Die. Respawn. Repeat.
Chapter 265: Book 4: Realizations, Pt 1

I don't let up even after the strike hits, because I know for a fact it won't be enough to take down Kauku. It's enough to widen the Fracture, yes. It's enough to send cracks running all through the ground and far into the distance. I can hear, after a delay, the sound of trees toppling from the forest far behind me—the sound of branches snapping and leaves rustling as the shockwave hits.

I follow up with a Compressive Pulse, aimed inside Kauku's skull, where I imagine his brain ought to be. A second one swells inside his chest, near his heart.

Beside me, Gheraa, Ahkelios, and Guard all leap into action.

It starts with Gheraa. He hums a low note, a sort of song-based support skill he picked up in his time in the Grove. He's done something to it, though. Changed it in tiny ways so it better fits the dynamic we've developed.

Reality bends in response. I can feel his Truth imbued into the skill, whatever that new Truth is. It's not quite the same as my ability to Anchor, but it's something close. The skill is twisting probabilities, refactoring outcomes. The golden lines on his skin begin to glow as he pours himself into the skill.

It makes us stronger, and more importantly—impossibly—it makes Kauku weaker. I hadn't dared to hope that might work.

Gheraa grins at me, then gives Ahkelios and Guard a thumbs up.

Ahkelios whips out something he's prepared just for this: a sliver of material taken from the Empty City, the "blessed brick" that can block the flow of Firmament. It shapes itself into a sword, and a moment later I feel it reverberating with power as Ahkelios imbues it with his Truth.

He strikes, his sword ringing with a promise of violence and safety. It leaves a ripple behind as it moves, almost as it's tearing through the fabric of space itself.

As he does this, Guard draws a massive skill circuit in the sky. It's a modified version of the Black Hole skill he stole from the Seedmother—modified not to change its effect, but specifically so it can withstand the immense amounts of Firmament he can now pour into it.

And that's what he does. Pure, prismatic Firmament, imbued with his Truth, with his desire to protect the people he's come to call his family. Gravity warps in the space left behind by Ahkelios's blade, building to an infinite, inexorable pull that tears apart anything within its grasp.

The power that converges on Kauku is enough to kill any Trialgoer on Hestia several times over. It's more than I think I'd be able to survive, even if I had time to prepare.

When the dust clears and the skills fade, Kauku stands there, a hairline fracture in his helmet. He's taken a step back, closer to the edge of the Fracture, and he's frowning.

But that's it. That's all the damage he's taken. I can feel the stunned fear from my companions, the hope draining away.

Kauku takes a step away from the Fracture as another wave of Firmament blasts out of it. "You're stronger than I expected," he says. "But I really don't want to waste—"

Before he can finish, Ghost and Lilia both manifest next to him. Lilia's dagger is in hand, aimed directly at his throat; Ghost has a skill-array prepped that's in the process of firing a beam of pure, decaying time.

Kauku steps out of the way of the beam, then grabs Lilia and stabs her dagger into Ghost's chest. He rears back, stomping the both of them hard enough to force them to demanifest; I feel them snap back into my core and grunt at the backlash that accompanies it.

"Time," he says. "I don't want to waste time."

He moves. Premonition screams.

Distorted Crux.

The barrier stops him, to my surprise. He slows down when he hits it, and there's a flash of irritation across his face. He hops back before more of his body gets caught in it, then makes a gesture and does something that causes the space around us to flicker.

Gheraa chokes, his eyes wide.

Ahkelios and Guard both whirl around to look at him. Kauku's teleported past us, somehow, but he didn't use a Warpstep or anything similar to do it; I don't know what he did, exactly.

He has a fist buried inside Gheraa's throat. Golden blood trickles down around it.

Space flickers again, and suddenly Kauku's in front of Ahkelios, his hands wrapped around Ahkelios's sword. He twists, enforcing his will on the blade to force it to break, Anchoring a new Truth on it. Ahkelios tries to resist, but the force of it drives him to his knees, and when the blade shatters I can feel a part of his core almost shatter with it.

It would have, if I didn't reach out to Anchor my own will against it.

Too much is happening too fast. Even with Quicken Mind and all the points invested into my Astral pool, even with all the power I've accumulated—

Eternal Moment.

Kauku stops in his tracks, one hand wrapped around Guard's skill circuit, still blazing in the air. Guard's core flickers and pulses erratically as he tries to fight off Kauku's influence.

"Don't," I say. "It's what he wants. He told me about it before. Anchoring is pitting your Truth against whatever it is you're trying to change; whoever loses is damaged in the exchange. I..."

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I don't know what to say. I didn't expect the battle to be this onesided. Kauku is frozen, for the time being, but I'm only using the skill to stretch that moment between one action and the next on him. I can't hold it forever.

Gheraa makes a choking, sputtering sort of noise, and I hurry over to him; he waves me off with a shake of his head. "I'm fine," he mutters, his voice a little hoarse. "Don't... don't actually need to breathe. Most of my body's just a construct, anyway. He didn't do any damage to my core. Is 'Khelios..."

"I'm okay," Ahkelios says quietly. "Barely. Ethan held my core together."

"I have withdrawn my Truth," Guard says. "He will not shatter my core."

"Ethan..." Gheraa looks up at me.

