled, looking as though he had aged ten years. The older one simply had an amused look on his face.

“Let us set aside the comments of supposedly inanimate objects. You are violent, in training, in your demeanor, in your actions and in fighting. Even when walking around there is a certain brutality to your steps, as a World Guardian, I can feel the earth tremble in recognition of the ferocity of each step,” Egrash-Thal spoke. “And yet you protect. Your heart is not that of a boar running rampant through a forest. You preserve society and civilization. People and families. Does this not contradict who you are?”

And that was the truth of it, wasn’t it? The answer he had not been wanting to truly say out loud. For the past eight-hundred loops he had trained, fought and died over and over. A cycle which also included speaking to this old orc and his philosopher compatriots each time.

Yet, eight-hundred and forty-six attempts at beating Kalmiron, the Mage, head-to-head without any cheap tricks, had a way of making bringing certain truths to the forefront.

The loops had not just involved fighting, but also eighteen hours of training. With each loop lasting roughly a day, this meant eight-hundred loops of this was over two years of looping.

A lot had happened during that time. Not just in terms of his own skills development, but in the form of the loopers alongside him. Events which had only pushed Orodan closer to embracing the truth of who he was and how incompatible with society he as an individual was.

After all, while he was the stubborn skill-grinder in a time loop, not everyone else was.

Something which was quickly apparent within the first year of looping.

Nothing dramatic had occurred. Nobody had rebelled or sold information to the alliance’s designated enemies. Nobody had suddenly gained sympathy for Narictus’s bloodsucking regime and defected.

No. The simple truth was that Orodan unnerved the average time looper who spent time with him and got to really see him.

There were ten-thousand of them now, all brought into the loops as a result of what he’d done. Initially, there were those with uncomfortably worshipful attitudes, there were supporters, there were those uncomfortable with him and the pace he was setting and those who were pragmatic about it and went where the winds blew.

Yet as time passed, more and more people began to realize that Orodan was not entirely normal.

It was one thing to hear about what Orodan did on a regular basis. Yet it was another thing to actually see him training at the start of each loop… for over eight-hundred loops straight.

Many people had a reverential attitude towards him. That changed when they saw him lighting his own vitality on fire each loop.

A lot of loopers supported him. That was tempered when they saw how brutal his training sessions with his disciples were.

Even the pragmatists shrunk inward a bit when they realized that attempts to get closer to him and foster connection were rebuffed simply because Orodan Wainwright had not a single minute in each loop where he was free or willing to attend social functions.

And the rare times where he did attend, such as when the Rising Spear tribe wanted him over? He was in the kitchen assisting Zukelmux’s mother as a form of training.

There was no end to the journey of strength. It was one thing to hear this. Most warriors said this, most believed it too. Yet nobody actually saw what genuine, ceaseless hard work at peak intensity looked like.

With them all being in the time loops now, for the first time people from differing disciplines and various walks of life were in fact seeing it. And it made the majority of them profoundly uncomfortable.

A rare few had taken to doubling down on faith in him. Some supporters had become even more fervent, seeing his efforts as proof of his devotion to protecting them. But the vast majority of the time loopers in fact preferred to avoid him. Not out of any ill will, but simple avoidance of something they did not understand and did not want to be like.

He was a warrior. A good portion of the time loopers he’d bound to the loops were also warriors.

Yet warriors took time to rest, spent time with their families, attended social functions and in general, lived life. A life which engaged in society and civilization.

Orodan Wainwright did none of these things. He trained and sought to make gains.

Everything he did was a form of training. Even the occasional time he spent with Zaessythra every few loops sparring or otherwise.

The other loopers trained, they studied and they contributed to the invasion of Narictus each time. Many of them were driven, ambitious, motivated and sought to use the time loops to achieve greater heights.

Yet none of them were as freakishly obsessed as he was.

Freakishly obsessed. Two words which Almyra had described him with, not out of rudeness, but respectful honesty.

He was Orodan Wainwright. He craved violence, he trained obsessively and he never bothered with rest. Her words described him well. He was less a mortal being and more an engine of advancement.

And frankly… the very mightiest beings all had that quirk.

