Garth glanced up and saw some four hundred or so Dan Ui clan members floating in the sky, looking imperiously down on the chaos below. At the head of them was someone he actually recognized: Mareen, the Corio woman who’d almost killed him in order to avenge her apprentice.

I wonder how she’s doing nowadays.

Immortals were popping out of the woodwork.

“Cease this at once!” Her magically enhanced words blasted across the battlefield and forced even the most feral combatants to stop and pay attention.

“This planet is under the protection of the Dan Ui Clan. You will leave at once, or we will snuff out your pathetic lives. There is no Apprentice of Castavelle, there is no book that details the ascension to godhood, and there never has been. You Janfa are hopping at a hoax.”

All around, they glanced at each other, some in mid-swing, seemingly unsure of what to do now that the local authorities had showed up.

“Marker, huh?” Garth muttered, pulling out the priceless notebook/database in his pocket.

“Is there a spell to view the past?” Garth asked, having opened to a random page. At this point he didn’t think it even mattered.

How long ago?

“About eight hundred and forty-three, give or take a few months.”

Ooh, that’s a long one. Usually I only peer through time to see if I left the stove on. For events that distant, you’ll need some kind of beacon or timestamp to look back that far, usually some kind of Divine Intervention.

“Like a marker?” Garth asked.

Yeah man, congratulations, there are many ways to say the same thing.

“Let’s assume the beacon is there, how do I do the spell?”

First, create a large spell circle in the design of Borpheus, the god of time, to channel Time mana more efficiently. Then the spell requires deflowering two virgins with different hair colors on the night of a full moon while praising Borpheus, and using that power to peer into the misty depths of the past.

Garth raised an eyebrow.

“I swear to Hastia I will burn you.”

It was worth a shot. Here’s the spell. It requires blood from the user and a lot of on-the spot-calculations, and it’s in no way safe to use. Cast at your own risk.

In front of Garth’s eyes, the pages began to fill with dense text and denser equations, his training with Cass just barely enough to keep him abreast of the spell’s intricacies. Some of the formulas didn’t even make sense.

The text reached the bottom of the page, and for a brief moment, Garth thought he was done.

Then it flipped over and started scrawling on the other side, continuing to print in one smooth, unstoppable flood of detailed information that reminded him of a crash report.

“You there!” a crimson Benkei man said, stalking over to him. “Is that the book in question?”

“Gimmie a minute.” Garth said, flipping through the pages and memorizing the archmage’s notes on scrying events that already happened a long-ass time ago using Divine Intervention as waypoints.

“It is!” the Benkei shouted, peering at the cover from a stooped posture. “It’s you!” he continued, pointing at Garth, attracting the attention of a few of the squabbling clans, who looked over at him, salivating as their eyes turned toward the book.

“Whaddya want, a medal?” Garth muttered without looking away from the book.

“Give me that!” the Benkei shouted, lunging toward Garth, thrown off course by the sudden explosion of his head, care of Grass. Garth kept reading.

Suddenly Garth was the center of attention again, attracting the greedy wizard’s gazes away from where Mareen was threatening them with swift death if they didn’t get off the Dan Ui’s property.

Garth turned the page, wondering how long this damn theory was.

26 Pages.

Not Bad. Definitely not as long as it could have been, Cal thought with a shrug turning the page and ignoring the fact that the book just read his mind. Being surprised around something Cass had made was a waste of effort.

“It’s mine!”

“Out of the way!”

“You were warned!”

One Orcish wizard jumped toward Garth, arms outstretched, but his head was squished as Mareen landed on the man’s head.

“Are you the cause of this?” the aged Corio of honor demanded, grinding the bloody paste under her heel.

Garth held up his finger as he scanned the book’s contents. Only a couple pages to go. “One second.”

A blue-robed Shinta drew a wand and shot some kind of magical arrow at Garth, only for it to disappear in an explosion of light.

Mareen reached for the book, and the tips of her fingers blackened in an instant, forcing the Corio to draw her hand back.

“This insolence comes with a price,” She said, glancing over at the mountain.

Without a motion on her part, the wind picked up, violently swirling around them. It forced the dust of the desert up into the air, creating an effective blind and cutting off Grass’s most powerful ability.

Mareen shook off the crusting of burned flesh on her finger like a booger as the wall of dust isolated them away from the others.

That’s one way to do it, Garth thought, committing the last two pages to memory.

“Give me the book, it belongs to the Dan Ui Clan. If you force me to take it from you, there will be blood.”

