It was always... strange, to feel my bones pull back together. If natural healing was turned up to the point that it was as fast as mine tended to be, a badly broken bone, left un-set would result in a mangled, painful mess of leg. The body does not normally do things like neatly arranging bones, you see. I assumed it was something to do with intent when it came to the pills, as they were not mere chemical concoctions, but magical in some way. As for my Lesser Regeneration, it seemed fine with rearranging my bits to make them fit back together, but it mostly ignored foreign objects.

As I lay next to my - hopefully – dead opponent, feeling my flesh twist and bones move, I thought about my abilities. The ones I had purchased, and the explanations Xiournal had given. What I knew about reality at that point was significantly more than when I had died, and it did not make sense that somebody who had ascended to the next plane was that limited. Even a whif of the next plane up was enough to turn somebody into a demigod, able to literally alter reality. From what I had seen, each of my abilities should be replicable using cultivation, though Lucky might take some work. It was nice to get them effectively for free, on top of everything else – life saving, in fact – but they still seemed somewhat limited for somebody who got headaches from gods. If the purpose of the Agent system was to do things on the gods’ behalf, and to be rewarded for success, why not load Agents up with every ability they could, just allow us to walk through any obstacle? Even by that point, I was not any sort of challenge for an Apex, or even a Mid-to-Peak Foundation cultivator, but if I had all of the abilities that had been listed? I did not think there was much that could stop me if I had all of the Violet level abilities, even an Apex. There was something fishy about the whole thing, and it might be worth world-hopping again just to get some face-to-face time with the dragon-lady, presuming she would not just atomize me on the spot... maybe I should try just talking to her instead.

Climbing to my feet still hurt, but I did not have all time to lay about, and it was good enough to walk on. Painful, but I was used to pain at this point. I looked down at the mostly metal body and tried to figure out if I could fit it into one of my storage rings. Pulling things from them, I quickly re-arranged what I had, stuffing things between the other limbs I had... retained, I managed to free up one entire ring. It took me a couple of minutes to fold up the corpse so that it would fit, and by the end it looked like the dead bird-lizard was hugging its knees. Feeling very morbid, I slipped it into the ring. There was definitely no more room in storage, so I hoped I did not come across any more promising parts; intellectually I knew I should not be collecting people parts, but the potential for benefit was overriding that part of me, and I once again wondered if I had been changed more than I knew during my rebirth.

With a shrug, I took off again, mostly ignoring the pain as I ran on – with a limp. Heading towards the source of the shaking was probably a bad idea, especially if more of these guys were in that direction, and especially if there was an antagonistic Apex equivalent over there, but DUK3 had asked for my assistance, and since they’d been kind enough to give me a shiny new arm, I felt kind of indebted. I just hoped that the Fullmetal Asshole would be the most powerful of them I had to contend with.

Feeling another shock run through the facility, I took the next right on the featureless corridor, turning in to another hall, this one with what looked like lab equipment around the edges. It was the first of its kind I had seen in the otherwise dizzyingly uniform complex, but it was not the equipment that caught my attention, so much as it was the large crowd of lizard-birds pawing through it all. Luckily, they did not seem to be mostly-metal monstrosities, but they all had one or two limbs replaced, so I hoped they would be reasonably easy to deal with.

Not waiting for them to notice me, I ran in, Focused and with power thrumming through my Exemplar. I was slowed a little by my injury, but even so, I hit the crowd like a force of nature. Unlike the first four I had encountered, only the ones with both legs replaced seemed to move at all, but that movement was so slow that it was effectively nothing. I felt vaguely guilt as I moved through them, every blow seeming to end a life, moving between them so quickly that I doubted most of them could even see me.