Little wonder Infinity and Cleanliness orbited him. Perhaps it was all meant to be from the very beginning.

Born of civilization and raised in it, yet utterly unsuited to truly be part of it. His upbringing reflected it, did it not? An orphan almost too violent and unruly to mesh with even the other street rats of Ogdenborough.

Who from that time did he know among his own generation? None. That absence of any friends and connections among his peers was answer enough.

He idly considered if he’d have been better off raised in the wilds. In many ways he was more a monster of violence than a man of civilization.

Yes, he wore the trappings of it, his county militia uniform being the symbol of that. But one might be better served draping silks over a rabid wolf and hoping it civilized them than trying the same with him. The garb simply masked the monster of perpetual growth underneath, it did not tame or civilize it.

Where most other time loopers had settled into a comfortable life with a relatively measured pace of growth to match, Orodan had only intensified his efforts with every loop. Others had settled and enjoyed time with their families amidst the chaos of looping, and he just trained, died and repeated it over and over.

The old orc had asked if his nature of protecting and fostering civilization contradicted who he was? There was only one honest answer to that.

“It does not. Violence is struggle. Whether it is the brutal climb to the top of the ladder of might, or the slow grinding endeavor to leave the world better than you found it through the honest toil of your hands sheltering those who can best build it up.”

Violence directed towards protecting those he cared for was still violence.

Orodan Wainwright was a violent man. And even if society and a majority of the time loopers felt alienated from him as a result he saw nothing wrong with that.

[Eidolon of Violence 134 → Eidolon of Violence 135]

One final skill level gained. Likely the limit of what he could attain through philosophy alone.

The old orc nodded, pleased with the admission.

“I sense it. Your understanding has grown… good.”

“It still astounds me that I gained levels through philosophical analysis at all,” Orodan admitted and then crossed his arms together and bowed respectfully to the arrayed gathering of orc philosophers who had helped hone him throughout all these loops, the traditional orcish gesture of honor. “Thank you. I will not forget your aid.”

They returned the gesture.

Over eight-hundred loops, most of his levels in Eidolon of Violence had come from his fights against Kalmiron. Yet some had also come from just sitting down and engaging in philosophical analysis with these orcs.

They were good at their craft. Very good.

Frankly, it shouldn’t have surprised him at all that he gained levels from philosophical debate and analysis. The old orc had said once, that what truly helped those with more talent and skill than understanding, was taking a moment to sit down and consolidate their gains and insights.

Which in this case applied to him rather perfectly. He cerrtainly had more ability than sense. Raw potential but no proper aim or guidance of it. The past two years of philosophy had helped hone and refine the edge of his Eidolon of Violence. A concurrent and critical process as he gained levels in the skill while fighting and dying against the Mage.

Without understanding and direction, power was a fraction as effective as it could be. Doubly so for him who needed Violence to be strong and ready for the coming storm it would face against Infinity and Cleanliness.

This training with the orcs, his fights against the Mage where he refused the easy way forward… it all added up. The gap between Eidolon of Violence and his other Celestial skills was slowly but surely narrowing. Especially when he refused to use them extensively while fighting the Mage.

Over the past two years of looping the fights had begun to grow closer and closer too. For Orodan had not just contested Kalmiron through martial might, but alternative skills too.

He had been very serious when he’d resolved a while ago, to best each of the Administrators at their own game.

And he felt in his bones that this loop, the eight-hundred and forty-seventh cycle of this madness…

…would be the tipping point.

Orodan departed the hall of philosophy and met up with the remainder of his party.

Talricto, Almyra and Zaessythra.

Alagameth, the spatial spider, had understandably flagged under the sheer intensity of life-and-death combat against an Administrator’s full fury. Neither of them had judged the old Embodiment of Space for it. The ancient spider had simply grown too comfortable with meditation after reaching Embodiment. The lack of high-risk battle throughout its life meant that now, when suddenly thrust into the opportunity to battle an Administrator over and over… Alagameth quailed.

Within less than fifty loops the spider had asked to help in other ways besides combat. Its first real death at the hands of Kalmiron must have shaken it.

“There you are. Brought your prisoner along too?” Talricto asked, excitedly shaking her forelegs. “Come, I have a new trick I want to test this time.”

