Chapter 88: Cracks of Convergence. (5)

“Gabriel Sakra Indra greets Head Inquisitor Nerissa Sylla of the Amber Inquisitors. As allowed by his Esteemed Highness, I will offer you my assistance as best I can during this investigation so please feel free to order me around as you would your other subordinates.”

Gabriel saluted as he greeted the inquisitors, who had just finished receiving their orders from Emperor Arthas. As it was a rather rushed order they naturally couldn’t bring out the full force of the Amber Inquisitors, it would be a bit awkward to do so since they were also going to work together with the Inquisitors of the various ducal households. Thus, there were only enough people to barely form a squad in front of him, if they included him they would reach 9 people.

“I witnessed your Investiture, Viscount Indra. Allow me to extend my felicitations on your new position.”

Nerissa Sylla returned his salute in a steadfast and calm manner, her expression as unmoving as a statue. She was a woman of tall stature, standing almost a full head over Gabriel. She donned a full set of plate metal armor, amber laurels painted across the polished metal as decorations, so it was hard to accurately guess her body-shape.

But her face, while clearly denoting a significant level of physical strength, was slim and somewhat delicate in appearance. She had clear blue eyes, her emotions hidden deep within them, and her dark black hair was cut short just halfway down her ears so that it wouldn’t get in the way once she donned her helmet.

Gabriel could tell from her eyes, her steadfast stance, and seemingly unmoving aura. She was an excellent interrogator, someone who would be able to get information about all but those willing to die to take it to the grave. He occasionally worked with such a person back in his past life, when just straight death wasn’t enough to get the information you needed. Each encounter was exceedingly informative.

“His Majesty has already informed me of your willingness to aid our cause, and as the one who dug out the truth of the matter I do not doubt that you will prove yourself exceedingly useful. But I wish to once again make it clear that as long as you ride along with us, you must abide by my orders. Will you be able to do so until the investigation is finished and we have uncovered all those who are to be punished?”

Nerissa had to make it clear from the very start, otherwise there would be a risk of insubordination or disobedience later down the line. Gabriel understood the concerns very well, the chain of command existed for a reason. With just a single crack, a chain could break with just the slightest pressure.

“I have given my word and promised my head on this matter so fear not, I will obey the orders of Head Inquisitor Nerissa until we see the end of this investigation.”

Gabriel maintained his salute as he assured Nerissa, who observed him closely with a sharp gaze. She had watched the investiture from the start, and now that she saw him up close she affirmed what she first thought about Gabriel. A good soldier. It would be fortuitous if she managed to recruit him into the Amber Inquisitors, he was someone who would prove to be useful.

“Good. I will lend you a horse, we will immediately ride out and meet up with the inquisitors of the ducal families. From there we shall ride out to the mansion of Duke Sorin’s third son to reclaim the alleged illegal slaves. Thereafter we shall go through the list of evidence one by one to root out every last seed of dissent.”

Nerissa quickly spat out her orders, her crimson cape fluttering as she spun and swung out her arm, her inquisitors swiftly assenting with a unified shout. As one, they marched out of the hall, Gabriel just barely catching Alice moving towards the emperor as he left. Evidently, she was cooking up something again. Well, whatever it was she would likely end up successful, he trusted her enough to wholeheartedly believe that, so he followed Nerissa and the inquisitors.

As for Nerissa’s plan… He couldn’t quite agree with its efficiency. They would meet up with at least three other squads of inquisitors, it wouldn’t be strange if they ended up being close to 50 people once everyone was gathered up. To travel in one group from place to place, doing it one by one? It was horribly inefficient and gave the other side more than enough time to implement an emergency measure of two.

Evidently, she didn’t trust the inquisitors that the ducal families would send out. Then again, they were going out to investigate one such ducal family so perhaps it was only to be expected that she would hold some reservations. Would the other inquisitors really be willing to spark friction between the ducal families? What if some of them were already bribed or told what to do? She couldn’t know for sure, at which point it was best to just do it herself.

Gabriel hadn’t been above doing the same on certain missions, removing annoying ‘obstacles’ should they not know when to get out of the way. But this time he was just going to follow orders so there’d be no need to do such things. So, he mounted the armored horse Nerissa was lending him and joined them as they galloped away. Time to find that one lone mouth that they needed.

—————————

Caine was dizzy. The distant hall was still abuzz with sound even though the inquisitors had left, people probably wouldn’t leave, or be allowed to leave, until they returned with some news. Abigail was naturally still there… sweet, caring Abigail.

His head throbbed and his throat was dry. It was worse than when the pre-established chain of events started to change due to outside factors. It was worse than when he realized that someone else was inhabiting Azuras’ body in this run.

All of that… All of that he could understand to some extent. Azuras naturally had to make some changes to himself to uphold his contract, otherwise things would just proceed as in the past loops. Forcing a different soul into his body was the easiest option, thus Caine could accept how things had started to twist along the way.

But this… This was something else entirely.

“Azuras!”

Caine’s hand drifted to the mark that covered most of his neck and parts of his chest. The sign of their contract, the mark of their covenant. He slammed his fist against it. His skin bruised under his knuckles after repeated strikes, his fingers eventually clutching at the black tentacles, tearing at his flesh.

“Azuras!”

A bit of blood started to seep out as Caine tore at the mark, his expression twisting. He’d been calm about the covenant in the past. Azuras may be their enemy, but if it meant achieving his goal then Caine was more than willing to sign a thousand contracts with him. If it meant preventing his Abigail from breaking down after going through so many loops to reach the best ending then he’d be willing to do anything. But now… This… This was going against what Azuras had put in the contract.

