Chapter 270: Back in Time part 1

Finally, I needed two parts. The rest will follow soon (I'm just finalizing Priam's Tribulations).

Enjoy!

*

The Var Elegis attacked, thinking he had a chance to permanently eliminate his rival. Priam wasn't even surprised—more annoyed with himself. So focused on Sumstreh and the Tier 4s, he had overlooked a fundamental truth: Arnold was not his friend. The homunculus had executed him without hesitation during their first encounter, and little had changed since. An opportunity had presented itself, and his decisive rival seized it.

The only thing that surprised Priam was that the Terminator was willing to forgo a seraphic reward just for a chance to kill him. Was he really that important in Arnold’s mind?

“You're gonna pay for this,” Priam vowed.

Despite his bravado, he knew the odds were stacked against him. That didn't stop him from smiling as he activated [In the Zone]. When faced with adversity, there were two types of people: those who panicked and those who rose above.

Priam was the latter.

As Arnold raised his arm, revealing a glowing point at the center of his palm, Priam rode his mist, reappearing fifty meters away before Sumstreh. Stunned, he crossed his arms defensively, realizing too late that the enemy had likely used his Domain to change his point of arrival. Can they even do that?!

A swipe from Sumstreh’s claw sent him flying backward with the force of a freight train. After bouncing a few times on the vitrified ground, Priam finally skidded to a stop in a cloud of dust. Trading his lifespan for accelerated regeneration, he healed his fractured ribs and bruises, a grin spreading across his face.

“That’s all you’ve got? I thought a Tier 4 could do better.”

That kind of taunt only worked on children and the arrogant. Sumstreh was the latter, and the air trembled as they roared with rage. Their Domain swept over Priam's, pressing down on him like artificial gravity. The Champion hurled Sphinx out of the enemy’s sphere of influence, then shot a defiant glare at the Fallen. A tremendous will descended, and the ambient light vanished.

Priam closed his eyes. One of his opponent's Concepts manipulated light, making it an unreliable sense. His perception of aether was also muddled by the enemy's Domain, so he activated [Echolocation] to locate them... and was promptly caught off guard when a laser beam struck his chest.

Lvl Up: [Solar Resistance] lvl 11
CONST +2
VIT +1
Lvl Up: [Kevlar Tissue] lvl 11
CONST +3

Partially absorbed by his mist cloak, Arnold's attack burned through the enhanced [Light Resistance], searing his skin. Without the boost from [Life is Hard; I'm Harder], it would have punctured his right lung.

Grunting, Priam conjured dozens of Pyro-Mist hybrid spears to retaliate. Like a one-man artillery squad, he unleashed a storm of plasma and ice, deploying the four types of projectiles he had crafted for fighting necromantic hordes.

Teardrops for slow but numerous salvos, bullets for sniping, shells for devastating AOE attacks, and kinetic penetrators to catch his enemies off guard. Shaped like spears, each projectile benefited from Spear Mastery and [Spear Throw].

The ground trembled as the barrage raged on. Blasts of scorching wind and fragments of stone flew in all directions, sowing chaos without ever touching his enemies. Arnold had retreated to the edge of the valley, where he easily dodged the bombardment while analyzing Priam’s skillset.

Sumstreh remained within twenty meters of Priam—a ludicrously small distance at their level of power. Yet, the skeleton seemed untouchable. Their positioning was miraculously perfect, allowing them to effortlessly avoid hundreds of supersonic projectiles. In Priam's lightless world, the shape reported by [Echolocation] was seemingly gifted with foresight.

Priam fired a shell-spear, hoping to catch his foe with the AOE, but groaned as they vanished. Could this guy even be hit? Deciding to go all in, he launched two spears glued together. As the Fallen dodged, one of the spears exploded, altering the trajectory of the second... which disappeared into the background. Sumstreh hadn’t merely dodged; they had corrected their position before the explosion even happened.

Priam's eyes widened before he stopped the bombardment, deciding to conserve his energy. Neither his willpower nor his aether were infinite.

[Sumstreh’s Domain Analysis: 

• Capable of dispersing Domains and Concepts of lower Tiers. 

• Capable of manipulating an enemy’s Concept. 

• Capable of predicting the trajectory/intent behind an attack.]

At high levels, Supremacies were terrifying. For the first time, Priam grasped the vast difference between a low Tier and a mid Tier. All his power was useless if his opponent could turn it against him and read his every move. Could a Tier 0 defeat a Tier 4? Maybe. Did Priam stand a chance against the Fallen? Well, I refuse to run without trying!

“Finished yet?” Sumstreh growled as the dust settled.

“I'm just getting started.”

“Bravado.”

“Funny, that’s not what you said when I ripped a piece of your soul out,” Priam shot back.

An emotion rippled through the Domain pressing down on him. Sumstreh was pissed.

“You might have the tools to hurt me, but without a proxy, you'll never reach my soul space.”

Priam grimaced because the Fallen had a point. He had accessed Sumstreh’s soul through a path the Fallen had created from Mama Apo’s soul space. But with the tribes’ retreat, the shaman had vanished, taking the link to the Fallen's soul with her. Without a proxy, Priam had no path to attack; the enemy wouldn’t let him breach their mental defenses.