She had grown powerful. The peak of Transcendence as a matter of fact.

“Your trick shall have to wait. My proficiency with the Mantle has reached a new stage. Today, Orodan Wainwright shall not be needed, for I shall personally duel and best the Mage. On the matter of who the worthiest successor of the Reject’s Mantle is… no doubt shall remain.”

And that was another one. Almyra.

Two years of free experimentation with the Mantle alongside Orodan’s own brutal training ethos had developed her into a weapon. A particularly dangerous one when she used the Administrator’s Mantle. Frankly, her level of power when using the Mantle was beginning to surpass that of the Prophet, especially when factored in with the various other tricks she used.

And finally…

“If you’re quite done bullying that thing and dragging it along for your meditation sessions, we have an Administrator to kill,” Zaessythra spoke.

“Defeat, and then negotiate alliance with. Or rather, an alliance we have already negotiated and need simply remind them of with the orb,” Almyra corrected.

“Same thing,” she countered. “Your Time Reversal can bring an Administrator back too, can it not Orodan?”

He saw no reason why it couldn’t. He’d performed far grander and more impossible feats than bringing a recently slain Administrator back from the dead. Though, that necessitated actually slaying one in the first place.

He simply nodded in assent and waited as Talricto opened the rift leading to the space right outside Glyphward Fortress. And the party stepped through.

A single step through the stable rift took him from the orcish homeworld of Azkar’s Gate to the section of pitch black void between galaxies where the boundary between System space and the outside universe was.

Eight-hundred and forty-six times now had he stood before this boundary and failed to best the foe who appeared. This time, he did not plan on failing.

“Mage! Come out! I have an offering! Your pitiful comrade who received a beating worthy of a misbehaving cur at my hands! Hands which have come to deliver the same unto you!”

Silence followed the bellowing proclamation for a while, even as his voice echoed through the void through using soul energy as the medium.

“Mage! Show yourself that I might prove how pitiful your parlor magic truly is!”

[Stubborn Persuasion 41 → Stubborn Persuasion 42]

One more level of many gained across all these loops. His habit of ‘convincing’ Kalmiron to leave the safety of Glyphward Fortress counted as a form of persuasion after all.

And it bore fruit as the familiar visage of a titanic fortress emerged from the utterly dark void of the boundary wall.

“A time looper. One with a particularly loud mouth,” the Mage dryly spoke, his displeasure evident in the tone of voice. “Why have you come here? Current events are well beyond the scope of the Custodian and his little pet project.”

“Are they? Even when I’m the reason for them?” Orodan asked in turn. “I even came bearing a gift.”

The sack hoisted over his shoulder briefly struggled for a moment, yet it was fruitless. Without the Mantle, the Prophet was no longer a threat to him.

The Mage’s eyes widened as the sack was hurled at terrifying speed towards him. A magical barrier catching it only just in time.

“Kalmiron! The time looper has lost all sense! We must capture him and restore some semblance of order to-”

“Cease your words, tainted mongrel. You presume much in attempting to tell me how to act when your own Mantle has been captured and your task of recovering Xia’s lost Mantle has failed,” the Mage viciously shot back. “You will remain out of my way while I slay this interloper… permanently. Another can always be anointed after our current dilemma is resolved.”

“Wait! He is most brutish and untenable to reason, but not treacherous. During my captivity I have heard of his aims. We are of a same mind in our-”

A sharp magically amplified backhand cut the Prophet off, the Mantle-less Administrator spitting out blood and unable to muster meaningful resistance against its better without access to its primary tool.

Even reformed and forced to confront the fragmentation of its own mind—courtesy of Parthus Edrosic’s efforts—it was still a zealot. Yes, it did good and now aimed to do good by preserving System space, but that was still motivated by a blind faith in the Eldritch Boundless One. Any good it did would always be underscored by this prime motivation of its.

A zealot would always be a zealot.

Which was to say, Orodan did not like the Prophet at all.

But he liked the Mage even less.

His sword rapped against the boss of the shield three times, a challenge.

“Come, try that with a foe who shall hit back,” Orodan declared, defiance in his eyes. “Or is backhanding your supposed allies all your little cantrips are good for?”

