181 ...It's All Screwed.

The female titan was barely alive in the strictest sense possible. Her beating heart was the only piece of evidence that she still had some life in her, for her body had already begun to fail her.

It was cold and stiff. Her body had lost the warmth and plasticity that was frequently attributed to the living. There was no other way to describe other than something akin to the rigor mortis that the recently deceased were fated to experience. 

When Reed knelt down and put one of his hands on her skin, all he felt was an unnatural rigidity and absence of body warmth. It had not been like that before if his memory still served some purpose. 

The first and second time, he had felt life beneath his feet — a type of scorching heat that had left him feeling as if he'd been put into an oven from hell. 

That had been the natural warmth of her own bodily functions operating as per usual. But now... none of this makes sense. We've already activated two of the reset nodes and yet the situation here has actually deteriorated instead. And at an astronomical pace, too.

"What are we doing wrong? This doesn't make any logical sense at all. Why hasn't she improved since the last time?!" said Reed, frustrated the truth laid bare before his feet.

"...I don't know," said Lu'um and stated, "But there must be a reason for this. She would not have sent us off on a doomed quest, after all. Would you not agree?"

Reed stood up and said, "I know. I trust her. But even so, that doesn't mean that I'll just stand around with a smile on my face just because she said that we can turn this whole mess around."

Although he was confident in her belief that they would be able to save the continent, it did not mean that he believed that it was an assured thing. The potential existed, but it would only be realized if they made it work. 

Perhaps she and Lu'um might believe in something as cruel and oppressive as Fate or an immutable Destiny in all things, but Reed did not. Not even after all that he had endured and experienced since he had arrived in Mulia. 

Never. Not ina hundred trillion years. Not even after the very last star in the universe winked out of existence.

My decisions and the consequences produced by them are my own and no one else's.

For the idea of life, chaotic, unfair, and infuriating as it usually was, being nothing more than a predetermined set of events was too boring for Reed to accept. 

And by Himself, he was to save the female titan on his own terms. Even if he had to rearrange the continent with his bare hands, so help Mulia and its people. 

Reed wasn't slightly deranged, he was just a little bit under the weather. 

When they made it to the reset node, which was located near the female titan's neck, Lu'um felt it crucial to say something about the new factors at play with their initial plan. She wasn't too sure whether it was a sound idea to do what the originally planned. 

In fact, she knew it was a terrible idea. Not that she was confident in creating an alternative plan, though. She just felt an urgent impulse to saying something before it was too late. 

Even though it had already been too late in the first place. Not that she knew. 

"Hey... let's not do this, okay? Don't you think the pressing conditions are more than enough to rethink our strategy? This changes—"

"It won't change a thing," said Reed, as he made his way toward the reset node on his own. "It'll work as planned. And if it doesn't... I'll make it work. End of discussion."

Rather than deal with the worrywart naysayer who'd likely try to deter him with her concerns, Reed opted to simply do as he pleased instead. Too long had he been strung along by others for their plans, though much of it a fault of his own for being so spineless and passive in the face of adversity or even simple inconvenience.

When he reached the reset node and made contact with it, an all too familiar conversation began. The automated system held within the reset node booted up and started an automatic diagnosis of the female titan as it always did. 

"Registered user detected. ERROR. Unable to establish a link with the Central Core.

Alpha node detected.

Gamma node detected.

Delta node offline.

Epsilon node offline.

Last known connection date — Era of Ruin, year 5426/ Seventh Lunar Spring/ Month of the Hummingbird, 18th day. Please hold. An automatic diagnostic is underway..."

Reed and Lu'um both felt an uneasy sensation when they heard the lifeless voice's automated introduction. Although they had assessed the extent of the damage themselves, they feared what the in-depth analysis of the artificial intelligence would end up being. 

"WARNING. Central Core defense matrix compromised. A state of emergency has been declared. SEED Protocol is now in effect. In forty-eight hours, all online nodes will broadcast for retrieval as assigned."

...SEED Protocol? Is that what the source of this mess in the North is coming from? It must be it. 

"Explain what SEED Protocol is and what the requirements are for it has been authorized," said Reed. 

The looming spire immediately replied, "SEED Protocol dictates that all custody subjects be recovered for security purposes in the event of a level-5 containment scenario. An emergency main sequence retrogression poses an absolute threat to everything in the field of reversion that is unable to separate itself from real-space and by extension, causal order."

Another phrase he didn't know. Main sequence retrogression. Though the requirements needed to escape such a thing involved exiting normal space and time in addition to removing oneself of the innate order imposed by causality itself. 

