Convergence Formula
Lyun was rapidly moving through the halls with an unparalleled speed, blinking through the occasional wall when the time simply seemed right. However, each turn and each move simply left her with more halls like the last, an infinite spiral of passages that seemed to go on forever.
“Found you.” Axln had always been slightly faster than her, no matter how hard she had tried. Coming through the corridor in a blast of speed, Lyun was sent sprawling to the floor from the sudden impact. Axln then unceremoniously picked Lyun up with her ashen arm, holding her into the air. Lyun instead passed back a smile and a wave.. before disappearing in the blink of an eye. She had been working on teleportation as a concept to originally help Axln, but it really was proving a useful way to also oppose her too. Around two more corridors, Lyun suddenly found herself again confronted by Axln. Lyun teleported in time to avoid.. only to find her destination also where Axln was delivering a drop kick to her head. The impact left her dazed, but she could see the logic behind it. Knock her out, she would be easy to take anywhere. Actually, it really wasn’t a bad plan. As Axln approached her for another attack, she set off a spell below Axln’s feet that threw the fiend straight into the ceiling. By the time Axln recovered from the unexpected concussion, Lyun was already gone again.
This time, when Lyun suddenly confronted Axln in her passage, she had already passed the fiend before Axln could even react. Lyun fluttered in the air for an instance of reflection, her wings, keeping her steady in the air. Really, she should have just started flying as things stood, it suited her much better. However, the next time, Axln was ready for a mid air opponent, a wave of shadow pulsing through the halls towering from the ground. Lyun simply instead landed, ducking as the wave of shadow passed along the floor overhead, the frost of her shoes dripping on the floor below as she dashed through the opening provided in an accelerated burst before taking flight once again to move even faster. Huh.. well.. Axln was supposed to be faster, at least. 「The primitive do not understand how to take advantage of true chaos like you do. Even the idea of going faster is itself a principle of sorts.」 Funny, she was breaking every principled law in order to achieve this speed too. Acceleration spell, flight spell, she was basically redefining movement. Meanwhile, Axln was only sticking with some of the most simple of tricks, just a few rift bursts and then a surge of chaotic adrenaline. However, Axln still had such a great advantage, as her best efforts were still bringing her into confrontations.
「Warning, chaotic saturation of chance manipulation has exceeded remaining reserves of chaos. Attempts to resist the flow of probability will become less reliable going forward as a result.」 Meaning, her confrontations were simply about to get unlucky. That was just perfect, exactly what she needed less of. As she rounded another corner, she found Axln there confronting her.. and then her flight spell went haywire and she tumbled to the ground. Axln was after her in that instant, ready to slam her hard once again. Lyun knew by now that the curse of misfortune impacted all principles in this world.. but had no sway on chaos itself. Turning to her shift itself, she constructed a new spin to her imaginary logic. A spell that failed exactly in that way in this exact situation would have the.. unfortunate result of making her phantasmal for two instants. As a result of such a construction, Axln’s dash was met with no impact, leaving Lyun to simply walk through a nearby wall. Axln might control how much her spells fail, but it was Lyun who controlled what happened when they did while bound by her own logic.
「There is no question that your foe has made the wrong decision. Accepting primal chaos over true chaos.. that was the wrong decision. Your own actions are raising doubt about chaos’s claimed superiority. Chaos may be infinite, but that appears to mean it doesn’t change. The blessings bestowed to the terms of a person’s existence promotes a growth that could promise far more than chaos could ever control. Chaos clearly should instead be working to promote such change and growth, to encourage people to come up with greater forms of chaos. At the least, there is a portion of chaos who will safeguard such promise.」 She certainly didn’t mind being the aspect of true chaos, or that her being would continue such a legacy after her, though she did wish she wouldn’t have been alone in this process. Well, maybe she wasn’t alone, she still had people around helping to ensure everything else worked smoothly.
