A Minor Increase

The news of the defeat of Jahad's forces travelled throughout the tower. Everyone was shook.

The upper echelons of the ruling classes turned their heads to the event and gasped in surprise at the arrival of a new contender. The masses were flabbergasted, shocked and fearful of such a powerful force arising out of the blue. The greatest part that fueled their fear wasn't the fact that another irregular of such strength had come; but the fact that he was still a regular while doing so.

And that entailed a sense of freedom. By the rules of the tower, the rankers were barred from interfering too much with the regulars, which provided a bit of solace to the climbers. But here, with such a strong being climbing the tower, it was bound to turn some heads.

The various family heads, specifically, head of the Poe Bidau, Arie, Ari and Ha families all collectively and openly expressed their interest. The rest did so in secrecy. As for the King of the Tower, no one knew about his thoughts, neither could anyone speculate.

As for the one that was responsible for such things?

Well...

He was visiting an old friend.

~~~

Hushed whispers rang in Winston's ears as he probed through the 28th floor.

His body flew through the spirit world with such ease that he felt he could traverse an infinite distance without a sweat.

Sequence 4. The threshold of divinity where one becomes something more than a mortal. A demigod. It was no longer fit to refer to a demigod as a mere 'beyonder' at this point.

Divinity was what had changed within them, turning them into entirely different breeds.

Bizzaro Sorcerer, Parasite and Secrets Sorcerer. There were the names of Sequence 4 of the Fool, Error and the Door pathways.

Bizzaro Sorcerers, as the name entailed, required the beyonder to act bizzare and conduct strange performances that surprise the audience.

They were plenty equipped for it as well. Although they did not manifest any new abilities, almost all of the existing ones were dialed to maximum; exhibiting nearly 10 times more effectiveness!

The ability to control Spirit body Threads and marionettes was extended to a full kilometre! However, even that restriction was turned nil thanks to the Door pathway's Traveller powers. The marionettes could be as far away from him as they wanted. But he could only make new ones in a range from himself.

Of course, the marionettes themselves, who could now possess Winston's abilities due to him being able to "gift" them the maggots he was made out of, could also make other marionettes, effectively turning his ability into an ever growing mesh of marionettes. But he could only sustain so many marionettes at a time. The limit was not certain for now because of a...certain mutation.

The Parasite was a strange sequence.

The main power it manifested was simple. It allowed the beyonder to latch onto a target, living or inanimate. There were two levels, deep parasitism or controlling mode, and surface parasitism or concealed mode.

The gist of it was exceedingly simple. It allowed him to control the other party completely, so long as the parasitism was successful.

Winston felt a shiver travel up his spine when he remembered Mr. Fool's journey with Amon through the Forgotten land of Gods. It was truly a scarring experience. A parasitised host has no secrets. They are at complete mercy of the Parasite. The Parasite, at any moment and merely at a whim, decide to steal everything from the user and go away.

It was truly a busted sequence. But the things he recieved from the Error pathway did not end there. Theft could now be applied to life, position, distance and a plethora of other things. It would only get stronger from here. And of course, Deception and Decryption had followed suit.

And finally, for the Door Pathway's Sequence 4- The Secrets Sorcerer. Like everything else, it was also very simple. It had the power of secrecy. It could access the power to make and maintain Secrets and imbue them into objects, living things, events and even the space itself.

Other abilities included the ability to seal things, exile them into a separate space for a limited time, and of course, Door substitution. The beyonder could seal the distance between an attack and themselves in a layer of doors. This would effectively shield the beyonder from the attack by making the door take the hit.

Another thing to mention was the record ability. He could now, record states of an object and essentially, reset something to the previous state. It was an ability increasingly similar to the reset ability he had manifested, making him come to the conclusion that it was merely an extension of the said record ability.

Destiny's Robber was conceptualized as well. He could now steal a thought, emotion, dream, distance, life, or even a whole person from his divination.

Now, that would be the end of the discussion in terms of powers.

But of course, it was even more busted.

Mythical creature form, the true form of divinity. All of the cowardly trio pathways manifested as worms. And for him, who was an amalgamation of all of them... Well...

He was made of worms, that's for sure..

But the structure was a little off.

His spirit body was made out of hundreds of worms of time, which were the creature form of the Error. But each of those were made from about 50 worms of spirit, worms that signify the Fool Pathway. And even extending down from there, those in turn, were made out of numerous other worms of stars, the door pathway worms.

It was a chain that allowed him to... pull off some interesting tricks.

Say, if he made a marionette, he could gift one of his worms to give him all his abilities. It was the standard way of Bizzaro Sorcerers. But then, you realize, that's not a normal worm of spirit. It's a worm of time that's made out 50 of them. Meaning, each marionette that he makes, they could make 50 more. And wait, it gets crazier.

Each of the marionettes, which now was a worm of spirit is, in actuality, made out of dozens of worms of stars. And the way door pathway makes use of them is curious. Each worm is basically a computing unit that can be assigned various tasks.

Say, for example, one worm could be assigned with recording the opponent's abilities, and another worm could be assigned with spamming the said ability. Imagine that, but with dozens of them.

And not only that, each of them could be 'gifted' to an afterimage.

Meaning each marionette that he makes can make 50 marionettes. Each of whom can act as micro computing units that can spam afterimages which not only linger for more than 3 seconds, but also consciously attack the target.

If you wish for a more practical approach, picture this.

Your an angel walking down the street and get into a fight with a demigod. But then, the said demigod pulls out 50 marionettes, which soon turn into 2500! And then, each of those 2500 marionettes make dozens of afterimages, each of which spams your own goddamn abilities at you from every single angle!

But of course, that was only on paper. There was a limit to how many marionettes he could have. If he didn't strictly abide by that, he would develop schizophrenia. Permanently.

It doesn't take a genius to realize that, for a beyonder, being schizophrenic is one of the most disastrous things that could happen.

The mind was a delicate thing in the beyonder world where madness is at every corner and lurking at every door step.

There was no other mutation that occurred at this stage, something he was quite disappointed about.

Shaking his head to rid himself of these thoughts, he smiled.

He had reached his destination.

