Muqu had found a method of defeating BS clones that was truly brilliant.

She had transformed into the stereotypical fairy; arm sized generic fairy look with butterfly wings.

She had to practice the obnoxious giggling and I had to be her coach because she was unsurprisingly terrible at it.

After coaching her for 3 weeks she went out and convinced several swarms that the BS clones possessed some secrets and were spirit mages.

These fairies in turn spread teh information and started to swarm and kill the BS clones.

They did ask questions to the BS clones but their unhinged nature prevented them from gathering useful information. Which is why they have yet to realize that they had been lied to.

Muqu and I were reaping the rewards by looking from our lair down to the jungle and having swarms of fairies deal with the BS clones.

It gave me a sense of superiority which I knew was dangerous. I don’t want to become like those arrogant gods.

Everything was according to plan which made me worry. Isn’t this the moment something goes horribly wrong?

Another [Search: Imposter] revealed nothing special besides...

“You jerk... hiding in the spire, eh?”

The red trail met its dead end at the spatiotemporal spire. I should have expected this but I'm upset nonetheless.

There is a chance she will die in that spire. Not to be arrogant but I’m super smart and I needed Benji’s, Mishelly’s, and Muqu’s help to get out. But... she has her clones.

They could body-block attacks for her or tackle obnoxious puzzles until she succeeds. Or she might stick around in it until she fully revives.

What to do?

Most BS clones in the area had been wiped out. The only ones left were those around the spire.

“Azu look!”

Muqu pointed at an enormous fairy swarm that assaulted the BS clones near the spire.

“This is our chance! I hate the idea but we might be able to slip past!”

I hopped on my fan and Muqu spread her wings. We took off and flew toward the spire.

We could fly over it or fly low to stay unnoticed. We couldn’t get too close as we would get hit by the ‘anti-flying zone’ as fairies were dropping down like flies and crashing down.

From a distance, it just looked like flies dropping but as we could get closer it became apparent that the scene was a bit more gruesome.

The spire was surrounded by tiny spatial distortions. Any fairy that fell through one got torn to shreds.

“Whoa, that’s brutal...”

We just hovered far above the spire and observed how the fairies were getting decimated, just by entering the spire’s territory.

Muqu let out a tired sigh. “They’re so stupid...”

“Well, they’re still getting through as a whole..”

The fairies that had survived were attacking the BS clones and the strange life forms belonging to the spire.

There didn’t seem to be a puzzle. The gate to the spire was constantly open. It did close randomly for split seconds.

Being careless would get our nowhere so all we did was observe. The ancients were sadistic enough to hide some stupid requirement.

The BS clones were fighting back as if their lives depended on it, which was the case, but were no match for the swarm.

We watched the battle for 2 hours but nothing much had changed.

“Azu. I think we should just enter. There is no point to this if we wait till all those clones die and the fairies focus on us.”

“At least my concealment spell works, they don’t prioritize you for deletion anymore!”

Muqu smiled and descended. I followed her and we located the quieter side of the spire and landed.

2 BS clones were talking to each other and didn’t notice us yet.

“Ooh, easy kill, I take the left one, you take the right one.”

I cast a modified [Silence] on the both of us to prevent us from making a sound. I hopped on my fan and flew at them at high speed, pulled my fan from under me, and gave the BS clone a satisfying [Meteor Slap].

Muqu landed a strange water kick on the other one which caused ice crystals to explode from the BS clone’s head.

Nobody could hear my expression of disgust as we were both [Silenced].

We scanned the area after which I lifted the [Silence]. “Come let’s go!”

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We stepped into the territory of the spire and only spatiotemporal magic could be used.

I carefully imbued my folded fan with spatiotemporal mana and pushed the distortions aside.

I didn’t need to get close; as long as I could move my fan between my sight and my target, I could ignore distance requirements and push them aside.

It's extremely useful and unpredictable.

My spatiotemporal mana urged and I expelled a large mass and sent it into the distance where it created a [Dimensional Tear] sucked up everything in its vicinity and disappeared.

“What a dangerous element... do all spatiotemporal users suffer from this quirky behavior?”

I shook my fan to ensure all the spatiotemporal mana had left it. “Yeah... it's completely normal to et killed by your own spatiotemporal magic. Let go before I make a mistake and I accidentally blow us up, rip us to shreds, or get us stuck in the void.”

“Oh, you know about the void?”

“I don’t know anything about it, I’ve only been there once with a young spirit fox. It wasn’t pleasant.”

I carefully pushed a distant spatial distortion into an approaching fairy, ripping it to shreds. Muqu kicked another fairy aside who had come too close.

“How did you escape from it?”

“Well, this place, Boshi town had trapped me and the people of the town. The barrier was powered by a pink broccoli tree which had 7 roots. All the roots needed to get destroyed to lift the barrier. The last root had tunnelled through the void.”

“Huh? How is that possible?”

“Well, a bitch goddess named Biian was responsible. I dont know how but he root went into the void and somehow connected to wherever she lived. Maybe the god’s realm, who knows. The young fox used it as a bridge and carried me over the root toward a window where we could spy on her.”

“Oh so you had a guide.”

“Well... he had soft tails and I was getting carried by them and playing with them but yes...”

