The room was a brilliant white. Fifty feet by fifty feet by fifty feet. There were no runes on the walls like Xia had expected, no gun turrets descended from the ceiling. All there was was a man, sat cross legged and nude in the centre of the room, he wasn’t even chained.

A quick glance over her shoulder told Xia that she wasn’t getting out the way she came in, and in fact couldn’t see an exit of any sort, just featureless walls so brilliantly white she had to look for where the sides ended and began.

The man looked up at her, Bastion Zero’s far too familiar dead eyes bore into hers before moving to stare down Ouro for good measure.

“Visitors.” He noted, getting to his feet, an action that had both of them averting their eyes, “Prudish visitors. It was feared given clothes I might unravel the threads and create a garrotte, consider the sight the price of not being asphyxiated.”

“We’re here to release you.” Ouro declared, leading with carrot over stick.

It didn’t work. Bastion Zero just blinked owlishly, “And why would I wish to leave? I have everything I want right here.”

“Because freedom beats chains any day.” The mage countered with total surety. That got him a second look from Bastion Zero and Xia for that matter, it was hard to remember that the man had a history of his own. “And because you can never get back time wasted.”

“Freedom is relative.” The ancient monster stated. “There is nothing the Citadel can take from me that is greater than what my curse has already taken. Now be silent before I kill you again.”

“Again? What do you-“

It felt like she’d blinked and missed something, one moment Ouro was talking the next he was backing against the wall of the cell screaming as he tried to simultaneously curl into a ball and phase through the featureless white surface by sheer willpower alone, “No more. I yield! I yield! Please I’ll do anything you want.”

“All I want is for you to be silent.” The monster shrugged, “One more word without permission and the next time I snap you in half I’ll break your little time loop spell first.”

Ouro just whimpered, hunching into his robe to try and hide his face and flinching as if expecting a kick.

“Acceptable.” Bastion Zero concluded before he turned his attention to Xia, “Your master failed to make his case. Do you think you can persuade me?”

“What did you do to him?!” The scientist more or less ignoring the deadliest man in the multiverse to kneel by Ouro’s side, checking the whimpering magician for wounds and finding none.

“One man’s immortality is another’s torture device.” He stated, “If he wanted the pain to stop then all he had to do was turn the spell off.”

“Wouldn’t that have killed him?” Xia argued, surprising herself with how defensive she was being of Ouro or perhaps fear had finally turned to rage.

“I said it would stop the pain. I did not say he would live.” Bastion Zero pointed out as if it were of utterly no consequence.

“You really are irredeemably cruel.” She growled, standing up between the two, “I’m not going to try and persuade you a damn thing, do your worst.”

Bastion Zero smiled, a sudden burst of warmth that lit up the room, “Fine you’ve convinced me, I’ll join your little team but on one condition.”

“I said we don’t want you, show us the exit and then get lost.” Xia fronted up to her tormentor, going so far as the try and push him away as he walked towards Ouro, the mage unable to get away. She might as well have tried pushing a concrete wall. Worse, walls at least stayed in place.

“I wasn’t talking to you. I will accept the task the Citadel wishes for me under one condition, how does that sound time mage?” He asked, sudden exuberance only serving to make him more terrifying not less. His expression began to drop into a frown before he realised the problem. “I won’t torture you if you speak, use it wisely.”

“What is the condition?” The words were slow, tentative even, but Ouro still had enough defiance in him to at least ask.

“The girl. She has potential.” Bastion Zero declared, “I will take over her apprenticeship.”

Xia certainly wasn’t taking that lying down, “Like hell you are! I am not some token to be traded by-“

“Agreed.” Ouro’s voice was a well of guilt, though there was more than a slight ripple of fear across the surface.

“Smart lad. Cowardly, but smart.” The monster chuckled, “Now let us-“

“No. I do not agree to this, no way in all the hells is this happening!” Xia yelled, “I am not going to-“

Her voice cut off, simply unable to make any further sound from a mere gesture by Bastion Zero, “You will stop talking.”

The scientist wasn’t taking that lying down, whatever compulsion he’d placed upon her she wasn’t going to be some meek, obedient servant, still no matter how hard she tried she couldn’t get a word out. Gritting her teeth she focused her thoughts, going through her lessons on resisting mental compulsion but she still couldn’t get a sound out.

“It’s not a compulsion.” Bastion Zero explained, “Too difficult on a soulless being like you. This is an Edict. And for a creature like you it’s quite impossible to overcome.”

