With the information he’d wanted acquired, Ben took the others and began to move. The fact the demon had killed itself before they’d arrived meant the jig was up, the one controlling it was aware of their presence and would likely be doing what it could to catch them, they just needed time to arrive and with an awakened space mage on their side, he didn’t want to wait around to see how long that would take as he began pulling things from his rings to make what he could.

The first of which ended up using ten of his new guns. Able to endlessly fire off ammo, he hadn’t even had the chance to properly use them yet and he was already breaking them apart to harvest the voidstone within, wanting that material’s properties for the first idea he’d had for handling the time limit of the demon’s prophecy, even if it was going to depend on how well he could time things as he began enchanting on it, managing to get the magic placed down successfully after dividing his total volume into three which left him needing to pull out three more of his guns than he'd hoped to get the fourth.

That meant he only had seven left, the recent redundancy of his creation showing its worth as he shoved the materializers that had been being held within the guns back into his rings, even as a question sprung into his mind.

Each of them had souls built in to power them, shouldn’t he take that power for himself to use in a situation like that? The lives and safety of himself and Thera were at stake along with the rest of their group, things had clearly progressed to the point of a full-blown emergency. Wasn’t that the time?

…No, I need to be able to overcome this.

The entire point of not bringing the church of Myriad with him was to ensure he wouldn’t have endless power available to him to face his problems given the coming future where doing such a thing was going to be a place of vulnerability. He couldn’t just steal power to face any challenges before that when he was supposed to be doing his best to make sure he could make the most of his own strength, even if that fact left his stomach in knots.

He was essentially putting people’s lives at risk in the name of practice, with one life in particular he cared deeply about, but he was still looking to a future beyond that instead of giving everything he could at that moment. The fact he was able to compartmentalize to such an extent made him question how much of what his mind had become could still be called human but he pushed the thought away.

It didn’t matter because at the very least, with the strength he had, he knew he’d be able to save Thera. Really, the main issue was the risk he’d be under for trying to do it, not her when all of the power she held would be pointed at him and as for the others…

Well, I’ll do my best. If I can’t beat one demon without relying on overfilling my soul then that just means I’ve never had a shot to begin with and need to start devoting myself to a different plan.

It was while he was grappling with himself like that as they ran that the first of the demon’s pawns arrived, Pato in front of him and already casting his next spell as he appeared, forcing Ben to throw himself out of the way while grabbing hold of the others to do the same, narrowly avoiding being teleported who could say where while another spell was already being cast, the speed of it telling Ben that the demon in control had gotten better at using those in its thrall with all of the danger that implied.

But with a spell of his own, Ben shot out a cloud of stone around him, hitting the other summoned but to no effect, with the light, desperate blow being shrugged off without any attempt to dodge. Why bother when all paths to the future showed how harmless it was going to be?

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At the very least, if there was any harm to be had it wouldn’t be making itself known in the next five minutes and trying to make it appear like a random choice, Ben began running with the rest, vaguely in both the direction he felt bind and where he knew the demon in control was. He wasn’t going to go right at them, he didn’t want to give any indication he was doing anything other than running away to make it the demon’s choice to send Thera his way or to attack him itself while Pato stayed on his heels, seeming more that content to keep forcing him forward by throwing out casual attacks to keep them running as bits of space and death magic went off, continually forcing them forward while Ben’s attention was divided between the world around them and the gods above.

Myriad, tell me as we’re running if you see any demons preemptively move out of our way, but only after I’ve passed them, okay?

If he’s not going for the kill then I have the wiggle room.

What? Damn it, okay then, keep telling me until I say you can stop.

He felt his feet pounding against the ground as he ran with all he had while Pato avoided that same fate. Any time he fell too far behind he teleported right at the edge of Ben’s range, firing off a new attack and forcing them to dodge each time, with the attacks constantly feeling closer despite the continued misses.

Ugh, damn it. And I don’t know, it's all feeling close but not overwhelmingly so and I’m not feeling Thera moving closer which is what I think it would really be utilizing if it wanted to kill us but on the other hand, it has a few more options for figuring things out than I do so all I can do is my best to plan more than five minutes into the future.

God damn it!

The fact the demons around kept preemptively avoiding him was as annoying as it was expected and each time he tried to alter how he was using connect to see if he could get through, using lighter and lighter touches each time while planning out exactly what he’d do without straying to avoid splitting the future in a way that the watching demon would be able to see to give the game away, but he was reaching the limits of his skill.

He’d never needed to worry about having a delicate touch before beyond just making sure his mind didn’t kill or cripple anyone exposed to it. The fact that the link that bound the horde was so delicate was a major issue when breaking it in the future would act as a warning sign in the present to the demon in control, forcing him to practice blind while he was running for his life with the others to worry about too, only changing the second he had his success.

The connection was made to a hidden demon as Ben felt its mind and going no further, let it break as he continued on.

His first success with a need to get at least a few more under his belt. If he could touch their minds without being noticed then that was a good step on the road to fighting a prophet but he wanted to understand the link that bound them deeper so he continued on, hearing his god speak up at each new failure as he did.

AUGH!

It was aggravating, not a way he’d ever choose to train if he had the choice and with the feeling that he was failing to lure Thera to him, he couldn’t help but wonder if he was doomed to failure in the end, if despite the strategies he was trying to make, maybe facing off against something that could predict so many of his moves was simply too much.

In the end, he didn’t have time to worry about it. It wasn’t Thera who came for him but Fone, the oni standing in the woods to block his path, mace in his hands and lightning on his fingertips.