I spun through the loose crowd, kicking and punching with impunity, going all out in an effort to end the fight quickly, as if any of the number had some sneaky trick, or were powerhouses like the asshole, I was in for a bad time against so many. But my fears turned out to be without foundation, and within moments the fight was over and more than two-dozen bodies littered the floor. I looked around, shaking my head as the vague guilt I had experienced rolled through me and intensified. I had never fought anybody who was this much weaker than I was; even the mooks from the Risen Throne I had fought and killed had been more dangerous like this. It felt like attacking children – and not the sociopathic ones I had met at the Steel Splinter. I was not that much above what was considered normal back on my adopted home, and it made me wonder how any war between cultivator and non-cultivator worlds could be fair. Yet another thing I needed to ask somebody about.

I let out a sigh of not quite regret; I felt bad that these people had stood no chance, but at the same time, they were invading, and their compatriots had attacked me. Shaking the feeling off, but knowing it was something to think about later, I started to leave, but noticed something odd. There were substantial amounts of blood spattered about the room from the brief ‘fight’, but much like the stuff I had found before, it was freezing as I watched, or whatever the process was called in the absence of cold. With a frown, I thought back to my first fight with that lot, trying to remember if their blood had gone through the same process, but I did not think it was the case. I recalled using a cleansing pill to clear off the rapidly congealing stuff, and that had certainly taken longer than the brief pause I had taken after the latest fight.

Blowing out a breath, I was surprised to find it clouding in front of me, hanging on the still air as it slowly drifted apart. Holding out my hands, I tried to see if the air felt cold, but like everything else, it seems comfortably warm, perfectly matching my body temperature.

“What the fuck is going on?”

Speaking out loud, my breath pooled again and I tried to remember if it had done so when speaking to the Fullmetal Asshole, but I had been preoccupied at the time, and was unable focus in on that detail.

With a frown of distaste, I spat onto the metal floor and crouched, staring at it for a moment as, like the blood, it began to freeze.

Standing again, I thought furiously, trying to come up with an explanation, but pure physics failed me. I knew it had to be some kind of ability, but there was nobody around, unless they were invisible, and the effect had stretched out for miles of corridor. And that meant one of two things. Either there was an invisible person following me around that had a thing for freezing bodily fluids, or it was the result of an Apex – or a Construct, I guessed. On the one hand, running into a Construct without DUK3 about was likely a death sentence, but on the other, the fluid freezing phantom was creepy as fuck.

Giving the empty room a wary glance, I ran on, hoping not to run into anything I could not handle... or any creepy phantoms.

*

***

*

The gong-like booms were growing painfully loud, and the constant shuddering of the metal around me was visible, like a blur that scattered itself around the edges of everything.

Rounding a corner, I came face-to-face with at least another hundred of the lizard-birds, all facing towards me. With a misting yell, I dropped into a defensive stance reflexively, but I soon noticed that none of them were moving. At all. The entire crowd – a small army – was frozen solid and held fast to the floor by thick frost. A white fog hung close to the ground, but as it swirled and eddied, I could make it all out. Making my way through the statue garden, I found another hall, though this one was larger than any I had seen. Half pastel-yellow and half the black swamp oak, the hall stretched for hundreds of feet in every direction, figures standing at either side.

The side closest to me held DUK3, a constant stream of clones coming into existence to around him to surge across the space towards the hall’s other occupant. Standing alone against the constant tide, a figure defined in black, seeming flat and two dimensional, like an ACME hole in the shape of a person.

The flat figure did not move at all as the onrushing copies shattered as they approached, freezing solid and then being shattered by their own momentum. Not all of the clones were approaching, I could see, but were rather reforming into floating orbs that blasted the black space with beams of strangely dark purple. The orbs seemed to last longer than the clones, but they too eventually succumbed to the strange cold and falling from the air. It was that falling which was causing the booms, as the beam did not cut off until they shattered on the ground. The lines of line appeared to be absorbed completely by that black hole in the world, but as the orbs fell, they blasted into the metal of the hall, evaporating the metal.

I was shocked into immobility as I watched the combat; DUK3 was supplying an unlimited supply of combatants by the look of things, thousands of them coming into existence and being destroyed just as quickly, though Mr. Hole seemed to do so passively, staying perfectly still. I had an uncomfortable feeling that I had found the Fullmetal Asshole’s brother, given the similarity in their styles...

