His perception of time slowed as he barreled through the air, pushed by the Guardian, and he wanted to sigh. He’d intended to use the Guardian as a way to take a break, but as reevaluated his situation, he realized that he was in a much worse position than before.

  For one, Clever was clearly in no shape to see the future anymore. Dei could sense the poor guy was exhausted, and would continue to push himself if needed, but Dei wanted him to rest in case of an emergency.

  Second, he still felt the slight soul strain from using his Void affinity. He would be able to endure a few more days, but that brought him to the third issue.

  His new friend said that Edward would endure for four days under a direct assault from an affinity that was clearly his weakness. How long would Edward last without being attacked by his weakness? But all hope was not lost on that front, as the Guardian was now attached to Dei, though with a few small complications.

  Because Dei only used a centimeter of Connection, the Guardian had to be within a centimeter of Dei, and that was just not enough space to move well. Next, the guardian was also very clearly weakened from its previous state. Dei took advantage of his direct connection with the monsters soul, quickly looking for what he needed to know and finding it immediately.

  [Egogorn - Level 248]

  First he noted that the beast was a Prime specimen, which he took as a good thing. Second, it was only in the two hundreds.

  Dei was positive it had surpassed level three hundred when it was still connected directly with the Convergence. Not because he scanned it, just based on the feeling of its soul when he let out a [Soul Echo] and his experience with the previous anchor Guardian.

  Now though, it was level two hundred and eighty four- not a coincidental number, as that was the exact level of [Growing Rage], the Egogorns new concept filter. It was limited by the level of Dei’s Skill.

  ‘I need more time to plan. More time to think.’ His mind raced, but not fast enough. Edward would soon be upon them, and what happened then? He was in no state to fight and the Egogorn was weakened…

  … But that didn’t really matter, did it? Edward would weaken to the new level of strength.

  ‘New plan, let the Egogorn fight while I try to rest a bit more. As for how? The Egogorn IS just a giant empty skeleton. It’ll look awkward but I can think of one way to keep us both close together without me hindering its movements.’

  The first step would be getting Clever up to speed. He was a lot better at communicating actions than Dei, as Dei was better for articulating words. Clever also had a high mental stat and strong mind, so he would be able to keep up, at least a little, with Dei’s rate of thinking. They needed to act quickly after all.

  ‘Clever, I’m going into the Guardians ribcage and tell it to keep fighting. Tell Perumah to retract herself, tell Fendrascora to stop me from jostling around inside its body.’

  He gave Clever enough time to process everything and he’d barely received an affirmative before using his SP combined with his Union abilities to maneuver himself through the air, up and into the Egogorns body.

  He sometimes forgot that, as a Union, he could fly and phase through stuff if he wanted to. If he phased through anything though, Fendrascora would be left behind, so he didn’t do that. The most efficient way to give The Egogorn would be to actually possess it, then just have both of them existing in its body without fighting for supremacy, but Dei again didn’t want to leave Fendrascora behind.

  Time accelerated again as everyone got into place with everything, and the fight between the Egogorn and Edward resumed. Fendrascora coated most of the Egogorns body, making it look like some sort of slime monster with bones inside it. The only parts left untouched were its arms, as it was using those to attack.

  The Egogorn sent him unfocused panick and confusion, so Dei recounted the entire interaction with the Belcher and how it’d disrupted the Egogorns anchor, as well as how Dei had basically turned himself into the Convergence to try and save it.

  The Egogorn was grateful, but again expressed that they were in a worse situation. Before, it wasn’t attacking because the Convergence itself was toxic to Edward, but once the Decay mana in the air dropped too low, it would have to expend its own to cause damage. Once it did that, it said it was not confident in lasting a few minutes.

  ‘Damn, does everything in this world have incredibly low endurance?’ he thought, then remembered ‘Right. The only reason I have better endurance without the proper Skills is because of an absolutely broken mana storage Skill which nobody else has.’

  “Just keep defending. I need time to rest and plan, I’ll get us out of this” he sent back with all the confidence he didn’t feel, but would.

  He had to find something, some way out before the Egogorn tired. He wouldn’t have a way to safely work around its hindrance on his movement, and if he wasn’t in top fighting shape against Edward, he didn’t know if it would be such an equal battle anymore.

  He grimaced as the thought occurred to him of simply breaking his connection with the Egogorn, but it was possible. As evil as it was, that would be one of his ideas, even if it were the last.

  If he wanted to fight unhindered, he’d either have to get the Egogorn anchored to something else, or figure out how to store the skeleton thing away.

  ‘Okay, two goals right now. Rest my soul and get this thing attached to me off. To rest, I’ll need another monster that can distract Edward, preferably one that I really wouldn’t mind dying. To het the Egogorn off me, I’ll need another powerful creature to anchor it to. More than powerful, it has to have a Skill on par with Connection that can contain the Decay mana. But where am I going to find a divine monster that won't vaporize me?