“Enough talk. Die.”

His instincts flared, and Priam dove to his right. A sharp pain exploded under his ribs. He was fast, but light was faster. The attack sent him sprawling backward, his feet gouging trenches in the ground.

Priam grimaced as he grasped the solid light spear embedded in his stomach. He yanked it out with a sharp tug, then used his kinetic mastery to staunch the bleeding. His high vitality soon closed the wound, and surprise gave way to amusement.

“I'm disappointed; I expected a Tier 4 strike to be… more brutal.”

The attack should have turned him into minced meat. Priam had seen the blows exchanged between Leo, Seth’s summon, and Sumstreh, each strike as powerful as one of his Breaths. Yet the light spear, a projectile born from Sumstreh’s Concept, had only lightly injured him.

“Impossible…” Sumstreh's voice was laced with shock. “You don’t just have a celestial soul; you’ve got a celestial body too?!”

Priam's eyes widened as he understood. One of the [Iconoclast] Merits had transformed his soul, branding it as celestial.

[Iconoclast - Legendary] - Tier 4: Your soul is celestial; it actively resists divine influence.

With [Homo Elysian Obsession] binding his body and soul, the racial Talent was upgrading his physique, granting him a celestial body. Though he wasn’t sure what “divine influence” meant, Priam was willing to bet that the combination of these two celestial abilities had allowed him to withstand the Tier 4’s attack. The divine affinity, the Fallen’s ace, was turning into a disadvantage.

Priam remembered something Sumstreh had once said.

“An [Iconoclast]... You've just signed your death warrant. They hunt every celestial soul.”

The implication was clear: some gods didn’t take kindly to a System user evolving to resist divine influence. Should Priam expect Tier 5s to hunt him if he kept this Merit?

A roar of fury shook the world, snapping Priam back to the present. Before he could worry about gods, he had to survive the next few hours!

The Fallen’s sphere of authority quaked under the weight of their violent anger, and the young Champion grimaced as the environment itself seemed to wish him dead. A second spear impaled him, followed by ten more. Priam used his mist cloak to shield himself, weathering the onslaught like an umbrella in a downpour; the first projectiles were easily absorbed, but the intensity of the assault soon put him in a perilous position. With no way to escape or dodge, Priam did what he did best.

He endured and adapted.

Lvl Up: [Solar Resistance] lvl 12
CONST +2
VIT +1

The first few seconds were terrifying. Sumstreh’s Domain crushed his mist until it dissipated, leaving him bare to endure the barrage. The projectiles tore into his flesh as if the light itself had become solid. Then the spears began to penetrate his body.

The Concept fueling the attack flayed him, chiseling away at his physique like a sculptor carving marble. Most of the aether had a divine affinity, which his body partially ignored, but the remaining energy disintegrated him bit by bit.

Lvl Up: [Solar Resistance] lvl 13
CONST +2
VIT +1

The air screamed, shredded by the speed of the projectiles. Each attack jarred Priam's brain until [Tenacious Spirit] activated to keep him thinking clearly. What could he do? Nothing but endure until Sumstreh’s Concept became ineffective. Grit his teeth and wait for the moment to strike back. Anger drowned out the pain, and Priam focused on his revenge. Each blow would be repaid in kind, a resolve that guided him through the storm.

The spears pierced him as if he were embracing a forest of thorns. The omnidirectional barrage pinned him to the ground, but Priam had no intention of fleeing. Every wound was an opportunity, a chance for his cells to evolve. The torture was excruciating, but Priam had long since proven that pain would not make him back down.

Lvl Up: [Solar Resistance] lvl 14
CONST +2
VIT +1
Lvl Up: [Kevlar Tissue] lvl 12
CONST +3

Burning through his lifespan like a wildfire, the Homo Elysian regenerated, sometimes twisting his body to direct the attacks toward his most resilient parts. All he needed to do was survive long enough to turn the tide. He could feel his body adapting, his very molecules growing more resistant to the luminous energy that infused the spears.

Lvl Up: [Matrix Dodge] lvl 12
AGI +2
DEXT +1

Lvl Up: [Solar Resistance] lvl 15
CONST +2
VIT +1

Soon, his regeneration would outpace the damage he was taking and then...

“[Armament: Nova].”

Like a gamma burst tearing through a shroud of darkness, Arnold’s ability shattered Sumstreh’s Concept. Light flooded the void, and this time, his celestial body was of no help.

At the epicenter of the nova, Priam spent his last Merit Point.

*

Sumstreh might have been too dull to realize that their opponent was evolution personified, but Arnold wasn’t about to give the enemy any chances.

The Var Elegis didn’t truly possess the ability for dual thinking, but their elite’s quantum processor allowed for high-speed calculations. Thus, Arnold could almost simultaneously analyze the First’s reaction to his attack, assess how he had survived the Fallen’s Concept, and plot the latter’s demise. Their alliance was always going to be short-lived.

