"So Josh is slowly falling into insanity?" Keith listened to Pauleen and Juniper's report as the two of them were somewhat on a cold sweat. Mostly from trying to escape and not get dragged into Josh's snapping. "So he's still in the inn? Yeah, but it seems like he's losing himself completely." Juniper showed concern as she was able to hear the audible screams of complicated emotions coming from Josh. "Alright then, I'll check it out myself." Keith had finally made the decision, he handed them their weapons and prepared for a possible fight against Josh.
Josh was back in the state inn of Preeliance, his eyes were starting to bleed out tears from his eyes as he continued to hit himself, the walls, the floor, or pretty much any object within his vicinity out of frustration.
Crystal, who was helping around the Preeliance state inn was now troubled, contacting the Preeliance higherups, she heard Andreus's voice from the call and was immediately relieved. "Someone from the Sentinels Order is going there already, for the time being, evacuate all residents there." The innkeeper followed his instructions and immediately had everyone leave the inn for the morning. Josh continued his momentary rampage within the inn for a few more minutes.
"Josh!" Keith arrived to the inn, immediately finding Josh in Gayle's room which had turned into a complete mess. Josh looked over and noticed Keith, the first thing that came in his mind was wanting to vent everything out. "She's gone! She's now gone! This is all because I couldn't do anything!" Keith could feel pity, as he realized that the wounds in his heart may have run deep due to his experience. From his perspective he learned that Josh may have considerably been abused by Gayle. With Draxus as also another recipient of her aforementioned abuse allegations, Keith was starting to think that Josh is starting to receive the same treatment as she did towards Draxus. Being forced to become dependent on her, only to abandon them in the end.
"Josh, I already told you, it was not healthy for you to be in that relationship. This is for your sake, please accept that you cannot let her control you any more than this." "But then! What am I supposed to become without her?!" "That's what you have to find yourself, Draxu-" "Don't ever mention his name in front of me!" Josh attacked Keith upon hearing Draxus's name. Which showed that he still has major resentment towards him. Keith blocked his attack with chains. He then tripped his grip out of his sword and kicked him back to the wall. "You have to listen to me Josh! You're pushing yourself to the brink because of your idolization of her! She's the problem! Not us!" "What do you mean?! She's the only one that had been by my side! There's nothing else I have in this world other than her!" "You still have yourself! Or have you really decided to abandon your own growth for her sake?!" "Y-You...!" Josh raised his arm towards Keith and gripped nothing but air, but Keith felt the crushing force on his neck which he looked to release but to no avail as he was raised up in the air. "Nothingness?!" Keith was surprised as he let those thoughts out after realizing what Josh is using. "Ghh, if there's nothing else... [Spirit King]!" Just activating [Spirit King] form was not enough, as Keith was starting to see Josh's true power. "[End towards Nothingness]..." Keith had his life flash before his eyes for the first time, knowing that he may be killed in the state inn, he thought about everything that he could hope to use. "What about time? Space spirits? Force spirits or elements will not work, he'll just reduce them to nothing!" Keith was starting to panic, as he was starting to run out of breath.
Serkyrio looked out at the balcony from the castle and noticed the state in being in turmoil. His eyes allowed him to see the interior of any object and noticed that Keith was in a horrible position. "Hmph..." He huffed for a moment before pointing his hand towards the direction of Keith. "Young Sentinel, since you're in trouble, I may as well let you wield your true power for a moment."
After a few moments, he stopped channeling some power towards Keith, and the next thing he saw was a manifestation of a mystical leafless tree outside the inn before it dematerialized.
Just as Keith was about to lose consciousness, he could sense the extreme flow of power along with Serkyrio's message in his mind. "Young Sentinel, since you're in trouble, I may as well let you wield your true power for a moment." In that moment, he immediately activated it.
"[Tree of Timelines]!" The tree of timelines manifested behind him as a gigantic spirit tree without leaves. One of the infinite branches shrunk and regrew. After which Keith was instantly back on the ground released by Josh's [Nothingness]. "What the hell was that...? But first..." As he cleared up his thoughts. he forcefully knocked Josh unconscious as he was shocked by what kind of power was able to stop him.
"Now then... [Aura Spirit], can you identify what exactly is happening to him." The aura spirit materialized and immediately possesses Josh's body. After some time, the aura spirit left and started explaining. "He seems to be generating a lot of darkness clouding his heart and mind. It's like he's forcefully pushing away every other way of light aside from a special one." "So that special has got to be Gayle then, he denies everything else but one possible light when in reality the one that caused his darkness is the one that he considers his light. Good enough then..." "Umm... [Spirit King]?" "Hmm?" "The spirit behind you... That's the [Tree of Timelines]... Isn't it?" "Yeah... I was allowed to make use of it by the Emperor..." "T-That's truly impressive... You can now alter timelines however you want..." Keith was shocked, as he was subconsciously using the power of the [Tree of Timelines] due to the close call. "For now, [Assimilate]." "Wait don't assi-" Both the Aura Spirit and the Tree of Timelines were absorbed into Keith. However, assimilating the [Tree of Timelines] into him caused a major effect.
Keith was starting to see many other timelines forcefully engraved into his mind, half of them were possible branches towards varying futures, while half of the possible branches were his possible deaths. All that information which numbered to about infinity was forcefully placed into his mind, which caused him to gain severe headaches from information overload. "Ghh...! Gaaah!!!" Keith started screaming in agony from the amount of information was overloaded in his mind, he knelt down from the headaches and started clutching his head trying to massage and mitigate the pain, but all of it suddenly stopped and disappeared. He looked around and noticed Layla and Serkyrio behind her with his arm held out forward. "K-Keith!" Layla started rushing towards Keith as he started to lose consciousness. Just before that, he heard another telepathy from the emperor. "You still need to grow further, before you can manifest and take full control of that power, Young Sentinel."
Serkyrio took over the investigation and urged Layla to bring Keith to the Dimensional Laboratory, which surprised her and made her feel absolutely concerned as it may result in Keith being in a coma. But she complied quickly so Keith would be less burdened.
"Now then..." Serkyrio brought out an amethyst gem on his hands as he watched Josh slowly wake up after being knocked out.