CHAPTER 241: TWO VERY ANNOYING TRICKS

The sun was doing its dramatic slow rise over the trees—like it knew it was the star of the show and wasn’t about to be rushed.

The grove below, not quite a forest but definitely trying its best, was just waking up. Birds were chirping way too enthusiastically for this hour. Yep, some poor worm that decided to wake up early got eaten.

Squirrels were already arguing over some subpar acorn, and something that may or may not have been a raccoon was dragging an entire piece of meat into a bush... weren’t they herbivores? Probably not.

In the middle of all this early-morning nature chaos stood two figures, like they had no other job, locked in what might’ve been a tense standoff — or just a really intense staring contest.

One wore a deer mask, for reasons unknown and probably very dramatic. The other had a head of crimson red hair so vivid it looked like a fire emoji had come to life, neither moved.

And the sun kept rising, probably wondering what kind of nonsense it was shining down on today.

The deer-masked man finally tilted his head, the wooden mask catching the early sun. His coat swayed slightly in the breeze, but otherwise he was as unmoving as a lawnmower on the weekdays.

"...You’ve been following me."

Alex cracked his neck, one hand on his hip, the other rubbing his temple like the masked man had just asked if water was wet.

"Congratulations detective. What gave it away? The fact that I’m standing right here? Or the part where you just now decided to grow a brain cell?"

The man’s shoulders stiffened. "I don’t care why you’re here. I have a job, I gotta complete this before my boss blows up and you’re in my way."

Alex let out a sharp laugh, the kind that sounded way too cheerful for six in the morning. "Oh no, no, no... you don’t get it. You’re not in my

way. You are my way. Do you have any idea how many things have gone wrong for me lately? My son’s pulling disappearing acts, the ether trail’s laughing at me, rabbits are apparently unionizing against me, don’t even ask, and now you stroll in here with your discount Halloween mask like life isn’t already a headache."

The man’s hand twitched toward his side. "C’mon, we have no business against each other."

"Oh, buddy," Alex sighed, rolling his shoulders like a boxer about to warm up, "I wanted to beat you to a pulp when we met before, but the circumstances were against me. But now? I’ve been itching for this main course."

The masked man straightened, his tone cold. "Dude, you don’t even know who I am."

"Doesn’t matter," Alex shot back. "I know enough. And I can’t stand creeps like you, stalking after another man’s wife... Right now, you’re Stress Relief Number One." He grinned. "Lucky you, huh?"

The deer mask tilted again, voice muffled but firm. "You’ll find I’m not so easy to—"

Alex interrupted, stepping forward with the kind of grin that made squirrels stop arguing mid-acorn. "Shhh. Don’t ruin this for me. Just fight back, alright? Let me vent. Then you can go back to... whatever it is you masked weirdos do. Lurking? Brooding? Eating grass? Just not stalking."

The man’s hand finally rose. "I admit that I’ve been.. following people, but that doesn’t make me a stalker."

"What the heck?" Alex muttered, already moving, eyes glinting. "It’s like saying ’Yeah, I kill people for fun, but I am not a psychopath or anything’. Do you even hear yourself?"

Deer guy said nothing, his speech was tiring.

The ground beneath Alex rippled as if someone had dropped a stone into the earth itself. Roots tore upward, soil folding in on itself as though this moment had already happened before — and the world was only now catching up to the memory of it.

Alex shifted a foot back. Not much, barely anything. But the space he stepped into stopped being "ground" at all. It reinterpreted itself under his presence, and in an instant the dirt hardened into polished marble, smooth as temple floors. He tapped his heel lightly against it, almost amused.

The Deer Mask tilted his head. "...Cheating."

"Perspective," Alex replied with a small grin. "You’ll get used to it."

The Deer Mask waved his hand, it was fast with no hesitation.

His ether flared outward, and suddenly three slashes of force tore through the air, not from his hand but from the echo of it, the attack repeated itself from moments that hadn’t happened yet, collapsing into the present like overlapping threads.

