Master of the Loop

Chapter 94

  Cosmic Divinity

Weeks ticked on without much happening. At least not in Sylas’ version of life. Though the castle was still scarred and traumatized and in the initial process of recovery, as far as he was concerned, it was in a state of peace. After all, prior to this, something would be happening every couple of weeks. Now, at least, they were safe from the external pains, though internal were mountainous.

He spent his days mostly in a robotic routine--waking up from a drunken stupor early in the morning, eating breakfast while occasionally listening to Valen prattle on about something, after which he'd go out and train in the snow, trying to push his body further even if he did seem to have hit some sort of a wall. After the fact, he'd always train with the sword, mostly on his own as the only person in the castle with comparable skills to his own left was Derrek.

He’d also tested his hand in archery, but realized it was actually far more difficult than he anticipated--namely in the fact that his strength was unable to carry him. For archery, he had to use different muscles in different ways than for the sword, making it so that even the quantifiable distance at which he could fire was remarkably low--barely crossing a hundred feet, with no accuracy to speak of. He’d gotten better, however, but hadn’t managed to complete the quest. He wasn’t yet tenderly skillful enough with magic to only alter the trajectory of the arrow, instead blowing it up each time he tried.

Beyond just the numb training, he’d mostly drink himself to sleep at night as it was the only way to avoid nightmares. What worried him was that... he was becoming more and more reliant on it. Even after a loop’s reset, despite the physical part of the addiction disappearing, his mind was rattled enough to drive him toward it. And yet, not drinking wasn’t much of an option, really.

"You've gotten even better," a familiar voice caused him to pause his swing midway through the motion, pulling back and glancing to the side where he saw Derrek draped in a thick coat leaning on the stoned wall and looking at him with a faint smile.

"Thanks," Sylas said, putting the sword away and trekking through a couple of feet of snow toward his own coat, putting it on. "What are you doing here?"

“Was looking for you,” he replied. “Valen told me I might find you here.”

“I’m getting predictable, I guess,” Sylas forced a chuckle, opening a jug of wine. “Want a bit? It’ll warm you up.”

“I’m warm enough, thanks,” Derrek said. “And yes--stories are beginning to spread through the castle, of a man mad enough to train in the winter of a Cold Snap, seemingly immune to the frost. All you do is train, drink, and sleep.”

“I play with my willy here and there,” Sylas said. “That counts as an extra activity, right?”

“... how’s your magic progressing?” Derrek ignored the joke and asked.

“Slowly,” Sylas replied, pulling a tiny thread into his fingers and forming a marble-sized sphere of magic that shone in faint emerald. “I’m still awful at minute details of it. Like trying to gently nudge a flying object without exploding it.”

“It’d be stranger if you could,” Derrek chuckled. “You expect too much of yourself. You can’t be a Prophet, an Exorcist, a swordmaster, and either a Mage or a Magi-Knight. Nobody can.”

“Would make for a fun tale,” Sylas chuckled. “A man so unwound... he has tools to prevent and fix everything. Or, in my case,” he added. “It sounds like a start of a bad joke with even a worse punchline. A Prophet, an Exorcist, a swordmaster, and a Mage walk into a bar. He dies to a punch in the face ‘cause he sucks at ‘em all. But,” he looked up at Derrek and smiled lightly. “I’ll get there. I clearly have no talent in anything. I’m like a child given the most complex set of amazing toys that could change the world. But even a child, with infinite time, will eventually figure them out. And so will I.”

“... I’ll depart with the first sign of the Spring,” Derrek said suddenly.

“Hm?”

“That hand... something about it felt familiar,” he added. “Like I’d seen it somewhere before. I can’t be certain but... it’s possible.”

“... I plan on moving southward as well,” Sylas said. “With Valen in tow.”

“H-huh?”

“We have to accelerate the plans,” Sylas continued. “Staying here, isolated from the world, is pointless. And it’s not as though I can leave him behind.”

“What will you do?” Derrek asked.

“I... I’m not sure myself, to be honest. If I’m bad at magic, I’m even worse at maneuvering politics,” Sylas chuckled bitterly. “It was already a giant’s task, but now, making a cripple a King...”

“Impossible?”

“No, not impossible,” he shook his head. “Just not something someone like me can achieve. Though, I suppose, I can just keep on trying.”

“... Valen’s a good soul,” Derrek said. “Cripple or not, people will see that. And if by his side stands a Prophet, an Exorcist, a swordmaster, and a Magi rolled into one, people won’t care.”