[Stubborn Persuasion 42 → Stubborn Persuasion 43

“Now hold on, we’re to go first. You can’t just go out of turn,” Almyra rightfully protested.

In response, Orodan did a simple thing.

He withdrew the Prophet’s Mantle from his dimensional storage ring…

…and hurled it right at the zealot.

“You…!”

“What? Now you have an opponent of your own to fight. Weren’t you hells-bent on testing that Mantle of yours?”

Both Zaessythra and Talricto looked annoyed with him for diverging from the established pattern they had of them going first, dying and then Orodan following to end the loop via combat death. Of course, those complaints fell to the wayside as the resurgent Prophet flared with power, Mantle in hand.

The odd mixture of human and Fallen Void Archon was a true servant of the Boundless One. Even though its lip still bled from Kalmiron’s dishonorable blow, it stood ready to aid the Mage against the four of them.

“You are a mad man, Orodan Wainwright. Madder than even I was when blinded by the weight of the truth. Blind, but with a heart that leads to the right end. Despite your misguidance we can still work together! Why do you fight us like a crazed berserker?” Azrohal, the Prophet, urged passionately. “Lay down your arms and we shall lay down ours! The very same Invaders you wish to destroy are enemy to us both! This is-”

“Madness? Insanity?” Orodan interjected, a feral smile on his face. “You would be correct on both counts, zealot. You see, at no point did I say I would not cooperate.”

“Then…! You will-”

“But at no point did I say I would not be giving this wretched mage a beating either. Now draw your weapon and fight. My three compatriots will spare you no quarter should you hesitate.

Cataclysm began on the other side of the field as Almyra, Zaessythra and Talricto swarmed the Prophet from three directions.

And while this occurred, Orodan met the Mage’s gaze from across the void between them.

Spellcasting Administrator stared at time looping warrior.

And the destruction of the fight between the Prophet and its challengers was but a blip compared to the sudden horrifying apocalypse which erupted as Orodan’s sword was utterly drowned out against the hundred-thousand spell volley sent his way by the Mage.

At the same time, the defenses of Glyphward Fortress activated immediately, with all the firepower rushing right for Orodan.

The look in Kalmiron’s eyes was clear. The Mage was taking Orodan and his companions very seriously from the get-go and had no problem using every advantage it had. The two miniature conjured black holes floating above his foe’s head were also waiting, just in case he proved too resilient for the initial volley.

A truly overwhelming assault, right in the middle of a killzone which favored the Administrator in every possible way while forcing Orodan to traverse open ground with no cover to reach him.

It was a brutal set of odds to surmount.

It was…

…exactly what he needed.

He had been facing all of these stacked advantages for over eight-hundred loops now. Over two years where each day ended with an uphill battle. This was the sort of fight he was used to, the manner of battle he craved.

And so Orodan’s sword and shield got to work.

It should have been a foregone conclusion. One man, sword and shield, against a hundred-thousand Embodiment-level spells. A sailor would have had more success draining a lake with a bucket.

But he had faced this volley enough times. He had faced it in combination with Glyphward’s defenses hammering him too.

[Eidolon of Violence 135 → Eidolon of Violence 136]

The sheer number of hostile spells was so high that it was akin to a large ocean of magic surging at him.

Orodan’s sword caused the ocean to stall, and then suddenly converge into a single point. That of his blade.

Through raw violence alone, he drew each and every spell right towards his sword, where they met their end.

“Quantity will not beat quality,” he declared as his sword reaved the very essence of the spells and killed them. “A hundred-thousand multiplied by nothing is still nothing.”

No animation of the shattered fragments, no manipulation of the residual soul energy. His blade outright killed it through the Eidolon of Violence.

And then the second wave came. The defenses of Glyphward Fortress.

The roaring energy-cannons and kinetic projectile slugs of the System’s primary defensive fortress, powered by the very energy of the System itself.

These, Orodan brought to a complete halt with a single skill.

[Shield Intent 95 → Shield Intent 96]

The projection of his shield, powered entirely by his soul energy, erupted outward, expanding to the size of a mile, stopping the wave of destruction from the fortress dead in its tracks.