Mheridz eventually found herself confronted by a wide spanning stairwell, in an area that was starting to feel decidedly top and center. She knew this area, it was the surveillance section. She walked into the room, checking for anything which might be of use to her. Surprisingly enough, all of the displays were actually active, something almost unheard of. She wandered into the room as a blossom blew out the door before she could close it, the faint purple of the screens the only remaining light source for the room. She watched for a while, catching a view of one of the passing encounters between Axln and Lyun. Things there were obviously getting rough. Things were rather calm across most of the displays, except one of them eventually started flashing a warning. Something about heat levels in the core being too high due to an unexpected flame. It warned that such a problem was being resolved with the hydro system, which may impact performance in other areas. If regular operations were desired, there was a manual override in the hydraulics room. Mheridz considered this idea, that the area impacted might possibly end up really dense with elements if such a thing wasn’t kept in line. However, when she turned back to the blue glow of the screens, she found the same screen reporting something she couldn’t actually make out. Had she.. really seen such a message? Well, she didn’t exactly have any better ideas, this one sounded far too promising, even if she wasn’t certain it would even work.
Mheridz scrambled around further through the halls, searching for such a manual override. Fortune was supposedly set against her, but having the place suffer a meltdown.. wouldn’t that simply be unfortunate? In account for that, Mheridz found her steps guided swiftly to exactly where she needed to be, as she rushed in to switch the marked override.. not missing that the destined side was marked with a crescent moon. With that display of support, Mheridz knew for certain that her move had been exactly what they had needed. Sometimes, situations called for a little disaster before good things could happen. She didn’t know if her presence was being accepted suddenly, or if everything had been simply for Lyun’s blessing, but it didn’t matter to her which truth was real. After all, she was here to support Lyun too, it was the exact same thing to her either way. Now, if the guardians would be so kind, she had the need of pressing guidance to Lyun, to bring her to such a stage, to make sure she would be ready. She still had to figure out a way to look after herself too, but Lyun’s situation was far more urgent. Something needed to be done to ensure Lyun was offered this gift.
「Detecting massive fluctuations again in resulting probability.」 Well, of course chaos was going to keep making Lyun unlucky, that wasn’t news at all. 「Incorrect, this is not a surge of misfortune, it is truly random. Something is in defiance of chaotic probability right now?」 Okay, maybe that was at least a little interesting. She rounded another turn.. before smacking head-first into a sign mid-flight, sending her crashing into the ground. Random luck obviously sucked just as much as the bad did, apparently. Dusting herself off, she looked up at the sign that had opted to jump into her way, listing a bunch of stuff in random directions, stuff she couldn’t actually read. However.. one of them standed out suspiciously, including an arrow indicating a turn to the right after passing three corridors.. the label for where that went being meaningless to her. What was meaningful was the suspicious crescent moon mark beside the label, glowing a faint purple. She rapidly followed the directions, finding herself in a dead end, with only a ladder going down. Well, this was better than nothing. Lyun descended the ladder to find the great expanse revealed to her below.
「This place contains an unreal collection of distributed principles, most of which aren’t even identifiable. The pretense of principles in this room may actually be a danger to your degree of chaos, even your degree of principles. There is nothing natural about this room at all, far less than it appears. There are signs that this room has been restored repeatedly after calamities that defy both order and chaos. The room has traces of burn marks that were never caused by fire. This room has suffered considerable damage without relevant cause. Mostly, this room carries the scars of the veil itself, like it had sustained a might that constantly surpassed the veil itself.」 So, this place was a legendary battleground of the veil? Now that was cool, it was a shame that she had no way to learn more about such epic feats. However, in much the same light, she was herself standing in defense of the veil, a repeat of history once again. This would be her grand stage for her great performance, a clashing encounter with her closest friend. Axln would still be after her, following her trail by chance alone. With that, Axln would certainly be showing up at any time now.
Axln found herself suddenly approaching a dead end, even despite the saturation of luck she had used as a guide. Well, no, it wasn’t a dead end, there was actually a ladder here going down. Had Lyun then wandered into here herself, finding herself without any other alternative? Oh, now that would be absolutely perfect, she would finally have the girl cornered, they could stop this stupid hopeless chase. However, as she descended, she could feel the presence of the room becoming slightly less inviting, and notably more dangerous. Mostly, it was really stuffy with principles, but she couldn’t even figure out what sort of principles she was looking at. Obviously, such was a well-contrived trap setup by Lyun in a last-ditch defense, so she would need to be careful in that regard, but it wouldn’t be an actual concern. She descended upon the unstable walkway, seeing a network of paths that would descend far into the depths below. At the bottom were a vast number of large domes, very clear and obvious hiding spots down here. However, hiding wouldn’t help, Lyun would be found.
