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1081. Retrocausality
🕑 Added 2025-10-03 09:51:20 +0000 UTCCer weaved through the returned attacks, moments before a purple arc of plasma collided with its surface. It was sent back at terrifying speeds, carving out a chunk of the platform ahead.
“||Atomic Splitter|| doesn’t work either! Get me close!”
Cer landed along its smooth edge and leaned forward to allow Frost to take a bite from the shard. Her ears perked with delight as she heard an ever-familiar crunch. She looked up with a proud expression, which quickly turned to horror when she saw Frost’s jaw unhinged to twice its size.
“Your jaw!? What the hell happened while I was gone!?”
“I ate a spider.”
“I figured it was from something you ate! Ears perked! My tail’s tingling!”
Cer predicted the impending attack seconds before Frost’s precognition picked something up. Between each bite she punched the shard with [OO] [Reign of the Amalgam] [OO] strikes. The swirls of light and the shockwaves formed by each impact alone enough to form a barrier between them and the strings.
Basically, she used the Fragmented Crystal Timepiece as a punching bag.
Fragmented Crystal Timepiece | HP: 430,000
< Tick >
“The challenges you face will mount. Corruption is but inevitable for you so long as you are capable of thought.”
< Heartbeat >
“I have Frost to bring me back if I lose my way!”
< Tock >
“Preposterous. Your idea of salvation hinges on a single person?”
Particles of strands fused to create white feathers. They glistened beneath the azure light, giving off a metallic sheen. Thousands formed around the cocoon, creating an orbiting belt of ten-meter-long feathers.
Frost had a quarter of the shard left to devour.
Then, they’d have two more to go.
However, White Glimmer Jury let out a deafening roar. She was not going to make this easy for them.
< [AAA] [Causality – Feathers of Justice] [AAA] >
< Feathers of a flock judge together >
< EFFECT: Target impurities. Skewer them and blacken the feathers with their blood. It will be proof of their evil >
ATT : 120M MAG ATT : 130M
“We’re moving! Now!”
Frost had created a cavity deep enough to sink her hands into the crystal. This allowed her to haul it along as Cer dashed away from the spire. Half a second later, two feathers crossed where they were just standing. The tips collided, sending metallic fragments scattering into the surroundings.
Then, the hurled fragments returned back to where they exploded before it repeated the cycle. Time was in a state of localized reset. This allowed the feathers to shred everything within its domain. It hollowed the platform enough to reveal a dark sea many kilometers beneath them.
The attacks were relentless. They followed and even predicted Cer’s movements.
“To the side!” For once, Frost was able to use her precognition to assist Cer. She only called out directions whenever she was faced with a future that revealed nothing but darkness.
Had they continued in the same direction, then they would have met with an instant end. The feathers were teleporting. No amount of instinct or time could aid Cer. The crystal released a ticking resonance when it reached it last sliver of HP. It became louder as her maw removed the shell surrounding the faint light of its core.
A white variant of Liquid Nex bled from the core. It was Specific Nex, and it carried faint traces of Jury’s hopes and fears. Frost was not shown a vision as she slurped it, nor did Nav narrate its story.
Instead, it caused the pale cocoon to grow black welts. Puss-filled boils also began to form alongside them. Newborn magots popped from the boils, and they did not question their existence or pay tribute to what had birthed them.
They simply sought out the nearest string to satisfy the one thing they knew.
Hunger.
< Tick >
“Worms are unlike animals. They strive to reproduce and survive. Such a life makes them pitiful in the eyes of the cognizant. There can be no greater peace than lacking the capacity to suffer.”
< Tock >
“Jury wept when they died. She was afraid every night as she waited in the footsteps of the war. As a Beholder, she could not break in front of her Moons. But she thought about how much would have changed if they knew how she felt.”
< Heartbeat… >
“Little. I didn’t want to worry them. War was approaching with each passing hour Frost spent in the Bellum Empire.”
< Tick >
“Liar. You were afraid of losing them. Forces made to fight are destined to die. If not on the field today, then on another tomorrow in a foreign land. You feel sorrow for people you know little of. Yet they leave deep wounds in your heart. It must be crystalized. So it may never be wounded again.”
< … Heartbeat >
“Is it wrong for me to be afraid of losing people I care about? They tried to protect their home!”
< Tock >
“But you couldn’t protect yourself. Placing value on the damned broke your heart. Feast on what’s inside! That hunger… Our greed. It must unify, so that we can only think but one thing alone. Our right to rule as an Angel! That is our greed!”
< Heartbeat >
“… My greed is different.”
< Tick >
“Your greed is a poison!”