~~~

Wangnan stood on the top of a residential hotel. The soft wind fluttered through his yellow shirt and threw around his messy hair. He held a melancholic look on his face as he remembered the things that had happened.

Viole and Horyang were taken. The Hand of Arlen collapsed. And then, there was that guy from the Khun family here.

That guy had been betrayed by his teammates and one of his teammates was injured. It was truly a tragic sight.

Wangnan sighed and looked at the sky listlessly.

What am I doing...

Caw! Suddenly, a strange piercing noise came from the left.

Wangnan perked up as he turned his head. There, at the edge of the railing sat a black bird. It was a crow. Or was it a raven?

Whatever it was, looking at it sent a chill down his spine.

Why?

The bird felt... wrong.

As if the proportions were too messed up. It's head was disproportional to the rest of its body and the left wing extended down the railing while the right did not even reach it's own legs.

Above all, the raven had a tuff of feathers on it's right eye, forming what looked to be a large circle.

Caw!

The bird cawed again.

Wangnan stared at the bird for a few moments, his eyes slightly widened with a strange premonition welling up in his heart.

Caw! Caw! Caw!

All of a sudden, it felt as if dozens of voice slammed into his head, disorienting him for a moment.

He looked up. A murder of crows was up in the air, each increasingly disproportionate in their own right. The only thing common between all of then was a tuff of feathers they all held at their right eye.

Just then, a soft voice muttered behind him.

"Don't worry about that." The voice said.

Wangnan jumped forward and turned around.

It was another crow that silently floated in the air. Although it flapped its wings, it made no sound whatsoever.

"W-what are you?"

"We? We are the envoys of the lord." The crow spoke. His voice was strange, as if a billion insects were speaking at the back of its throat.

"What lord?"

"That need not concern you." The crow shook his head. Then, landing on the ground, it began to morph.

"We are merely here to deliver a message."

"We?"

"We are the collective. We are the legion." As the morphing continued, Wangnan watched in horror as the joints of the crow cracked and the skin split open in many places, eventually rearranging themselves into the figure of a man. The man had his back turned to him.

"Khun Ageuro Agnis is inside correct?"

Wangnan gulped and nodded, unsure if the man would catch his non verbal response.

Surprisingly, the man began to walk towards the door.

Then, without even opening the door, he phased right through it.

The crows disappeared as if they were never here.

What the hell man...

~~~

A/N: Wangnan has been scarred for life.

Anyway, I made a Clash of Clans fanfic. I don't really have a plan, but I suppose I have a feeling I can work this out.

Cheers~