Recalling the glowing circles, it struck me that cold was not a thing in and of itself, but was rather the absence of energy. And since energy could not be destroyed... I wondered where it was going.

As soon as I wondered, my question was answered as a light like a star illuminated the room; even before I could blink, that lethal brightness was sealed away as thousands of copies of DUK3 shot out from every direction, instantly forming from the ceiling walls and floor, flowing together like water to create a wall that was forced incandescent in a moment, exploding apart as the barrier too vaporized... and then froze, falling like yellow hail.

The two Constructs seemed evenly matched – DUK3 was unable to harm Mr. Hole, or so it seemed, but the reverse was also true. Looking back at the frozen bodies behind me, I wondered how it had happened. It was not particularly cold where I was, and the attacks seemed to be heat based rather than cold. Was the field around the enemy’s body selective, and if so, why had they selected their own people?

And then it hit me; energy cannot be destroyed, it can only be moved or changed. Heat was just energy, and mine could not be drained. Thinking back to the ability, I had taken it to keep me safe from the Shadow Faced Guy’s black mist, and had thought it kind of expensive for such a niche case, but in that moment, I realised that the description had been one-hundred-percent literal. The world around me was cold enough to freeze blood and spit, or people, solid. I was just incapable of feeling it.

Under normal circumstances, I did not think there was any way for me to compete against an Apex – or Construct – at my level. Their abilities stretched beyond what was otherwise possible, twisting reality to enforce their abilities upon the world. But I could somehow resist that will if it did not fall within their chosen field, and this chosen field was completely ineffective against me, the ability set in stone by a power even higher than theirs. This might be the only such being in all of existence I stood a chance against.

Slipping my last sword free from storage, Instinctive Cognition reared its head again, telling me that this was a stupid idea. I watched as the thousands of bodies shattered to nothing as they approached the black being, and looked down at my sword, which was already sporting a layer of ice. Slipping it back into storage with a grimace I thought about my options. Mr. Hole appeared to eat direct energy in the same way his suspected brother ate kinetic energy, but was defending against physical attack. I could try my echo punch but I did not know if it would be enough.

Looking down at my hands as the battle raged, my mind raced and after a moment, I recalled the way I had used my new arm to cushion my impact. The force had been turned about, so that the wall had taken the brunt of it. Why? DUK3 had said it would not double my strength, but it had seemed to. Newton’s Third Law: Every action has an equal and opposite reaction, but... what if you could divert that reaction? By, say one-hundred-and-eighty degrees?

I tried to recall the sensation of activating it, but it had been done purely by Instinct, my ability reaching into the its own future and stealing the method from itself, for itself.

I had an idea, but it was pretty stupid. It was stupid to get involved, but the fight was clearly at a stalemate, and had been for a good chunk of time by that point. And I had made a promise to myself. Forward.

“Fuck it.”

Turning everything back up to maximum, I ran into the mixed hall, the flow of battle slowing but still surprisingly fast as the constructs formed and attacked, to be destroyed. I did not aim for Mr. Hole, running towards one side of the hall instead. Leaping up, I once again felt Instinct Precognition inform me of my own stupidity, but sometimes you have to be stupid to win. Maybe. Turning as I jumped, I hit the wall and jumped again, kicking off towards the ceiling directly above the three-dimensional silhouette. Absorbing the impact with my legs, I looked down, drew my left fist back and jumped with everything I had, pushing my lightning past where I had thought to be my limit. The electrical arcs became too strong to contain, and I felt my channels burning as the electricity sprang free around me as I descended like a thunderbolt.

Twisting as I fell, I shifted my concentration to my arm and strangely felt my travel slow, though I lost none of my momentum. With wild exultation, I felt Instinctive Precognition ignite, and it felt almost irritated as I lost control for one single, infinite moment and with a primal scream, struck.