The bird pecked the silver orb and a loud crack resounded through the air.

The other birds stopped flapping their wings, hanging listlessly in the air. The tornado fizzled out, caressing the inside of the silver orb as it faded. The lead bird kept its beak in the crack, its dark beady eyes trained right at me.

I saw myself saying words without a sound, eyes opened strangely, as if lost in thought and empty of feelings at the same time. I saw the Simurgh begin to realize what was happening, and the lead bird looked at Madness with an angry glare, its little beady black eye somehow standing out against the surroundings of the battlefield.

I saw the Evil Eye hiding behind some rubble in the distance, poised to strike. Its position reminded me of the tactic it had used during the fight between the Simurgh and Madness in the Nothingness. At that time, the Evil Eye had struck both of the other Immortals from long range, giving Madness the edge he needed to seal the Simurgh and send the Evil Eye spiraling away. I suspected the Evil Eye was about to make the same mistake as last time, despite its best efforts. He certainly wasn’t the brightest Immortal, at least according to the many years I had spent observing him. No wonder I’d been able to foil his plans without the powerful magic that I had now.

I wasn’t sure how long I had spent in the past. It might have been a few centuries, or it might have been a few hundred millennia. I hadn’t been experiencing time at regular speeds, and I hadn’t stuck around for every minor detail in every point in time. Even though my body never aged, I knew staying in the past for too long would be a burden on my mind. Thankfully, elves lived much longer than humans did, so my mind was pretty resilient against the eroding effects of time. Controlling the domain of time in this world also helped.

In my final moments of observation, I hung around Madness. I observed him from every angle. His smile. His hair. His strange disheveled appearance. The toga, the hair, the way he walked, the way he talked, and the way he looked at me. He was the person I had spent the most time observing in the past. I had gone back to our first meeting, as well as the other times that he had appeared before me. A few of those experiences had been beyond my reach, since they hadn’t occurred in this physical space. Still, I had seen the way the world danced around him, the way the earth shook with his laughter, and the way reality warped itself to his tunes, his melodies, the tippy-tap of his feet as he made a mockery of the seriousness of the world with his uncanny actions and appearance.

He was my most formidable foe. I knew this. I also knew that he had been observing me very closely. Even while he had been helping me against the Simurgh, protecting me from the swarm of birds with his silver bubble, he had been observing me very closely. He had been willing to help me because he thought our interests aligned. Now, after I jumped back to the present, he would be able to observe me again.

I knew that he would be able to tell that I had spent far longer in the past than he had anticipated. He would know that I had brought with me a magic system more powerful than any that had come before it. That I had enough energy, now, to truly stand against him and the other Immortals as an equal. And I knew, without a doubt in my mind, that he would need only a single glance to know that I intended to fight him as well as the other Immortals.

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So I had to be prepared.

I had to put both of my arms up in front of me and begin casting spells.

I had to use my phantom limbs to cast spells all around the Simurgh and the many birds that were hovering outside the silver bubble.

I had to cast a spell net around the Evil Eye, as it waited secretly to join the battle at a critical moment.

I must use magic hands to lift Noel, Norn, Alek and other bystanders far away from the battlefield. I had to use a gust of wind magic to blow Kelser, Kol, Taoc and even Paris as far away as I could, just in case the battle moved closer to them.

I planned to excavate the tunnels underneath me instantly, making sure no cave-ins would kill the priests that Kelser had been battling to get here. It was fine if they had died in battle, but there was no reason to drag them into a fight between beings that were so much more powerful than they were. And frankly, the amount of energy it would take to do something like this was inconsequential to me now.

I had already scouted the area while walking through the past. I was sure that a quick barrage of spells would clear any sentient beings from the area and let me take on the three Immortals with no weights on my conscience and no distractions. Nobody would be able to interfere. Perhaps the fate of the world would be decided this way.

I didn’t want to reveal all of my spells just yet. The Immortals still did not know that I had changed my magic system entirely. In the instant in which I would return to the present, I would be able to catch them by surprise. After that, they might find a way to tie me down. Perhaps they would push against my domains in an attempt to win them over. I knew that they did not take control of domains the same way that I had. They pushed against each other’s domains somehow and took them by force, instead of trickery. I couldn’t count on always having control of time.

I took a deep breath. The air seemed fresher stuck in the limbo of time. I watched myself finish my preparations from inside the bubble. I watched the tiny bird break through the silver bubble at last and saw the way the entire world seemed to freeze as I prepared to leap back through time.

I had two choices. My control over time would let me reappear in a different location. I could effectively teleport across space-time. I could use that distance to launch all of my spells, to give myself an advantage, and to give the Immortals a sucker punch they might not be expecting.

But I decided against it. Appearing in a different location would give me the element of surprise for a moment, but the Immortals would instantly know what was going on and might be able to react to a long range attack. I had to be more careful. I had to stretch my surprise for as long as I could.

I walked over to my own body and waited. I blinked. My body was gone. I stepped forward to take its place.

The leaves rustled. The wind whistled. The earth went crunch under my feet. Madness laughed, the Simurgh chirped, and the Evil Eye was brooding in the distance. I let out my breath.

An orchestra of explosions resounded.