It was one of the few skills he’d learned during his time upon Xian, the world of the cultivators. Many of them had Sword Intent, which could produce a sword light. But he had developed the far rarer Shield Intent. The skill wouldn’t have been nearly as effective for anyone else. However, Orodan had two distinct advantages. First, he knew the ins-and-outs of a shield in a way no cultivator did. Shields were intrinsic to Alastaian warfare the way swords and qi were venerated on Xian. This carried over into making his Shield Intent far stronger than his skill level would suggest. And second…

…he had an endless well of soul energy to empower it.

Kalmiron’s demeanor became a lot more grim as both sources of offense he’d sent Orodan’s way were entirely neutralized.

“Do not think this is the height of my magical prowess, time looper. So you are stronger than expected. Good. I shall dissect your soul to understand why,” the Mage calmly uttered.

Orodan advanced slowly and methodically. He could have lunged for the Mage, but that would have been counterintuitive. This entire cycle of death looping was to sharpen himself.

So as the Mage’s next wave of magic came—a tide twice the size of the last one—Orodan cast one spell. A spell he threw as much power as possible into with Burst Casting assisting its explosive power and projectile speed.

[Draconic Fireball 105 → Draconic Fireball 106]

[Fire Mastery 69 → FIre Mastery 70]

[New Title → Fire Elite]

[Incipience of Infinity 187 → Incipience of Infinity 188]

[Burst Casting 88 → Burst Casting 89]

It was a gigantic fireball a third the size of a star system. Heat enough that the fight occurring around the periphery involving the other four fighters had to pause and relocate lest they get burnt.

Kalmiron’s eyes widened in shock as the titanic spell sailed towards him, and the Mage was forced to commit both conjured black holes he had floating around to ensure its destruction in a calamitious shockwave when the two forces collided.

“Where have you drawn such power from?” the Mage asked, suddenly very wary.

Over the past eight-hundred loops Orodan had come to the realization that he was not a naturally talented mage. He would not be matching wits with the High-Orast nor trading cantrip-for-cantrip with Destartes in subtle displays of brilliance. Certainly, he had trained with them in such a manner and tried developing a diverse skillset of magic. But in the here and now, his companions and the alliance would go insane and die mental deaths in the time it would take him to actually match up to the sheer breadth of knowledge Kalmiron possessed.

But Orodan did not need to match the Mage in all domains of knowledge.

He only needed to match him in one.

The man who practiced one spell a hundred-thousand times was far deadlier than anyone who practiced a hundred-thousand spells once.

“As you can see, I too am a mage,” he replied with a pleased grin on his face, conjuring yet another one above his head.

Though Orodan pointedly ignored the scoff he heard in the direction of the other concurrent battle.

“Tch! If power was all it took, then I could dress a star up in mage robes and call it a wizard. Come novice, let me show you the difference between a brute with too much power and a true pioneer of the arcane.”

And so a magical firefight ensued.

Orodan hurled gigantic fireballs at Kalmiron, and Kalmiron promptly countered with truly dazzling and masterful combinations of spells which countered the staggering attacks.

Beautiful animated dragons of ice and water which wrapped around each one. Majestic planet-sized soldiers standing in formations which absorbed the giant spells, and enormous sinkholes which drained the fireballs into them until nothing was left.

The giant Draconic Fireballs succeeded in occupying the Mage, but did not prevent the second order assault from various spells weaved around it. And most critically… the two conjured miniature black holes came for him all the same.

The two balls of death. The reason for the overwhelming majority of his deaths. No matter how he fought these two things would, without fail, kill him whenever they caught him from opposite sides and ground him down to nothing.

And it was looking to be the same this time as well as they circled around and began pressing down upon him.

The weight bearing down from above and below was tremendous. Multiple star systems’ worth at least.

Orodan’s vision darkened and death approached.

Except this time…

…he knew he would not fall.

The insight he had been building up to all this time, through his rigorous study and training in Vitality Refining, was finally coming to a head.

[Vitality Refining 49 → Vitality Refining 50]

As the white flames of his own vitality being used as fuel to refine and process an even stronger form of it erupted… he meditated. He was near death, the black holes were about to kill him.

