I don't even know how much time passed since I began this cycle.
Has it been months, years, or even more? The identical memories blend together, so it's hard to tell them apart. The only thing that reminds me that time has passed is the growing power I somehow feel, and the gleefulness of the voice in my head.
I sigh as I watch yet another Destroyer fall under my strikes. By now, the poor soul is almost absorbed as soon as we enter my Soul World. Funnily enough, my Soul World is still as bleak as ever despite my increase in soul strength.
The voice informs me that the efficiency of the soul absorption has gone down too much, and I would now lose soul strength if I were to repeat the cycle again. It has been steadily going down with each repeat, so I'm not too surprised.
Now it's time to let time run its course. Every muscle fibers of my body are tense; I have no clue if I'll be able to reach a hypothetical Phase 3. And, even if it exists, it might not be enough to face the Oracle.
But it's time to test my theory; if it doesn't work, then I'll have to think about something else.
I don't bother watching the corpse of the Destroyer turn into a pile of dust, that scene has lost its appeal after watching it for hundreds of thousands of times.
My glare focus on where the Oracle should appear and I take a deep breath to calm my rising unease. It doesn't work too much, but at least I tried.
"Oracle! Show yourself!" I shout at the sky before activating my robes.
The sudden energy blast is so intense that it almost vaporizes the floor. The veritable sea of golden light is so bright and massive that it should be visible from orbit. The armor surrounding me, which was ethereal before, now appears to be completely solid. It's also bigger and makes me a foot taller.
My vision shifts as the new helmet cover my eyes, a flurry of new information flood my field of view. I can now see magical power, and there's also a timer at the bottom left corner.
The timer, which has a label saying 'Soul Strength' above it, shows the remaining time I have in Phase 3. I'm glad that it exists, but the duration is a bit small considering all the effort I have to go through to obtain it.
But fifteen minutes should be enough.
"Fantastic!" a disembodied voice echoes and a flurry of projectiles suddenly appear over the horizon. I don't know why I'm now able to see them, but I bet it's linked to Phase 3. I roar and take a step forward, causing ripples in my aura which is covering the entire floor.
The projectiles are considerably slowed down when they enter my domain, but their entry still causes a tug in the back of my head. I grit my teeth when the time goes down to ten minutes, a testimony to the fearsome power of the Oracle's weapon.
Of course, I don't let my dismay become visible and stand straight. It might be futile since the Oracle is capable of seeing my soul strength, but better be safe than sorry. I can't let her know that her attacks affect me.
"Marvelous!" the Oracle says while clapping her hands as she appears in front of me. I grab my Field Pistol, which has been modified by the golden aura. The materials seem to have changed since it now has a visible golden sheen, not to mention then intricate golden engravings on its surface.
I fire a bullet into the Oracle. The recoil is a bit stronger than in my memories, but the projectiles seem to be a lot faster than before. My opponent grins and attempts to swat the object out of the sky, but it doesn't work. Astonishment becomes visible on her face for a brief moment, so I capitalize on this opportunity.
Another volley of bullets reach the Oracle, and she smiles before a barrier appears around her.
"Very interesting, I'm glad I found you!" she says with glee as the projectiles cause sparks to erupt. Sadly, they fail to penetrate and fall uselessly on the ground.
"How amusing, you're really full of mystery!" the Oracle declares while looking at me like she's looking at a piece of meat.
"DiE!" I shout as I empty my magazine. She laughs and teleports out of the way before firing one of her projectiles towards a stunned Mary.
"Get down!" I shout, and the hybrid drops to the ground, just in time to avoid the deadly attack.
"All of you, get out of here! Go back to the Shard and warn the others!" I order. My voice, which seems to be enhanced by my aura, takes them out of their stupor. They create portals near their feet, and I fall to my knees when an overbearing pressure crashes down on me.
My aura groans and the timer goes down rapidly while the portals flicker for a brief moment.