Well that spawned a bunch of questions in Xia’s mind, none of which she could actually ask and all of them overshadowed by the ‘creature like you’ jab. The ancient monster sighed deeply at the total lack of comprehension in her gaze.

“I see the standards of Citadel training have continued to plummet. An Edict is a rule imposed by whichever being controls that aspect of the world. As the sole resident of this dimension, and after such a long time inhabiting it, there is no aspect not subject to my whims and without the ability to project a domain of your own there is literally nothing you can do about it.” He explained patiently before his gaze slid to Ouro for a second. “Though going by the chronomancer’s constipated expression he’s trying quite hard on your behalf.”

He paused for a moment, clearly expecting a response before rather bemusedly remember he’d muted one and tortured the other into compliance.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

“Keep trying mageling. Until you can project a domain worthy of the name you have no right to call yourself an immortal. It is that strength of will, that purity of purpose that shields worlds from the beyond, not skill at arms, not spellcraft neither Skills nor divinity. It’s the ability to stand in a reality’s dying gasp and declare ‘this shall not be’. I sincerely doubt you will ever have that capacity though you at least have enough of an eye for talent that she might.”

Piece said he finally relaxed the Edict. Words burst out of Xia instantly, the scientist having not stopped trying to fight it for even a moment.

“I don’t care what you do or say, I will not be some pawn in whatever sick game you’re playing.” She more or less screamed at him, fists clenched tight enough to turn her knuckles white and prepared to use them to boot.

“See this is what I mean. There is no scenario where you defeat me, I could puppet you to my every whim and there’s not a thing you could do to stop me, yet still you defy me, not out of any rationality but simply because you wish to. That defiance for defiance’s sake, that is what makes an immortal.” He sounded almost proud, “Admittedly we’ll need to give you some actual power so the defiance is a little less empty but you have potential.”

“What part of no way in hell are you not getting here?” Xia growled, stepping forwards with a fist raised, intent on at least going down swinging, literally as well as metaphorically.

“Careful now, you’ve no hidden blade this time.” Bastion Zero chided, not even raising his hands in self-defence.

“This time…?” She frowned, mind rebelling from the obvious conclusion because it was, or so she had been informed, impossible. “But that was a simulation.”

“Yes and no. I can’t be simulated, part of my curse, I cannot be replicated in any way, which is fortunate really, with all the limbs I’ve lost and my regeneration I’d be an absolute swarm by now.”

“But that means-“

“That I’ve been regularly escaping my cell every time one of my fellow Immortals insists upon a spar? Yes, yes it does.” Bastion Zero laughed, “My imprisonment is a useful fiction, little more. Though it’s not so free as you imagine, I become the simulant rather than replace it so as soon as the simulation ends… poof I’m back here again. Any further freedom would alas be noticeable but it allows me to stay apprised of events.”

“Not so apprised that you knew they’d begun just kidnapping people!” Xia riposted, much to her surprise that actually seemed to cow the man somewhat.

“Aye. I’m not certain which is most dire, that they thought not to inform me or that I had faith enough not to ask. Either way there will be an accounting on that matter. My word upon it.”

It wasn’t as reassuring as he seemed to mean it, she certainly took him at his word, but given she’d scene the depths of his violence Xia couldn’t suppress a feeling that this ‘accounting’ would be more than a little disproportional though a part of her she really wasn’t proud of asked why she should even care.

“My answer’s still no.”

“And my response is still yes. We appear to be at an impasse, so answer me this young Xia, are you prepared to doom untold trillions to death to avoid being taught by me?”

“Of course not, but are you prepared to do the same to teach me?”

“From my perspective they are already dead. Them, their world, all to dust. That’s the bit the Citadel has never understood. In the end all shall be dust but the Table.”

The Table, the words, complete with the strange ability to capitalise in speech that was almost a skill in itself, brought Xia back to her dream the previous night.

“No. The Table turns to dust as well. I’ve seen it.”

Reality cracked, almost literally as for just a moment the monster lost control, cracks spreading from him up the walls, laying bare the void that surrounded them. Ouro cried out, the mage laying in two uneven halves upon the floor, his time loop spell shattered, time was ultimately just another direction.