What better time to meditate on the question than now?

What was vitality?

It came from the soul. But a soul could exist without vitality just fine. Ghosts, spirits, wraiths, the deceased… Orodan himself had been a disembodied soul with no vitality more than a few times.

Was life then… a part of the soul?

This, he had considered to be the default truth for a while. After all, his vitality was but a byproduct of soul energy was it not? Soul energy gave rise to vitality and mana. The cultivators simply combined vitality and mana into qi. Yet in all these cases the overarching energy source was still the light of the soul.

Or so he had thought.

But just as the soul could exist without life, so too could life exist without the soul.

The absolute smallest forms of life had nothing that would be recognized as a soul. The things invisible to the naked and untrained eye which dwelled in the soil, the grass, in ale, in cheese. The things which inhabited the bodies of living things within their organs.

People didn’t walk around with millions of souls residing in their physical body. No… this was life, but without the soul.

Life.

Not vitality… but raw life. His Harmony of Vitality was but a second order extension of the origin.

The very beginning then… what the white flames roiling around his form were attempting to create was the first order product. Something that could arise independent of the soul.

A…

…Genesis of Life.

[Skill Combination - Harmony of Vitality 100 + Vitality Refining 50 → Genesis of Life 75 (Mythical)]

Kalmiron’s black holes stalled. The sheer power of raw intrinsic life emanating from Orodan ground their progress to a complete halt.

Sure, they were still grinding away and killing as many of his cells as they could at a horrific rate. But now… the intrinsic life flowing from within his cells was outpacing them.

The raw life which existed independent of his soul and had always thrived in the little things. Such as when he fueled himself via food, drank, breathed air, savored something deliciously novel and increased the level of Gourmand… it was life. Not just vitality of the soul.

This life surpassed the former Harmony of Vitality’s speed of regeneration by a wife margin.

And it filled his body with strength.

[Physical Fitness 108 → Physical Fitness 109]

A life which now fueled skills such as Physical Fitness too. That level had come fast… incredibly so. Did this fuel his rate of growth for physical skills too?

A roar left his lips. Pure vigor and effort backed by the iron will of the warrior spirit within.

His arms flexed and he flared Incipience of Infinity to destroy and reform the cells of his body over and over as he began physically exerting might against the push of the black holes.

[Body Tempering 92 → Body Tempering 93]

He was certain now. This new skill, Genesis of Life, fueled him in some inexplicable way which caused the growth rate of his physical conditioning skills to skyrocket. Body Tempering was so slow to develop otherwise.

“It… it can’t be…” he heard the Mage mutter in disbelief. “Through raw might alone…?”

The black holes began moving. Not inwards and to the death of Orodan, but upwards and outwards as the might of his arms and tempered body began pushing them backwards.

He felt even more power poured into them via the Mantle the Mage was carrying, but it was of no use.

[Physical Fitness 109 → Physical Fitness 110]

[Body Tempering 93 → Body Tempering 94]

“Good… good! Throw more power into it!” Orodan demanded, his voice a guttural bellow of satisfaction. “This is… good training!”

At last, the Mage let up. Whether due to being unsettled at the prospect of strengthening an enemy, or because the amount of power being channeled through the Mantle was too much, Orodan did not know. But the conjured black holes were pulled back.

“Now then… shall we have ourselves a second round?”

Orodan felt his opponent’s soul tremble at those words.

“System damn you… you are no mage… I shall not lose! What even are you?” the Mage declared, refusing to believe that the tables had turned so.

And so, another cavalcade of magical fury and spellfire came his way. A barrage Orodan met with his Draconic Fireballs once more.

Orodan had to admit, Kalmiron was in fact the mage of superior skill.

But more skilled did not mean better. Other attributes mattered. A fight was after all, the convergence of various factors and skillsets coming together for a clash.

With each gigantic collision with Orodan’s fireballs, the Mage spent wantonly of his Mantle’s power. Which was no problem at all for the Mantle… but was beginning to present a problem for the wizard bearing the burden of channeling its power.

Kalmiron had already strained himself in attempting to empower the conjured black holes to grind Orodan down to nothing. Channeling even more power through the Mantle now? A difficult proposition for the body of a spellcaster.

