Mash tugged on the second thread of power which he could feel. He had used the aspect of freedom a few times now but hadn’t yet touched his other aspect. The king said that his throne would counter the aspect of freedom, and Mash was somewhat inclined to believe him. Not because he really thought that the aspect would lose its power, but because his own abilities with it were simple. Even now the most complicated thing he had done was summon a tiny piece of it. The king definitely had more experience with his throne. So, Mash decided it was time to try something the king couldn’t counter or predict. Mash himself didn’t know what would happen, but he pulled on the aspect of change.

His energy plummeted all at once rather than a slow drain like the other aspect, and nearly all of his energy vanished. He actually felt winded. The king glanced up, and so did Mash even though he could barely move his head. The aspect was doing something, and Mash confusedly stared at the skies. The clouds moved quickly, zooming past him in white blurs. The wind picked up too, and the air rapidly shifted between hot and cold temperatures. His domain let him pick up a few more things, like the grass that was both growing and decaying simultaneously. His own body changed in an imperceptible way.

[You’re aging. Rapidly.]

Priscilla’s message flipped a switch in his mind. The grass was growing and dying. The clouds were speeding through the days, and now that he was looking for it, he noticed the wooden pillars grow brittle. How much was it changing?

[How fast?]

[Years, decades, maybe even centuries. It is hard to with your body, but it must be a lot.]

Mash grumbled. Well, he wasn’t a kid anymore if this counted for his age. As that thought crossed his mind, he had a very frightening thought. He spoke aloud before thinking.

“Does this just affect us?”

Or is it the entire world? Is all this time passing in the real world? The question made him shiver in his still very present restraints. The king heard his words and shouted.

“What have you done?”

Even the arrogant king couldn’t remain confident under the unknown effect of the aspect. The man probably realized that time was passing more quickly. It made him hasty, and the king attacked. They raised a palm toward him, and a large strip of chains crashed into Mash and wrapped around him. They came from the king’s armor and crawled over Mash’s body and tightened around his neck. As they attempted to strangle him, he realized something odd. They didn’t hurt him and couldn’t move him at all either. He adjusted instantly as the truth came to him. He had been too distracted to actually think about what time did for him in a fight. A smile crept onto his face as he flexed and pushed against the restraints. The invisible ones that had restricted him initially, and the metal ones that were attempting to crush him.

Both shattered into pieces. The metal exploded out with enough force to crash through the fragile wood with ease. Sawdust fell as the trees broke. When the invisible restraints broke, they caused the very space to ripple like with Jill’s explosions. The king staggered back from the result. Hunger had made him invincible. His attributes had grown to unbelievable levels. If there was a limit for his body, then he had hit it. In terms of raw stats, he was probably the strongest living being in existence. The king must’ve realized, and his storage space popped open, the king attempted to reach into it, but Mash didn’t let him.

His wings beat, and he moved. The movement was too fast! His eyes widened in alarm. He might as well be lightning himself at that moment. He crashed into the king, and the armor that had withstood everything so far broke apart like a pile of dust. Mash barely even felt the impact as he passed through the king. Who exploded into a literal cloud of blood which left a trail of vapor as Mash stopped over a dozen feet past where the king had been sitting. His throne surprisingly didn’t break. It spun and crashed into the ground like a comet. The enormous chains that had lifted the throne fell slowly as they were separated from the throne itself. For a moment, he thought he saw the very air crack when they collided.

Mash turned and stared as blood followed the throne to the ground. He winced and muttered under his breath.

“Sorry…”

Mash didn’t care about the king, but this was a pathetic way to die. He hadn’t even really meant to attack. There wasn’t even a body left for him to consume, and that was the real regret here. His head snapped down to the throne as it shifted. What was happening? The throne shifted so that it sat normally on the ground. From it a wire figurine of a man appeared, it sat comfortably on the throne. It was just a single chain that was looped in a way to form a vague image of a man. Was that the king? As he watched the weird figure, he saw flesh start growing on it.

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Within a few seconds, the king had regrown like a plant. Mash felt his insides twist at the sight. There was something about watching a man grow around a chain that was deeply disgusting. His hair stood on and he twitched. The worst part was that his domain made it so that he couldn’t avoid the sight either. When the king finished regrowing, the man bent over and vomited off the side of the seat. His vomit was red with bits of metal in it like grains of rice.