"GO!" I shout, and my companions jump into their own portals, Krognar is dragged into the magical construct by Alex.
The pressure lessens, so I stand back up. To my surprise, I can see a bit of exasperation on the Oracle's face.
I can't help but grin at the sight. It looks like she didn't account for her spell jamming to be foiled.
But her displeasure soon turns into a bright smile, and she laughs loudly. "Incredible, simply incredible! I knew you were worth my attention, but this is simply beyond my expectations!"
I reload and fire another magazine into the Oracle, but she avoids the bullets with ease.
"I may have underestimated you, but this is so much fun! I want to learn your secrets, and you'll give them to me!" she says before firing her coil gun directly into my chest. I skid a few inches back and almost spit out blood. It felt like I was hit by a freight train.
The timer also went down; there are only four minutes of Phase 3 remaining before I go back to being squishy and vulnerable.
We NeEd To RuN!
I stop the timeline for a moment. It isn't like the voice to suggest that we flee from a battle, it's really scared of the Oracle. I can understand why; she's invincible and her magical power is so strong that the mana she naturally emits is enough to cover half the planet.
But running away, while indeed an attractive proposition, isn't possible. The Oracle would follow me no matter where I go, and creating another portal will end Phase 3 since I'll have to endure her spell jamming.
So the only choice I have is to kill her or harm her so much that she'll think twice about bothering me again.
I watch the timer, to my dismay my Rewinds barely 'reloaded' my soul.
It looks like Phase 3 is not something I can use freely. I'll have to be even more careful with it than Phase 2.
But, first of all, I have to find a way to harm the Oracle. Shooting her with my Field Pistol isn't going to work, and the MH Shells are also useless. I can't summon the Hammer, but it wouldn't do anything if I could.
Punching her wouldn't do anything, so I could always try to eat her-
I'm stopped in my tracks by the screeching voice; it's doing everything in its power to stop me from doing that.
I got it; I'm not going to attempt to eat the soul of the Oracle. In the first place, her soul is probably so strong that it would vaporize my own in less than a second.
However, I still need to find a way to harm her. Maybe shooting her from the inside will work? Nobody seems to defend against internal damage, so it should be worth a shot.
I rush towards the Oracle. She smirks and fires a projectile at my head. It doesn't do any actual damage, but the shock almost gave me a concussion. These attacks vaporized all the gains I made with Rewinds. In fact, I lost a bit more than I gained.
Great.
The problem with Phase 3, and anything related to my soul for that matter is that it's independent of my Rewinds and carries over from each timeline change. So losing the ability to use Phase 3 now would carry into the past, and that would make things even more difficult.
I'm not used to this state of affair; the Rewinder spoiled me with how consequence-free most of my choices became. Well, almost consequence-free. The voice is an excellent example of a Rewinder-induced problem.
I keep dashing forward, using the Rewinder as best as I can to avoid the projectiles. It's useless most of the time since the attacks are too quick for me to react in time, not to mention the homing properties of her bullets make it a futile task. But I can still mitigate the damages if I'm quick and lucky enough. Of course, only being able to dodge a projectile once makes it harder than normal. If I used my usual strategy of spamming Rewinds against the Oracle, then I would run out of soul strength in an instant.
"What are you even doing?" she gloats as she creates a chair out of pure mana to sit on. "But don't let me deter you, I find that toying with you makes me unusually happy."
I ignore her jab and continue my advance. I can almost touch her; I only need to-
A sudden shockwave sends me to the other side of the Tower. I almost fell off!
I get up and grit my teeth before Rewinding. If I can react in time then-
The shockwave ejects me again. I Rewind again. I have to do everything I can to squeeze out those precious milliseconds that I need to shoot that bitch into her mouth.
...Oracle's PoV...
How delightful.
I knew that P-02 was interesting, but he exceeded my expectations.
First of all, the way he suddenly increased the strength of his soul was beyond what I thought possible. I knew there were a few inexplicable increases in his soul strength, but I never thought that it could grow so much in one go. I want to know how he did it. Even my ability cannot give me an answer.
