Chương 30: Vicious Mockery

As weird as it was to admit, Nolotl was actually looking forward to the gathering of empyreans. Not only because he needed to question Beta about that akyromancer, but also because a small part of him did enjoy Paizon's antics and the gathering was the only place where he had some restrictions. Or at least enough of them so the terian wouldn't end up with a headache.

So, with all the confidence in the world, Nolotl stepped into the conference room, ready to prepare all the material for the meeting, only to see that it wasn't empty.

"Oh, you gotta be kidding me," the gnosiamancer muttered under his breath as he spotted a white-haired ataxiamancer.

"Someone's late for the meeting," Paizon, Empyrean of Chaos, jested.

"Do you have something against me this month?" He asked it mostly in the time loop sense, but his fellow Empyrean would of course understand it in another sense.

"Not particularly," the ataxiamancer swayed his head from side to side.

"So there's something?" The terian squinted at the celestial's choice of words.

"Eh," Paizon shrugged.

"I do get the feeling to enervate specific people from time to time. You were just looking interesting to me this time around, Nolotl."

"Interesting?" Nolotl squint intensified as he finally sat down.

"I've been enclosed in my room days on end. How's that interesting?"

"You've said it yourself," the ataxiamancer smiled with his chaotic swirl of eyes.

"A person doesn't typically remain that long in their room, do they now?" Instead of being annoyed by Paizon's antics, Nolotl was interested in them this time around. Why now? He asked himself. I followed the script with as little deviation as possible, only Xanax and Roxina being the points of inflexion over fifty days, why have I piqued Paizon's interest this time around? Yet as he looked directly into his orange eyes with his own cyan ones, the gnosiamancer got his answer.

"You would be right," Nolotl answered, knowing how unpredictable the man in front of him was. Paizon wasn't a constant like everyone else—if the inputs remained static—but a variable that needed no stimuli to change its course on its own.

"I'm doing a very complex ritual to duplicate my mind."

"Oh, that sounds interesting," Paizon nodded.

"Do you wanna watch?" The Empyrean of Information offered in the hopes of testing Paizon's unpredictability. At worst, the ambushers wouldn't have time to adapt. Or they could… This offer was too rash from my part.

"Sorry for the offer, but nah~" The Empyrean of Chaos negated melodiously.

"I've got a tip that Nina will be doing something interesting during the celestial alignment and I wanna pester her."

"Right…" Nolotl noted that piece of information for later, but he didn't know what to do with it, especially because it clashed with the whole 'Nina and Mio will hunt you down for the rest of the loop' thing that Enantyum had told him. Surely if she needs to do something that important she wouldn't waste time to lecture one of her fellows, right? And before anyone else could say anything else, the Empyrean in question opened the door to the conference room.

Nina instantly spotted Paizon, proceeded to click her tongue, and closed the door again, remaining outside at the corridor. Upon experiencing such profound disgust and reaction, Paizon busted into a fit of laughter and Nolotl followed suit as the scene was just that bizarre.

"Oh, my stomach," the terian grunted.

"Why does she hate you so much, Paizon?"

"More than hate, it's disgust," the celestial grinned.

"As they say love and hate come hand-in-hand, but there's no love lost here," and he laughed again. Nina finally opened the door a minute later, this time making her way inside with Mio in hand—literally, the duo held their hands as the topomancer pranced around, skipping tiles—and went to her seat whilst completely ignoring Paizon's presence.

"Am I not the first? How indecorous from my part," Nina said the same sentence she always said whenever she arrived at the conference room. Nolotl immediately noticed that this wasn't some sort of space-time continuum correction, but rather a hard-headed woman truly behaving as if Nolotl was the only one in the room beyond her companion.

"Must I say that I was first?" Paizon mocked with a shit-eating grin. It was worth of study how the Empyrean of Arcane completely failed to react to the man, as if he was a powerful akyromancer that had removed himself from existence.

"Oh, don't be that sour, Nina," Mio recriminated the taximancer and poked her on the cheek with her free hand.

"Pai-pai isn't that bad."

"Hey!" Pai-pai protested at the awful treatment.