“If good men easily became Kings, tomes of our history would have been remarkably boring and short. Ah, yes, King Supernice reigned for 40 years, during which he wasn’t involved in any sex scandals, lowered the taxes, healed and fed the poor, built schools, never engaged in a conflict, and wrote a book of funny jokes that was really funny. The end.”

“Pfft,” Derrek stifled a bout of laughter, shaking his head.

“But I’ll make it happen,” Sylas said, taking another sip of wine and putting it away. “It’ll just take some time. Like everything else.”

“It’s not your--”

“Don’t,” Sylas quickly interrupted, his back turned to the man. “Just... don’t.”

“...”

“I’ve already had some time to figure it out,” he said. “And, in my own, fucked-up way... this is the best I’m gonna get. For a while, at least.”

“Sylas...”

“Look at me,” he turned toward Derrek, the look in his eyes hollow. “What do you see?”

“...”

“Nothing,” he added. “No missing arm, functioning legs, no missing eyes, no broken bones, no countless other injuries they suffered. The entire thing was like the reverse of ‘fuck you in particular’, while still being ‘fuck you in particular’. There’s no cosmic coincidence that big, that dozens of pieces of shrapnel hit Ryne who was standing literally next to me, while not a single one hit me. Not even grazed me. They never said it in words, never written it for me to see, but that was a warning. Warning that I was fucking around and just mindlessly marching like a moron.

“But I wasn’t the one to be punished for my stupidity,” he added, smiling bitterly. “You were. And you suffer in my stead. So, don’t. I’ll be fine, in time. So, just give me that time.”

“... you said that your magic isn’t progressing well, right?” Derrek suddenly changed the topic. “How about I teach you my Way?”

“... say what now?”

“Of course,” Derrek added. “You’ll have to keep it a secret. If it leaks that I taught an outsider, it won’t be just an arm that I will be missing. However, you keep saying that you have all the time in the world. That, somehow, you live in this bubble that the rest of us can’t fathom. So, prove it to me.”

“Huh? Prove it... to you?” Sylas quizzed.

“If you can master the basics of my Way within the winter,” Derrek suggested. “I’ll believe you.”

“... you seem to be misunderstanding something,” Sylas chuckled. “Can’t I just learn it, and then show it to you before you’ve ever taught me? Wouldn’t that blow your mind?”

“...”

“Don’t think too hard on it,” Sylas said. “But I’ll take it. Teach me your Way.”

“...” Derrek looked at the worn-out seeming man and sighed for a moment. He was certainly going mad, he mused inwardly. Teaching an outsider his Order’s Way. And just a few months after even properly befriending the man. But he was confident.

He hadn’t brought it up himself, but Derrek had similarly been mulling over the fact that Sylas was the only one who’d come out of that day unharmed--with Ryne who was blinded standing right by his side. Though coincidences were certainly an easy way to explain away many things, that wasn’t one of them. There was more to it. Far more.

Derrek had never fully embraced Sylas’ mantle of a Prophet--neither his mind nor his heart would allow him to. Though he’d accepted that the man could foresee certain things, he never accepted that those things came from a God or Gods. The reason for it was quite simple, actually: his Way was a Godless way. It had no room for Gods and prophets and messiahs and angels. For most of his life, Gods were just a word uttered by the hopeless.

“Nobody outside the Order knows this,” Derrek said. “But the actual name of our Way is Cosmic Divinity.”

“...”

“There are exactly six different paths within the Way: the one Dyn pursued was the path of the Bloodstone Knight. My path is called Starknight. Aside from those two, there are Moonknights, Cosmic Knights, Divine Knights, and the avatar path--the Guardian. You don’t get the choose the path--the path chooses you. However!”

“...”

“When you use it,” Derrek warned. “You must kill everyone. Everyone. It can never get out that you can use it. Forget me, you will be hunted by every member of my Order like a stray dog. Do you still want me to teach you?”

“Yes,” Sylas nodded unhesitatingly.

“Very well,” Derrek smiled lightly, walking forward. “Let’s go somewhere more private. There’s a long lesson ahead of us.”

“Of course there is.”

“Don’t complain when getting free stuff.”

“... yes Master.”

“Uggh, that’s creepy. Don’t.”

“You’re just an impossible man to please, aren’t you?”

“Maybe that’s why I’m wifeless? Ha ha ha!”

“Ah, using humor to hide the pain. You and I... ain’t so different after all.”

“Shut up.”