“Insolence, huh?” Garth asked, snapping the book closed with one hand and putting it back in his pocket. “Is that any way to talk to the Fu Koff clan?”

Mareen paled, eyes widening.

“You really are him. Taller, Less ugly, but I can see it now.”

“Why does everyone have to comment on my face?” Garth demanded. “I’m glad the new one is pretty, but you’re a Corio, human standards of beauty should be outside your wheelhouse.”

Mareen snapped her hand up and Garth followed suit, both of them creating Lanterns. That were immediately in contention with each other, creating a Venn diagram of lightning bolts.

Mareen’s Lantern quickly overwhelmed his, tearing chunks away from his higher mana-saturation area until Garth contracted and compressed his, squeezing it down to a two-foot circle around himself that was more mana-sparse than hers, all the color leeched out of it.

Her territory wrapped around and engulfed his, but she couldn’t pop his bubble of claimed land.

“That really is the Divine Lantern,” She murmured, staring at his tiny, unpierceable Lantern.

That thought seems sexual, somehow. Magical chastity be-oh shit!

A block of stone appeared noiselessly over his head, and Garth was forced to support it with a tree, then fire back with jagged branches growing out of it. She wiped the wood away with some kind of invisible field that turned them to dust.

“Yes, you fight the same, too.”

“I could have told you that.”

“Master Dragus will have many questions for you, I’m sure.”

Didn’t have a lot of questions last time, Garth thought, eyeing her suspiciously. She had a pretty overwhelming advantage. She had a wider range that she could summon magical effects in, way more experience, and most likely a much higher tier.

All the Divine Lantern technique allowed him to do was not get his lantern snuffed out by a bigger one. It gave him a fighting chance, but not much of one.

In a one on one fight, Garth was up shit creek.

“I don’t suppose I could bribe you to look the other way again?” Garth said, stalling for time.

“It was not a bribe! It was a concession!”

“Sure, sure,” Garth said, nodding.

Garth bolted. He put his head down and surrounded himself with the Fly spell, squeezing himself forward at unbelievable speeds like a watermelon seed between two fat fingers.

Unfortunately Mareen was faster, catching up to him in a fraction of a second and tackling him to the dusty ground. They tumbled over each other for a few seconds, and in the exchange she somehow managed to pull a knife and stab him twice before he flooded his spores with mana, creating an explosion of Ironwood that failed to knock her back, flowing around her as if they were never meant to harm her in the first place.

Damn causality defences. I gotta learn how to do those.

Mareen dragged him to his feet, his skin blackening around the two stab wounds in his stomach.

“You know, I never thanked you for not holding my daughter hostage when you had the opportunity.” Garth said between coughs. Whatever was in that dagger was bad juju.

“I appreciate that.” She said, sliding the dagger back into its sheath as energy drained out of Garth’s limbs.

Cleanse

Garth tried to use the cleansing spell on the wound, but it must not have been a poison, magical or otherwise. He didn’t know what the hell it was, but it was circumventing his body’s natural healing and any attempt he made to fix it magically.

Grass, how much time do I have left?

TWO MINUTES THIRTEEN SECONDS.

Buy me some time, my body’s not up to it.

Outside the curtain of dust, explosions began to rock the landscape as Grass rained Swordfish down on the assembled armies like rain. Most of them exploded against powerful barriers, but here and there, the Swordfish managed to crack through the acolyte’s defensive magics through sheer numbers, scattering lethal poison through the sky and bringing down even more.

A Dan Ui clan member dropped out of the sky, landing four feet from where Mareen was holding Garth.

“I find you irritating.” She said, narrowing her eyes as Garth chuckled. Thanks to the Mythic Core, Grass could make as many Swordfish as he wanted.

“Give him to me, Mareen.” The Pan Ua woman said, cutting through the field of dust with half a dozen cohorts, ignoring the shouting and explosions going on outside the curtain. “This man has the answers we need.”

“I’ve already marked him,” Mareen said, nodding at Garth. “He’s Dan Ui property now.”

Oh, I recognize this now. Garth thought, looking down at the blackened tendrils spreading across his skin. It was exactly like the curse that Cass had needed his help to remove.

That’s a pain in the ass. Garth didn’t want to waste an entire Mythic Core decursing a wound. He was down to his last one, after all. It looked like he’d have to ride it out until he could find a convenient moment to off himself.

Hopefully the damn thing doesn’t follow the soul.

“We’ll see about that!”

Pan Ua clan lady charged forward, and Mareen tossed him aside before raising her blade to meet the attack, throwing up bolts of lightning as their Lanterns intersected, evenly matched.

