Chapter 515: Fringe of Existence

As they neared the distant city which Argrave was content calling Sandelabara, the looping effect became all the clearer. The whole world around them seemed to be a malfunctioning tape, lasting for no more than the five seconds it had been allotted. They were constantly frightening people with their sudden appearance, yet it never really mattered enough for anything to happen.

Argrave heard the beginning to the same sentence half a thousand times, or the distant call of a bird greeting another rising in the sky. He saw windmills grinding the same bit of grain countless times. He saw a man drawing from a well again and again, pulling up the rope to retrieve water. He saw a child carrying a burlap sack of various items trip and slam his face against the paved street again and again. Argrave passed through with a deep sense of unease—unease that seemed to be shared by most of his company—as they followed the Alchemist, who used his vial of Gerechtigkeit’s power as a compass.

“Mastery over time itself... I can scarcely think of a power more alarming.” Master Castro travelled along with them, his eyes wandering the area.

“I took interest in magic that affects time,” Onychinusa commented, tone tense. “But I reached a dead end. Erlebnis’ archives had no knowledge of such a thing. Divinity, however, can have some effect on the flow of time. Law has demonstrated some small mastery over the sphere... and in the distant past, an ancient god governed time. He was powerful enough that several gods cooperated to end him, consume him. In the end, all of his powers merely prolonged his death to seventy years of agony.”

Argrave nodded. “But that’s slowing or speeding time up, right? Nothing can truly suspend time, nor... loop it like this.” He spotted a sign above a store, and felt a chill as he read the words, ‘Sandelabara General.’ The location, then, was confirmed.This composition is securely entrenched in n0v*lbin★

“It’s clear there’s one exception.” Melanie looked around.

Orion’s steely gray eyes wandered the cityscape from on high. “I’ve been searching for any deviation, any exception... but all I see are trapped. Blissfully trapped, looping into themselves totally ignorant of their condition.”

“I caution us against making assumptions,” Anneliese cut in. “We cannot know if this place is constantly recreating itself anew, if time is rewinding, or if we face an illusion on such a grand scale that even our significant protection cannot ward from it. After all, we are currently excepted from this bizarre happening.”

“As far as we’re aware,” Castro agreed.

The Alchemist stopped his advance and looked back. “It would be best if you ceased speculation altogether.” A hand emerged atop his head, and pointed firmly toward a distant castle. “That is our destination, just beyond this city. We might find answers there.”

Argrave felt a strange sense of nervousness when their destination was highlighted amidst this impossible scenario. It felt like, at any moment, Argrave would find himself looped in a task for all eternity, brought under the thrall of whatever malignance had ensnared this city. Were these people aware of what was happening? Would he be, if he kept going? Death was one thing, but this fate seemed so insidious and devastating. These people, trapped here, unable to act beyond their five seconds of allotted existence...

“She...” Anneliese grasped at words for a few seconds, and everyone, even the Alchemist, awaited her answer. “She is one half of an unfathomable whole.”

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Far away from the portal chasm leading to the city of Sandelabara, magma slowly encroached back upon the place that had been drained utterly by the dwarven pumps. It was moving slowly, letting out vast amounts of heat and warping the air itself as it travelled. And yet in portions, it seemed especially active.

On the right side, the magma began to move faster, spread out thicker, almost as if something was pushing it from the other side. And when a glowing hand emerged out from the magma, pushing it aside like nothing more than thick sludge, the driving force behind the magma was made clear. Slowly, a golem glowing red hot freed itself of the magma, pushing away thick globs of the stuff that clung to its metal frame. To walk through magma was quite literally to walk through rock, and its state as a liquid did not change the difficulty of such a feat.

Yet the passage of time slowly proved that it was not alone in this tremendously impossible challenge. The tide of magma shifted and turned as yet more of these golems emerged, one by one, and began to fill the cavern. They glowed brightly from the intense heat that they endured, yet their metal bodies did not seem hampered at all by the tremendous burden.

Miles above, in a dark cavern, Dario laid on a dank, hot floor and stared at a rocky ceiling. Compared to his sickly form before, he was now broken. Death looked liable to claim him any second. His breath was a low rattle, drawing what little air found its way into this place far beneath the earth. Yet he kept his bloodshot eyes open, retained his lucidity and focus, and persisted. After all, he was the only thing linking these golems to this realm. If he was too far away, they would falter. And if they faltered, Argrave might unlock the secrets within Sandelabara.

Dario heard a voice. He couldn’t be sure he was hallucinating, yet he understood the intentions behind it all the same.

“We will do our best to stop the parasite, and to stop us from falling into the chaos that curiosity brings. Rest, savior, and let your body be host. You will be remembered by those who matter as a great preserver.”

“I don’t...” Dario breathed. “I don’t wanna die. Why does it have to...?”

The voice, or hallucination, never answered him. But Dario could feel the march of the golems far beneath, entangling and strangling him. He felt a hundred puppets nailed into his soul, tearing him apart. But he wasn’t the puppeteer—he was the tool the puppet master used, and nothing more. Was he right to come here, to come so far? And if he wasn’t... what could be done?

Traugott knew what might happen should Sophia be freed. Yet even still, torn apart like this, he thought as much of Argrave’s hopeful struggle as he did his own duty of preserving the current world. Despite knowing his fate was death, he hoped for something else.