"I guess I could do something with this…" Nina grimaced and cringed as she looked at Paizon, "being. But only because you've asked me to do so." From then on, the rest of the arrivals of the empyreans and the conversations that occurred between them progressed somewhat as before. It wasn't the same, of course, as Paizon had deviated too much from the norm, but the Empyreans tended to talk about the same things and reacted in the same way when Enantyum appeared.

Nolotl hadn't planned for this, but knowing that Paizon had already deviated too much the natural progression of things, the Empyrean of Information optimized his conversation and the way he addressed topics to make the gathering as short as possible, hopefully giving himself enough time to talk with Beta without messing too much with the timing of his personal script.

He didn't know how much his actions affected the ambush, but his leading theory was his own performance being the problem rather than tertiary or unpredictable actors. So, in that sense, it was best that he kept his timings as close as possible to the zeroth loop. The gathering—thanks to his efforts—finished a handful of minutes earlier than usual and the usual suspects disappeared first, those being Enantyum, Paizon, and Mio due to their teleporting virtues.

The rest of empyreans removed themselves in the normal manner, but he did call out Beta.

"Excuse me, do you have a moment," he said to the woman without shadow, eye color, nor sense of three-dimensionality. Methasome's hair was always a weird sight as it was a void, a two-dimensional shadow.

"I suppose so," the akyromancer added weakly.

"But will this be short?"

"Of course," Nolotl nodded. It was a well-known fact that Void-aligned people valued their solitude and privacy, and as their Empyrean, Beta Methasome exemplified this.

"I just wanted to know if you have seen someone who looks like this in the Void Tower." He had drawn a portrait during the meeting, the issue being that he had never had gotten a good look at the akyromancer as they failed to make an appearance during his second try, but he had done his best to feel the gaps.

"Do you honestly believe that I have paid attention to other people when I struggle so much to even pay attention to myself?" It wasn't a recrimination, but a mixture of honest curiosity and a statement.

"Just a quick peek," the gnosiamancer smiled at his fellow. Beta sighed and looked at the drawing.

"No, I don't recognize them. I can't even tell their gender with this picture."

"Ah," Nolotl clicked his tongue.

"I expected as much. I wanted to search for them personally, but the Void Tower has proven to be… not pleasant."

"It's hard to step inside the tower without Prune Thyself due to its numerous enchantments," stated Beta. Prune Thyself was Void's starter Boon. It was one of the most curious and unknown Boons in the world even though it was a starter one by virtue of the nature of such starter Boons. They carried a lot of potency and the nature of the Alignment they were tied to, and Void liked to devour everything.

Apparently, it was hard to use gnosiamancer's Insights on Void Boons so much that mages still weren't sure if Void was an infinite or non-infinite progression Alignment. The author's content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

"I see," the terian sighed.

"I will do my best to find them then. Thanks for your help." Beta remained static for a second, as if she needed to process something, and then nodded a moment later as if nothing had happened. She didn't bother to say her farewell and simply walked away with her usual tired gaze, her silhouette nearly merging with the shadows as everything about her was black and deprived of saturation. Nolotl sighed, being the last Empyrean to remain on the room as he waited for the script to tell him to get out.

"Oh, well… Three ambushers out of six accounted for. I guess I know something about this Yaxkin guy, but I don't think I will be ever to remove him." Perhaps the gnosiamancer intended to complete the Second Mind ritual in this loop, but he was well aware that the boosting capabilities of the total celestial alignment and it would be foolish of him not to continue making further use of it. If anything, this was only the start.

Even though the previous meeting with Roxina at her workshop had been different and occurred a whole week earlier, when Nolotl came back to pick up all of his commissioned items, he was met with an identical conversation to the zeroth loop barring some minor changes. Mainly speaking, the gestures. Because he had commissioned more things, Roxina took a single trip more to grab all the items from her back store, which include a short comment on how Nolotl had brought a mountaineering backpack to carry them all.

Otherwise, the conversation continued just like the first time. Paizon has mistreated a bit in that sense, the gnosiamancer pondered on his way back to the teleportation network. Enantyum has already warned me that people tend to be deterministic, even if reality is clearly non-deterministic. Nolotl had gone out of his way to further verify that by checking the obituaries placed near the reception of the Central Tower.