Garth crawled away, chuckling as his stomach wounds ached and dripped black goop from where they’d been trying to eat him from the inside out. The pain was starting to reach the point of a real stab wound, making his arms and legs even weaker than they had been already.

How the hell was Cass okay after getting hit by something like this? Garth demanded as he crawled through the dirt as fast as he could.

Maximum distance.

“Where do you think you’re going?” A Pan Ua clan member with their distinctive orange and red footwear said, standing in front of him. He must be keen on seizing the prize while the heavyweights tussled.

Garth glanced up and saw a young Benkei with a butt-chin and short-cropped black hair.

You poor soul. No one that young could have possibly done something to deserve a butt chin.

“I was going to visit your mom. I got the itch.”

He scowled and kicked Garth in the face, causing him to tumble backward, sliding to a halt at the shins of a blue and silver robed Dan Ui member.

Shadow, I need some help.

Shadow leapt out from beneath Garth and bit down on the woman’s ankles, eliciting a shriek of pain.

Garth coughed up a mouthful of black gunk, then raised his shaking hand to cast Illusion.

He created the illusion of a massive black tentacle monster with a lamprey like set of jaws that unfolded in a howl. The surrounding Clan members were startled at first, but when the tentacles went through their weapons and vice versa, they simply chose to ignore the illusion, refocusing their attention on Garth. It wasn’t real, after all.

The Dan Ui woman, a meaty orc woman, kicked Shadow away and pinned Garth to the ground, looming huge overtop him as she throttled his neck.

“in you go, pup.” Garth rasped, glancing over at the black lab.

Shadow’s physical form unraveled into a pool of shadow that leapt straight into the tentacle monster.

The orc woman was violently torn away from him as the illusion suddenly became real, along with half a dozen other people who had turned their backs on the figment. The unlucky orc woman was torn in half, while the other six were similarly dealt with. The situation devolved into a full-on war with the illusiory monster that had suddenly become real.

A rather quick Pan Ua clan member still had the goal in sight, and he slid around the tentacle monster and shoved Garth out of its range, putting him where they could get at him.

“You’re coming with me.” He said, out of breath, tugging what looked like a slice of core with a teleportation beacon on it. beam me up.

That’s not acceptable, Garth thought. He needed to stay on Earth.

Garth focused his little remaining mana on a plant that reached out from his shoulder to grab the beacon, activating it on itself.

With a flash of space mana, the beacon-activating-plant and the beacon itself ceased to exist on this plane.

“Damn you!” Shinta man snarled, raising a hand back, green mist swirling around it.

Garth’s vision was starting to get a little dim.

A burst of white lightning seared his eyeballs, making it even harder to see. When he blinked the spots out of his eyes, he saw an ass standing in front of him that he would recognize anywhere. The Shinta was limping away from them with a seared left hand side.

Alicia was glancing at him over her shoulder, and probably attributed his staring at her butt to be because he was close to death. That was also a factor.

“Garth, are you alright?”

“You…should…be…in…bed,” Garth wheezed as the curse began to eat away at his lungs. “This…is…kinda…above…your…paygrade.”

“Who is this?” Mareen asked, wiping blood from her cursed dagger.

“I’m his apprentice,” Alicia said with pride, jutting out her chin and daring Mareen to do something about it.

“Reeeeaaally?” Mareen asked with a tone that said far more about her intentions. He killed one of hers, and now she had the opportunity to return the favor.

How much time? Garth thought.

ONE MINUTE THIRTY SECONDS.

I only bought forty-three seconds!?

“God…Damn..it.” Garth panted, weaving a teleport spell for Alicia. If he could get her to the other side of the planet, she wouldn’t be able to get back in time to do something this uncharacteristically selfless again.

Garth began weaving the space mana, but Mareen waved her hand and made it disappear like smoke.

“I don’t know if you knew this, but your master owes me a debt.” She said with a predatory smile. "And you've given me the opportunity to collect."

“Titty monster coming through!” Came a familiar voice.

A man wearing assless chaps and a black leather cowboy hat and nothing else tore through the cloud of dust, neatly sandwiched between massive breasts that grew out of a gigantic centipede-like monster with a horrifying predator-face, running along on nipple legs.

The boob-cowboy was holding the two giant nipples in front of him like reigns, pulling them close together and obscenely grinding between them as the monster undulated forward.

“Uhh-“ Mareen was so caught off guard that the titty-monster knocked her aside with one of its mouth-arms, sending her tumbling violently away.

“Yeehaw!”

That looks like fun, Garth thought, wheezing.