"I ended him," said Joseph into the darkness. There still wasn't anyone there to talk to. The voice was echoing from space. Whoever owned this place was hiding.
"RIDICULOUS!" the voice shrieked. "NOTHING YOU CAN DO, CANNOT BE UNDONE BY ME!"
"EMIT?"
"YES! FOOLISH MORTAL, IT IS I. THE GOD OF TIME. AND YOU, YOU INSIGNIFICANT ANT OF A BEING, DARE TO CHALLENGE ME. YOU MAY HAVE ESCAPED THROUGH SOME STUPID LUCK LAST TIME, BUT THIS TIME, I WILL ERASE YOU COMPLETELY. FIRST, I'M GOING TO FIGURE OUT WHY I CAN'T BRING BACK THAT NURKONG BRAT."
Joe had almost figured out the divine realm thing. It was a good thing NURKONG used his powers on them several times for practice. Joseph didn't have as many countermeasures for time magic, instead of just death. Hopefully, this moron wanted to brag.
"KILLING SOME OF THE PETTY UNDERLING GODS WAS BAD ENOUGH, BUT THEN YOU WANTED TO RAISE YOUR HAND AGAINST ONE OF THE TRUE GODS."
"I was defending myself."
"FOOL! WE ARE GODS. YOU ARE ONLY A MORTAL. IF WE WISH YOU TO DIE, THEN YOU SHOULD DIE. YOU HAVE NO OTHER USE BUT TO PROVIDE US WITH MORE POWER. YOUR ARGUMENT IS AS WORTHLESS AS ONE OF YOUR CATTLE SAYING IT WISHES TO NOT BE KILLED."
"Actually, if one of my cattle started asking not to be killed, I would totally spare it."
'There, he took long enough,' whispered Joe. "I figured out how his divine realm works.'
"THIS IS WHY IT'S USELESS TALKING TO YOU MORTALS. I HAVE EXISTED FOR COUNTLESS EONS. YOU CANNOT EVEN BEGIN TO IMAGINE THE THINGS I HAVE SEEN AND DONE. AND I HAVE NEVER LOST."
"Of course not. You're a coward."
"WHAT!?"
"Whenever you lose, you just rewind time to try again, don't you?"
"HOW DID YOU…? HOW DID A WORM LIKE YOU FIGURE THAT OUT? EVEN THE OTHER GODS DON'T KNOW OF WHAT I DO. WHENEVER I AM FOUND OUT, I REVERSE THINGS TO BEFORE AND PREVENT IT. I HAVE LEFT NO TRACES FOR YOU TO DETECT!"
"I figure that's why you don't like others jumping in time, right? It's harder to hide that you do that, when others do it too. All that complaining about time lines being in disarray is just because you're lazy."
"WHAT DO YOU KNOW, WORM? THERE ISN'T ANY PROOF, AND I'M ABOUT TO ERASE YOU!"
"Oh, I was just stalling."
"HAHAHAHA!"
DIVINE AUTHORITY - REWIND TIME.
"NO MATTER WHAT YOU TRY, I WILL SIMPLY REVERSE IT. YOU CANNOT BEAT ME. I NEVER RUN OUT OF DIVINITY. DO YOU KNOW WHY? BECAUSE DEATH AND THE PASSAGE OF TIME ARE WHAT MORTALS FEAR THE MOST. I FEAST ON THE POWER OF EVERY MORTAL, IN EVERY REALM IN EXISTENCE. ALL THE GODS OF DEATH HAVE TO SHARE THE HARVEST, BUT I ALREADY REMOVED ALL OF MY COMPETITION. THEY NEVER EXISTED IN THE FIRST PLACE."
Joseph was relieved. If he had tried it immediately after summoning him, he would have really struggled with preventing that.
"Thank you for confirming my suspicions. I was worried there was some other god behind you, too. It's good to know killing you will clear up all of this divine shavist."
"WHAT ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT? YOU SHOULDN'T REMEMBER THE CONVERSATION WE WERE HAVING."
"Do you know how hard it would be to break in here? You brought me here, so there wouldn't be any traces of trying to erase me, but it was still incredibly stupid. STELLA."
"Yes, Joseph?" Stella stepped out of his shadow, and looked around.
"IMPOSSIBLE! HOW DID YOU BRING SOMEONE TO MY DIVINE REALM WITHOUT MY PERMISSION?"
"I brought her to my realm. My mana territory is absolute, and you talked long enough to let me overcome this little section of your divine realm."
DIVINE AUTHORITY - REWIND TIME.
EMIT appeared, fury written all over his features. Stella charged him, while Joseph threw a fireball. It winked out of existence as soon as it passed 100 yards.
He turned to Stella as she passed the 100-yard mark, but she didn't hesitate. Joseph had told her to keep going through their mind link, so she did.
"FOOLS! I WILL ERASE YOUR PRECIOUS ONE, AND THEN YOU!"
DIVINE AUTHORITY - ERASE.
Stella didn't pause. Pulling out her god daggers, she leapt through the air as he opened his mouth to say something else.
DIVINE AUTHORITY-LEAP IN…
He didn't get to finish as Stella jabbed one dagger into his throat and one into his heart.
Joseph walked over to him as blood poured out onto the translucent ground.
"EMIT. You're strongest in your divine realm, but damage here is also realm level. Come here, Orion."
Orion showed up, looking confused.
"Crap, are we outside of time again? I just got the same sync error. Wait, is that EMIT?"
"Yep," Stella cried cheerily. "He was behind NURKONG targeting us, we think. I bet the rune master kicked him around a lot too. He has anger issues."
"And we are, what, just standing around as he bleeds to death?"
"Yep," Joseph nodded. "We are going to watch the life fade from his eyes. I'm not about to risk a recovery. My mana territory is suppressing his power. I can't use magic here, but he can't either. The fireball earlier was a feint."
Stella nodded. "I was a little nervous charging him like that. It's amazing that, after we killed NURKONG, he would still be so overconfident."
"Yeah, but if any time he loses, he just rewinds and replays until he wins, or gives up, it's not surprising he sucked so bad," Joseph said.
Orion turned to him. "Why didn't he go after Stella? Didn't she have to leave your mana territory to attack him? I don't see him willingly entering your mana territory."
Stella and Joseph both laughed. "She didn't. Force update the size of my mana territory."
"500 yards?! But it said 100 yards!"
"Yes, and mana control became master after I met META. Every time it advances, the size of my territory increases. Joe slipped a bug in your code to not update a couple of stats."
EMIT glared at them, as he listened in, but was too weak to move. The binding from Stella's god-slaying blades paralyzed him.
"I may not be able to use magic while I'm fully suppressing him, but nothing says an item I enchanted can't be used."
"That's brilliant," Orion said, looking oddly satisfied.
Stella smiled. "We figured out that the gods had some way of peaking at our statuses through you. At least Joseph told you about the bug. So, don't be too mad."
"I'm impressed. Are you seriously just killing him though, and not trying to harvest him?"
"Yeah, messing with time is too dangerous to let anyone else be able to do it. Once he finishes dying, I will take us out of this realm, and ensure it finishes collapsing. With this being his personal domain outside of time, when it disappears, EMIT will be erased from time."
Orion jumped. "But won't that mean that you won't have to fight NURKONG, so I won't get a body? Shavist!"
"You should know Joseph wouldn't do anything that would make us weaker. Having you powerful and owing us, isn't a bad thing," said Stella, rolling her eyes.
Joseph smiled and held out his hand.
MOVEMENT, GATE, and META fused and formed a new rune, TIME.
The look of horror, on EMIT's face, was priceless right before he died.