_______________________________________________________________________

The King of Chains P.O.V

The king coughed and cleared his throat and sat normally. He had survived though it had cost him one of his more valuable slaves. His gaze drifted up at the monster, no longer would Mash be anything else. The king didn’t quake in his boots. He had been in challenging situations before, this was bad, but also an opportunity. He didn’t know how it had happened, but he knew what. Mash had gained stats, an impossible amount. An amount so great that the king only saw one possible chance for victory. He muttered the words as quietly as possible, but he doubted it would hide them.

“I sacrifice everyone to the throne. EQUALIZE!”

He briefly considered ‘enslave,’ but didn’t believe it would work. This might be possible, and if it worked then it would be worth far more than all of his slaves. Returning to the world with that much power would leave him unrivaled. At the very least he would be the strongest on the continent. Mash should’ve kept killing him. His hesitation would be his downfall. The king rose to his feet, as chains wrapped around him to form a new set of armor.

____________________________________________________________________________________

Mash P.O.V

The king’s words startled Mash. He should’ve let the man speak, but Mash had wasted time thinking. Rather than attack, he had tried to figure out the magic behind the king’s revival, thinking he could stop it next time. As his attributes were sliced in half. The sudden increase and drop made him falter for a second.

The king struck at that moment, leaping from the ground, and abandoning his throne. He closed the distance half as fast as Mash had before, but still fast enough to break the air. The sound chased the king as he attempted to punch Mash. Even with the sudden changes, Mash managed to react and caught the incoming fist. Their speeds were even, and so was their strength. The resulting explosion sent him flying backward, but he held firmly to the king dragging him along.

Mash turned the movement into a throw and tossed the king toward the ground. Unlike Mash, the king didn’t actually fly, and he struck the ground with a world-shattering thud. The impact carved canyons through the dirt and stone. The water from the river trickled into one of the cracks, he could barely make out the sound of it hitting the stone within. How far down had the king gone?

The king rose from the dirt with an eerie smile on his face. Mash groaned and spoke quietly.

“What did you sacrifice for that power, how is that even fair?”

“This is only half of the power you had managed to achieve, and it had cost me, everyone. All of my slaves and servants for just half of your stats. And you have the gall to call my sacrifice unfair!”

The king vibrated with anger, his words contorting into a shout as he glared through his armor. Mash heard only part of what the king had said. His thoughts froze on the sacrifice. How many lives was that? How many people had just died because of Mash’s wasteful curiosity? He swallowed the image and the guilt. Why did he keep making mistakes? It was a sick joke at this point. Mash scowled, and let the dread get replaced by the surging anger.

Mash ground his teeth together and held his palms out to the king. He had so much energy at this point, he decided to just use his magic freely. He started mixing his magic; lightning, fire, wind, and just about anything else he could think of.

[Soul, it might get through the physical defenses.]

It joined the pool of building power that gathered behind his palms. He had no words for Priscilla or the king, and he just released the power, not caring about the form it would take. He wasn’t sure what to expect, but cracks spread from his hands as if reality had broken like glass. It happened in an instant and passed through his own body as much as it did the king. He didn’t dodge, and the king’s attempt to do so failed. The spread of the attack was too wide, and it spread too fast.

The cracks opened, and magic poured out in a violent rush. It clawed its way into the world eating at anything and everything. Mash’s highly resistant and reinforced body failed to do more than slow the magic. The king fared even worse. Both of them screamed as the magic attacked their very souls, somehow burning, shocking, and freezing them all at once. Mash fell from the sky and landed on his side as the cracks opened further. The magic didn’t end. The cracks grew longer and wider rather than close. The world couldn’t stop the magic.

The cracks widened enough to touch one another and exploded. The world went black. Everything went dark. The sound of their screams was swallowed by the power, and the touch of the ground and air disappeared as well. All that remained was pain and magic. Pain that he didn’t even try to. The pain reminded him of his mistake and stoked the anger that needed no kindling. As it burned, he thought of a way to end the fight.