Glyphward Fortress’s defenses had begun firing upon him again too, but it was of no use. Orodan had no problem maintaining his Shield Intent while casting fireballs. Nobody else possessed the sheer reserves of soul energy to do both simultaneously as he was.

The Mage was good. Very good. Enough so that despite the Draconic Fireballs coming his way, Kalmiron managed to weave a separate lane of attack which involved various elements, mind assaults, curses and more. Unfortunately for the ancient mage, that avenue of offense ran into the second problem.

[Lightning Resistance 81 → Lightning Resistance 82]

The lightning spell was powerful. Anything fueled by the full force of an Administrator’s Mantle was. It would’ve killed Orodan if he had no resistance skill for it. Unfortunately for his opponent, he did.

“Resistance skills too? How? This is absurd…!”

Orodan simply remained quiet and continued trading spells. In fact, he began sending a secondary layer of attacks of his own. Utterly pitiful compared to the Mage’s, mere Galewinds and Lightning Bolts which were dispelled with laughably casual ease the same way Kalmiron had simply cancelled Almyra’s magic.

But in a spell slinging contest against Orodan Wainwright the problematic factor was not his skill, but his endurance. And nobody outlasted him.

Orodan did not need to more skilled than Kalmiron in a straight trade of magic. He just needed to brutally employ his titanic reserves and brute force in such a way that exhaustion made his superior attributes more relevant,

Each Draconic Fireball was a genuine threat that the Mage needed to put his all into stopping. Whether it was through dazzling combination spellcraft, or conjuring more miniature black holes to collide with them. Each one required Kalmiron to draw a substantial amount of power from the Mantle he bore. And each channeling of such titanic amounts of power took a toll on the Mage’s body.

The Mage was no slouch. The greatest spellcaster of System space knew that channeling large amounts of power through the body took a toll on any spellcaster. Certainly, he could channel more power in such a manner than any other wielder of magic in System space.

Unfortunately for the Administrator, his opponent broke the normal framework of combat. Orodan not only had endless power to draw from via Incipience of Infinity, but also had a body capable of destroying stars through raw physical might alone. The two were not comparable in a sustained duel.

And now, on the eight-hundred and forty-seventh loop of this fight, the difference in magical skill was no longer great enough to render these physical attributes null.

The cracks began to show five minutes in.

The Mage failed to dispel one of the various low-level spells Orodan weaved in as a secondary offense in-between the Draconic Fireballs.

[Galewind 56 → Galewind 57]

A stinging Galewind left a slice upon the ancient wizard’s face. The Mage remained calm despite the blood rolling down his cheek.

Thirty seconds later a roaring Lightning Bolt found its mark.

[Lightning Bolt 69 → Lightning Bolt 70]

For the first time in all these loops, Kalmiron cried out in pain. It was Orodan’s first blow ever struck against this Administrator.

The Mage was no sheltered spellcaster unused to conflict. Orodan had to respect the discipline as his spellcasting foe remained upright in the void and maintained defensive posture, but the both of them knew this was the beginning of the end.

Several more spells collided in the next minute. Spells which were low in skill level, but when backed by Orodan’s colossal reserves of mana and Kalmiron’s failure to dispel them… hit very hard against the spellcaster’s fragile body.

A Waterstream drilled a hole through the Mage’s left shoulder and an Earthen Construct propelled by a Galewind finally broke the spellcaster’s stance.

Orodan stopped casting Draconic Fireballs and spells altogether. The Mage was spinning now. It was the void and there was no gravity here, which meant his opponent was experiencing pain, disorientation and a lack of grounding himself that a more kinesthetically oriented melee fighter like him could have swiftly recovered from.

This fight was over.

“You’re the more skilled wizard, this I freely admit,” Orodan spoke as he slowly and inevitably approached. “But you aren’t the better mage.”

It was a truth no spellcaster worth their salt ever wanted to hear. And if the roles were reversed and Orodan heard those words from a victorious spellblade while tasting defeat? That he was the more skilled warrior but not the better one? It would have hurt.

But that pain did not diminish the truth of it all the same.