The first and most glaring truth was that their rival was immensely resilient. The adverb didn’t even do him justice. The First was monstrously durable. Could a Tier 0 really endure the onslaught of a Fallen? The answer was yes. The solidified light spears, powered by a Concept, struggled to pierce his scaled skin. The homunculus had personally tanked one projectile and knew that a dozen would be enough to obliterate his current body. 

The First had withstood over a hundred.

Even Arnold's nova, an epic skill maxed out, was having a hard time burning his flesh and reducing his bones to ash. If Arnold was a master of atomic force, Priam Azura was an undying Juggernaut, capable of surviving the proximity of an artificial star. It was bad enough, but there was something even worse: he had the regeneration of a Hydra.

Every cell destroyed was replaced, every organ capable of restoration was restored, all at an absurd speed. As a homunculus, Arnold was hard to shock, but the life force of his rival left him reeling. The mathematical models he was running suggested a vitality close to thirteen thousand—a number inconceivable for a Tier 0. When the First’s head regrew after being obliterated by two light spears, the Var Elegis began to regret his betrayal…

[Activation of Voyager… Automatic transfer of soul to new body initiated.]

Determined not to die here, Arnold glanced at the sphinx, who was observing the battle while crafting a complex ritual. The target of the karmic cataclysm was the Fallen. Reassured, the homunculus overclocked his skill. In the valley's heart, the nova continued to expand, devouring his aether to incinerate his rival.

Slowly but surely, Priam’s body burned, his blood evaporated, his nerves were consumed, and his muscles charred. Yet, the homunculus felt a gnawing unease deep in his gut. It had nothing to do with the hidden reactor within but rather his newly awakened instinct.

Arnold had analyzed the situation a million times, running as many simulations as necessary to ensure that his betrayal was the optimal course of action. Despite this, despite the fact that his efforts and those of the Fallen were incinerating their rival, the Var Elegis regretted his decision.

Regret... A novel sensation for him. He had relished freedom, tolerated surprise, but this... he loathed.

When the First’s body finally disintegrated into ashes, Arnold canceled his nova and braced for the Shadow’s ambush and his rival’s resurrection. Seconds ticked by as the Var Elegis carefully scanned the environment.

Suddenly, one of his sensors detected an explosion of vitality. The First was reborn from his ashes, a smile on his lips. The Juggernaut wasn’t just a Hydra—he was also a Phoenix.

*

Lvl Up: [Solar Resistance] lvl 16, 17, 18, 19
CONST +8
VIT +4
Lvl Up: [Kevlar Tissue] lvl 13
CONST +3
Lvl Up: [Radiation Resistance] lvl 4, 5
CONST +6
VIT +6
META (Authority) +6

Priam's ghost watched his enemies, sighing with relief. The pain had finally vanished.

Trees of Merit

[Breathless - Silver] - Tier 1: Second Breath, Second Wind: restores your body to its most exceptional form possible. ACQUIRED

[Breathless - Silver] - Tier 2: Third Breath, life is but a breath; your body harmonizes with your environment. NEW 

0 Unused Merit Points.

The greedy dragon within Priam had resisted spending his Merit Points for weeks, but in the end, he had used them all. Worse, there was a good chance he would keep most of them after the rewind.

Priam banished these useless thoughts as his [Tenacious Spirit] activated Second Wind to restore his body. In a blink, he appeared before Arnold and Sumstreh, healed and naked.

Promesse materialized in his hand, but he ignored his enemies, casting a sorrowful glance at Sphinx. [He Who Eludes Death] was still primed, but both of them knew he needed it for his Tribulations. Triggering it against the Fallen and his rival would be foolish—they had to get rid of them first.

Only Sphinx, and the ritual she’d been crafting since her abduction, made that possible. It tore at his heart, but it was her decision to help, and he respected it.

“Sumstreh, a riddle for you,” the child called out to his captor. “What begins but has no end, and ends all that begins? You have thirty seconds.”

Even a Tier 4 knew better than to ignore a sphinx’s riddle.

“... A dragon’s wrath?”

“Wrong. It’s Death.”

With that, Sphinx triggered a sevenfold Tribulation. 

Then she slit her own throat and activated her karmic trap.

*

[2 hours 22 minutes before optimal activation of Back in Time.]

*

Status:

PHYSICAL:
Strength 782
Constitution 1 435 (+46)
Agility 927 (+3)
Vitality 1 370 (+30)
Perception 817

MENTAL:
Vivacity (D) 599
Dexterity 681 (+1)
Memory 896
Willpower 1 193
Charisma 754

META:
Meta-affinity 923
Meta-focus 444
Meta-endurance 798
Meta-perception (A) 443
Meta-chance 332
Meta-authority 258 (+6)

Potential: 12 472 (+32)
Tier 0

Sun point: 0

[He Who Eludes Death] charge: PRIMED

[Tribulation]: Six Tribulations pending.
Future Tribulations delayed until:
Time: 152 days 7 hours 54 minutes 8 seconds.

Next thresholds: 12 attributes > 600 / 6 attribute > 900 / 3 attributes > 1 200 / 1 attribute > 1 500