Not to mention his aura. It became a lot better in a similarly short period of time. Of course, I quickly noticed that his soul strength went down as soon as P-02 started to use that golden aura, which is a shame. Burning one's soul like that is reckless and inefficient, but I guess it doesn't matter when you have a seemingly infinite soul as P-02 does.
And, interestingly enough, he knew about me. I try to be discrete when I can. As a result, the people who know me and what I'm capable of are very few. And I never had any contact with P-02, my ability further corroborates that, so how did he know about me?
Just thinking about that is enough to send shivers down my spine, the more I uncover, the more I want to learn!
This man has too many secrets, and nobody keeps secrets from me!
My ability, which is displayed at the corner of my vision, show me in details what his attacks are and what they should do.
Of course, this also allows me to find the perfect counter.
Once again, I'm surprised by the ingenuity that P-02 displays, but it's still not enough to threaten me. Maybe he'll one day reach my level, but that's assuming that he lives that long.
But, despite everything, the thing that intrigues me the most is forbidden. I can focus as much as I want, but my ability simply refuses to give me any information on the mysterious golden aura that my target generates. I can deduce from my observations that it's somehow related to his soul, but that's all I know.
I bet I can force it out of him. I don't want to damage him too much since he's a great source of entertainment, but I know myself well enough to know that my thirst for new knowledge will get the better of me if he resists too much. Not to mention that my interest will significantly wane if I know everything about him, although P-02 has shown time and time again that he's full of novel ideas.
But I don't know if it will be enough to keep me entertained.
If it doesn't, then I'll have to take care of him. His little cult can't do anything and doesn't matter in the grand schemes of things so I won't bother with them. But P-02 knows about me, and he has seen me. I can't let that loose end run around freely if I don't get anything out of it.
Let's stop with that for now. TIt is a rare occasion to have fun so let's enjoy it!
P-02 is trying to reach me for some reason. I bet it's going to be one of his crazy ideas that somehow work. I'm half tempted to let him do his thing just to see what happens, but where's the fun in that?
Seeing him desperately struggling is half the fun!
I prepare another shockwave; this should be enough to-
Something hard is pressed against my mouth, and I suddenly realize what P-02 is trying to do.
What a clever boy!
But his attempt will not amount to anything. First of all, I doubt that his weapon can do any actual damage to me. And his pitiful strength is far from enough to break through-
My target interrupts my train of thoughts by shouting, and I see some parts of the armor on his arm moving and rotating.
I raise an eyebrow, this is related to his aura, so I don't know what will happen.
How exciting!
Thick golden aura suddenly burst from his elbow. A small part of the mysterious energy creates some large ethereal nozzle around the burst as if to redirect it. His armor creaks as the pressure on my face increases by orders of magnitude.
How clever!
I should create a barrier; I don't want him to scratch my skin or-
Oh.
P-02 screams again, and the massive armor surrounding him vanishes from existence, but the large burst of power doesn't. Instead, it looks like the armor was used to make the blast even stronger. The nozzle begins to crack, but it's enough to force my jaw to open!
I'm too stunned to react in time, and a single projectile is fired in my mouth.
Another big chunk of P-02's soul strength disappears at the same moment, but I'm not too worried about it.
I already know about this weapon; it's simple but deadly. But this mundane enchantment was not able to pierce my flesh, not to mention that my body is so saturated with mana that it will instantly overcharge-
My heart skips a beat, and I gasp for breath. The expected explosion never comes. Instead, the projectile lodged in the back of my throat keeps siphoning my mana at an alarming rate.
I use my full power to disintegrate the projectile, but I'm limited in what I can use since it would significantly damage my body.
I internally lash out, but something seems to surround the projectile. Something that feels strangely familiar.
"How interesting..." I mutter when I realize what it is.
At the same moment, the barrier breaks and the runes unleash their might.