"This.... is pleasing news, [Sinner of wrath]." Clarity's thousands of voices resonated across the red, blue and green circular hall. Coming from all corners.
I was baffled.
After arriving at Zalisnoa and requesting an audience with Clarity. Instead of playing the usual game of forcing me to wait they let me in immediately and told me to explain the ritual the Sathuna used. How it could subvert Arthur Moonleaf — the Fate Prodigal's — regression powers of his [aspect].
Not even the Throne of Fate themself is upset with it for some reason. Despite it being their incarnation that was being used like a tool.
"Destiny is always disobedient even to itself." An excitable and warped voice said from the blue throne of swaying threads in the hall. "But to completely replace destiny by making it think it's no longer itself. The [witch queen] would do well as a Sinner."
"She demonstrated no regards for the sanctioned limits imposed upon creation." The red throne of light and darkness screeched like metal, yet still had a haunting calmness to their alien voice. "The benefits to the grand salvations plan outweigh the transgressions of universal law."
"We must instruct the Clarified Sinner's to prepare their trial's for the three prodigals." The green throne made of fragmented glass and mismatched cubes of material spoke harshly like a dictator. "The regression's were just a countermeasure to ensure the key's wouldn't be destroyed by the Erroneous Virtues before they noticed them. But with this option open to us... we can properly reshape them into the Axis Anchor and go beyond what the salvation initially was. Safeguarding this universe from wonder as we had always desired."
While those voices continued to prattle on i was left a little irked in the middle of them all.
'I don't like how easily they accepted this.' Thorn muttered mentally.
'Its a good thing I omitted the fact this operation was only started to save you,' i thought back to him.
'Stay on guard, pisspot, they can twist their tune whenever they like it. As immortal as you are we don't know if you'll be able to escape if things turn sour suddenly.' Thorn mentally warned.
"We will summon the Sinner's." Clarity's voices joined back into one suddenly, crushing my soul and body with their weight as the stone beneath my feet cracked and i struggled to hold myself upright. "We can tap into the control the [witch queen] has of this new time in the universe."
"We will grant the Sinner's some minor resistance to the regressions through a loophole in the remnant effects of the ritual. It will not be as effective as your and the witch's immunity. But they should be able to bear the blessing and recall important events for when altering their trials for the prodigals cultivation. It will be a nightmare none will understand until they are told."
"How magnanimous of you." I mumbled while walking in circles. "She would realise that her new power got hijacked though. Your existence will definitely be exposed to her. It took me a while to convince her i never met you in the universes heart before she finally stopped asking questions."
"Lesser beings can have... accidents." Clarity whispered. "We will take advantage of those misfortunes. And make her misplace anchor's at our choosing."
Telling they weren't answering me but planning among themselves i stopped talking. The only reason i was hearing this is because they deemed it unimportant enough that i could hear this.
Still, it didn't make sense to me why Clarity, the [Throne's of Creation], was so obsessed with hiding its existence. They are even more powerful than nine-ring-sequencers like myself, and hundreds times more powerful than even the strongest of the primordials. Whereas it takes everything in my arsenal and dragging out every ounce of effort I have to destroy a galaxy, they could do so with a flick of a finger by accident.
Despite everything i learned about them through the first civilisation's ruins spread across the universe in the last 7000-years since i returned to this universe. I still don't know what Clarity's goal of salvation really entails or what it is they are hiding from. All i know about them is what they are, and how the five pillar thrones became the three they are right in front of me.
The leviathan spirit within me, Forhorn, was formerly one of those two missing thrones after all. Even with his memory gone of why he was betrayed by the thrones of limit, choices, and fate. He could still remember that much. But not even he could answer what happened to the other missing throne or why he was murdered.
Seririna, the other soul residing within me, is only a fragment to the missing Throne that Forhorn saved before he was supposedly obliterated by Clarity.
If i just knew what it was Clarity was hiding from in Zalisnoa. I could know whether i really should be helping them or defying them.
