Sarandel and X watched the Demon King in silence after reaching their conclusion. The dust from the impact was still drifting outward across the ruined street, the crater around King Domine glowing faintly where stone had been stripped down to raw bedrock.
Domine exhaled slowly.
"Well now you know," he said, shaking his head almost lazily. "A pity. I was hoping you would keep bashing your head against that wall until both of you were drained."
His three eyes shifted between them, the corners of his mouth stretching into an unnervingly wide grin.
"Now what will you do? Neither of you have any ways to win against me."
Sarandel glanced sideways at X. "Do you have any plans?" she asked. Most of her power was magical in one way or another, and the conclusion they had just reached had stripped most of her options away.
"One of them was to blow him up," X replied, scratching lightly at his cheek. "But that didn't do anything either, which means his toughness in general is high. And that's putting aside his ability to open up his body to swallow things."
He shrugged.
"Don't have any ideas at the moment. But I can hold him off until other people get here."
Sarandel nodded once. "Then do that while I get these other people."
She turned away and stepped toward the cracked ground.
"You think I am just going to let you leave!?" King Domine boomed.
The Demon King lunged forward.
But before he could close the distance, a sharp detonation exploded inches from his face. Gunpowder flashed in a tight burst of smoke and flame directly in front of his eyes. Domine recoiled instinctively, throwing one arm up to shield his vision and stepping back half a pace.
"Hey, hey," X called out lightly. "Just because you figured my magic out doesn't mean you can ignore me."
His voice carried its usual taunting tone, but his thoughts were far less relaxed.
That took six tries to do, he thought. If it keeps going like this I'll drain myself dry. Just hold him back. Don't do anything flashy.
Domine's tail lashed forward.
In one clean, brutal motion it cleaved straight through X's torso.
—
X jumped backward just as the tail swept through the space where his body had been a fraction of a second earlier, the blade-like edge missing him by inches.
"Tch. Annoying pest," King Domine spat.
His gaze briefly tracked Sarandel as she slipped into the earth, the ground swallowing her form as she vanished below the surface. With her gone into the earth, chasing her was no longer an option.
So he turned his full attention back to X.
"Alright. Fine," Domine said flatly. "I'll find a way to deal with you."
He rushed forward.
His right claw tore through the air in a brutal swipe aimed to gut X from shoulder to hip. X twisted sideways and slipped out of the arc just before the strike passed.
Domine followed instantly with a stabbing thrust of his barbed tail.
X sidestepped, the spike punching into the stone where he had been standing.
The Demon King's claws then plunged into the fractured ground of the crater. With a violent wrench of his arm he tore an entire section of stone free—an enormous slab the size of a medium building.
The mass of rock lifted into the air.
X jumped onto it as it rose, accelerating the flow of time around his own body. To outside eyes he blurred forward across the rising stone, sprinting along its jagged surface before leaping off the edge and dropping safely toward the ground below.
Domine tried to crush him with it.
The massive slab swung down in a brutal arc meant to pancake him against the crater floor.
X sprinted toward Domine instead, sliding low across the broken ground and slipping directly between the Demon King's legs as the slab smashed down behind him with a thunderous crash.
He rolled out the other side just as Domine's tail whipped downward in a vertical slice meant to split him in half.
X twisted aside.
Domine's palm turned toward him.
"Dominus Obruere Terram."
The ground obeyed.
The shattered stone around X suddenly lifted and surged inward from every direction, entire slabs of crater wall ripping loose as the terrain itself folded inward to bury him alive.
X reversed time.
Only a few seconds.
The collapsing stone vanished, snapping back to its previous positions as the timeline rewound. X sprang upward during the reversal, clearing the space just as the earth surged inward again—this time closing around empty air.
He landed a short distance away, staring back at King Domine.
Inside his head, the calculation ran automatically.
*Twenty-seven times,* he thought grimly. *I had to rewind through all of that, twenty-seven times.*
His chest rose and fell slowly as the weight of the realization settled in.
*And I already used it so much before.*
His eyes narrowed slightly behind his skull mask.
*Am I actually going to get drained of my mana?*
While X steadied himself across the crater, King Domine was having thoughts of his own.
He studied X carefully, irritation coiling beneath his composure. *How is he able to do this?* the Demon King wondered, his gaze sharp as he assessed the noble-dressed man across the crater. *Time magic drains enormous amounts of mana. If he had rewound even half a dozen times, he should already be suffering from mana poisoning… so how is he still standing?* Every slight movement, every careful adjustment of posture, spoke of a controlled exhaustion Domine couldn't sense—yet the man remained upright, calm, almost daring him to act.
Domine straightened fully, the weight of his presence pressing across the battlefield, and let his gaze lock on X. "You're getting tired, aren't you?" he asked, the words carrying a sharpened edge, meant to probe, to bait. X's response came immediately, with no hesitation: "Yeah. I am." The blunt, casual admission caused Domine's eyes to narrow, confusion and frustration stirring within him. *Why would he say that outright? Is this some trick? A feint? Or…* he gritted his teeth, irritation prickling. *Is this his plan? To confuse me? Ugh. This man is frustrating.*
"What even is your plan?" Domine pressed, his voice rolling across the debris-strewn crater. "Are you simply wasting my time until she returns to assist you? Even her using that orb did nothing to me." X shook his head, letting a small, dry chuckle escape. "No," he replied. "I'm not just waiting for her. She's bringing people back as well." Domine froze, confusion tightening the muscles in his jaw. *Why is he just stating his plan!?* he thought, the irritation rising sharply. *What is this supposed to accomplish!?*
In truth, X was planning something.
He simply wasn't doing it in a visible way.
Every few seconds, time slipped backward by a fraction. Tiny rewinds, so short they were impossible to notice from the outside. Each one allowed X to slightly adjust what he said, selecting words that would push Domine's thinking in increasingly frustrating directions.
By stating things outright, by being blunt, he guided the Demon King into overthinking, questioning, and second-guessing. *He's not going to keep asking after this,* X thought to himself.
He was right.
Domine eventually shook his head in irritation, dismissing the entire exchange.
"I'll handle it when it happens," Domine said coldly, claws flexing as he braced to strike. "Now die… and die again… until you finally reach the end you cannot escape."
He shifted his stance, claws flexing slightly as he prepared to attack again.
Before he could move, however, a voice suddenly came from behind him.
"Last time I asked, 'who the fuck are you?' Now I know the answer."
Domine turned.
Wolf was standing behind him, his sword already drawn back over his shoulder for a swing, his body coiled with the force of the incoming strike.
"You're a damn annoyance!"