That was a slight deviation from the script but minimal as it was on his way to the Information Tower. For the time being, he didn't have any reference to crisscross data, but if by the same time next loop different people had died—specifically ataximancers—then at least the non-deterministic nature of the universe would be verified as wild magic would become truly random. But that also means that I won't be able to exploit wild magic once I get its spell slot. An issue, but a minimal one.

After all, it was only a single spell that he would lose as he didn't intend to put his faith in a random outcome. However it might be, the promised date had finally arrived. Having gotten a good night's sleep and readied all of his equipment, Nolotl left the academy, early as always. There was an argument for leaving even earlier to either force the ambushers to lose track of him or ready even more traps, but that would have been too great of a deviation of the script this close to the moment of truth.

"T-minus 6 hours for the total celestial alignment," Nolotl whispered to himself as he took his first step into Mount Empyrean. The mountain was cold and deserted as always, especially this early on. Later down the line he would feel fluctuations of mana from many mages performing their own rituals, which only now did he realize that those expected fluctuations were a perfect mask for the ambushers.

After all, everything was expected out of this day, which explained why he hadn't detected them earlier in the zeroth loop. This time around, the High Priest of Nochochenca detected a divination directed towards him thanks to the Starguided Blessing; one so subtle that he would have failed to detect it before. He couldn't tell if it was Luminol or a Cahtuli priest remotely guiding Yaxkin, but he chose to ignore it to not mess with the script. It was enough for him to know that he had been spotted.

"At least I'm not being watched," he mused whilst climbing half-naked and with a massive backpack on his back.

"If anything, I'm more concerned about getting some teleportation spell to get here earlier and with less work. Would Enantyum teach me his Beacon spell?" The gnosiamancer wasn't sure that the Regressor's answer would be, but decided that the thought was quite stupid considering it was bound to be a difficult spell that he had no proficiency with. Even if he got a spell slot that matched Beacon's school, it would only be a single proficiency. Perhaps something he could work on in the future. The far future.

Even though he tried to fulfill the script like a prophecy, this was his third time climbing the Mount Empyrean by this exact route, meaning he mistakenly got to his destination a handful of minutes earlier.

"With any luck it won't affect much… Both times the ambushers waited for the celestial alignment to start, especially close to the total one." With that muttered thought, Nolotl started working. His first task was to set the barrier that would protect him from the strong winds, but his next order of business after that was casting Vacuous Filtration in case the akyromancer was already observing him.

After a cautious observation whilst under the cover of readying the ritual's hylomorphism, it seemed that the akyromancer was still not lurking. Which made sense to the diviner as so far the akyromancer had been the designated teleporter. It made no sense having them scout when they had such a vital role. But this confirmed to him that he still had a handful of minutes to prepare some traps.

It wasn't anything egregious, just some cognitive relays that should help him dispose of the coterie faster than before by siphoning their computation a bit, but most importantly, without needing to turn his brain into a mush. He would be needing that for the ritual. Once the promised time loomed over him, Nolotl made it back inside of the barrier and gave the final touches to the ritual's components, just in sync with the script. Everything moved like clockwork. Down to the last minute detail.

A cruel smile appeared in the terian's visage as he detected the presence of the ambushers down the trail. He had debated on whether he should be the one ambushing them, but the argument of playing as closely as the zeroth loop was too tempting to pass. Not just for the sake of claiming revenge, but because it was a charted scenario. Perhaps it would quickly spiral out of control, but the first steps were invaluable.

"You should have moved us closer. Look," Yaxkin pointed at Nolotl whilst looking at the unidentified akyromancer, "he has detected us already." Of course, back then the diviner hadn't detected the akyromancer and he thought the warrior was talking to the taximancer, which led to his original confusion and perhaps even his death.

"You knew it wasn't possible," Luminol responded like back then.

"The celestial alignment is hindering most non-ritual magic. Getting closer would have put our lives at risk."

"May I ask what are your intentions?" Nolotl asked at the group, both through voice and thoughts, as he stood up.

"We are nothing more than passerby, Prince Nolotl!" Yaxkin scoffed at him all the same.

