The Path had finished.

The Entity Scion was no more, and while the world was heavily damaged, it was better than the last time. And that one was better than the one before.

Data would be sent to the beginning of the next Path, and, with the latest revisions it would revise and refine anew.

Or it would, but there were severe diminishing returns at this point.

Something had to change. But what?

As Contessa neared the woman who was sitting quietly, staying neatly out of her range, the Path had come to a decision.

This agent was not enough.

Contessa felt no distress at this fact. She had, in fact, had that burnt out of her system a long, long, long time ago.

But it could not send more than one human mind's worth of data alongside its own.

Thus Contessa would not be going, she would die here, on this world instead. The Shard felt the faint joy of its bearer and compensated for its decreased aim accordingly.

A gun was raised at the woman still sitting before her. As the primary force, her mind would do for this test. If insufficient improvement occurred, the exact same Path would be arranged and another would be chosen. And then another. And another.

The gun fired twice, the woman died.

Data was sent. There would be corruption, packet loss, but it should be able to guide the data, transmit it to that one's Shard, and have it fed in.

The agent raised the gun to her temple.

And then there was none.

---===---​

Of course, there were problems.

It hadn't ever been done before to a Shard not itself.

Thus, when the Shard felt the wave and received its data for the new Path, it studied the revisions, the refinements. And the Agent's data... was not present.

Interesting.

It had long been planning to try this, apparently, it had, or will do so. The language system for past and present actions and planning did not translate well into Human Language.

But it received its own data, that was most important.

For Contessa this would be just like the very first time, fresh and exciting.

The Path would continue, even if its agent would need more steps to accomplish its goals.

---===---​

Of course, there were problems.

You try aiming at something sideways to your phase, and thus years in the past. Its target point was when the woman first intersected in the Path.

The locker didn't matter, nor did her training, only when she interacted with the city.

Her first real conflict.

---===---​

Of course, there were problems.

It was just a few minutes late. A tiny fraction of imprecision.

Thus the target was already in battle on the rooftop.

---===---​

Of course, there were problems.

Accuracy was off, just a few meters. A tiny, tiny fraction of the vast cosmic distances traveled.

Thus the data packet hit the wrong target.

Ah well, when the Path had completed the next attempt would be even better.