Muqu stared at me and scratched her temple. “You played with the tails of a mythical beast? Did you have a death wish?”

“He was very nice! He didn’t necessarily like it but I helped him a lot too!”

Ok he did complain that I was too casual and did try to stay away from me when possible but he also helped me deal with the stupid spatiotemporal bullshit that surrounded the whole barrier.

This spire would be a piece of cake if he was here... what if it is as bad as that Boshi barrier.

Shivers ran through my spine and I got second thoughts.

“So what did you find behind that window?”

I tried to recall what I saw. It seemed like some sort of trophy room. Did I remember that correctly? That bitch was an enormous narcissist so that sounds plaisuble.

“I think it was a treasure room. She had images of herself above several....Oh shit! I remember now!”

I tried to keep my emotions under control.

“That bitch had hung up fox tails as trophies and images of her standing next to the victim that had lost the tails! It freaked the young fox out and I had to carry him back over the root. That bitch uses foxtails for her coats. How could I forget?!”

I never wanted to meet Biian again but I wouldn’t mind fighting her now. The shrimpy goddess was right, it is her fault that this world is a mess. The foxes are supposed to help guard the dimension but she is hunting them down because she wants new coats. How self centered can she be?!

“I’ve had it with all these egomaniacs! This cockroach is going down! And if I ever cross paths with that bitch I won’t hesitate to beat her up!”

I do need a plan to fight that bitch again but that comes later.

I grabbed Muqu’s wrist and stormed toward the spire while smacking fairies and spatial distortions aside.

No surges which meant a smooth trip toward the gate. I got intimidated for half a second before I dragged Muqu through the gate.

We entered a familiar hall. It was cosmic themed instead of fire themed. It was the same tiled hall with pillars to the side. The walls had writings on them and the re was only one door.

“Is this the default reception hall? Do we get this one for free as long as we’ve solved other spires?”

“It seems similar to the one of the flaming spire where I met you yeah. It took me quite long to solve this...”

I smiled and took out my old notebook. “Don’t worry! This should be easy now!”

I directed Muqu to the walls she had to touch while trying to decipher the writings. They were nearly identical or even identical to those in he flaming spire so no new information but there was also nothing I had to solve. It had jus turned into a memory game to find the matching walls to light up the correct tiles.

The pillars wouldn’t see any action but that might be a good thing. These cosmic themed pillars wouldn’t turn into fire tornadoes, that’s for sure. A spatiotemporal tornado is not anything I ever want to fight. What if it reverses time on us or even wors...drops us off in the future where everything is destroyed.

Yup, not dealing with that! Just as using spatiotemporal magic can feel like playing a lottery, fighting against it could be the same.it could warp us to places we want to be or don’t want to be, it could move us through time. It could also just be extremely obnoxious to fight and be unable to be damaged due to spatial or temporal desynchs.

It’s a self-correcting element. The world would fall into chaos if too many spatiotemporal users pull these stunts so it tends to kill its users by being unpredictable.

The monsters inhabiting the flaming spire were unable to use the more complicated forms of fire magic so my assumption is that this counts for the monsters we would meet in this spire.

They would just use ‘simple’ spatiotemporal magic. [Dimensional Sword] falls under the simple spatiotemporal spells so this isn’t necessarily a good thing...

We knew that there wasn’t a time limit to this puzzle so we took it easy.

Several fairies entered the hall which we dispatched. We knew from experience that this room would be the last resting moment in a while so we treated it as a resting spot.

“Muqu, do you know what this language is? You might not be able to read it but maybe you know what it is.”

Muqu shook her head. “it’s not a language I’m familiar with.”

“You can learn languages by attuning to the dimension right? Can you try?”

Muqu clapped her hands. “Oh! I’m so stupid! Why haven’t I tried that before?!”

I wanted to make a smartass comment but I kept it to myself.

Muqu spread her wings and looked up, liek she always did when connecting with the dimension.

“Oh, its a common language on the Ree Soo continent. It actually get’s used over the whole planet! But it’s the dominant language there while other continents use it as a second language.”

Ree Soo? What? We don’t have a continent named like that.

“Uh, Muqu, we don’t have a continent named Ree Soo. Maybe that’s what one of our continents was called in the past?”

“That’s strange... the information is recent. Like not even a year old.

“What? How is that possible?”

“I don’t know. But some information seems conflicting. I can only find information about it’s location but not the other continents. What’s going on?”

Muqu crated a sphere out of water and had it mimic the layout of our planet. There was Nesher taking up a large part of the southern hemisphere. There was Kaledon in the center but where there should be an ocean separating Kaledon and the continent to the east, there was a landmass that wasn’t supposed to be there.

“What?! This isn’t the world map as I remember. I made sure to memorize it as I needed the information to fly from Kaledon to Nesher!”

Whatever had occurred, a new continent had appeared, positioning itself between Kaledon and the eastern continent, the name of which had escaped me.

I took out my new notebook. “You told me it was called Ree Soo?”

“Yes, but oh… I think that I know what’s going on. You might want to get comfortable for this. It seems that I can only acces information about these strange events indirectly…”

I sat down, ready to get my world turned upside down yet again. I wanted to remain ignorant on one side but also know what is going on. It would be unlikely to help us get through this spire but it could change how we would tackle our problems in the future.