Chapter 192
Numbness
Though Valen's force broke further and deeper than ever before thanks to Sylas breaking down the wall that was stopping them, their momentum was killed shortly after when they chose a wrong route. The night before they crossed what they thought was a simple patch of forest, it rained heavily, turning the forest into a quasi-swamp. Halfway through it, they were ambushed, and then once again after they left, dwindling their numbers heavily.
So much so, in fact, that when they met a hastily-formed army, they lost rather brutally. However, if they were in full force and riding high, Sylas predicted that the victory was all but certain.
Still, their troubles weren't whisked away--though Sylas realized that they'd likely need his help in some capacity, he also wondered how he was supposed to do all this originally, without any of his strength. He had missed something, likely many somethings, but he couldn't pinpoint precisely what. His initial instinct was likely that he was supposed to party-up with the Cult, with them taking over the castle and preparing Valen for the Crown.
Would that have been enough? Perhaps. Though Sylas had long since stopped bothering himself with them, they weren't a force easily ignored. There was a reason that the Kingdom had been struggling for a while to deal with them.
Sighing, he poured down some wine, his gaze drifting toward the sky. The change of scenery did help the numbness of his soul, but not nearly as much as he was hoping. He was still largely empty, a vessel of will beyond his own that struggle with recognizing itself in the mirror.
Who he was... it was one demon that he was wrestling with the most. Beneath the purpose he was anointed for, beneath the armors of divinity he was tasked with wearing, beneath all the dotted lines that the world had assigned him to... who was he? Was he still Sylas, this collection of fragments making a jumbled whole? A mess of contradictions, a man leaving behind the shell of humanity--or was he beyond humanity already? Something larger, grander, more occult.
There was no right answer--at least he thought as much. He was not a man, not truly. Not any longer, as well. He held the features of one, and could put on a plaid mask to hide whatever he has become, to shepherd himself as the light of humanity. He could don the name and the face and the voice and the mantle of who the world saw him as... but it was only ever that--just a mask. A figment of his creation, dull and sad.
Sighing yet again, he took a sip and wandered. He did that frequently, he'd begun to realize. There was little left in reality that could grasp him still, and even his mind was running out of fantasies and stories. The dullness that he knew would eventually overtake in the infinity was encroaching faster than he was expecting. Then again, he was, at least, a couple of thousand years old at this point, as old as post-Jesus age back on Earth--at least.
And a lot of happened between the time of Jesus and the time of Sylas being kidnapped--a whole lot more than he could ever remember for his history classes. In fact, he was shocked he remembered ever taking them, actually. That spoke to the level of trauma that was inflicted upon him by those three-pages-long questionnaires asking about various kings and queens and battles and years.
Shuddering for a moment at the shockingly clear memory, he looked back where he saw the hurry and chase of the castle as it was trying to prepare for the departure. Among them, he saw Asha--she was slowly guiding the processes, appearing rather excited. He envied her, here and there--she could not recall distinctly the past lives like he could, but she seemed to recall them in enough detail to keep up with the general story without being bogged down in details.
He envied that specifically. If he could simply flash-forward through the boring parts that he had repeated hundreds of times and just live out and remember new things each loop, he likely wouldn't have been as burnt as he was. The observers watching him wasting lifetimes on a simple solution simply because he is too stupid to realize it at least could sleep through him beating the wall with his head, while he had to beat that wall each and every time.
Slinking back the last of the drink, he descended from the wall and went over to help. He hadn't done so, not even once--but Asha did. Every time, in fact. She would always stay and help with the exception of the first time. Perhaps, he mused, there was a secret to it--meddling into the ordinary and boring parts might make them less exactly that. Or it could all just turn out for the worse. He had no way of knowing.
"Ah, look who decided to join us from his ivory tower!" Asha exclaimed as she noticed him packing some heavier things into a carriage.
"Wait--how do you know about that expression?" Sylas asked.
"I... I don't know," she herself seemed to be confused. "Uh... it's... it's just in my head? Like... like I've heard it before? Wait--could it be?"
"Ah, my incessant teasing actually stuck through," Sylas chuckled. "I am so good I can break the time continuum. Damn."
"That really isn't something you should be proud of," Asha said, rolling her eyes. "What's made you come and help?"
"You."
"Oh my. I am so good I can break... well, you."
"Harder than time?"
"Infinitely."
"Ha ha ha," Sylas laughed cheerily, turning to the side where he saw a young boy doing the same, though trying to hide it as much as possible. "What? You think that's funny?"
"N-no, no sir!"
"Huh? You think that gorgeous old lady isn't funny?!!"
"S-she is!!"
"OLD LADY?!!"
"You think she is old?" Sylas persisted.
"N-no?"
"You gotta have guts kiddo," Sylas slapped the boy's back lightly, though firmly enough to force the boy forward and to bend. "Look at me. She's about to rip my guts out and then feed me with them, but I'm standin' firm. She's fuckin' old! Still beyond beautiful, no?"
"... uh, y-yes?"
"Look, kiddo--I know you're feeling strange and all, but she's mine. Can't have her."
"Could you stop?" Asha slapped the back of his head. "Is that the only thing you know how to do? Make people extremely uncomfortable because you think it's funny?"
"It is funny," Sylas replied. The boy appeared confused, unsure as to whether to stay or leave.
"It's only funny to you!" she exclaimed.
"And seeing as I have objectively the most sophisticated sense of humor, it means that it's also objectively funny."
"..."
"You really want to cut off my tongue right about now, don't you?" he asked with a faint grin.
"A little bit, yes."
"Relax, kid," Sylas said. "I'm just messing around. Go on, back to work. Lots of things to do."
"Y-yes, sir!"
"Whatever keeps you sane," Asha commented with a sigh as the kid left. "Though you could at least choose someone older."
"Eh, he was old enough," Sylas shrugged.
"But seriously. What made you help?" she asked with a more serious tone.
"... I was serious," he replied. "You. Every loop, no matter what, here you'd be. Helping. I figured there might be some secret to it, so, here I am. Seeing if I can keep my sanity for however little while longer doing this."
"... well, if you're serious about it," she said. "Forgo this kiddie stuff. Go actually help with some heavy labor."
"What? You won't go easy on the man you love? Damn. You are cold."
"This and that are different," she said. "Additionally, explain to me why I had this strange... almost averse reaction to that."
"I may have used it a few times before."
"And it wasn't always for innocent things like these, wasn't it?" she probed further.
"What? What do you take me for, some kind of pervert?"
"Yes, pretty much," she fired off without hesitation.
".. not gonna claim that didn't hurt, but I'll forgive you. Because that's what a man who loves does."
"There it is again. Are you abusing these loops to do weird things to me?!" she asked as she followed him.
"Oh, please," he rolled his eyes. "You don't want to go down the rabbit hole of who does weird things to whom in this relationship. You do not come out lookin' good from that conversation."
"..."
"Yes, silence and proper acceptance. I'll go over and move the heavier things. You go back to commanding people. You are... quite good at that. Spookily so, at times. Damn. It's kind of sad, actually. Your cheeks used to go so red... now... you just look shallowly ashamed. Haah. How the time changes a man... or, well, a woman in your case..."
"Shut up."
"Yes, dear."