“Jury’s greed…”
Frost could only speculate on what they were talking about. The two Jurys warred over control over their body. The thrashing of a heartbeat and a ticking clock rose. For seconds one or the other would dominate the symphony, before the other countered with their leitmotif.
There were still parts of Jury Frost didn’t know. Cer towed her to the next spire, and she thrust her hand into its hardened edge before sinking her teeth into it. She sensed that the feathers would be attacking here soon.
“Cer, get ready to chase the crystal!”
Swirls of light and shockwaves dislodged the crystal. Once it was free, Frost drew her fist back and struck it with ||Core Piercer|| to send it flying across the ruins. A wild chase ensued. Frost took several bites out of it before needing to strike it in another direction, just as feathers came to intercept them.
The process repeated until the crystal’s HP was reduced to a few thousand. With access to its Specific Nex, more welts formed along the cocoon. A hideous cry came from the depths of the cocoon as it turned completely black.
< [QQ] [Retrocausality – Oppressive Guard] [QQ] >
< Sharpened feathers to prevent the condemned from stepping out of line ever again >
< EFFECT: Slice your immediate surroundings with 80 blades simultaneously. Functions as a Passive Skill. Indiscriminate. Annihilation Skill based on a corroded Arbitration Skill >
ATT : 130M MAG ATT : 90M
Jet-black blades dripping with dark ink slashed the air suddenly. Cer wove between each attack. Each blade was easily longer than a kilometer. She bobbed, weaved, and zig zagged through each attack, perfectly timing their flailing like an adult avoiding the swings of a misbehaving child.
“It changed to a Qliphoth Skill.” Frost uttered in a hushed whisper.
< Tick…? >
“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!”
< … Tock? >
“MEMENTO MORI COULD HAVE AIDED, HAD YOU NEVER ANTAGONIZED THEM! WHAT IS DEATH BUT A STATE OF BEING!? IF THE SOUL CAN BE CAPTURED AND SPLIT, THEN WHY DID YOU REFUSE!?”
< Heartbeat >
“I wanted to keep them whole. We wanted to preserve their dignity. They’ve sacrificed enough!”
< Tick…? >
“Is that the shape of your greed? To want to hoard!? To preserve what exists in your kingdom!? One day, you will be the one to take the first bite out of them! As it should always be!"
< Heartbeat >
“They are people who have already been bitten. They’ve lost more pieces of themselves than you can ever imagine! I’ve seen it. My goal isn’t to dominate or hoard! What I want… What I seek, beyond just understanding and keeping my mind…!”
< Tock…? >
“What… Are you… doing…?”
< Heartbeat! >
“Is to use my power to help people who were just like me! I had nothing! I knew nothing about myself! I felt hollow never knowing how or why I was born! But the more I know, the more I learn, the more I keep turning back the clock and helping others find missing pieces of themselves in their traumas – it brings me closer to what I believe I want! And I think… It to help people find what they lost! Normal people… People who were like me who never had a chance!”
The blades ceased swinging.
The maggots that were gruesomely slaughtered were replaced with brand new waves. But Frost noticed something growing among them. Apples the size of a small boulder rolled around the pit. They had shiny, refreshing skin one would find on a crisp golden apple.
Each had a chunk bitten out of them, and staring from within was a single, golden eye. It used that missing chunk to scoop up maggots – the sins – and used them to replace that missing piece.
Fulfilling Fruit
< Gluttony >
AFFINITY: Lament
LEVEL : 30 ORIGIN : Virtue HP : 350 ATT : 100 MAG ATT : 50
ATT DEF : 130 MAG DEF : 100 MP : 200 RESIST : 140 AGI : 12
Fulfilling Fruit
< Basic Observation >
< A virtue born from the deepest of regrets, hoping to make amends by coming to terms with what has passed >
< Paged Observation >
< The fruit bears the imprint of the greatest regret >
Just as how the Arbiter’s Star form had transformed the Sins of Wrath into Virtues of Pride, Jury’s fruits were doing the same but with its own counterpart.
Jury confessed that she still – despite all this – was lost in her own way.
But it wasn’t a bad thing. It caused Frost’s hardened expression to soften. Jury Time Reverberation existed for the sole purpose of rehabilitating people, usually by accessing a piece long forgotten by themselves.
She could not help but also think back to Res’ description of the world. The ugly and the beautiful made up the colors of the world.
This also applied to people.
Jury did not wish to condemn people like her counterpart because they held an inkling of evil in them. To her, it was a matter of mitigating it, acknowledging it, and dealing with it without having to judge them.
This is the type of person Jury has always been.
A kindhearted woman who enshrouded in the dark than light for 26 out of the 27 years she had lived.
It shaped her world view, her virtues and beliefs.