Alex ducked the first, sidestepped the second, but the third didn’t come from anywhere at all, it came from the fact that he had dodged, inevitability catching up.

But Alex wasn’t an easy opponent either, he snapped his fingers, and the slash that should have split his chest instead carved harmlessly through the idea of a branch, which the world quickly realized had always been in the way. The branch wasn’t there a second ago, but now it lay in two neat halves at his feet.

"The way you fight, and your arrogance... The Deer Mask froze for half a breath, then laughed under his mask. No wonder the gaze was so heavy. You’re a dragon." His voice sharpened. "No wonder! You were the gaze above that disfigured boy."

"Good Job detective," Alex was surprised, but he didn’t show it. "You are so intelligent." He mocked.

The ground detonated. Ether boiled outward like a chain of collapsing scaffolds, recursive shockwaves ripping the grove apart tree by tree, as if each toppled trunk carried the inevitability of the next falling. Birds scattered in panicked arcs, leaving behind the worms they eagerly caught for their children.

Alex didn’t move at first. He let it all crash toward him, then lifted a hand. The avalanche of collapsing causality met resistance, then... blurred. It didn’t stop, nor did it slow — it simply ceased to be the kind of force that could topple him.

The blast curved away, redirected into the sky where it tore a hole through the clouds like an angry god had thrown a tantrum, the sight was magnificent and surreal.

The Deer Mask’s eyes burned through the antlered slits. He pressed harder, ether surging, and the world began to loop. Branches snapped and re-snapped, roots tore upward then retreated, dirt exploded, fell back, then exploded again — as though the entire battlefield was stuck replaying itself in violent spasms.

Alex walked through it. The loops tried to drag him back, force his body into the rhythm of inevitability — but each step he took carried its own interpretation. He wasn’t walking through a recursive collapse.

He was walking through a quiet garden path the world just hadn’t realized existed until he declared it did.

Steel rang. The Deer Mask had drawn a blade at some point, its surface flickering with afterimages of itself — one blade, three blades, five, then all striking at once from different futures.

Alex extended his hand, and suddenly that blade was not a blade at all. To the world, it was now a harmless shepherd’s staff, splintering uselessly against his arm. To the Deer Mask, it was still a weapon, which made the disconnect crackle violently, ether shrieked as reality struggled to reconcile the truth. Sparks rained down, fracturing the grove in light.

The masked fighter snarled. His blade fragmented into echoes, dozens of recursive possibilities rushing Alex like a storm. Alex let them come, then exhaled.

In just a heartbeat’s time, he reworked reality, and every "possibility" was displaced, rewritten as nothing more than the gentle sway of tall grass in the wind. The storm of blades bent, fluttered, and vanished as if they had always been harmless.

For the first time, the Deer Mask staggered back. It was absurd, the power that this dragon possessed was insane. He had always known the dragons as a talented but lazy race, at least that was what Lara had told him, but she had warned him that there were always exceptions.

"...You’re rewriting the world itself." His tone wasn’t awe — it was fear.

Alex smiled thinly, tilting his head. His hair burned bright in the dawn light, eyes gold and sharp. "And you’re replaying it... Two very annoying tricks, aren’t they?"

The pause lasted less than a second.

Then both moved at once.

Ether surged as trees snapped into splinters. The ground tore open, then healed, then tore open again in recursive fits. Alex blurred across space, each step redefining what space was.

The Deer Mask bent time’s spine, forcing Alex into patterns he hadn’t chosen, futures clawing at him like chains.

Neither yielded.

The grove that had woken with birdsong now screamed with collapsing reality, every moment folding and unfolding, rewritten, replayed, and weaponized. And still, neither man looked away.

For the first time in years, Alex’s smile carried no ease. Only the embers of excitement.

And for the first time in years, the Deer Mask felt his pulse race — not just from fear, but from the intoxicating possibility that this fight might actually end with him dying.

Or maybe it was just his fear of death, and the fear of nonexistence gave him an inexplicable sense of unease.