CHAPTER 225: A GOD CORNERED, A GIRL LOST

Cassian lifted his hand, and resting in his palm was a strange black compass. Its needle remained completely still.

"Good. He isn’t here." Cassian said in a satisfied tone.

Lysandra stood behind him with her blank stare, saying nothing.

"We keep moving. If any of his duplicates appear, we leave immediately."

Lysandra simply nodded.

Then Cassian ascended first, rising slowly above the sand. Lysandra followed behind him. Their bodies lifted fully into the air and then sped off, flying across the empty desert.

They needed a place to stay, a place much better than standing exposed on open sand.

The object Cassian carried, that cmpass, was a dark object that reacted to the presence of dragons.

If Aiden or any dragon at all appeared in the same realm, the compass needle would swing violently in that direction, warning its user.

If this compass were used in the real world, its pointer would fly in multiple directions at once. Those directions would be any place Aiden currently existed, or toward Dellheim where the other dragons were at.

The teleportation spell they used to arrive here was a Demonic Magic Art.

It was created in the demon realm long ago, back when the demon lords were still sealed inside their dimension.

They had designed the spell as an escape method, a means to slip past their prison and flee the realm.

The magic itself had been perfect. The spell failed only because the seal binding the demon lords was too absolute to allow dimensional travel.

But now that the demon lords had escaped their realm, the spell worked exactly as intended. They could jump between dimensions freely.

Every demon lord knew the spell. Only a handful of trusted archdemons ever learned it from them, and Malachar had passed this spell down to Cassian.

The Compass and the Demonic Teleportation Art were how Cassian and the possessed Lysandra avoided Aiden and his time variants.

They moved constantly. One dimension to the next.

If a variant was already present in the world they entered, the compass would point instantly and Cassian would teleport them out without hesitation.

And If a variant opened a portal into a dimension they were already in, even if just one foot crossed through that portal and touched the ground, the compass would activate instantly.

After which, Cassian would grab Lysandra and teleport away again.

He planned to keep running until the demon lords’ objective was achieved, no matter how long it took.

———

The blue portal opened inside Ravens Grave.

Aiden stepped out with Arianna and Laela first, returning just as everyone was staring out the broken window at the chaos outside.

Elena rushed forward and took the two women’s hands, welcoming them back.

Piers and Katherine moved toward Aiden to demand an explanation of what was happening outside, but before either of them reached him, Aiden vanished.

He appeared high above the city, where hundreds of his avatars and time variants had surrounded Va completely.

Aiden spoke in a calm, almost soft voice. "That is enough. All of you."

Instantly the commotion stopped.

Some of the avatars and variants halted their time-stop casting, and the others stopped creating duplicates.

A path opened between them, leaving a clear line of space for Aiden to move forward.

Aiden flew through and stopped directly before Va.

The god hovered in the air, exhausted as sweat lined his face. His golden scale still floated beside him, but its fiery light had gone out.

Gods were beings of almost limitless endurance and energy. For one to be visibly tired meant he had been pushed in a brutal way.

Aiden had forced a god into fatigue.

Va had been countering wave after wave of time stop skills. From the moment his Law activated until now, he had resisted over fifty consecutive time freezes.

Aiden stopped before him. His expression was flat, almost emotionless, though his eyes held a slight condescending look.

"The fight is over. Leave."

Va clenched his teeth. "How dare you speak to me in that tone? Who decided this fight is finished?"

Aiden sighed lightly, then gestured around them.

"Look at them. Every one of these versions is nearly as strong as I am, and they have only been toying with you so far. Then there is me, the original, the one your Law cannot erase."

He stretched both arms outward as he said this, almost theatrically.

Va trembled with anger. He still refused to back down.

Aiden continued. "I will extend you mercy one last time. Leave."

Va straightened his posture and looked Aiden directly in the eyes. "Know this, dragon vessel. You cannot take what rightfully belongs to me. This matter is far from finished."

His voice was filled with pride.

The golden scale dissolved, reshaping back into his staff. Then Va shot upward in a thunderous sonic boom, disappearing into the sky in an instant.

Aiden let out a sigh and shook his head.

With a single thought, every avatar and time variant vanished from the air.

He appeared back in the guild the next second.

"It’s over now."

Everyone released a long, collective breath of relief.

——

"What?!" Lucina yelled as she saw Va back away. Rhyos sighed and stepped away from the gateway where they had been watching the scenes below.

Then he turned to them. "Hope you both realize that’s the point Val would be arriving through."

He was referring to his gateway, which also served as a doorway in and out of Eden.

Herxes moved to the side, but Lucina lingered, clearly unsatisfied with how things had unfolded, before hissing in frustration and storming off.

—-

Toward the end of the night, when things had settled within the guild at least, Aiden was alone in his room upstairs, lost in thought as he stared out the window.

His concern wasn’t the god from earlier. It was this thing about finding Lysandra.

And He was trying to piece a few things together.

First of, his variants and avatars were current spread over a hundred different dimensions. With more of them still untouched. It wasn’t an infinite amount dimensions out there, but it wasn’t just a few either.

And they hadn’t seen Lysandra or Cassian yet.

Aiden sighed and shook his head. "Why am I even bothering with this when there’s a much easier way?"

He realized he was wasting time trying to think it through.

"In fact, this is what I should’ve done from the start," he muttered, and in the next instant, he vanished.