That alone spoke enough about what was going to happen if they didn't stop the nodes from doing what they were now prepared to perform. Not even Chosen would be exempt from what was to come.

It'd swallow the whole of Mulia, with the exemption of those fortunate enough to have been outside in the Shadowlands at the time. 

"Define the phrase 'Main sequence retrogression' and anything else associated with its implementation."

"In the event of a scenario where the loss of life to the Conduit over an estimated value of ninety percent, emergency failsafe systems are automatically set to perform a complete wipe of all quantum information except for the Central Core."

Lu'um bluntly said, "It's going to erase everything and reboot reality from the ground up. As in, starting off from square one, even if it comes at the cost of all the progress made here..."

"Can't we just reset things back to a prior point, before this happened? Like just after the Twilight War, for example? I wouldn't be opposed to doing that if it were possible..." said Reed, hoping that he could resolve things as quickly as possible.

"Negative. The Conduit is non-operational. Anima reserves are presently insufficient for a sequence correction procedure. Lifesigns declining. Contamination has almost reached the critical threshold."

The system responsible for managing the female titan's health would not change its mind, regardless of whatever proposed alternative they'd be able to come up with. It was solely focused on protecting what it had been assigned to supervise.

In comparison, the people of Mulia were of secondary concern to it. As long as it could safeguard the required minimum amount, it would consider its objective successfully completed. The safety of the Central Core its highest concern.

As such, Reed deemed the conversation they had with it over. There was nothing more to gain from wasting time pestering it with explanations. They even discovered that they had less time than they initially thought available.

Had Lacrima been incorrect in her assessment or was all of this still as she had foretold? Had they erred somewhere along the road or perhaps, had something changed instead? Reed didn't know and couldn't be bothered to contemplate it out any longer. 

Forty-eight hours remained.

Their entire time schedule had been pushed forward dramatically. The damoclean sword that threatened Mulia had finally descended to the point where it hovered only a precious few millimeters above it.

Reed had enough.

When he started to take off his pressurized environmental suit, Lu'um questioned his motive for doing so. There was nothing to gain in losing an additional layer of protection, even if it was slightly uncomfortable and... restrictive in certain respects when to came to wearing it. 

"It's unnecessary anymore, right? Besides, I feel that I'll probably get a better connection to the titan doing it like this. The suit was starting to bother me. And I also don't want anything distracting me for what I'm about to do, no matter how trivial it may be."

Reed stretched a bit and said, "I'll leave the physical loading to you as planned, alright? Get it into position and then I'll take over from there. After that, I'll ride the blast on the way out and set everything to collapse."

Lu'um still had more to say, but Reed had already turned his attention inward as he began to prepare himself for what was to come. Though she did not want to do it, there was no time left to debate it anymore and there weren't any better alternatives on hand. 

Shit. To think this how it turned out. Hehe... I can't believe it...

She cursed herself for a brief second and took a final glance at Reed before she flew upwards towards the surface. The disconcerting feeling in her chest was something she couldn't shake off. As much as it secretly excited her, the fear of not knowing — much less, not being in control of the situation at hand — terrified her inside. 

It was a humbling thing to experience, especially from someone such as her, who had long since gotten accustomed to being in total control of everything around her. 

...When the plan finally commenced, an enormous change occurred above the city of Itroch.

Over in the Spirit of Bountiful Charity, Velvund and Haydn had not progressed in the slightest over their civil discussion over who would claim rights on the geode of souls. Had it not been for the alarming sight in front of them, they would have never believed the spectacle that had begun over Itroch could have happened.

Out in the distance, a familiar figure had reappeared along with the signal from her environmental suit. Lu'um had returned.... alone, much to the confusion of both Velvund and Haydn, along with the rest of the staff monitoring the situation. 

"Hmm? Where'd the boy go? How very peculiar. It's just the wife this—"

Hadyn choked on his words yet again, for the nth time in a single day as his eyes popped out of their sockets.

It shouldn't have been possible and yet, it happened nevertheless.

The geode of souls had begun to move as it tilted upward towards the sky. Several hundred million tons of ice and crystal slowly arched up in a display of unprecedented power, never before seen in history. 

And the person responsible for that event didn't even seem that concerned about it. In fact, she seemed rather unfocused when it came down to her expression.

"Goddess help us, what in the world is she doing!" said Haydn in alarm. "How is that even possible?!"

Velvund let out a depressed sigh. He had just been given more work to do. My day couldn't get any longer, he thought.

....If he knew the truth, it would have probably broken him. That his suffering had barely just begun. 

Hell was about to break loose... quite literally, in fact.