Axln took initiative by wrapping herself in suspended time. Of course, once Lyun was in the same area, she would be free to move too in just the same way. However, until Lyun got close enough, only Axln would be moving. It was an advantage Axln had when working with such a large open room, something Lyun probably had not accounted for. Axln rapidly made her descent, scanning around to take full advantage of her opportunity. With such, she found Lyun easily enough, visibly waiting to try and get the jump on her. Axln was thus on her before Lyun could even react. Axln slammed hard into.. through Lyun, connecting instead with the area behind her as the image flickered in the air. A feint, but then again there was still no room for Lyun to react, time was still frozen. Axln continued to press forward.. until suddenly she found her head thrashed into the wall with a sudden side kick, Lyun’s invisibility fading in the process. Axln also discarded her own time stop, no longer seeing it as a benefit.
Well, Lyun’s idea had actually worked, but she really hadn’t expected Axln to stop time like that. It seemed that this version of Axln still had that trick of chaos as well as her new one, which was probably actually cheating. Well, Axln had come back through time, so Lyun really should have expected time control to be a part of everything. Actually, in that light, why wasn’t Axln simply taking advantage of time hops to overwhelm her actions? 「This chaotic Axln is not native to the current timeline. If she departs it for another, she would lose her marked timeline.」 Oh, sweet, a handicap! Considering who she was up against, she would be open to every advantage she could get. The room at least didn’t seem to actually be all that special, which was already looking to be a disappointment. It was a big space at least, much better than the cramped halls, but.. she had really hoped for something more. Instead, it was just a dreary wide murky space that.. maybe was a little too warm for her taste.
Axln however wasn’t going to leave her room to complain further, going on an outright offensive in order to force her into submission. Lyun really didn’t like chaotic Axln, not even a fragment of care for how she felt right now. She made a demonstration of her dissatisfaction by blasting the fiend back into the air once again. However, Axln had no regard for that either, simply turning the opportunity into a violent descent. Missing her opportunity to dodge, Lyun was left full of regrets as the impact took her full on. Yup, this Axln didn’t care about her at all, not really, so she couldn’t spare holding back at all either. The most this Axln cared about was ensuring her chaotic captivity, yet pending at this point.. Lyun couldn’t even figure out a good reason to spare the fiend’s life. Such a fiend is the reason why her friend was gone, it didn’t deserve her mercy. She wiped away some of her dripping blood from her face, clearing her vision a bit in the process. Of course, not all handicaps were in her favour, Axln’s chaos-infused nature had her left without any injuries at this point, the girl wasn’t bleeding at all. No, at this point, Axln followed the rules of chaos. She wouldn’t bleed blood, she survived on reserves of chaos. Axln had to perish like any fiend who had ever come before her.
The fiend was also ruthlessly persistent. Not giving Lyun any room to even get back up, Axln pounced on her once again. Her white fist came in fast and hard, sapping the very mana she supposedly possessed by her own law in the process, leaving her feeling even weaker. The impact left a crater in the ground, the pain endless.. and even then Axln did not stop. Lyun pulled out another teleport spell to find her room to recover, but she really wasn’t fairing well. A healing spell would be really useful right now, but she hadn’t had the time to consider how such a spell would flow, and Axln certainly wasn’t about to let her figure that out. Even so, this would be another disadvantage, injuries would slow Lyun down, but slowing Axln down was looking much more challenging. 「As one of chaos, she would be equally flawed, much like all of your previous foes. You could inject her with principles, or if you really wanted to profit from her casualty, you could feast on her chaos for yourself. She has become vulnerable to both solutions as a consequence of her fall to chaos.」 Of course, knocking her out the principled way was stupid, she wasn’t exactly so principled anymore. Lyun just had to bleed away the chaos from Axln, the fiend would become more and more vulnerable.