“You have seen some strange things Xia Moran. We should talk more.” It was hard for Xia to focus on the words, the sheer wrongness of the void consuming her attention, as it had the three previous times she’d been exposed to it. It wasn’t just black, this wasn’t a mere absence of light, nor even a lack of space for light to travel through, an absence of absence even and the sheer wrongness of it send waves of pain pulsing through her mind, it was as if her thoughts were having to wade through tar.

Bastion Zero was fortunately quick on the uptake, with a moment of focus the cell was as it was, except for Ouro who was rapidly turning from a healthy and rich brown to grey, the mage openly hyperventilating as he went into shock from pain and bloodloss.

The chronomancer had the monster’s attention now, “If you bleed out here and now, you will die.” He informed him, then, noticing the bleeriness of his plaything’s eyes, muttered, “[Bestow Clarity].”

The Skill worked, Ouro’s breathing calmed and his vision narrowed, “Help me, please.”

“You’re a mage, help yourself.” The man who had, apparently quite by accident, carved him in twain declared heartlessly.

“M-magic doesn’t work here.” Ouro managed to spit out through gritted teeth.

“Really? How odd…” Bastion Zero sassed as he summoned fire, the flickering flame was not large but it hovered in his hand. “Mana doesn’t work here, magic on the other hand… you have other resources to burn. You want to live, burn them.”

Master Ouro had to grit his teeth but sure enough, with hate in his eyes, he summoned a flame of his own, scorching closed the terrible wounds with a scream that Xia suspected would have haunted her nightmares if she hadn’t already ascended to loftier fare. The time mage sagged a little, whatever he’d spent to power the spell had cost him, but it was just a half-measure, he wouldn’t bleed out now and Bastion’s Zero was keeping shock at bay but without serious medical treatment he would die all the same.

“Good. You’ve something to you afterall, I feared your spell too much a crutch. That you might crumble in the face of adversity.” The monster smiled beneficently as he laid down a new Edict, “Be healed.” He gave Xia a conspiratorial glance, “They really were foolish giving me a cell to myself, you’re unlikely to see anyone wielding Edicts outside of a System Lord in their home world. You need absolute dominion over a world.”

“Then why do it?” She asked as she ignored the rather grim sight of Ouro’s body slowly returning to pristine condition, the sight of blood going back into someone through a seared wound was not one she’d soon forget.

“Do you want to be my cellmate?” He inquired with a venomous sweetness. “Besides the best binding they had upon me was that I’d agreed to be imprisoned.” The monster gave his best half-shrug, “And now I am freed. So much for an eternity of isolation.”

As he spoke a doorway appeared on the far wall, or perhaps had always been there, the sheer speed at which Bastion Zero rewrote this world was concerning but then again it was a very small world and, as he himself readily pointed out, there were no challengers to him here.

“I still haven’t agreed to anything.” Xia protested as she stared at the exit, part of her wondering if she could make a break for it.

“No. You haven’t.” The monster agreed as he stepped towards the way out. “Take as long as you need to discuss it with the mageling, time is skewed heavily on this side to allow them to siphon more mana from me.”

With that he stepped through the doorway, still nude as the day he was born. Perhaps he preferred it, or perhaps he’d been alone so long he’d simply forgotten, either way that was a problem for those on the other side to deal with. Here and now Xia turned her gaze to Ouro, and even in her thoughts he no longer held the rank of master. The gulf between one of the Citadel’s greatest chronomancers and the monster they kept in the basement was just too great.

“Your thoughts?” She asked him gently, hoping for some insight to sort her own muddled mind.

“You should accept his apprenticeship.” The man admitted grudgingly.

“What? Just because he has more power?” She demanded, she’d been expecting Ouro to tell her not to go, to remain his pupil.

“Because he has more knowledge. I’ve certainly never heard of an Edict before, and whatever he did that broke this world… that wasn’t magic, and it wasn’t a skill either. And because whatever fate you have that… aberration seems to be at the heart of it.” Ouro slowly got to his feet, allowing himself a sigh of relief as his legs held his weight.

“I don’t like it.” Xia growled, well more grumbled at this point.

“You didn’t like being apprenticed to me either.” He pointed out, “Which is more my fault than yours. One has to admire the irony, the day I stop seeing you as a pretty bauble but as a true apprentice is the day I lose you as one.”

“Bauble or apprentice?” The scientist demanded waspishly.

“Would you hold it against me if I said both?” He teased as he too stepped through the doorway.

Xia took a moment to think upon that one, “Yes.” She concluded, and stepped through after them.