This is not going well.

Don’t get me wrong, at first everything was fine: I was strolling through the building and barely encountered any resistance; the main forces were probably busy with the commotion that was going on outside. The few patrolling guards I encountered were relatively easy to deal with, and I only had to Rewind a couple of times.

All in all, life was pretty good. I quickly progressed into the Scalebound building, and only had to Rewind a few dozens of time instead of the hundreds I planned on enduring.

But everything changed when the fire nation attacked!

And by fire nation I mean an immense force that embedded me into the ground for a few seconds before releasing the hold it had on me. But the lingering force was still strong enough to make it very hard to move, it was like I was trying to run underwater.

What is this power? It’s similar to when the Spirit looked at me, but it feels stronger somehow-

My thoughts are interrupted by a large explosion followed by an eerie silence. From my experience, a massive explosion followed by silence isn’t a good sign, especially when considering the force from earlier.

I crouch into a corner and check on my Portal Gun, from what the map displays there seems to be something that crushed a good part of the roof.

What could’ve caused this? Maybe it’s some sort of secret weapon that Riley’s Family used, or…

Or it could be a secret weapon of the Scalebound!

I gulp when I realize what the second option could mean; this weapon almost crushed me to bits and it wasn’t even directed at me-

Another explosion shakes the building, but this time it’s directed towards the roof, and a bloodcurdling groan soon follows. The sound is so strong that the already damaged windows explode into small shard of glass, and my eardrums are throbbing with pain despite my armor’s protection.

What the fuck was that?! Did they summon Godzilla or something?!

I grit my teeth and configure my Portal Gun; I need to confirm what’s up there.

What would I do if it’s actually Godzilla? No, it’s too ridiculous-

I stop my train of thoughts here, ‘too ridiculous’ isn’t a concept that applies to the Hidden World. And if it’s actually Godzilla, then I might consider moving to a planet that doesn’t have massive beam-spitting lizards of doom.

My portal leads me to the roof of the massive Scalebound palace, and what greets me is even worse than I thought.

They summoned a fucking demon!

The hulking figure surveys the battlefield and throws massive balls of energy at the soldiers scrambling for cover on the devastated ground. I see a group of mages raising a massive barrier of hardened stone intertwined with a magical shield, but the demon just blasts their defenses away without a second thought.

How is this thing so strong?!

Cold sweat pours down my back when I review my options: Fighting is out of the question, this creature’s aura is already enough to almost crush me on the spot. Fleeing sounds appealing, but I’m not a fool and know that this thing will be hunting me after this battle is over. My Portal Gun spews copious amount of mana so it’s very likely that the Scalebound will have a way to track me down and send this demon after me.

So fleeing isn’t possible either…And I can’t escape now, leaving my friends to die isn’t something I want to do…

The last option is to Rewind, but to when? I have no way of making something strong enough to beat this thing, and I doubt my bomb would even put a scratch on this creature. What should I-

The apocalyptic roar of the massive demon puts an end to my thoughts, mostly because the shockwave knocked me off the roof and pressed me into the blood-soaked ground.

A spurt of blood comes out of my mouth when every bone in my body is smashed into a thousand of small pieces. I can’t even scream as the agony only last for a few seconds thanks to my regeneration, but it felt like the longest seconds of my life. A quick inspection of my equipment sheds some light on the strength of the creature: Half of my helmet got shredded by the attack and the remaining side is covered in cracks, and the Shield Glove’s magazine is empty.

This is insane, how can these people even wage war when they have weapons that are this destructive?! A clash between two of these titans would probably destroy the fucking planet!

I take a glance at the battered Wolfheart group: A lot of them are very wounded, not to mention the frightening amount of corpses littering the blood-soaked mud. Fuck, what if Riley is one of those corpses? I’m so powerless, it’s-

“WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE!” the demon points one of his large pulsating finger towards me, and I can feel all the attention focusing on me.

My body freezes when I recognize that voice… How could I ever forget the voice of the man who sentenced me to death!

A primal hatred explodes in my head, and I empty my Field Pistol without thinking. Surprisingly enough, the projectiles do absolutely fuck all and are disintegrated almost as soon as they exit the muzzle of the gun.

For crying out loud, why is everything bulletproof!

But my complaints are put to a swift end when a truck-sized fist heads straight towards my head, so I should be send back in-

Eh?

I suddenly feel nauseous and I’m surrounded by a group of furry beasts covered in armor similar to what Riley was wearing during our meeting.

“John, what the hell are you-” Riley is interrupted by a massive explosion that shakes the barrier protecting the Wolfheart group. The shockwave knocks a few mages unconscious and another group hurries into their position to revitalize the waning barrier.