  ‘... Divine monster, OR, divine armament. Perhaps it's time to pay another visit to the Accipere.’

  If he could get Edward and the Accipere to fight, Edward would absolutely win, and he would glue the Egogorn to Amaya, Aloran’s divine chest piece. Hell, she’d love to have the Egogorn under her command, because then she would be able to move.

  ‘Looks like I’m coming to get you sooner than anyone thought, Amaya.’

  * * *

  Amaya was not easy to reach, at all. The Egogorn tried, for a couple hours, to keep fighting and give Dei time to rest, but all endurance had its end. Especially when the Egogorn was running and fighting at the same time.

  When it was Dei’s turn to fight once more, the battle was just as complicated as he’d first thought it would be.

  It wasn’t so simple to have the Egogorn place its hand on Dei’s back and have Fendrascora float the rest of its body a small distance away. It seemed there was some arbitrary minimum requirement that pulled on both of them like magnets so they couldn’t just stretch out away from each other.

  He had to fight with the Egogorn practically piggybacking him, which was awkward and led to Dei taking more than a few direct hits. Each time he did, more Soul Strength would be pushed out of him, occasionally fading or dissipating before Fendrascora could collect it up again.

  Resting his minds when he could by taking short naps, Dei was starting to feel it in his bones by the time he finally received a blessed notification.

  [You have entered a Convergence of Geometry]

  A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

  Immediately, he let out a [Soul Echo] getting a detailed layout of the mixed space. He saw it was exactly the same as the last time he was here.

  He felt Clever nervously push closer into his neck, the feeling of partially losing control over his time powers no doubt a terrible.

  He asked Fendrascora to stretch her body out if she could, ready to pull them out of danger at a moment's notice.

  He just needed Edward to lock onto the Accipere once, then the monster was done. Edward could clearly track his quarry through anything, so hiding in the spatial pocket wouldn’t help the Accipere.

  His and Edwards relentless battle rocked the Convergence, and Dei saw the space around both of their punches flicker each time. There was unexpected resistance when he hit too quickly, and started to realize he was punching through the altered space.

  He realized that supernaturally changed reality didn’t handle high amounts of foreign mana well. It wasn’t just his ability to hit intangible enemies either, as Edward had some sort of continuous distortion outlining him, probably from the space struggling to contain all the Rage mana within.

  Each explosion released from his fists let out a second crack behind it and a glimpse of darkness in its wake.

  ‘I bet I could do something with Void in here rather easily if I tried. I’ll stick to the plan for now though.’

  Clever said that time was starting to get bizarre. It was twisting and bending unnaturally, so Dei assumed they were somehow disrupting the Convergence with their battle.

  He’d thought the Accipere would only attack them when they were closer to the center, but just as Clever told him they were starting to break the Convergence apart, he sensed a swarming mass of flesh appear from within Amaya, racing down the tunnels to their location.

  He didn’t bother hiding his preparations for the Acciperes' arrival. Neither Edward nor the Accipere would care if he had a scheme in mind.

  When it got closer to their location, Dei placed Edward between him and the tide of flesh that was the Accipere. It didn’t bother with multiple bodies, instead simply releasing itself in one continuous stream. He couldn’t sense the end of the long snake-like creature whatsoever.

  Dei saved up for another particularly strong explosive blow and, when the Accipere let out a screech that stunned Edward for a moment but he was resistant to- thanks to Homeostasis- Dei struck out and sent Edward flying into the mass.

  It didn’t hesitate to pull him under, nor did it stop in its rush toward Dei as Fendrascora once again pulled them backwards in a very familiar situation of running from the flesh beast.

  This time though, they had some better planning. Once Fendrascora was out of length to pull them, they switched easily to Dei carrying them through the tunnels, boosted by explosions and barely agile enough to not slam into every wall.

  The Accipere suddenly froze midair in its advance, feeling indigestion from the immortal soldier it’d swallowed, but Dei did not stop with it, carrying himself out of the Convergence.

  He was elated to find it made no attempt at following, likely preoccupied with other matters, and he continued to run at top speeds for around twenty minutes.

  In that time, He’d asked Clever to begin watching the timestream again, looking at the future for any complications. Clever directed him a few times down different paths, to avoid potential monster attacks, but other than that they were solid.

  When they found a place far enough from the Geometry Convergence that it didn’t mess with Clevers abilities and safe for as far as they could see into the future, Dei finally let himself collapse to the ground, breathing hard.

  It wasn’t just the run that’d strained him, but everything about the fight so far was overwhelming. Under Clevers protection, Dei let himself relax his soul and finally fall asleep with most of his minds at the same time- leaving only a small one to keep record of the happenings and his [Soul Echo] watching out for enemies.

  * * *

  Hours later, the larger portion of Dei’s mind woke up and he sent the small, tired fragment to sleep, retrieving the memories it’d made.