"You are dismissed, [Sinner of wrath]." Clarity commanded.
The floor opened up beneath me and without any surprised expression on my face i calmly fell through a portal that dropped me outside a runic gate that was the locked entrance into Zalisnoa.
Blowing out a raspberry i said, "they were certainly eager to be rid of me."
"It's surprising they didn't lash out at you honestly." Thorn said while growing out of my shoulder. "Besides that however. What now, pisspot? That's everything important done and dealt with."
Thinking about it seriously for an exaggerated minute i then proposed my idea. "Well, with the universe resetting every couple of decades or so. Theres no lasting impact on anything we do."
"You just want to sit in your lair and wait until the future we come from rolls around?" Thorn said disappointedly after reading my thoughts. He himself though did agree to it. "Eh, any other choice will be equally boring. I'm game. But can we please butcher the pedophile and the purple enslaver bastard repeatedly?"
Grinning evilly i nodded. "Sure. We can kill them whenever you feel like it."
After that, Thorn and i simply waited and watched from a secluded corner of the universe while Sathuna explored the cracks within the Connected Galaxies Alliance on her own to lay the foundations of her schemes. There's so little left of the universe worth me travelling to, but even I'm not mad enough to go into those chaotic places even with all the time in the universe.
The Sinner's were all given a slight resistance to the universal regressions but just like Clarity said it was no more than a vague sense of Deja Vu to them. And i could only watch and mock them as they repeatedly killed the three prodigals by accidents on only the first and secondary trials. Never reaching the third.
Arthur Moonleaf's regressed lives came and went. Going from four to forty, then forty to four-hundred.
Occasionally he would learn something he wasn't supposed to from the other Sinner's and Clarity would send me to wipe his memories of certain facts after his next regression. Its a shame none of that information wasn't anything i already knew about Clarity.
It became clear that just like me the Sinner's only knew of Clarity's salvation and not much else. Not even the [Sinner of pride], their most devout lieutenant among the seven of us, was in on the details of the salvation. Only the vague details that it was to protect the universe from itself. Whatever that meant.
It was a hassle making sure Sathuna was never watching at any of these spoilers of Clarity's existence without her catching on that it was me interfering. Thankfully it was easy to manage while possessing random persons each time.
There was two annoying tidbit's i did learn however that were fascinating in each respect. One was that my creator — or more accurately my jailer — turned out to be the Outer God known as Incursik from the third regression who tried to rescue Cayden from the ritual but was stopped by Vita who was possessing Lumine. He's hiding in the external universe where the Outer Gods are. Safe from the regressions effects. He tried to sneak back into the universe a few times but gets chased back out by myself and Sathuna each time.
As for the second thing—
"Give me my Cayde back!" Barging into my lair an enraged Lumine, endowed with the might and body of an outer god, charged in trying to kill me.
[stigma: equal correlation—sequence 7.1]
[aspect: taken devourer — manifestation!]
Appearing through the air multiple black hands grabbed the crystal tendrils across her body before black swords pierced through each limb and nailed Outer God Lumine against the wall. All it took was a simple thought to restrain her despite the impressive might.
"Now how did you become like that?" I asked, brimming with mad curiosity while sipping an apple juice with a curly straw. "You're the Lumine from Arthur's third regressed life. Better question actually: how the fuck did you find Avalon?"
[skill: imaginary overlord — sovereign eye!]
Exerting my full divine might onto the weakling of an outer god, she crumbled instantly. Spilling everything after i barely dug into her fragile mind. "A-a-after the ritual i woke up in a strange space! I don't know how or why but right before the regression started some weird stone flew into my mouth and clashed with the aether that was trying to be expelled from my body. It was only recently that i was able to break out of there!"
"Now this is curious." I said taking an exaggerated slurp of apple juice through my straw.
Gasping for air the pink haired elf's orange eyes filled with shock. Unable to believe how easily I restrained her even with the [stigma] limiting me to her level, and how i broke into her mind to make her confess so easily.
