Rules of Regression

The same night that Styx had entered an agreement with the local dungeon city and Duke Ashburn, Therina entered the dream realm and navigated through the chaotic world where distance and scale did not make sense.

Gabralter was dreaming a peaceful dream, a sharp contrast from his usual nights of war and death. Despite the heavy, war torn armor he wore, he calmly floated upon an ocean the ebbed and flowed with the tide, serene blue except for where he lay.

Around Gabralter's body, crimson blood stained the water a dark red. As the tide moved, a trail of this blood streamed along with the current to the distant horizon, where a giant horned skull of a demon protruded from the ocean.

Gabralter still had the black cloth blindfold over his face and odd translucent golden collar. He was unable to see any of these scenes around him, merely gazing up into slow moving pure white clouds above.

Therina walked atop the ocean as if it were solid ground, standing directly above him.

"How did you know me?"

The floating man was in a state of lull, further compliant as Therina's desires altered the world around them slightly to create a calming atmosphere.

"You saved my life."

"When?"

"Next year, when the balance between our kingdom and the Neth'rite Demon Kingdom collapses due to the sudden demon offensive that pierced through the southern lands of the kingdom."

"How could you know of this?"

"Because I lived through it."

Therina continued a calm series of questions, some Styx directing her to ask, as he explained his experiences of living through several timelines. The duke knew of this too, and apparently he had died in every timeline.

Getting the information required, Therina turned around and directly left the dream realm, returning to the dungeon's throne room where Styx sat slumped to the side, elbow on the stone armrest and chin on hand.

Therina calmly walked up and brushed aside the straight, long black hair which covered one side of his face.

"What do you think?" She asked while sitting sideways across his lap and wrapping her arms around him.

Styx appeared to break out of his thoughts while briefly nodding his head.

"It isn't completely unbelievable, the question lies on how and why. Is it a twist of fate, or is it by intervention?"

"Can we find out?"

"No. The same way we have no means to discover whether my life resurfacing was the same."

Therina nodded her head silently and kissed Styx on the cheek several times until the dungeon turned his head and kissed her back.

"What is your take on his appearance in his dreams?"

"I don't know, the feelings I get are odd. Most cannot be expressed in words and are similar to intuition. I feel like he is… misguided."

"Blind to what lays before him, chained to fate itself."

"He knows many things, some of which he hasn't released into the kingdom's media channels yet. What should we do?"

"I promised not to target his life, and I will abide to that. But… if an accident or accident outside of my control happened, then that isn't my fault. You also cannot approach him in public or deliberately place yourself in a position for him to find you"

Therina giggled and revealed a sly grin on the corner of her mouth.

"So, keep everything in the dream realm?"

"Correct."

"I am curious about something though."

"What is it?"

"He is a regressor, someone that whenever is killed, simply gets reborn in the past. Can someone like that truly be killed. Perhaps with a soulium weapon?"

"It is possible but depends entirely on how his regression works. Are you familiar with the infinite multiverse school of thought?"

"The what?"

"It is a school of thought which originated from the world I originated from, but I had thought this world would also explore the concept of parallel universes. Perhaps the researchers do and higher stage civilisations have better information though."

"…"

"It explains that our reality is defined by our perception, but there are an infinite number of reflections of our own universe taking place at the same time and in the same space. It is a difficult thing to comprehend, so I will simplify it for you. You are standing before two doors, both looking exactly the same, both of which you do not know what is behind. Do you walk through the door on the left, or the door on the right?"

"The door on the left?"

"Why?"

"Because I have to choose one, right?"

"Yes, but there is a chance you could have walked through the door on the right, correct?"

"I suppose so."

"And this is where the theory branches off. You didn't just walk through one door, you walked through both. Let's say there was a knife behind the door on the left which stabbed and killed you. You are still technically still alive, but your perception is now that you chose and walked through the door on the right, and you never chose the door on the left. This is because the entity known as 'you' are still alive."

"I don't understand," Therina shook her head helplessly in confusion.

"What I am pointing at, is that this is the core of how regression functions. The you that walked through the door on the left was killed, while the you that walked through the door on the right lived and continued on. The only difference is that there is an information channel that crosses over and passes knowledge and memories from the experience of going through the door on the left, to the version of you that went through the door on the right."

"I think I understand, but why does he go back in time then? Shouldn't the world around him appear to change then?"

"Technically, he isn't. The infinite universe school of thought is about the concept of infinite realities unfolding with every action you take, expanding at an infinite exponential. The scale of it is simply beyond mortal comprehension. Time is something that is absolute in relativity. If he were to live for a single year a hundred times in a row, a hundred years have still passed. It may appear to be a repeat of the same frame of time repeating itself, but that is not the case."

"Is there any evidence of this though?"

"It was always an impossible theory to solve because it was beyond our capabilities to measure or test, but evidence suggested it was true, or somewhat in the right direction. During my final times in my previous life, studies were being made of a substance known as dark matter within the universe."

"Dark matter puzzled people for millennia. It was a substance that permeated the entire universe, and there was at least five times as much of this dark matter than there was standard matter. It exerted a gravitation influence which was crucial for the universe, yet nobody could see nor find any of it."

"It was like matter should have been there, but it simply wasn't. This was because it was actually matter from bordering realities which were close enough to our current perception of reality that its gravitational influence on space and time bridged that infinitely small film between realities and exerted its influence in our own universe."

"I see."

"You don't understand any of this, do you?"

Therina giggled sheepishly and rubbed her cheek against Styx's own intimately.

"Anyway, this means that we could simply kill him and be done with it. In our current reality, he would for all intents and purposes be dead. He would learn and grow though, killing other versions of me which would make killing him a self-destructive action if done actively."

"What should we do, then?"

"Gabralter said this was his fourth timeline, right?"

"…Yes?"

"That is merely his perception. What if we influenced things so that he thought this was his third time through?"

"!!"

"Now you are understanding. Your abilities are key to this, but his dreamself is blindfolded, right?"

"And I could have done that!"

"Correct, which means that this is likely not his fourth time through, nor our first time having this conversation."

"Doesn't that mean we have to directly manipulate and kill him, then?"

"…If we wish to maintain the current status quo, yes. There is undoubtably conflict between him and us in previous timelines, which is carrying forth. The best way to deal with such a person would be to force them to undergo controlled regression. As their time continues to increase, their mind and soul would become more and more worn out, eventually breaking down entirely and ending the regression cycle."

"…That would break the agreement."

"We would need a method that keeps us out of it. For now, just keep training your skills related to the dream realm. A truly difficult situation where our hands are currently tied."

Therina leaned her head against Styx's shoulder while thinking about her abilities. They were still new to her, and she had a lot to learn about them.