“No time to answer! We need to get out of here!” I say to my wounded friend covered in an assortment of differently colored blood. A panting Steve grabs the Werewolf’s shoulder and raises his thumb before almost falling on his back. I return his gesture before reloading my Shield Glove, just in time for the demon to throw another tantrum.

“You pieces of shit, I’ll exterminate your entire Family! This is for my daughter!” the demon hollers and a big red laser-like beam crashes into the barrier that barely holds against the tremendous strike.

“Why are we not fleeing?! We’ll die if we stay here for too-”

“I’m the one giving orders here.” An icy voice sends shivers down my spine, and turning around reveals the figure of a lean, yet ferocious-looking werewolf clad in deep-blue lightning.

I recognize the voice instantly: It belongs to Riley’s mother, aka the second person I hate the most on this planet.

“I do not know why you are here, but you’ll answer my questions later. First of all, I’m conscripting you since we need all the manpower we can-”

“What?!” I interrupt the woman, who glares at me.

“It’s a Rule, any Enforcer can conscript someone living on their territory in case of emergency. You should know this, but let’s-”

I tighten my grip on the Field Pistol in my hand, “I think you’re misunderstanding something here. I’m not obeying you not matter what you say! Especially after you used a torture spell on me-”

“What?! Mom, really?” Riley turns towards his mother with a horrified look.

Oh, it looks like he didn’t know about that. I’ll gladly inform him then!

“Riley, ask your mom what she did after the Black Claws attacked, I bet you’ll be-”

An explosion shakes me to my core and interrupts my accusation.

The Matriarch takes a deep breath, “We can’t fight amongst ourselves right now, we have a bigger problem! I know you both have problems with me, but first we need to get rid of that creature!”

I click my tongue, there’s no point in arguing if we all end up dead so I’ll have to cooperate with her.

“Then what do you want to do? Remaining here is insane; this thing will obliterate us!” I exclaim.

She shakes her head, “Not yet, the creature seems to be somewhat unstable since its releasing most of its mana in the air. Your little stunt must’ve surprised them so they probably didn’t have time to complete it properly. But it’s restructuring itself to allow its controller to have a better grasp on its powers.”

I gulp, if this isn’t even the full extent of the demon’s capabilities, then…

A smug grin appears on Alice’s face, “It seems you realized what kind of monster we’re dealing with. And it’s no secret that the Scalebound Patriarch hates you, so what do you think will happen after this battle is over?”

How could I not know? It’s obvious that Erdis will use his demon to hunt me down and kill me in a very gruesome manner.

“Tsk… Fine!” I reply.

As much as I don’t want to admit it, I need the Wolfheart’s help to take down that thing. Rewinding would only delay the activation of the demon, and I have no way of making anything capable of injuring this thing.

Or I could chance it, maybe Rewind for a couple of centuries to get a better grasp on enchanting, but then I would need rare materials that I have no way of getting in such a short timeframe… Not to mention that repeating the same day for hundreds of years would make me go insane.

I shake my head, helping the Wolfheart is the only way out of this situation.

“So what’s your plan?” I ask with reluctance.

“Erdis seems fixated on you, so we’ll use that to our advantage. You’ll distract him while we prepare our most powerful Strategic magic to disintegrate his creature. Once it’s destroyed, we’ll clean up the building.”

“And what if he has another demon?” Steve, who looks to be in better shape, asks.

“Then we’re dead.” His mother replies.

The atmosphere gets even heavier so I break the silence. “Before we do this, I want you to promise that I won’t get in trouble once this is over. If you can’t guarantee that the Council will not investigate me or try to kill me again then I’m out of here.”

Of course, this is a major bluff. I have no intention of leaving this battlefield. I can’t deal with a giant demon, but I might be able to do something about a bunch of pissed off Enforcers.

She frowns, “You’re asking a lot but…You have my word.”

Steve’s ears twitch, “Did anyone you feel that?”

Alice nods, “We destroyed the Scalebound’s barrier and caused quite a commotion, so it’s no wonder that these people are already on our case.”

I raise an eyebrow and turn towards Riley.

“She’s talking about news networks on the HiddenNet. We released a ton of mana so they used their spells to get a good view on the situation. From all the signatures I picked up we probably are live on at least a thousand websites.”

That’s so fucking great; I’ll attract even more attention. I can only hope that my armor will be enough to hide my identity.

“So, are we ready to go?” I ask.

“It’s good on our end, we’re regrouping our forces and the reagents should be here soon. We’ll be rushing the incantation so we only need you to distract him for five minutes.”