"A fragment of [Gilded Epitaph Graffiti] must have been what you ate." I surmised while wandering around my lair. Kicking aside Thorn's piles of trash and glancing up at the Quest Line stream showing Arthur, Ben and Seer's current adventures together.
"Though considering it's made up of anti-matter it's a miracle you didn't die instantly. The aether from when you briefly inherited the kralscell of flowers authority must have counteracted it long enough that you turned into an outer god somehow and broke through the divine barrier creating a false ichor-pneuma."
Watching me walk over the trash piles and sift through it looking for something, Lumine asked, "h-how can you be sure?"
"I'm not. This is all subjective theory. After using Arthur to kill Cayden and complete the ritual, i stopped paying attention to what was happening in there. Anything i saw will have been out the corner of my eye at best." Finding what i was looking for i dug my arm into the trash before pulling out Thorn who was cuddling a body pillow of a mature woman. "Hey, did you see what happened at the ritual site for this to happen?"
Burping out a bone Thorn slowly woke up before going wide eyed with stupefied shock seeing Lumine's eldritch form of crystal tentacles and solidified light. "What the fuck?"
Tossing the ghost raven aside into a floating and warped trash pile i didn't ask anything else. "Well, Thorn's useless. Where's the communication mirror? Maybe Sathuna knows."
An ink-sprit rushed across the messy lair and presented the green mirror to me.
"Oh, thanks." Shaking the mirror it began glowing with magical patterns for a minute. Filling the warped room Thorn and i had been watching the universe from for ten-thousand years with a ringing sound before it went through. "Hey, Sathuna. One of your projects somehow showed up and found Avalon. As well as me."
Facing the magical mirror to the restrained Lumine, Sathuna let out a knowing breath. "Ahhh~ thats where she is. She finally found her way out of Acies and returned to the inner universe then did she? If you'd be so kind put the idea to visit the kralscell of corruption in her head please. I'll handle the rest from there."
"Care to tell me how she found Avalon first?" I demanded coldly.
"If you poke into her head you'll see i did it while Silven and I were sharing tea before the third regression ended. She would have headed straight to Laegii and messed up the script i worked hard to write. Just erase the knowledge while you're having fun in there, Traveler. I'll pay for all damages incurred."
Annoyed i slightly squeezed the mirror ending the call before tossing it in the air. The ink-spirit that originally brought the mirror to me jumped in a panic, fumbling the mirror before safely catching it and sighing in relief through their plated face.
"At least she's respectful when ordering me around like this." Wagging my fingers i made the black hands and swords tear Lumine out the wall and slowly bring her down to me.
Struggling in a panic, flailing her tens of limbs around Lumine shouted full of rage. "Don't you dare touch me you monstrous freak! I won't forget anything no matter what! You're weak, pathetic, nothing! Even if you're a kralscell, so what?! Without aether you're just a nobody! And even with the kralscell's authority your just a toddler throwing a tantrum because no one loved you enough!"
Grabbing Lumine's forehead in my bandaged right hand i made her silent. "Oh you are so right." Having another exaggerated drink of my apple juice i sipped until all its content went through the curly straw and into my mouth.
"I can already tell you'll just be a minor character with barely three chapters in this story." I mocked, making Lumine grimace. "Might have an impressive build up, but from the Empyrean Crusaders perspective. You really will be nothing important I'll bet. Have fun being a forgotten character then discarded as soon as you're reintroduced."
"You fucking madman!!—"
[skill: horizon chain — mental domination!]
[skill: hollow void — mach void!]
Removing my hand i flicked Lumine's forehead, sending a reverberation of chains snapping across the air before sending her into a [mach void] pillar to discard her at a random place in the universe.
With that done i glanced at my glass of apple juice seeing it empty. Taking a quick look at the multiple Quest Line streams open still showing Seer, Arthur and Ben's adventures.
With a scoff I muttered, "what a boring story this would become. Without me in it."