The moment he felt the aura fade and the temperature outside rose from “have fun being a popsicle” to “slow death by frostbite,” going outside became manageable for everyone else.

  Seraphim had finally managed to defeat the titanic-class and left, it seemed, considering that the continent wasn’t being tectonically rearranged like an enormous sliding puzzle.

  Now there was only a light blizzard, which sounded like an oxymoron, but he was thinking in relative terms here. Compared to before when they were hiding for weeks, they could at least move again. Climate was no longer an insurmountable obstacle that they had to wait out, though supplies very much could be.

  Finn obviously did not have enough fruits packed in his bag to feed over forty people. They had run out near the start of his journey when he was sharing them with Paloma. And Ernesto’s own food storage was down to rations at this point.

  While they could survive for a few more days, they would have to hunt since they were taking a long route. Not due to any inclinations to go sightseeing, but simply because the damage done to the earth by the primebeast was so great that they couldn’t travel over the land straight ahead of them. Ernesto had been able to communicate with his people, and the fastest route home that he could carry all those people in his semi-power-created vehicle.

  For the first time since coming out of Wanderlust’s dimension, Finn wished he had a different power, or had developed his current one to a point where he could just get everyone out. He had set Mistral as the benchmark for his strength, yet he knew for a fact that Mistral could carry this many people without much problem. And faster, to boot.

  That just went to show that versatility was a desirable trait to possess in terms of powers. Finn definitely planned to devise a method of flight for himself to round out his skill set one day. However, he didn’t know if carrying a group like this would ever be possible for him.

  As he realized that, he paused. Rarely did he contemplate the psychological implications of the nature of his own power, despite being self-aware enough to realize he was more reflective than expressive as a person. Powers may not have been well understood, but he knew there was a general consensus about a superhuman’s ability saying something about their mental architecture.

  What, then, did the ability to control colors say about a person? On paper, he would never use that label for himself. He didn’t think the world could use more “flair” or whatever. Though perhaps that was the wrong perspective. Whenever he used it, it never felt wrong. It always felt exactly right, which meant there must have been something to it that slotted in with who he was.

  Besides, wasn’t there more to colors than just flair? He should know best. It was what gave the world nuance. It made up a foundational aspect of the realm they lived in. His power was not visibility, or light, it was control over colors, in every form. In some instances even the conceptualization of colors was enough, as he was starting to discover. There existed an infinite number of combinations that he could observe or draw, and that gave him direction.

  Yeah… Direction. Finn got the impression that he had just touched on something essential, but couldn’t put his finger on it. Direction to where? A location? A particular endpoint? He had no answer.

  Neither did he have an accurate guess about what his friends’ powers said about them. Sounds, copies, enhancements, mental force flowers, attention, what aspects of their personalities could those all be referencing? No way to say for sure. Not like he could go and ask them.

  He supposed it wasn’t relevant to his current predicament. The point was that he didn’t see his power being suited to carrying so many people at once, and that presented an issue for him seeing as it might mean there were things that he would never be able to do on his own. Like getting these people to safety.

  The people of the camp stepped out ahead of him, Ernesto deconstructing the shelter to set up his truck again. He adjusted the new outfit he’d changed into, taken from the rather large storage in his backpack, and flexed his regrown hand. Healing it all the way had turned out to be a quicker venture than expected, albeit a strenuous one.

  Granted, looking at the flawless limb was still strange to him. He had half-expected the old, imperfect arm from before his nanites to come back, but no. The change that had occurred was fundamental, a complete overwrite of the old Finn.

  A full metamorphosis.

  He couldn’t bring himself to feel bad about that. He’d never been overly attached to his old appearance, and certainly not to his weakness, meaning that there weren’t any real objections to the change. He had welcomed it, once it was done. This represented him taking a step closer to killing Omega. Nothing would stop him from continuing to improve his body.

  Or his mind. Building an artificial intelligence was an undertaking he had underestimated to such a hilarious degree, he was shocked at how difficult it was even with his advantages. He would be even more lost if he didn't have some form of reference. Namely, a specific entity.

  Amalgam.

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  He had no idea what its origins were, other than the inference that it had been made through unknown means by Wanderlust. What he did know was that it was an example of what a nanite colony could do if properly guided. Except his own was presumably a prototype made to inhabit a host, whereas Amalgam was fully capable of operating independently.

  Did that mean the nanites were going to develop their own intelligence at some point if he managed to make them evolve? Doubtful. And if they did, they had this weird arbitrary limitation of never leaving his body under any circumstance, so developing his own intelligent being capable of doing things anywhere inside his sphere of influence wasn’t a waste of time.

