time elemental effects

“Yes,” He agreed a moment before I thought to say anything. Though I actually wasn’t sure he was speaking to me, as such; I never actually saw him speak to me, I just remembered him saying the words. Before I could react—and this was me we were talking about—he put a hand on my shoulder and I felt myself…

Saying I moved was quite accurate. It was more like I found myself elsewhere, standing directly in front of the Ananta’s core and peering at the portal within it. I had no recollection of crossing the intervening space, but then, I didn’t remember withdrawing any Dust crystals either, even though I had several in my hands. Seeing that my MP was almost empty, I consumed the lot of them and, when I absently checked my Inventory for more, realized that I must have used three or four more in the time I either hadn’t experienced or didn’t remember. Bringing my power back up to full, I began to gather it, mentally plotting out the best course of attack—

Abruptly, I had a hand outstretched, a wall of attacks circling the unmoving sphere. Catching up to my body, I realized the nature of the attacks—Gungnirs intermixed with Magic Missiles, along with the occasional Agneyastra. Each of the created weapons, floating in the air with my Psychokinesis, had been charged to their fullest extent, a process that would have taken at least a few seconds and several times more power than I could provide. My Pericognition quickly informed me of what I needed to know and I felt more than saw the absence of thirty-seven Dust crystals from my Inventory. Nonetheless, the bombardment had been fully charged and all that was left was too unleash it.

So I did. The attacks collided with a burst of power so massive that I briefly thought the world was breaking. Seeing it up close, it was easy for me to determine that it’s power was several times the four-fold Lux Aeterna if taken all together—and each attack was designed to penetrate an opponent’s defenses with as much force as possible. In the midst of all that power, I saw layers of the Ananta’s defensive core shatter by the dozens and burn away, even through the light of an explosion that could have dwarfed mountains. It occurred to me belatedly that I wasn’t sure I could survive proximity to such a thing and I realized I had no idea what I’d been planning.

But then my Elemental was standing idly beside me and I felt myself twisting. I was stretched and unraveled so as to better squeeze through nonexistent gaps in the oncoming rush of power. I felt myself come apart as if into a cloud of smoke, but even that ascribed more presence than I experienced in that moment; if I was a cloud of anything, it was a cloud of probability. What were the odds of me existing here or there or being dead or alive? Somewhat less than a hundred percent. The explosion passed through me—through the space I occupied, or didn’t occupy, or perhaps just maybe occupied—and then I was there again in its wake, collapsing to my knees. My HP had been badly reduced, if far less than probably should have been, but there wasn’t much time to think about it.

I was back on my feet and approaching the cracked sphere literally before I could think about it. Dust crystals, the most recent of now well over a hundred, shattered and faded in my hands. The next moment, Lux Aeterna had fully gathered in my hands and I was unleashing it on the sphere—but instead of the usual colossal beam of destructive power, it came out differently. As if meeting something in midair, the light twisted until it was a narrow beam, no wider across than the palm of my hand yet glowing with the full power of the attack. It had been focused, as if through an invisible lens, and all of its concentrated power was sent straight at the heart of the sphere.

Adam was beside me, I realized then. Just as Gou was looming over me, already fully grown. A blade of red-white light, the brightest attack I’d ever seen from Adam, came down on the sphere, but he wielded it through the edge of Wilt, sinking it into the sphere. The red core was already half buried in the ground, pressed down in the center of a massive crater, but while it was less than half the size it had been when I’d last seen it—which was God only knows when, objectively or even subjectively—it was still active. Even so, I could see something shifting within it, a reaction that seemed startled, confused, and maybe even worried.

“More,” I said, standing beside my Elemental again. At my command, he held out a hand and a column of darkness reached out, piercing right through the sphere and the earth beneath it. Of course, it wasn’t actually darkness; that was merely how its strange interaction with light made it appear. Similarly, it didn’t actually pierce the earth or sphere—it merely overlapped them.

And then the ground began to twist, flowing towards and into the black beam with a fluidity that should have been impossible for something that I confirmed to still be solid. I saw things tear and released energy at the strain, matter being torn apart as it was twisted into impossible shapes, my own MP dropping in massive chunks with each passing moment.