  He found that, around them, many smaller Acciperes flooded towards where he knew Edward's fight was taking place. It seemed that the main Accipere was calling all its smaller pieces together to increase its own power against Edward, to little effect if the continuous streak was any indication.

  It was frankly shocking how many smaller Acciperes existed. In his field of vision alone, hundreds of flesh blobs made their way home, and it terrified him to know that so many pieces were just… everywhere. He wondered how he hadn’t seen them before, but it was an incredibly high ranking monster that snuck around and only fed on corpses. It intentionally obscured itself and avoided drawing all the attention it could, presumably only attacking when it faced an enemy it was confident was weaker than it and in its Convergence.

  Dei assumed it somehow saw his and Edwards levels, viewing them as easy prey, and was now shocked to find that was so clearly outmatched.

  Clever said he’d been keeping watch over it all, and predicted that the ending of their battle would come some time in the next six to twelve hours.

  ‘Damn, that's a six hour range. I suppose it can’t be helped with the Convergence blinding him.’

  Dei wanted to be there when the Accipere lost, because he wanted to pick the fight up again immediately. He didn’t want Edward resting at all, and to do so, he’d have to be there.

  For now though, he relaxed. His soul was still a bit tired, but he was sure he’d be in good shape when he had to fight again.

  * * *

  In the free time he had, he continued to plan out how he’d alter his connection with the Egogorn. It was simple, easy work as all he had did was map out the former anchor more, seeing all its magical bells and whistles while also trying to understand exactly what Connection did in his [Growing Rage] Skill.

  Close to six hours later, Dei stood up and they got ready to leave. He hadn’t seen another piece of the Accipere joining the main fight in two and a half hours, so he was confident in not getting caught in an attack from behind.

  They made their way to the Convergence at a much more sedated pace. By the time they were close enough for it to fall in his [Soul Echo] Dei could only see hundreds of pounds of shriveled flesh.

  The Accipere reused corpses and dead flesh, but there was an obvious limit. If it could reuse the flesh endlessly, it would be immortal as it could just keep putting itself back together.

  It seemed that the unusable flesh would shrivel and dry, leaving it grey and cracking.

  When he entered the Convergence once more and got a clearer image of the fight, he guessed it would not be much longer until it was over. Edward was fighting in the main room, pushing closer to Amaya. The Accipere wouldn’t have let him get that close if it weren’t desperate.

  As he watched, Dei saw a small piece of the fighting Accipere break off and run away. This one had a much stronger soul signature than it should have for its size, so Dei assumed it was sacrificing most of its mass to flee.

  He could hunt and kill it, but honestly didn’t see the point. As much as he hated the Accipere for almost killing him, it was only a beast, and a scavenger at that. From what he could read through his soul echo, it wasn’t even particularly smart. It simply acted on instincts, and he couldn’t fault it for trying to kill something that walked straight into its den.

  It would actually be bad for him to kill it, as Edward would almost definitely get the experience for doing so. Dei hadn’t done much, so he’d be lucky to get an assist.

  Dei just let the Accipere run, as it had helped him in the end anyway. Seeing the foregone conclusion arriving, Dei started walking towards the center, taking his time to allow Edward to finish off the last Accipere Echo. he arrived right as the last piece shriveled, and Edward swung his hand out, slapping Amaya’s main body and sending her flying along with a spray of rocks.

  Right as Edward did this, Dei sensed the space around them shake, the Convergence destabilizing as the anchor was finally moved. Fendrascora shot for Amaya as Dei opened a line of communication with her, keeping his eyes locked on Edward.

  Edward seemed listless for half a second before turning his head, not towards Dei, but where the Accipere had fled.

  ‘He really can see his target anywhere’ Dei confirmed, then jumped into action.

  Letting Edward kill the Accipere was, as he’d previously reasoned, not a good idea. It was easy enough to save its life by releasing one strong knock to the jaw, then turning around and sprinting away.

  Edwards build reshuffled itself again to match Dei’s strength, the extreme difference in power between Dei and the Accipere buying him some time as Edward struggled to adjust to his new weakness.

  Dei couldn’t afford another fighting retreat because the space was already breaking apart. When a normal Convergence broke, the mana would simply fade away. For Geometry though, it seemed everything would squish and be reshuffled to what it was supposed to be.

  “Yo, I’m back to save you but as you can see, I’m not in the best shape to help. Long story short, the four others are alive, I gotta find a way to kill this guy, and I’m going to stick you with the Egogorn here so I can fight unhindered. Are you conscious enough to understand?”

  He added the last part because, despite Lani and Jasmine being nonconscious, those were for very obvious reasons of a curse and being literally fractured. Amaya seemed to be in good enough shape, and she’d spoken the last time he was here too.

  “YES!” she veritably screamed in his mind, a word imbued with all the elation of survival, freedom, and success in their mission to save everyone else.

  Dei winced, but understood why she was happy. He didn’t dwell though, as the cracks in space were worsening, and he was almost out.