Bro, I'm not an Undead!

When next Festos and Replicus came out of the tower, the group didn't get to see immediately. The Priest failed to ascertain their locations in time for when next the ungodly slash was used.

He managed to locate Replicus and the Stolen Angel's location, but they had crossed into Emeradis and the scale of the battle there was fearsome. Mages from the solemn nation also involved themselves in the conflict, and the Priest had to restrict his presence to a great distance lest he got found out and attacked.

On the other end, he managed to find Festos' location, but only after he was done using the deadly slash. He sent his fellow time travellers there.

The Hybrid Luman said two chilling words before a rapid series of events happened one after the other.

"Very good."

No one could have regarded that with anything but slick malice.

And perhaps the confidence that oozed from the Hybrid Luman was well-earned, because almost immediately after he said it, something flashed from the distance like a giant, whip of bone, crossing what might have been the entirety of Pelian in a breath. Everyone, including the Priest, panicked when it swept towards them. Only Pherdanta could have dodged, and she had intended to until…

'Oh,' she thought, realising something.

The whipping oddity of bone phased through buildings and people alike, like one giant ghost. It phased through the consciousnesses of the group too – manifested in their likenesses. Its target was one being, and one being only.

The instant it reached Festos, he grinned.

There was a series of explosions, yellowish-red and fatal. They levelled the entire region with vicious impacts.

Pherdanta and the others had retreated a great distance by then. She had used Granted Warp for the feat.

The Priest had explained that even though they were merely consciousnesses here, moulded into physical forms, they had access to their abilities; this extended to armour set skill as well.

And indeed, while Pherdanta had discovered that the bone whip only did harm to Festos, she hadn't let her guard down. The fact remained that they had been too close to the conflict. They would have fallen prey to the destruction that followed if they stayed.

As it happened though, Festos, the target of these violent attacks was completely unharmed. A deep shadow spread under his feet. It was responsible for keeping him and the civilians around him safe. He had need of them, apparently.

But then Replicus was upon the Hybrid Luman. He grabbed his face and slammed him into the ground. The Hybrid Luman was still confident, however.

Pherdanta watched closely.

…And there it was.

With more impressive finesse than before, Festos used the unlimited sword slash again, chopping up Replicus' arm finely.

'Incredible. He didn't even swing any of his swords that time!' the Unlimited Star thought, her eyes wide open. Her experience from the Impossible Task was kicking in.

Adaptability, innovation, desperate evolution. Her mind worked on replicating this supreme technique and making it even more formidable.

She would do it!

She just needed to see it one more time!

And perhaps… Indeed.

The Warmoth's Progeny kept Festos pinned still, and sent Ju`wtte flooding into Festos, lighting him up like a lantern!

But then one of the commonfolk standing in the deep shadow along with them both, grinned and called out to Replicus.

"Hey sockethole! I told you, didn't I? As long as the Prince is embraced by the dark, he will never know harm. But you, on the other hand…"

A massive mound of darkness began to spill from the shadow right then. It had many arms, locking their fingers together. It exerted some kind of effect on Replicus, restricting his movements at once!

And then Festos was free. He looked like an even greater friend of the darkness than before.

"You are taking me too lightly, fake. I am not only the Greatest Antiphon of Malignance, or the Infinite Sword God. No. Your informant is outdated. I have risen above that prestige already! I am the Benevolent Melanoid Prince!"

But even though the Warmoth's Progeny was seized in some trap – stitches that bound him to the world – he turned the tables.

"And I was the one taking you too lightly?" he said, and his binds suddenly became meaningless, much to Festos' shock.

Baleful, Inverted Mana caught the Hybrid Luman and he was sent flying.

"What the hell…! What was that?"

"It felt like mana, but also…!"

"What am I watching?!"

The spectators were baffled. The flash of some dark grey energy that vaguely felt like mana had caught them off guard. What was it?

Just how many queer abilities were going to be showcased in this battle?

Festos was sent flying like a ragdoll. He was separated from the shadow that made him invincible and Replicus capitalized on that by sending his bone weapon, the Warmoth's Spine, as an elongated whip that flew after him.

The Hybrid Luman's scream tore through the air. Pherdanta felt conflicted when she heard it. She had never once heard her master cry in agony like that while he was in his human form.

She kept her focus though, while the others expressed their chaotic emotion.

Suddenly, Festos and Replicus were back in the tower. But soon, they were out again. Festos looked battered. Things hadn't gone well for him in that tower either. The group had caught up with where he ended up rather quickly. The Priest was straining himself.

Several Mages from Emeradis tried to restrain the Hybrid Luman, but they fell prey to his wrath. With a few hateful words laced with darkness, the Hybrid Luman killed them all, but then Replicus was upon him. Some ungodly conflagration he let loose on Festos obliterated everything into fire and cinder.

…But again, Festos survived.

When he came out of the smoking, choking aftermath, he was no longer just the Hybrid Luman. He was the CREATURE.

Never had a man looked more like a demon – unrelatable and unrecognisable.

Vali couldn't help but frown.

If she'd seen Festos like this before, she would have rather died than surrender the ring he had requested for her to make – the power to weaponize raw [Just Light] and [Evil Darkness] into a condensed, destructive ray. It had been Festos' trump card.

Maxim felt the same. Her face changed several times as she watched the CREATURE berate Replicus again and again.

"…I had believed that YOU, the mighty Replicus, apparently, had killed Divinity. But no. It was all a lie. A FAKE ideal to hide the truth. I see it now. You have changed in the worst way possible. You have absorbed… weakness. You have been enticed by it. And you wish to claim the rest of it from Somanda."

The words bit at Vali, Maxim and Pherdanta. They all knew about Skullius, after all. All of him, from where he came from, and what he had escaped to be here on Aigas. It must not have been easy to hear a version of himself berate him for trying to feel complete.

The town they were in was obliterated by darkness right then, reduced to dust, and then the two were gone, transported back to the tower.

"I think I'm getting better at reading where they will go," the Priest said to the group, and he poured more of his focus, trying to read how the world would place both Replicus and Festos next. That was the easiest yet hardest way to read where they would end up.

He had figured out that they were swapping locations because of some Creed.

Soon, he felt it. It took a few moments, but he discerned where the two had gone. He moved everyone outside Feinheath… and they appeared before the entrance to a Cluster – a broad crack in space.

"They are in there," the Priest said gravely. " But I can't have us enter. It could be dangerous. We don't know what could happen if—"

But before he could finish his sentence, Pherdanta cried, "GET BACK!"

The Priest was startled, but he did as the woman said. He moved everyone back to Feinheath. Everyone except Pherdanta.

The Unlimited Star resisted his pull and remained right in front of the Cluster, looking at it with a resolute pair of eyes.

The Priest paled.

Before he could do anything else, even from the distance, he saw it.

But Pherdanta had sensed it long before he saw.

The entrance to the Cluster disintegrated, as did everything surrounding it. An innumerable number of the unlimited sword slashes broke down space, time, gravity, mana and air, leaving a gargantuan wad of darkness devoid of Rules.

Pherdanta… was not spared.

She had welcomed the ripping slashes with outstretched arms.