Easier said than done…

I nod and take a deep breath before creating a portal under my feet. A laser is headed towards me as soon as I emerge so I rewind a couple of seconds back to the past.

This is going to be harder than expected, but I think I can trick him.

I never really tested it, but there’s nothing that should stop my Portal Gun from creating multiple portals.

At least in theory.

So, I do just that and create six portals at random locations. It doesn’t take long for the demon to blast them apart, but it’s still enough time to allow me to get a foot on the battlefield. I Rewind and go through the last portal that the demon blasted in the previous timeline.

I store my Field Pistol and grab my shotgun before firing an MH Shell straight into its face. It’s surprisingly effective!

…At least compared to my EGBs. The demon’s skin is barely singed, and I only made him angrier. I teleport away, once again using the trick of making multiple portals for each jumps.

But Erdis isn’t as stupid as he looks and he quickly figured out a countermeasure. He releases a blast of energy covering most of the battlefield, so all my portals explode at once.

I click my tongue; I had hoped that I could waste his time with that method. But it’s barely been two minutes since the fight started, so I need to find something!

Avoiding the incoming attacks is easy since I keep Rewinding the same second again and again while racking my brain for a solution.

I finally find something, and teleport just at the edge of his destructive aura before blasting him with an MH Shell to get his attention.

“YOU COWARD! COME AND FIGHT ME!” the demon roars and jumps from the roof.

It lands with tremendous force that causes cracks to appear on the soil, I gulp when a large ball of energy gathers into its giant open palm.

This is bad…

Every attack of the demon is strong enough to completely obliterate me, so I have to thread very carefully.

Usually I would count on my Shield to endure a hit or two, but its impossible here…

Even the Wolfheart needed multiple mages to make a barrier strong enough to resist the demon attacks, so I can’t even afford to be grazed by anything it throws at me.

I Rewind and teleport away before the demon can even land, I’m lucky it can’t fly or I would have no way of-

“STOP RUNNING AWAY! YOU CAN’T ESCAPE THE SCALEBOUND’S MIGHT!” Erdis says through the demon’s mouth.

I almost want to reply that that’s what I’ve been doing for the last two and a half minutes, but making the giant demon even angrier doesn’t sound like a good idea.

The creature cocks his head back and takes a stance. I freeze for a moment when I see what looks like a small supernova forming into its open maw.

I have a bad feeling about this!

Teleporting away turns out to be the smart choice: A beam of pure fire explodes outward and melts everything in its path, the vegetation burst into flames and turns into ash in an instant while the ground turns into glass.

Man, I kind of want to roast some marshmallows now…

But it will have to wait; unfortunately the demon is rather unfriendly compared to your average campfire.

A quick glance towards the creature reveals something interesting: It’s on one knee, and it’s breathing heavily while releasing white smoke into the air each time it exhale.

So it looks like it can’t spam those crazy fire beams. That’s a relief!

I don’t let the opportunity go, and blast it with a barrage of MH Shells to make sure that he doesn’t recover too fast. This tactic is quite effective, and the angry demon covered in scorch marks gets up only a minute later. He roars in rage, and the shockwave sends me crashing through multiple trees. I get up just in time to see a massive fist blotting out the sun.

Rewinding allows me to teleport away, the demon then stomp the ground and releases an aura that covers everything with a green film.

I have no idea what this aura is, but it can’t be good!

Another beam is headed towards me, so I aim my Portal Gun at my feet and-

Agony takes control of my body as my legs are completely obliterated by the attack.

What?!

A stream of blood comes out of my mouth while the demon approaches with a sneer, “Let’s see if you can run away now! You’ll-”

My legs chose this moment to regenerate.

The demon’s jaw drops open, and I don’t let this opportunity slip past me. I pull the trigger of my Portal Gun, but the resulting portal explodes into tiny fragments before it can even form.

So that’s what this lingering aura is! It can destroy my portals!

This is bad.

Removing my ability to teleport around means I’m a sitting duck, so I have to find something else! I fire a MH Shell into each of its eyes, and it seems to be working if the creature’s angry wails are anything to go by.

Blinding the demon buys me some time to run away, but it recovers before I can put any meaningful distance between us.

“How dare you! You’ll pay for-”

The demon turns his head towards the group of Wolfheart mages, and our jaws drop at the same time. A magic circle the size of two football field appears in the air. The red formation covered in what might as well be millions of intricate symbols rotates in the air and a grin creeps on my face.

The demon runs towards the circle as fast as it can but the formation is already glowing and pulsing. The gigantic creature released its aura, so I quickly teleport next to the Wolfheart group, just in time to watch the light show!