The mention of the Mad Bishop made the Unlimited's faces turn funny. Employing that lunatic into even the most profound tactic wasn't something any of them would have opted to do, but well... they trusted their boss.
Given the details of the previous plan, which was the foundation of whatever this was going to be, the three Unlimited had to admit that Replicus seemed to have things under control.
It would have been unthinkable that someone like him would be able to beat two Incandescent Stagers, with one of them even being a Faction leader, but Replicus had done it anyway, against the odds.
Still, all were reluctant to ask about the details. Some things were best told in due time, instead of giving them the opportunity to stew in the mind and make it all the more anxious.
In the meantime, with Replicus among, the group watched the Cluster which became bigger and bigger with each thirty meter stretch they passed. The thought of what could spring out of large crack in space, which was constantly chipping, as though sensing the approach of the fleet and trying to time it complete break with their arrival, made the Unlimited, especially Allora nervous.
Replicus on the hand was more concerned about Aurolio and the Paladin Champion.
'I have an advantage over that man, it seems. At least Skullius left me with something to work with besides an enemy that's interested in killing me for no reason. He can't hurt me, but I suppose finding people to do the job for him won't be too difficult if he wanted, especially if his relationship with Eaniss isn't so doggish in the end," he thought. "On the other hand, I can't really settle for killing him quickly. I need more information about what happened to Skullius. Riba's prediction didn't make clear what kind of damage did him in, only the consequences."
Having to be step lightly with an enemy who wasn't easy to kill was the worst thing any combatant could have to deal with.
In that regard, it was hard to tell whether Aurolio's appearance was a good thing or not. The circumstances surrounding their eventual clash had now become more convoluted, and one might argue that they had much worse than they needed.
Or maybe not.
'Now that I know he isn't normal, even by Union standards, I can take him much more seriously with each hit. I wonder how much he knows about Null Life. Skullius couldn't have possibly told him everything there is to know, right?' Replicus thought.
He would have been glad to know that Skullius hadn't been at that bad of a disadvantage in his Tie of Exchange with Aurolio, after all he had gotten priceless artefacts and knowledge in exchange.
No. Perhaps he wouldn't have been glad to know at all.
If the current Skullius knew a lot of things that Replicus didn't – offense-related things – then that was again a problem.
Riba's prediction would be all the more harrowing and dark if he knew such details. It wasn't like things weren't already hard as things were, after all.
Thankfully, that burden of knowledge wouldn't be his for a while. For now, the Penetrator was free to focus with the problems at hand. They weren't few and far between after all. Every ship he saw sailing in the same direction as his, was his problem – and that was only a prelude to the real dangers.
The so-called truce the Factions had enjoyed until now because of the disasters would probably end soon.
BOOOM! PWAAA!
In the still far distance, the crack in space shook, rocked and a certain portion of its tall mass shattered, setting shards of hardened essence flying into the sea which rippled wildly in response!
Oddly, the Reverse Clusters around reacted to the phenomenon by shifting slightly, as though they were constructs that could be bullied by winds, shockwaves and such.
"Is a Cluster of that level supposed to do that?" Allora asked, though without her anxious visage from before – likely to not show more weakness in front of Replicus.
"No. I haven't seen something like that," Grim said with his red eyes taking on a more luminous glow. "Maybe it's because that crack is just huge."
Replicus remained silent.
Grim's analysis was quite accurate. Clusters didn't normally behave as though the creatures within them were breaking free on their own, exerting force of the breach to Aigas.
As far as Replicus knew, that barrier – the streak of colour over the crack – disappeared on it own, and no amount of force from the inside could destroy it.
BOOOM! PWAAAA!
It happened again.
If a common man was here, seeing the Scorching Tears fall, the hundreds of Reverse Clusters, the partly boiling ocean and the towering, crooked line of purple that threatened to reach the broken skies, they would have been driven to despair.
This same Cluster seemed to have driven lurking beasts away, as the Penetrator couldn't sense any of them closeby.
However, his focus wasn't on all this at the moment. In fact, the issue of the ocean...
'What did that creature tell me to dumb back the Paladin's body into the water? That wasn't a throw-away detail like I thought...' he thought hard with his phantoms chiming in.
"We can only grasp at vague clues at this point if we're really intent on not grabbing Wider Causality as a concept," one said with an agitated set of sockets.
"Are we really sure there isn't a way we can make increase our affinity with Lambent Phosphor? Maybe that would do the trick," another suggested.
As it sounded, Lambent Phosphor had given no results in the end. There was nothing to decipher from the body of the Paladin. In fact, all of Replicus' probing didn't trigger the Definer of Causality at all, which both unnerved and annoyed him.
How odd.
'There's something really bad going on here...' Replicus thought as the phantoms debated. 'Really bad.'
He wondered if he was the only one who could see it among the Faction leaders.
BOOOOOOOOOOOM! CRACK!
Right then, the Cluster finally erupted wholly, leaving behind an open, tall gap into a broad world.
A broad world that lit Aigas in gold through the crack.
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