I blasted across the sky of Actaeon with pulses of [Propulsion], the ability sending me rocketing through the sky toward the entertainment district. 

As I flew, I kept my eyes trained on the ground, desperately searching for anything that may seem out of the ordinary. But, despite my best efforts, I couldn't find anything. 

I angled myself toward the ground, right at the centre of the park, and fired off another jet of [Propulsion], blasting it again in the opposite direction so I deftly landed on my feet. 

I couldn't help but remember the first time I'd tried such a move against Akash and had landed face first in the dirt. Things had changed a lot since that Battle Royale… I'd changed a lot. 

"Arial flyby was inconclusive, I couldn't see anything from above," I said, my holographic watch keyed into a group frequency that Fal, Klatissi and I were sharing. "Either of you got anything?" 

There was silence for a moment, and then Fal's voice, "I'm tracking something, though I'm really not sure what," She said, her voice hushed. "It's almost like a shadow, moving through the air. It kind of just feels… wrong, like it shouldn't exist at all." 

I swallowed hard. A shadowy figure that felt inherently wrong, as if it shouldn't exist at all? That was something that I'd had experience with in the past, and if somehow a Reaper had crossed from the Chasm into the universe it could only mean that destruction would be brought in its wake. 

"Keep tracking it, but keep your distance and try not to get noticed. Send us your coordinates and we'll both make our way to you as soon as we can," I said, my voice equally hushed so as not to alert the creature that Fal was following. 

A few seconds later my watch gave off three more pings before showing up exactly where Fal was, which to be honest wasn't far away at all. 

I decided to jog normally, without any speed boosts from my anti-gravity fields or propulsion. 

My standard jogging speed at this point was already pretty fast, probably outstripping the fastest sprinters back on Earth by an order of magnitude, thanks to all of the stat boots I had received over the course of the past month. 

Thanks to that I was able to make it to Fal in record time, though somehow not as fast as Klatissi, who was now wrapped in a skintight field of water that was clearly somehow enhancing their own physical abilities. 

Fal and Klatissi had ducked behind a fountain in the middle of a plaza surrounded by shops. Fal was keeping an eye on the creature while Klatissi siphoned off a steady supply of the liquid, adding to their water reserves every second that pst. 

Just beyond the fountain was the creature. 

It floated a few feet above the ground, a smoky gaseous haze that got substantially darker the closer to the center of the being you looked, becoming the impossible darkness that I had learned to associate with the creatures of the Chasm at the center. 

In a way, it actually reminded me of the Urstnir of Napdid, which worried me even more about that alien's origins. Either way, I'd have to focus on the creature before me before eventually confronting them for a second time. 

"I want you two to stay back here, stay quiet and get ready to jump in if I need you, okay?" I said, quietly unsheathing my sword. 

My two companions gave me a nod of confirmation. 

I took a deep breath, stood, and stepped out from behind the fountain. 

"You shouldn't be here," I called out, planning to play dumb. "This area is closed until all the Refugees have been settled." 

The creature, which had been flexing and pulsing its gaseous tendrils in the air froze where it was. 

While it didn't have any discernable features, I could tell that it was looking directly at me. Analysing me. I felt observed. 

"The great Jacob Lyre, we meet at last," the creature hissed, its voice seemingly coming from nowhere and everywhere at once. 

"We know each other?" I said, edging my way forward so that I was between the creature and the fountain, keeping my companions out of harms way. 

"We shall know each other intimately… in the future," It hissed again. 

In… the future?

This was a creature from another point in time?

For some reason the concept of time travel hadn't even occurred to me. In a universe of magic and incredibly advanced technology, time travel was probably something that existed somewhere along the line. That still didn't really explain who this creature was. 

"Explain yourself," I ordered. 

The creature chuckled at that, its gaseous form pulsing with each hacking laugh. "I am one of many… the remnants of a creature that you will now never be able to destroy… A remnant of the Maw." 

The floor felt like it was going to open up under me and swallow me whole. 

I was going to defeat the Maw. 

Somehow, against the odds, I was going to defeat the creature that had stolen the afterlife of the Multiverse. 

The fact that this entity had come back in time to stop me from doing so was proof. 

Somehow, in the future, I was going to succeed in my mission and take it out. 

Unless this thing, this remnant of the Maw, was able to take me out first. 

"If I defeated the Maw in the future, then how do you, one of its paltry remnants, expect to take me out now in the past?" I all but sneered at the creature. 

It laughed again, deep and hoarse as if what I had said was the funniest thing in the world to the entity. 

"I have come back to this time, this place because I know that here and now you are weak in comparison to what you will become later on," it said, "So now it is time to die, and time to undo everything that you have yet to accomplish."

Well. That was fair enough.