Chương 63: Chapter 60: Slip of Tongue

Doom. Impending doom. No matter how many times he went back in time regardless of his survival, he still felt that awful sense of dread with the turning of the clock. The sudden change in environment was jarring. One moment he found himself amidst the cosmos with Beta in front of him, and the next he was at the rooftops of the Central Tower with the cold nocturnal wind howling at him.

"Ugh," he groaned, the change in scenery and temperature not sitting well with him. Unlike the previous loops he had survived, this transition felt even more sudden than the rest. Perhaps because he was mid-conversation, or perhaps he wasn't casting anything unlike all the other times. However, that discomfort paled in contrast to the lingering feeling in his mind. It wasn't anything substantial, but a mote of void now resided on the liminality of his bifid mind.

It wasn't something that could be seen in the Physicality, and even at the Cognition it remained well hidden as a membrane had formed around all his minds after 'successfully' casting Second Mind. And that was without even taking into account the False Serpent's Touch Blessing that the Ehecatl had forced onto him. That made him even harder to have his mind spied on. But he felt his own mind and its surrounding membrane with perfect clarity.

"So whatever Beta has done just now… in the future can go between loops," Nolotl clicked his tongue.

"I don't like what that might even entail, but first I should try to figure out what this even does." That was easier said than done. Nolotl prodded at the mote of cognitive void with rudimentary divinations, Real-Time Status, and his new Serpent's Muzzle and yet he couldn't scry anything out of it.

"Pulsars…" the diviner swore as he found refuge in his fluttering cape, unlike other loops, he didn't have a reason to stay at the Observatorium's rooftops so he pondered whilst making his way back to the tower.

"Whatever this is, it really is a black box. In the truest of senses. It's some sort of atomic unit of… something. Indivisible and hard to said what even does. Could it be a rite?" Rites were one of the many components that spells could have, just like concentration or ritual. Rites were usually called the conditional components as spell lingered inert or failed to activate unless the rite triggered.

Spells that used that component sacrificed versatility for power, having the spell only activate under very specific conditions for a potent effect.

"I cannot discard that option, but Beta mentioned struggling to understand divinations, so it shouldn't be anything too bad," he mused aloud on his way to the Time Tower.

"She's a genius, all empyreans besides me are, but she only had a month to work on this. Not even a full one. Whatever this mote is… well, it's not as bad as the Ehecatl." Nolotl tried to keep his cool, but he was less than pleased by having two foreign objects in his mind. And he was mad at the akyromancer as she had threatened him with literal Oblivion if he didn't consent him.

"And she dared call me the rapist when she's pulling this shit…" he growled in annoyance.

"Though I guess this version of hers hasn't exactly done that… I hate time travel…" No Rage notification came, but he was far from true rage. If anything, the only thing Nolotl felt was disappointment. He had interacted with the "Daughter of Nihilism" for a third of a year now and he hadn't expected that she would do something like that.

"I should stop thinking about it and… take a deep breath…" the terian stopped on his tracks and allowed his chest to inflate and deflate slowly, forcefully relaxing his inner spirits.

"Let's focus instead on the good things. I'm now more than a third done with Void assimilation and also more than halfway through my level. My last level was three loops ago, so this is still rather absurd progress." Three loops meant 165-ish days, almost half a year. Not as fast as his previous level, that had only taken him eight weeks, but still prodigious progress when compared to the rest of people that didn't have access to the total celestial alignment.

"I've never been happier about that experience boost from the Empyrean Title. It must be doing a lot of heavy-lifting." A 10% experience boost didn't sound like much, but when levels could take up to a decade—or even more for the high ones—saving a whole year worth of time was incredible. Unfortunately, he had to stop musing aloud as he approached the office of the Tower Master of the Time Tower.

Nolotl didn't wonder much why Enantyum was always at such an important spot at the start of the loop nor he had the presence of mind to do so when everything about the Regressor terrified him.

"Come in," said chronomancer spoke before Nolotl even knocked in the door. Nolotl hadn't detected any magic nor divinations targeting him—the latter theoretically being easier to detect with his new-ish Blessing—but the Empyrean of Time still knew that the diviner was present. The Empyrean of Information didn't hesitate and he opened the double doors leading to the office; the chronomancer was sitting languidly on the armchair at the very middle of the room as always.

"First of all," Enantyum started without abandoning his relaxed position, "congratulations for successfully getting Nina and Mio off my trail. You can't imagine how stubborn they can be. I know there aren't many spots I can hide on with my limited range, but even with thousands of abjurations and divinations protecting my location they always found me. So tell me your secret, how did you halt their hunt?" Nolotl raised his brows at the dark-skinned chronomancer's choice of words.

"I was honest and told them that you were busy and Nina simply stood down."

"Hahaha!" the old Regressor broke into a mighty and near-feral fit of laughter, slapping the cushioned armrest several times.