  Regardless, Amalgam served as a useful form of reference because of its vast information processing capabilities. The method of communication it employed was mind-boggling to the point where Finn had spent over a year deciphering it just to get back to Earth, something that would have taken longer if not for the “instincts” of his prototype colony.

  Instincts, or an approximation of them, seemed to be the missing link for his own project. Was that not the basis required for sapient life from an evolutionary standpoint? He had given his imaginary chromatic blob directives, but the question was whether to grant it more inherent inclinations, or develop it another way.

  He shook his head, dismissing the thought temporarily. Boarding the carrier truck with the group before entering the cockpit, he had a brief conversation with Ernesto regarding their route, and learned that the plan was for them to be picked up just short of Mar Fracturado, or the Fractured Sea, in English.

  The place where Yama and Seraphim had once fought, permanently changed from their cataclysmic battle.

  In ideal circumstances, it would have been a straight shot there. Unfortunately, the land on that route was too unstable, and they were forced to take a roundabout route further west until they could travel north again, closer to the main war front.

  None of them were enthused by that prospect.

  Finn leaned back against the wall behind him, looking out of the window at the altered landscape ahead. The next few hours passed in silence as they set out for a long journey to the next stop.

  Eventually, he sighed. “I’m going scouting.”

  Ernesto nodded. “If you see any signs of a recent battle, tell me where to go to get around it. The fewer contested locations we pass through, the better.”

  Slipping out of the truck and into the snowstorm, he rendered himself transparent like the vehicle he was exiting. After figuring out this trick, he found it simpler than using his regular camouflage method or bending light, even if both of them were completely trivial for him to perform. He wanted more practice with this new technique, to get used to the novelty of it more so than any trouble he was having with the mechanics of it.

  Mar Fracturado was still a ways off, in terms of travel time. They weren’t going to be reaching it today or tomorrow, meaning that his own scouting missions were going to become a regular thing for the next few days to weeks.

  Their new route was a tough one, he could see that before making a lot of distance. Less stable terrain, less even ground, less cover for them to hide under. The only upside was the relative lack of primebeasts in the area. He couldn’t say the same for hostile humans.

  Taking all of that into consideration, he found it oddly coincidental that disaster had struck at such an inopportune time. Or he was looking at it the wrong way and it was actually very favorable for him. He had managed to bring himself back to full strength.

  Lucky or unlucky, he didn’t think this was truly just happening by chance. Maybe some of it, but not all of it. He wasn’t necessarily a believer in fate, but the number of things he had found in the right place at the right time were getting to be suspicious. He had stumbled upon Paloma right as she was in need of saving. The first settlement they found was the refugee camp. A primebeast strong enough to rearrange the land struck just as they were about to approach the final leg of their journey.

  He was still in control of his actions, so no one could have been puppeteering him. The other explanation was that there must have been some greater force foreseeing it. And the only being he could think of who would potentially be able to do that was, again, Amalgam. He had not forgotten about the fact that, out of each potential location the gatekey was able to latch onto, the one he had landed in was deemed the safest. Which made him assume the two other locations would have seen him dead within the first hour of arrival.

  Asking clarifying questions wasn’t going to be possible without returning, sadly. And he had to wait for his gatekey to recharge even if he wanted to do that. Had he made the wrong choice by deciding to immediately go home instead of tapping it for more information? But he couldn’t waste a second longer than necessary! He hated this, having to wrestle with impossible dilemmas at every turn.

  His running footsteps crunched in the snow, carrying him past the trees at speeds no normal human could ever hope to achieve. The past was the past. He couldn’t change it, no matter what. The future was within his capabilities, and if at the highest level, these artificial super-computers were capable of projecting days or months ahead, Finn had his work cut out for him.

  Honestly, this was going to be his priority from now on. That was non-negotiable—he didn’t want others controlling his actions, be it in real-time or preemptively. Even if it was for his own good. No, especially if it was for his own good. He would master the future.

  On his left side, he spotted frozen craters and streaks of ash now covered by thick layers of snow. A clash between the two armies from shortly before the storm? He couldn’t sense any people, so either there were no survivors left to sense or the battle had long since ended.

  When the site came into view, the radius his power worked in had extended far enough to highlight track in his mind. Almost buried by the blizzard. Multiple people, based on the similar boot prints of different sizes. He had a solid idea of who they were from, but their appearance here was rather soon with how little time had passed since the climate shift.

  Machines had been here too, cars and mechs. In fact, when he got nearer, he saw that the boot tracks stopped in front of the machines that had left. Aside from a single set that had split off from the rest. He followed it, and noticed something near the end of his range.

  A broken soldier, alone in the cold.

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