Once well away from Alahira Inferna's cursed grove, Zu shuddered in relief. "That tree is scary," he said breathlessly. "I really do not want to know what she's doing."

He took a moment to orient himself, then when he was confident of his course he set out toward the Chartreuse Cougar encampment.

"Why did you ally yourself with a demon in the first place?" asked Heart of Fire and Spirit of Twilight Death as they went.

"I had no other choice. You know that."

"I worry what else you have lost in the exchange," said Heart of Fire and Spirit of Twilight Death darkly. "Is the purity of your soul worth a momentary victory?"

"My soul remains untainted."

“Does it?”

Zu sighed. True, he felt some degree of sorrow for the fate of Ozyri Tori. If there were any way he could be turned away from his cruel and violent ways, Zu certainly would have forgiven him and accepted his service. But what other choice had there been? If he had let Ozyri run free, many more would have died.

“If my soul is tainted, then it is only because I do what I must,” Zu said firmly. “And you will not convince me to stand aside and let others destroy me for the sake of conscience.”

“It seems your path and mine are not the same,” said the sword. “But perhaps that is only to be expected. When I rose to ascend, it was through a world so much different from yours that it can hardly be described.”

“What was the world like, when you were human?”

Heart of Fire and Spirit of Twilight Death laughed. “I was mortal, but never human. Humans as you know them did not come to exist until many generations after my ascension. It was in part our curiosity about your kind that led to the fall of the First Immortals. We risked too much in our search for new knowledge, and were destroyed for it.”

“Were you a sword before? You said you were forged in the fires of the world’s creation.”

“No, I was not a sword, but you would not have recognized the people who lived then. My spirit was forged, purified, honed in that world before yours, created alongside it. I remember when we rode the steel seas that bound the world together, the fires of creation blazing hotter than you can ever imagine. In those days, the world did not have so much of life to blunt its weight, so you could always sense its full strength with every step you took. Now, so much of the world’s spirit is imbued into its creatures and plants that it requires a highly honed spirit and deep concentration to even find it.”

“That seems a great loss.”

“No, it is no loss, only a change. The world has evolved from a place of harshness and uncertainty into one of peace and growth. If humans still carry the primal heart of the world’s fire, then that is well enough. The world’s spirit lives on, through those it has birthed.”

Death Shadow returned then, flying alongside Zu as he ran. “I have found a patrol coming your way! They are armed and seem ready for a fight.”

Zu pulled the time loop cube from his pocket and stared into its golden-web interior. “Now would be a good time to start working,” he told it firmly. While he wasn’t afraid of the Chartreuse Cougar patrol, he would like to have time to properly study their methods before committing to any particular version of reality.

“Too bad we couldn’t interrogate Ozyri Tori before sending him off to be killed slowly,” said Heart of Fire and Spirit of Twilight Death, clearly mourning the lost opportunity to understand the loop.

“Yes,” Zu murmured distractedly. “It’s such a shame he was so stubbornly violent. Too late now.” He started tapping at the symbols on the edges of the cube, then ran a finger along the sheared-off open corner, then poked his finger into the golden mass of light that floated at its center.

Amber light flowed out as the golden mass changed to blue. Zu pulled his finger back in shock, and the flow of light stopped moving. He stared around at the small sphere around him. Beyond, the world lay still, frozen in amber light.

“Ha. So that’s how it works.”

He poked the blue light and the amber retracted, then everything jolted for a moment of disorientation as the normal world returned, then the light turned golden again.

Zu touched the golden glow again, and this time held his finger there as amber light poured out, growing in a perfect sphere around him, expanding to swallow the path, the fields, the distant trees. By the time it reached the river, he felt the cube growing hot and vibrating, and hastily released the expanding bubble. The device continued to hum dangerously, so Zu retracted the sphere until the device cooled and seemed to be not making any concerning sounds. That left him with a sphere plenty big enough to move around in, reaching as much as an hour’s walk away. Of course, Zu could move much faster than a walk, but it still provided a buffer in case the patrol proved more than he could handily defeat.

“Ozyri’s time field wasn’t spherical,” pointed out Heart of Fire and Spirit of Twilight Death. “It would probably require less energy if you didn’t make it so tall.”

Zu glanced upward, and saw that his sword was correct. The top of the dome was far higher than Ozyri’s dome had been. Confused birds already flew about, ramming against the edges of the time bubble. “Maybe next time. Right now, we have a patrol to deal with.”