"Good one," he suddenly teleported in a straight sitting position with his brazen eyes bursting with Time itself looking at the Interlooper. He fulminated the diviner with his eyes.

"Now tell me what you actually did." No notification came as Nolotl had managed to rein in his fear and the Empyrean of Time didn't cast any spell on him, but the gesture was more than enough to intimidate him. Like all loop starts, Enantyum hadn't yet to fully covered his mind with antidivinations and Nolotl could see the silhouette of the man's fractured mind. That was what truly scared him.

"I spoke the truth," he informed calmly, trying his best to ignore what he saw at the Cognition.

"I told Nina that you were out on a journey as I expected they wouldn't bother to check it and I also fabricated the documents you would've brought to the gathering as I've seen them several times by now." Nolotl had to speedily fabricate them mid-meeting, but fortunately the Empyrean of Time didn't have many duties during that specific gathering so he was able to satisfy the Tamorean royal after delivering them.

"Huh…" Enantyum mused weakly.

"Could've done the trick all this time? No, Nina always was in a sour mood if I try to delegate… But…" He bit his finger in thought.

"Well, I don't know how you've managed to do it, but it has worked. I like seeing their faces from time to time, so I won't be a deadbeat master and I will continue attending the gathering whenever I can but repeat whatever you did in the future should it be needed." If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

"I planned to do so," the gnosiamancer responded with an obliging bow.

"Now we can deal with the second subject of the day," the Regressor stood up from his armchair with his own legs, which Nolotl interpreted it as a good sign. At least it was better than having the chronomancer teleport in front of his face.

"Did you do something to you mind? You've gotten 1% more expensive to loop."

"Uhm… doesn't that fall within the margin of error?" Nolotl added with some nervousness.

"My margin of error is categorized in a whole order of magnitude to the left," Enantyum said dryly, stating that he could notice decimal changes in cost with ease.

"I will have to ponder about how many loops I give you to do things if you get more expensive. Is it because you now have more computation at your disposal?"

"I… doubt that," he took a deep breath.

"I've probably gotten more expensive because Beta shoved something in my mind at the end of the loop." The chronomancer snickered at that.

"I told you to watch out revealing any information about the time loop. You're weak at the moment and people would kill for this chance. Not that they won't find much success if they try to hijack you." Nolotl didn't know how Enantyum did it, but he felt his Alignment suddenly tense up. Somehow, the Empyrean of Time was pulling on the Interlooper Title. No, not somehow. He gave it to me and can remove it at any moment. The problem is rather how trivially he can remove it. And the answer to that seems to be: easily.

"Er… glad to hear that," the diviner said without really meaning it.

"But is 1% that significant? Shouldn't my Second Mind have incurred a far higher load?"

"Let's go one by one," Enantyum sat again with a usage of his Beacon spell.

"The issue is not the 1% but the precedent. If it was indeed your computation resource that was causing the increase in cost, then you would continue getting more expensive. Even exponentially so once that became your main resource." Enantyum spoke of it as an inevitability, but Nolotl was inclined to agree. Perhaps the gnosiamancer couldn't cast much with his limited computation at the moment as casting with computation was quite literally thinking so hard that you conjured magic without any energy whatsoever.

One 'computation pool' wouldn't even be comparable to a mana pool in that sense, maybe only an infinitesimal fraction of one.

"And about the second question; the answer's no. There wasn't any change in your looping cost when got that enchantment." That information… is key, Nolotl kept those thoughts in the compromised sanctity of his mind. This means that Enantyum pays no cost whatsoever for the Ehecatl and that wiping my status clean might actually allow it to hijack my mind without the presence of his cradle-prison. The longer time went by, that outburst of fear that the very Ehecatl infused into him seemed to be a good outcome.

This only means that I will have to find another way to get rid of this parasite. A matronly chuckle echoed in his mind, Serpent's Muzzle notifying him that it was indeed the Ehecatl's doing. But like most of the time, the interloper serpent failed to talk, only bothering itself with sounds. Though all of this still raised a question in the gnosiamancer's mind.

"You said I'm far from the first Interlooper, so how is it that you aren't sure if computation increases the looping cost?"

"Having a second time looper for 'free' is definitely new, but any gnosiamancer that I brought in the loop didn't need more than their memories to be sent back in time. After all, the moment they went back in time, they instantly leveled," Enantyum casually mentioned something very important.

"Alas, they could only level a single time no matter how many loops I kept them in."

"My kind levels with knowledge and that's the whole schtick of the time loop but… woah." The statement left Nolotl awestruck. Is resetting my status still on the table with this bit of information? … Probably not. It's absurdly risky. If the Ehecatl becomes an impossible problem I still have the choice to burn my enchantment slot, and whilst that will free it from its cradle-prison, I will at least have the levels and preparation to deal with it, things that I won't have with a true reset.

