Played

"Cha haha!" Giggling like a schoolgirl, Doyle kicked off a tree trunk to soar to the next pillar of mossy bark and turned back to me once he landed. "This will never get old!"

My eyes rolled. "Glad to see you're having fun."

With the murky waters to our right and the endless sky to our left, we'd been traveling through the swamp for nearly three hours. Skipping from tree trunk to trunk like certain ninjas from a certain fictional village while Pora Bora soared overhead, searching for the other party's encampments.

Accompanying us was nothing but the gleeful laughs from Doyle and the ever-present symphony of life echoing around us. The croaking of frogs, the splashing of fish or other aquatic creatures, the call of waterfowl. Combined, the orchestra completed the vibrant painting of the biome in which we were in. A swamp so verdant and rich- a part of me felt a twinge of guilt at the thought of ruining it with a magical fight.

But on the other hand, there was beauty in chaos as well. And none could spread it better than my favorite vampire.

Either from her or someone else, chaos arose not but two minutes ago. It was a crash against stone coupled with a few screams and a flash of bright light. A small seed, it was. The final cog needed to set my plans into motion.

With one eye closed, used my shared sight with Pora Bora's to position ourselves between Baker Party's camp and Lance's team, who were talking amongst themselves in the forest.

"Alright." I waved Doyle and Peter to my side. "The camp is roughly circular. Fortified with walls of raised stone and felled trees. Pora can only see a few people there, but Zeff is indeed one of them. Now, Lance is out hunting us." I pointed in the opposing direction. "However, the condition for us to attack the neutral team hasn't been met, correct?" I turned to Doyle.

"Correct." He nodded.

"An easy fix." I grinned.

Ignoring their objective confusion, I dropped us to hover just above the surface. Then had Peter help me push and peel the water away from us to form a small depression.

After making a small Expanse, for us to dwell in, I lowered the three of us inside and loosened my hold on the water. Causing a wall of brackish muck to cascade around us and eventually settle into a cocoon of sticks and mud.

Reaching up, I peeled the top of the bubble open. Allowing a cone of light to pour in and illuminate the glistening faces of my companions.

"Alright. Go make some noise, Peter." I turned to him, smiling. "Use your strongest spells to make it look like a battle took place here. Do as much as you can in five seconds and come down."

With only a nod, Peter infused his body with Gale Mana and took to the sky. Allowing for Doyle to occupy his space and try his best to peer above the mud wall and see Peter flinging boulders at imaginary targets or changing the water levels whilst he simultaneously torched the place.

After five seconds, Peter descended into our whole with naught a look back. "Perfect." I grinned at him. "Excellent work."

With the bait set, I closed the opening of our hiding point to a pinhole. Relegating Doyle and Peter to squint and squirm in place in an attempt to look through the peephole while I turned my focus to our surroundings.

The senses. Mana. The Menagerie. The minute distortions of space-time and the minuscule gravitational waves spreading across the universe at the speed of light. The darkness and the various wavelengths of electromagnetic radiation. I let it all flow through my perception and into my consciousness to be assimilated with the Eye. Then projected it back out in the form of a mental map- a moving chessboard filled with miniature caricatures of everyone involved.

At its center, was us. And just a few squares away was a group of four. Two humans standing behind two reptilians, chattering away in a cacophony of clicks and rattles.

Then they took to the waters.

They waded forth, heading in our direction at a pace that belied even their reptilian natures. Within moments, they crossed the few hundred meters. Coming to a stop just twenty or so meters away. Well within the range of my natural senses, so I lessened the focus on my passives in favor of focusing on my ears.

While they were completely immobile- half-submerged like an alligator drifting in the waters, the angel and the human waded in as if they wanted to announce their presence to all the realms. They talked and stomped through the place as if they were taking a stroll through the hub.

As things went, that enabled me to glean a couple of things from the one-sided conversation. Notably, there was one observation that had the potential to complicate things, but it was something we just had to roll with.

"Ahead." I heard the lizard say. "I sssmell Doyle."

Turning, I pointed through the muck to make note of our pursuers.

Without making a noise, Doyle and Peter shuffled behind me to begin preparing themselves with mana veils and primed Wells.

Not wanting to blow my cover, I refrained from withdrawing any arcana. Instead, I held my palms out towards the two sources of mass waddling towards us.

Then began the wait.

When two seconds passed, the peerless silence began to sting at us. Peter began shifting uncomfortably, and the first of what I assumed would be many dry swallows came from Doyle.

Three seconds.

And four.

At five, a small ripple came across our sphere of mud and water. I leaned forward at once, withdrawing but a shard of arcana to force it into my throat.

But before I could even open my mouth, a familiar voice shouted from further ahead. "Run!"

"Too late!"

As if a frag-less grenade went off, my voice blasted away the muck that surrounded us in a powerful shockwave. Having their mana veils up in full force, however, my companions and our two guests remained unscathed.

One of them- a red-scaled lizardman, lashed out with his claws while his kobold companion spun- barking and snarling as he furiously clawed at the ground in an attempt to escape.