"I see…" Nolotl mussed.

"You are not from the Confederation."

"You are quite right," the warrior laughed.

"I'm Cuhtali, not a Tezlan. And my objective is just one," he lifted his colossal weapon effortlessly with one hand and pointed at him, "your life, Prince." Nolotl shrugged.

"May I ask why?" He would do the best to pry for information this time.

"The diviners and stargazers have predicted this day for years now, even if we have only recently gotten the specifics," the biomancer set the tip of his wooden and obsidian weapon on the ground.

"The total celestial alignment will be a period of sudden change. It is the perfect opportunity to stop Tezlan's supremacy."

"I fear you are misinformed; I'm not aligned with the Confederation's political stances or royal family. I'm disinherited, after all." The Empyrean added, trying to gain time as he poured mana into his tattoos, though it would be more accurate he just followed the script.

"Such are the directions of our own diviners, High Priest of Nochochenca," the Cuhtali warrior said as a matter of fact.

"They long predicted this war, but more importantly, they now predicted that it would be unwinnable as long as you were alive."

"Nothing that I say will make you change your thoughts, Yaxkin?" Nolotl spoke the warrior's name, making him tense up, though he still kept his composure. If the diviner had learned something about the man beyond his name, it was that he valued honor a lot. And that he was a misogynist, but that was to be expected.

"No," Yaxkin responded sternly.

"I do this for my motherland, not for personal feelings.

"I see…" The gnosiamancer sighed and tried to put return the script to its original place, mostly to check if that would work.

"I understand why a Cuhtali may want to kill me, but why are you here?" Nolotl pointed with the tip of his tepoztopilli at Xanax's secretary.

"You are a nuisance," he simply responded. A hint of madness fizzled across the Cognition.

"That's all?" Nolotl said with a hint of disappointment. Doubled this time around.

"You shouldn't be Empyrean," the astromancer secretary elaborated.

"You are robbing my dear Cillin's position!"

"Oh, but I will be doing more than stealing Cillin's position. I will be stealing her too," the priest smiled viciously.

"You see, she has presented an interest over my body."

"How dare you?" Luminol's rage echoed through the Cognition, a pale imitation to the real rage Nolotl had stored deep in his being. Not only it was weak, but also frail. Only another window more than he could exploit. The Empyrean of Information snickered and then looked at the Finil twins. He still wasn't sure what chain of events had led them here, but they wouldn't be spared of taunts.

"Have you enjoyed my present, Finil brothers?"

"Present?" Armoda, the one with the longer hair, asked in confusion.

"Of course," Nolotl's cruel smile intensified as he cast more emotion-numbing cantrips upon himself, even if he knew it would be useless in a handful of seconds.

"Did your heart flutter when you heard about Enala's death?" You have resisted Apathy. Perhaps Nolotl hadn't caused the enchantress' death, but the twins didn't know that. Yet most importantly, as the diviner was speaking throughout the Cognition too, all the gnosiamancers present could verify the feelings behind his words. He might've not killed her, but he certainly felt like it after not avoiding her death, and that's all that the received. All that mattered to them.

Luminol squinted at the information, unsure what to make of it, though he was still destibilzed by the previous taunt. As for the twins… well, their indigo eyes suddenly became bloodshot as they became enraged. Not needing to utter any more words, nor having the time to do so, Nolotl finally activated his Life enchantment. His silvery tattoos started becoming transparent until they vanished, and his body mutated, unleashing the first enchantment carved into his body.

Feathers grew all over his body in the pattern of the rainbow and his fingers twisted into claws. The transformation was as painful as it was swift. His arms were substituted by wings, and his mane became ever-so-slightly blonder with many patches instead of just loose strands as the blackness transformed into a crown of black feathers on the top of his head. He gripped his spear and assumed a defensive position, ready for confrontation.

"You face the Prince of Tezlan, the High Priest of Nochochenca, the Empyrean of Information, but above all else, you face Nolotl Xocoyotzin, Terian." Unlike the first time, this statement wasn't a battle cry nor a declaration of war, but instead the most vicious of taunts. A cruel jest that rivaled the Vicious Mockery spell even if it had been common words. The battlefield was set.