Chapter 487: The Gameplan

I frowned and reached into the pocket, and my suspicion was confirmed when the Death Stone appeared in my hand.

It was cold and no longer glowed red, and I knew that was because there were no deaths nearby for it to feed on... yet.

When my soul was sealed I could not feel it, and now that my senses were no longer shackled, I could feel the Death-Consort Title straining at my consciousness, reaching for this stone.

I looked away from it and bent my head in thought. From the moment I found myself bleeding red, I had remembered when something like that had happened before, and it was when I was close to Death.

Death’s Favor was one of the passive abilities that came with the Death-Consort Title. I had always thought of it as making me easier to kill, and this stone was doing the same thing in a far more supercharged manner.

That was not quite right, and I worked it out sitting there. Death’s Favor did not make me easier to kill. It made it more likely that I would die if I was already in a dangerous situation.

I knew I was strong, and I was never certain I could kill the Blood God. The Necromancer and the stranger were battles I could never have said with any confidence that I would win... and in all of them, as long as this stone was with me, death was far more likely.

I could see why a power like this would be craved by immortals in a war.

If I had had access to my soul in the past, I would have felt it the moment I stood in that cavern full of the dead. Death had begun playing her games again.

I knew that entity was malicious and capable of playing a long game. The Necromancer in the past had obviously been drawing on the power of Death the way I did. She could speak to the dead and control them, and I knew Death would hate both.

I was her consort, and I knew the Necromancer was a leech tapping into her power, and Death would be looking for a way to destroy her.

The first time I met the warband and spoke to Ruggah, I had been shown a vision of Serrath, and I saw a headless figure that drew my attention, because I believed I was looking at Ruggah’s father or someone close to him. At the time I disregarded another part of that vision, and that was the birds overhead.

Those birds were crows. I had seen the Necromancer then and had not known it, and deeper than that, my soul had been pointing out the presence of Death.

I shuddered when I recalled the smile on that strange corpse. When I was dragged into the past, what were the odds that I would fall so close to this stone?

Perhaps going to the past was not a coincidence.

It was almost as if I could hear the laughter of that woman in red. What was this? A gift?

Whether I liked it or not, I was going to bring death to this world.

If Death hated life, then I suppose she hated immortals more than anything, particularly Transcendental entities.

I closed my hand and dismissed the Death Stone. If Death wanted to use me, she had better be careful. I was not going to be the pawn she wanted. For now, I wanted to kill the immortals in my own world.

So I suppose we were in agreement.

I glanced at Death Resonance on my status screen. The one tool a mage is granted by the System that even gods do not have. I needed to push that to Sovereign.

I stood up and glanced at my staff, and with a gesture I called it to me. I held back my Resonances so the staff was not disintegrated, then carefully tucked it into my soul pocket and opened the tent flap.

∞

With Lightning Edict I cloaked myself so no one in the camp could see me. I looked at my friends and smiled, and a weight slowly eased off my shoulders. I may have lived a long life in many different times, and seeing them, I felt like a boy.

Orath and Rex were missing, which meant the eruption was about to begin at any moment. I waved my hand, sending a burst of Edict through the camp, and everyone there collapsed, including my teachers, falling into a deep sleep. I looked at Commander Rel, asleep beside them, and my smile vanished.

∞

I sat in midair with my legs folded and waited for the sky to turn red.

It was a strange feeling, waiting for the end of the world and being glad it was coming. I had spent so many loops running from this hour, dying in this hour, trying to stop this hour. Now I was sitting in the middle of it, and I wanted it to arrive.

The camp was empty. The tents were still standing and the cook fires were still burning, and there was no one there. I had moved them all, except for one person. They would wake up somewhere else with no idea how they had got there, and by the time they understood what had happened the eruption would have begun, and their fate would be theirs to control.

I had done the same thing in a loop long ago. That time I left Commander Rel behind on purpose, because I wanted her to die badly. I had watched her fight the Khaaz and I had not lifted a finger.

This time I did not bother waking her. It would have been pointless cruelty, and I had grown out of that, or at least I hoped I had. She would die in her sleep to the demons she had helped summon. I could have saved her. This loop has not taught me to be merciful to my enemies, even the ones I could crush between two fingers.

∞

The sky was grey and the morning looked ordinary, and I could feel the Caelith pulsing. The Jade Oracle was holding the seals together with the last of her strength, and the Conclave was below, mining the last of the Celestial Essence out of the anchors.

The eruption was coming.

I did not reach for the Caelith. I did not want the Sovereign of the Stars to feel me, not yet. So I sat in the air and kept my senses to myself and waited.

I thought about what I was going to do.

The plan had not changed. It had only got clearer. I needed to kill demons. Every demon I killed fed the Demon Slayer Title, and every gate I opened brought me closer to the Celestial I was supposed to become.

The first thing I needed was Vrakth. He would be coming through the crack with the rest of the swarm, and when he came, I would take the fragment from him, again and again, until Aurora woke up.

I missed her, every day, and I had not let myself feel it. But she was in my soul, and I was going to wake her up.

The second thing I needed was essence. Every demon I killed added to the Stored Essence in the Demon Slayer Title, and every gate I opened required more than the last. I had 912,870 stored, and the sixth gate needed 2,000,000. I was less than halfway there.

The third thing I needed was the Laws.

But that was later. Now it was time to grind.

The foghorn sounded, the Caelith crying out that the prison had been breached, as the world became red.