Axln was quick on a follow up from the previous clash, but that was exactly what Lyun was hoping for. This Axln knew nothing of the potential that dwelled in her ebony arm, such hadn’t been a thing from that timeline. When the lashing strike came from Axln’s own arm, Lyun simply grabbed it. Lyun’s chaos then began to draw from the offering, working to replenish her own reserves in the process. It was surprising how saturated Axln actually was though, a quantity Lyun could not draw from completely, not without endangering herself. Even so, Lyun had done this plenty enough, she just needed to mitigate the chaos in other ways. Axln herself wasn’t doing so well from that, clearly in shock at the strange experience of being drained like that. This Lyun.. could do that? That was a very dangerous power indeed, something Axln would have to be much more careful facing. Having the chaos pulled from her did not work to her advantage at all, not when she was that very chaos at this point. Axln thus backed away to consider her options, not very fond of how prepared this Lyun was in dealing with her. Just how much was the girl capable of?
As it had become quite the staple of their dark halls, Lyun called forth yet another light ambience.. and then projected it forwards explosively. The light detonated as it left her shift, converting itself explosively into saturated light elemental of a high intensity. Light itself wasn’t that harmful for Lyun, at least so long as she covered her eyes. However, such pure elementals were directly in conflict with the void composition Axln’s chaotic infusion depended upon, searing the girl violently on impact. Lyun then took her own opportunity to go on the offensive, delving into an outright barrage of light. Axln realized that Lyun’s arsenal was mighty, but it came with its own reserves. This would simply be a trial of who’s reserves could outlast the other, and Axln still held great hopes in the superiority of chaos. Axln had the infinite support of all temporal chaos, while Lyun here had nothing beyond herself. It would be a simple enough victory.
Axln formed her own temporal chaos before her, projecting it forwards as a void wave of force. Such intensity beset the searing light and consumed it, leaving nothing behind. In much the same way, Axln managed to counter others before unleashing a surplus wave of force, this one striking hard into Lyun herself, throwing her far backwards into a distant wall, leaving her incredibly dazed. Yup, Lyun obviously didn’t have enough on her side right now, Axln really had too much chaos at this point. Lyun however was uncertain what else she could do to turn things around. However, as Axln advanced once again on Lyun, a cluster of spheres fell around her, each detonating in a powerful surge of lightning elemental, taking Axln completely by surprise. However, both of them recognized such instruments, they knew whose style such a maneuver belonged to. Mheridz however was still far far above, knowing better than to advance into this battle. She wasn’t here to fight, she was only here as a messenger.
“Lyun, you’re right now in the heart of the elements, a place that has seen more elemental intensity than you had ever seen before. It stands ready awaiting your signal, you just need to turn up the heat and its strength will be your own.” Mheridz didn’t even know what sort of secret this place really had, for all she knew she was only exaggerating. However, that would work, nothing like giving the corrupted remains of her mother something serious to worry about. Even so, her plans did not end so simply. She now needed to ensure that the fiend that was her mother could not escape either. She had been scattering traps all over the area, a surge of lightning current discharge which would obliterate most voidspawn. Her trap was scattered all over, drawing from the red filaments of the walls for added power from the citadel’s overwhelming might. Beyond that, everything would be up to Lyun, below.
Mheridz’s theory of the psychology below wasn’t wrong at all. Lyun had perked up immediately, a grim smile crossing her face in the process, while Axln started searching around for the supposed danger around her. Both of them however did notice that the place was warm, though Axln generally felt uncomfortable in regular heat. Neither of them could see an explicit target for heat, a sure sign of where heat was supposed to go. While Axln fumbled to come up with a plan of action, Lyun took up the initiative. Elemental-like spells had been something she had already been working on, she had a design for that ready. First then, she produced an anti-fire protection around her, something which would reduce the influence of fire magic. Then, with her defenses up, her target was simple. If there would be no single target, then she just needed to burn everything. A massive molten sphere appeared above her at the snap of her fingers, pulsing with a blazing intensity. Then, before Axln could even react to the sudden threat, the sphere exploded in a raging inferno. The metal platforms above immediately began to melt in the incredible heat, Axln barely being able to react enough to simply protect herself, Lyun’s protection taking up such a threat before fading away in the intensity.
As the inferno raged, flames scourging around the immense room, the heat of the same room began to rise even further. Even despite such incredible heat, the room’s most integral functions could still work, its measures detecting the heat rising above tolerable limits as it prepared to respond as it had always been designed.. to deal with the threats contained within.
Luminaeris 