"I know," I say. I look up at Kauku. Even frozen, even caught in an Eternal Moment, he's moving. Albeit only slightly. "He's weak to Temporal skills, I'm pretty sure. It's why he stepped away from the Fracture, why Distorted Crux worked on him, and why he didn't let Ghost's temporal beam hit. It's probably why I can even use Eternal Moment like this."

"Can we hit him while he's frozen?" Ahkelios asks hopefully. I shake my head.

"Not in time," I say. "The second we try anything, it's going to shatter the skill. All it lets me do is stretch one moment. If we add a new variable, that moment becomes something new, and it no longer applies. It'd work as a surprise attack in most cases, but..."

"He is too fast," Guard says, a distressed warble in his voice. "My sensors could not track his movement. Nor were there any spatial fluctuations. He is moving without moving. I do not know how."

"Anchoring himself into new spaces," I mutter. "Changing positions on a whim."

"We can't fight him," Gheraa says, his voice hollow. He sounds more lost and afraid than I've heard from him in a while. "But we can't... What do we do, Ethan?"

There's a long moment of silence, and then I lower my head. "I don't know."

I wish I had words of comfort, but the gap in our abilities, even with my growth—it feels too vast. There's too much to overcome in too short a time. We can't run away to try to gain more time, either; if he's allowed to finish what he's doing here, there's not going to be any time left to work with.

"This is my fault," Gheraa mutters. He clutches at the golden blood that stains his cloak. "Maybe if I just... did what Rhoran wanted... this wouldn't have happened."

"Don't be stupid," Ahkelios says, poking him in the shoulder. Gheraa winces and glares half-heartedly at him, but Guard hums in agreement, and he deflates.

"None of us could have known Rhoran would do something like this, and none of us knew anything about the Sunken King when all this started," I say, placing a hand on Gheraa's shoulder. "And with how unstable he was, something or the other would have pushed him over the edge eventually. You can't blame yourself for his choices. Besides, if this is anyone's fault, it's mine."

"Don't make me poke you too," Ahkelios says, narrowing his eyes at me.

I chuckle slightly, although the sound comes out hollow. "I'm just saying. It's not really my fault, not any more than it is any of yours, but I warned myself about all this. If I'd only figured out a way—"

I stop mid-sentence as a realization hits, and I feel the color draining from my face. The others turn to look at me in concern.

"Ethan?" Ahkelios asks. "What's wrong?"

"I did warn myself about all this," I mutter. It feels like a lifetime ago, though it was technically a couple of months, from my perspective. Back during the fight with the Abstraction in the Empty City, right when I triggered an Inspiration, I received a Paradox Warning from my future self.

A warning I haven't resolved yet. The skill is an odd one where effect comes before cause: I receive the warning, and then I have to find the right moment to send it. The words of that warning ring back in my mind.

Let those two merge and it'll risk the end of all things as we know it.

It's done exactly that.

I can't tell you too much; Paradox Warning is only meant for you to prepare yourself, not alter the past.

And I'd known at the time that the warning wasn't going to change anything. It would, at best, let me prepare myself for an even bigger fight. Which I did. It's the reason we spent so much time in the Grove planning and training.

I'm sending back this warning so you'll have one more choice that I didn't have—but you're not going to like it.

But all that training isn't the reason I sent that Paradox Warning. Not if I take my own words seriously. I sent that warning back so that I'd have a choice to make. What choice does that warning give me?

I still haven't gotten a complete picture of why the planet is so unstable. Why the Fracture keeps burning off enormous jets of temporal energy. Despite my efforts, I haven't discovered why all of Hestia just ends, why the planet erupts in and shatters six months into the loop.

It hasn't been six months in this loop, of course, but with how broken time is at the moment, does that really matter?

I call up the Interface and glance at the Timeline Tracker, and close my eyes when I see my worst fears being realized.

The Interface thinks we're six months deep into the loop.

My future self was right on both counts: I do have a choice, and I don't like that choice. Everything in my being screams to me that it's wrong. That to even consider it is...

"Ethan?" Ahkelios asks again, a little more worry in his voice now. Guard turns to me with a silent question in his optic.

Gheraa looks concerned, more than anything. "What is it?" he asks. "You can tell us."

"Ahkelios," I say. "Do you remember when you asked me what would happen if I got a Paradox Warning and then just didn't activate the skill? Refuse to complete the paradox?"

"What's that got to do with anything?" Ahkelios asks, confused. "You said you don't know."

Guard catches on, though. His optic flashes briefly, and when he speaks, there's a pained realization in his voice. "He said he did not know, but that the consequences would likely be at a planetary scale."

I close my eyes and nod. "I think I know why the world ends," I say quietly.

It's so, so easy to think of cause and effect as something linear. Cause always comes before effect. It's easy to think that hosting the Trials for so long caused the Heart to destabilize, leading to the planet-ending explosion. Or that someone did something to to the Heart, long in the past.

But I've known for a while now that cause doesn't have to come before effect. Not when it comes to Hestia. And the Trials have always ended like this, all the way back to the very first ones.

What if the end of the world is itself a paradox, echoing through time?

I don't have any other way to beat Kauku. We've already seen that he's weak to Temporal Firmament. If I make the choice not to send that warning back—to trigger the paradox—it would certainly destabilize the Heart.

Enough to have ripple effects on every Trial that's ever happened on Hestia, creating the Anomaly we've all seen.

Enough to make the planet explode.

Enough to stop Kauku, even, just as long as I'm willing to sacrifice all of Hestia to do it.

And if the Anomaly is any indication, then this might be a choice that I've already made.