After receiving his repeated strikes, something other than blood started to leak out from the mark. Oil-like liquid gushed out from the black octopus, running down Caine’s body like tears as they pooled on the floor. Within mere moments, the pool stretched out to cover the entire floor, crawling up the walls and along the ceiling until Caine was surrounded by a pitch-black swamp that bubbled and hissed.

Rows of circling teeth surfaced from the swamp, gnashing as they spun around Caine, expanding seemingly without end. Azuras was responding, but Caine wasn’t terribly happy about it. Azuras ignored him whenever he called for him, the only time he ever actually responded to one of his calls was when he came to gloat and taunt Caine. Would it be any different now?

“What’s the matter, Caine? You’re looking so disheveled, so furious.”

And sure enough, the voice that rose from the swamp, like a thousand buzzing flies, carried a certain malicious joy. Tentacles stretched out from the darkness, the tendrils coiling around each other like worms trying to devour one another. Eventually, the twisting mass took on a vaguely humanoid shape devoid of normal facial features. But the circling maws that swam across the creature’s face were all curved disgustingly, gloating as they seemed to be but a second away from bursting into violent laughter.

“You broke the contract. There’s no way for the third turn Teresa to have any of those memories!”

Section 4 of their contract: Azuras would not interfere further in the loop by guiding his past body or by showing unrelated people memories they shouldn’t have yet. If this stipulation wasn’t in the contract then Azuras could just have Abigail regain her memories of the myriad of loops they had gone through, breaking her again. Or he could give other people memories of future loops so that they could use it against him and Abigail, forcing them to once again start up the loops. It was exactly what Caine was trying to prevent.

So how did Teresa know about that spell? How did her ingrained memories guide her towards that secret entrance? They didn’t find that secret entrance until they got to the 10th loop, and they didn’t study spells mixed with the new elements until the 27th loop. By all accounts, this Teresa should know of neither since this was just the third turn.

But while Caine was quite furious, parts of his mind were still cool enough to analyze the situation. His brain was furiously working on figuring out exactly what Azuras was planning. Clearly, he wanted to mess things up for Caine and Abigail, that was what he always tried to do. But how would giving Teresa parts of her future loops memories do that?

There were a lot more direct enemies that he could utilize, they’d be far better pawns than a previous companion that no longer had tied with Caine or Abigail. Or was there perhaps something special about her this time around, had Gabriel possibly done something to her? But more often than not, when you were trying to furiously think of an answer, the easiest solution was most often the correct one.

“Caine, I’m insulted that you would think so lowly of me. I can assure you, Caine. I, at this point in time, have not broken a single term of our contract.”

Caine detested the curve of the maws as Azuras responded, and not just because of the implication his words carried. The two were in a contract, they had bound each other by oath. So he knew, Azuras wasn’t lying right now. Based on the terms of their contract, Azuras hadn’t broken a single one of them yet.

So… How? His mind wracked as he scoured the contract, digging through every single word to find the loophole that Azuras could have used. He ran through each one multiple times, scouring them for different interpretations that could be abused. But there was nothing, no matter how he looked, that could allow Azuras to give other people their memories of future loops. In that case, if it really was that unlikely for it to be Azuras, there was really only one other explanation.

“The world is correcting itself.

The correction of the world. Once something happened, that event became ingrained in the world, it became the established flow of time. Even if they used the power of multiple gods to start a loop, the power of the world was nothing to scoff at. In each loop, the world would try to correct itself back to that established flow of time.

But with each loop, a new established flow was created, so the solution that the world came up with was to just stack it all on top of each other. Bit by bit people would start to regain their memories of the previous loops. It wasn’t a complete return to the established flow, but if everyone had the memories of it happening, the sensations of those moments, wouldn’t that be the same as it actually happening?

“Ah Caine, clever as always.”

Azuras didn’t deny it, that horrid curve of his maws causing Caine’s stomach to churn. If the world itself was doing the correcting then it really had nothing to do with Azuras, and it also meant that Caine was powerless to stop it. But it begged the question, why did they receive memories of a future loop? Those things had yet to happen, they weren’t part of the established flow of time, so there should be no memories of those times to impart onto others.

As he was furiously pondering the question, the devil in front of him whispered. The one who signed the contract, the one who agreed on the terms, the one who always smirked in malicious joy when Caine took a step closer to the abyss. He was always willing to help Caine take another step forward.

“Caine, how do you think time works?”

The question broke Caine out of his ruminations. The tone of his voice was so sickeningly sweet that Caine’s entire being almost lurched due to it. His expression couldn’t help but distort slightly as he looked at Azuras, who just wouldn’t stop grinning.

“When the world corrects itself, how do you think it chooses the established flow of time?”

How the world chose the established flow of time to imprint onto the world? Well that would obviously be by picking from the events it remembered to happen on the timeline, it was like picking out a specific memo…ry…

“Yes, that’s it, Caine.”

Azuras’ grin only grew wider when he saw the realization dawn on Caine’s face, the grim emotions that settled in his eyes.

“Memories, Caine. The world picks the established flow of time based on memories. Gods like me exist outside the flow of time so it ignores us, but what do you think the world does when it encounters a being that has memories of an established flow of time that hasn’t yet happened?”

The world didn’t have memories of it because it hadn’t happened yet, but there was something out there that did have memories of it. And if it had memories of it, the sensations of those times, how was that different from it actually happening? Clearly, those memories must be the established flow of time.

The darkness covering the room started to recede, retreating into the mark on Caine’s neck and chest. The figure of Azuras melted into the darkness with one last laugh, haunting Caine with a few final words.

“It’s not me this time, Caine. This time you’ll get to be the reason all your beloved ones crumble and break.”