Kalmiron was better than him in the thousands of disciplines of spellcasting.

Save for raw power and endurance.

The Mage recovered too late and attempted to cast a series of spells. The desperate final moves of a defeated party.

A flaming phoenix, a conjured miniature black hole and a wormhole beneath his feet to drag him out of System space that he might be permanently slain and divested of the loops, useless as it would have been.

Orodan’s blade came down with the full force of the Eidolon of Violence.

He targeted the spells, but not just to stop them.

[Eidolon of Violence 136 → Eidolon of Violence 137]

The conjured phoenix faded. As did the black hole and the wormhole, and the Mage’s eyes widened with horror as the power in his hands fizzled out entirely.

“W-what… what did you do?!”

“The ideas of your spells… they are dead.”

Fighting memetic anomalies brought certain insights that were quite useful indeed. The Mage would not be conjuring phoenixes or black holes or wormholes for a while.

Orodan advanced, and one more wormhole opened.

It was not the Mage’s, nor the Prophet’s. The zealot was near death’s door from the three-way beating he was receiving at the hands of Orodan’s companions.

And if he had just killed the idea of a wormhole from the Mage’s spell repertoire entirely…

…then this new wormhole could belong to only one particular interloper.

[Smite of Abrupt Deliverance 100 → Smite of Abrupt Deliverance 101]

It was the strongest Smite of Abrupt Deliverance he had ever delivered. Enough that he crossed the threshold and went from Grandmastery to Transcendence in the skill.

And even then…

…it was just barely enough to stalemate the dual swords which were on a straight line for the exhausted Mage’s unprotected back.

Cultivator met warrior.

Sword and shield clashed against two deadly swords…

…and the crazed and mutilated man wielding them brought his face so close to Orodan’s own that their noses were almost touching.

“Oh? What’s this? A cart-maker? And here I had assumed the little Wainwright would appreciate my aid in tearing down the Sys-grk!”

A headbutt crunched the Reject’s nose and sent him sailing backwards through the void and away from a personal distance reserved only for one person.

“I have no interest in destroying the System, but in replacing it with something better,” Orodan corrected.

“Y-you… you saved me?” the Mage choked out, confused.

“Ohhh…. I see it now… you’re the same sort of deranged mad man that I am. Just not yet broken like me!” Xia declared with glee. “Strong too… hmm… maybe we can work together. You want a new System, I want that ugly thing at the center of the current one dead… so why not work together? Be the best of friends? Let us seal our jolly union in blood little Wainwright! The blood of this unworthy little snake right… here!”

Another lunge of dual swords came for the Mage, only for it to yet again be intercepted with sword and shield.

Absurdly strong.

Orodan had grown much since their last real fight upon Alastaia when he’d taken over the time loops himself. But even then the Reject was a truly dangerous foe possessed of a crazed mad strength which forced him to fully use his own.

“He is a thoughtless cur who I wish to slay myself. But that would leave many more defenseless,” Orodan sternly spoke. “But if it is a fight you want…”

The flat of the blade struck the boss of the shield in a declaration of challenge, a feral smile on his face at the thought of testing his own freakish rage-fueled berserker strength against Xia’s own.

“…then it is a fight I am glad to give.”

For a moment, he genuinely thought they would come to blows.

Only for one more party to make itself known in the form of a colossal greatsword.

The weapon carved into the space between the two of them, sweeping aside the Mage, allowing Xia to use its momentum to flee, and sweeping away the Prophet and the three companions of Orodan’s who were beating upon it.

Talasgan, the Warrior had arrived. And he did not look pleased.

And in his eyes was challenge and recognizance of a threat…

…for Orodan was the only one who had not been blown away.

“Talasgan, I am Orodan Wainwright, the time looper. And we have come to aid you against the Invaders threatening System space,” he spoke.

“The time looper…? I see… that explains why the Boundless One has been acting the way it has and why the Invaders have come in such force,” the Warrior spoke and lowered his weapon. “Despite the… tumultuous greeting, I thank you for saving Kalmiron’s life, and I bid you welcome to Glyphward Fortress. Hmmph…”

“…I suppose you have earned you admission fair and square.”