With my hands still raised, I opened Susanoo's seal for but a millisecond and channeled the energy through my hands. Releasing arcs of crackling blue-white energy from my fingertips. Into the lizard and kobold, the current streamed- pouring into their bodies to flash fry as many of their organs as possible before the enchantments in their clothes embraced them in a protective cocoon.

With them being dragged by vines up into the canopy, I wrapped Space-Time mana around my arm to activate the Chrono Dial before wheeling around towards the other two.

I managed to see it just as I turned halfway about. Lance disappearing in a flash of light. In his place- about twenty meters away and slumped over a branch was his companion. One of Winston's accomplices, a brown-skinned boy who was scared out of his mind.

Turning my attention away from him, I flicked my arm counterclockwise like I was readjusting my watch and turned as time crept down to a standstill.

"As I thought." I laughed.

Hearing the echoes upon echoes of my voice spreading throughout the still world threatened to pull my thoughts away from my observation, if only for a moment.

It was taxing on my Well, vast though it was. But completely halting time was a marvel to my eyes. And would remain so no matter how many times I saw it, for it was the unsaturated world it made me privy to was art unbridled.

Doyle's awe. Peter's anxiousness. Zeke Smeal's fear. Their emotions were captured in an intensity that could've only been described as primal. Authentic.

But the radiant pillar that existed between the four of us was something else. Not divine.

But… celestial.

Like his name implied, Lance Morningstar appeared as just that. A star. Blinding light, searing heat, and a bloom of infrared and UV radiation poured from his skin at an intensity that rivaled Tiatus itself.

But here, in this slowed world he was frozen in place just like everyone else.

Besides me of course.

Before I wasted any more arcana, I flicked a spatial bullet towards Smeal to first Tag him and then Body Swapped him next to Morningstar.

Looking down, Lance was still standing in place. Halfway into a swing aimed at the place I'd been, and where Smeal was now.

After Bamfing my companions to my side, I flicked my wrist clockwise. Bringing back the sound, color, and dynamic environment of this vast swamp in an instant.

In the next instant came an ear-shattering blast of light and heat that nearly forced me away. As if a meteor had struck the ground, a powerful shockwave slammed into the three of us and I turned. Pausing only to hear a scream of despair ring through the air before I turned the Dial halfway down, coated Dark Space mana around the three of us, and Bamfed to Pora Bora's location.

And then I was faced with the hard part.

As if he'd been waiting for me, the giant of a man, Zeke Silva, pounced right towards me with his arm reeled back.

Even with time slowed, he accelerated through the air. Using some type of mana I'd never felt before to cross the distance between us in the blink of an eye.

Even with his speed, however, Silva wasn't fast enough. Shuffling quickly, I maneuvered around to his side to first cast Black Bones. Then, with Artificial Wells accelerating my fists to absurd speeds, I lashed out at Zeke.

Once, twice, thrice. Cavernous blows echoed through the unsaturated world just before Silva's hulking body reeled back. His eyes- gray and beastly, turned slowly towards me before he was flung away.

And then I turned.

Dragging Doyle by a gravitational tether, I sprinted deeper into the fray. Only to grind to a halt after but a few steps.

Moving comically slow, the members of Baker Party reacted. Scattering to form an array of protective lines between me and their VIP- Zeff Yurich.

Closest to me were three that I felt the strong impulse to fight. Ed, Corundum, and the little angry dwarf who rode with us on the Bifrost.

Sucking my teeth, I ascended and flicked out a mass of shadow arcana in Zeff's direction.

Upon contact, I released the Chrono Dial and instead, sent out a wave of gravitational energy.

Like a gust of purple air had blown away the mist, my domain fell into effect just as the saturation returned to the environment. Most of the party turned about at once. Swiveling their head in search for me while Silva wheeled about as fast as he could, hunching himself low in preparation to jump.

With a downward thrust of my hand, Zeke slipped to his knees and the rest of Baker Party assumed the same position. Many of them, being far weaker, fell helplessly to their faces or crumpled like a sack of potatoes the moment gravity increased.

"The fuck!?"

"What is this?!"

"Where is he!?"

"Mr. Yurich?!"

Came the screams. But the only reply from Zeff was a scream of their own. They plowed their faces through the dirt and sometimes cracked or dislocated their limbs just to take a peek. And upon doing so, let out horrific screams of their own.

Like a flower had bloomed beneath Zeff's feet, twelve Umbral Tentacles could be seen emerging from a pit below him. Reaching up like an eldritch abomination, they writhed and lashed out to snap branches from trees and shatter stone outcroppings before they reeled down to snake around their prey in a deadly embrace.

Turning halfway about, I held my arms out to either side to take not of Peters location before casting Dark Space Bullets on the three of them.

As they hit, a chorus of expanding air swelled through the environment. At that moment, I turned to the rest of Baker Party with a wide grin and released my domain.

I couldn't help but laugh after the gravity holding them down was lifted. They scrambled to their feet, flinging everything from stones to spells in my direction as the clouds of darkness began to engulf us.

Almost as if I couldn't help it, I found myself raising my arm through the dark cloud. With my fingers clenched tightly- all but the middle one, I laughed at the lot of them before I Bamfed us out.

"You lose."