For the time being, the Ehecatl was only an annoyance. A festering annoyance, but the diviner could afford to let the wound fester as not-so-metaphorical amputation would always be an option. Quetiapine had spoken the truth so many loops ago, he had lucked out by managing to trap this entity inside his new mind.

"Yes, there's an advantage of using gnosiamancers or chronomancers on the time loop due to the loops mechanics," Enantyum explained.

"Chronomancer's too?" The moment the words left Nolotl's mouth, he realized how stupid they sounded.

"The logic is similar to the gnosiamancers' leveling system. Chronomancers' accumulate flux naturally, and the time loop doesn't dissipate it if they are loopers. Alas, having a chronomancer in the time loop with me is as dangerous as an akyromancer, so I never lasted long with them even if I trusted them more." There was something in the Regressor's tone that was so… apathetic and devoid that it saddened the diviner. The voice wasn't quite tired, but there was undeniable exhaustion in its undertone.

"Now," the chronomancer softly clapped, "how's your progress in the assimilation?"

"Solid, I've already learned an akyromancy and two abjurations while maintaining—or rather, due to it—an adequate progress within the deadline."

"Can I see them?" Enantyum inquired with little interest, closer to a teacher asking for a student's assignment in a classroom of 100 instead of something more begetting of their relationship. Whatever that one might be.

"Two of those require concentration," Nolotl meant to inform the Regressor of his limitation, but he instantly realized the massive mistake that he had made. I should have two concentration slots. The terian's heart halted. Not out of the chronomancer's will, but his own fear. It didn't matter that Real-Time Status showed no notifications, Nolotl was terrified out of his life. So this is how I die, a casual slip of the tongue. Well, I had a good run…

His Second Mind had been occupied with that parasite, so he had lost access to that second concentration slot. He had unwittingly sealed his fate by revealing that he could only use one. One slip. A single slip… For better or worse, Nolotl didn't lament anything.

Well, he lamented a lot of things that he had now left halfway done and also sealed forevermore the fates of his future self and Enala's by being trapped in a cycle of infinite death, but a powerful apathy assaulted him as he couldn't even be angry at his mistake. He had made a mistake, and he would pay the price. Simple as that. The time loop had showed him since his second loop that he wasn't above consequences.

"Cast the most difficult one then," Enantyum added in a nonplussed manner. Nolotl looked at the chronomancer in utter bewilderment; the old looper was completely uncaring and unbothered.

"Come on, my time's at a premium," he pressured the diviner, rushing him.

"R-right!" Nolotl affirmed an octave too high and started casting both Mage Armor and Intellect Fortress. After less than a minute, his abjurer's attire materialized and the chronomancer nodded. They exchanged a handful of words more and Nolotl left the office as always. The terian prince calmly strutted through the empty passages of the Time Tower still boasting his summoned vestment and the instant his foot stepped out of the tower and into the sky-bridge, he collapsed on his knees and emptied his stomach.

"W-what has happened?" he hyperventilated with bile still in his mouth.

"Why h-h-ha… hasn't questioned my statement?" His head hurt a lot. It was a nauseating feeling. His mind and body were shouting at him that he should be dead by now, yet reality itself begged to differ as he was completely unscathed. Time is inevitable, not infallible. Spoke the nocturnal wind with a heightened amusement, his suffering pure enjoyment to the twisted being and the pool of vomit only a morass to roll on like the pig it was. And harder is for the creature of habit to break the shackle of the expected.

"What are you implying?" Nolotl asked softly, his hands pressed against the cold stone tiles of the bridge's floor.

"That it's too much of a fact, too much of a constant, for him to have a single concentration slot that he hasn't doubted having more?" The terian laughed—no, howled—at that pathetic explanation. He didn't have any other answer to what had occurred, but he absolutely refused to believe that the ancient and powerful chronomancer had made such a failure after the diviner's own. Enantyum was supposed to be more powerful than that, more intelligent than that, superior to him in every metric.

The thought didn't even enter Nolotl's mind that the Empyrean of Time had failed to notice the fatal slip of tongue.

"There has to be another explanation," he stated as a matter of fact.

"Something that I'm too green and unexperienced to understand," the diviner softly muttered to convince himself.

"But… I'm smart enough to not inquire about it." Whether or not the time loop master hadn't noticed the mistake, it was a fool's errand to inquire about it and refresh the man's memory.

"Though… which answer is the worst? If the Ehecatl is right… that highlights a somber picture." Nolotl was already aware of Enantyum's fractured mind, something that had led the chronomancer to shove him into the loop on a whim. But if he had also failed to grasp the slip of tongue, one so simple to commit and catch, then perhaps that mind was struggling far more than expected. A weakness to exploit. Sang the Ehecatl.

"A weakness that spells my doom," sang the twiceborn. For it only took one single act of a degrading mind to send reality itself into disarray.