Karma sat crosslegged atop a parched ridge, his Ouroboroi-encircled pupils lolling about a garden of ancient obelisks. In a realm unseen, white-golden threads sojourned through the void, scrying the un-scryable at their master's behest.
"Kronoseum," he whispered, peering eastward, not seeing yet knowing of the imposing granite edifice lying in wait.
I wonder if I can make it one shot ...
His body remained stationary as a lone, crimson-black thread extended from his breast. Unlike its golden-white siblings, the linearity-thread proved incapable of shuttling through the void.
So, if I don't personally enact a sequence of cause and effect, the linearity-thread-substitute can, at most, match my speed? Does that mean, at 1/5 of my Request, I can influence the rate of linearity by a factor of two?
Karma's heart galloped in his chest as he pondered the nigh-limitless applications now available to him.
If it doubles every time, wouldn't that mean that, upon saturation, I'd be able to accelerate—32 times!?
His eyelids shot open in terrified awe at the implication. Breathing at a ragged gait, Karma tried and failed to douse the hysteric flame raging within.
Calm—I need to calm down. Even if it does grow exponentially instead of linearly, a 32-multiplier would deplete my spiritual energy long before I'd manage a single step.
Karma, reorienting himself with shaky, measured breaths, felt his lips jostle against his suppression. Hapless, he betrayed a radiant smile.
He couldn't help it, after all ...
A 32-fold sea of flames, Karma shivered. Even I would be scared shitless.
...
"Oh? It arrived?"
Beaming, Karma scoured his destination's periphery, happily discovering a desert plane with sandstone as its sole inhabitant.
Karma feigned a loving caress along the crimson-black thread's ethereal length, heaping it with affection and encouragement.
"Alright, buddy—I've spent 35% of my spiritual energy raising you from a wee thread-ling. Now that you're grown, it's time to show papa some filial piety."
Go!
A welter of memories bludgeoned Karma's psyche as he snapped to the linearity-thread's opposite end. He dizzily recalled every inch of his "journey," from the most minute lateral adjustments to the endless sprints across monotonous terrain.
Hiss—"This is how you repay me?" raved Karma, knocking the side of his head with a closed fist. "C'mon, brain, walk it off!"
"What—why—who hit me?" plaintively transmitted Anlîthëma.
Karma, swatting empty air, spat, "Shut up, shut up, shut up! One more peep and I'll flay you."
...
"Too far," groaned Karma, his waxing headache finally granting a reprieve.
Clutching his forehead, he listlessly surveyed a palatial warren of arches and columns. The granite construct, gilded by the turquoise vault overhead, boasted architecture archaic yet modern. Arcane glyphs and pictographs littered its walls in contrast to their glossy sheen—the paint having ironically outlasted its scripture in legibility.
Turning to a shuttered archway, he discovered timeworn symbols he could read: "Kronoseum Entrance."
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"Ah, the old words are new, and the new words are old—got it," said Karma, reaching for the antechamber's weathered handle.
Zip.
Karma stood dumbly, his hand still outstretched as a pristine, silver-grey stadium unfolded around him. Scanning for witnesses, he sheepishly exclaimed, "I knew that would happen!"
Lousy passive divination. Next time, don't just tell me the door is an entrance. Yeah, no shit, it's an entrance—be more specific!
Suddenly zeroing in on an armored statue posted in the gallery, Karma took three long steps backward.
I wholeheartedly forgive you. I'm sorry for calling you lousy.
The stone sentinel's joints rumbled to life. With startling swiftness, it leaped into the stadium, cratering Karma's previous locale with a resounding crack.
"Hehehehehe."
Impish giggles echoed as plumes of silt parted, revealing an unarmed chimera of stone and flesh. A gelatinous head capped its granite body, sporting a maw of gooey, interlocked fingers.
Eurgh.
Karma's features contorted in disgust. "You, my friend, have nothing to laugh about."
"Hehehehehe," affectionally rubbing its cheeks, the chimera swayed its hips. Barely, Karma noted waves of distortion englobing the abomination's surroundings.
Time manipu-lati-on?
Karma's brows—following a delay—arched upward as a quagmire seemed to obfuscate his thoughts.
Maintaining a casual pace, the abomination pranced up to Karma until they stood a finger's width apart. Wiggling its fingers with glee, its arm cocked back in a clenched fist and swung.
Karma blinked ponderously at the haymaker's imminent arrival.
"Heh."
Snap.
"HEEE," the chimera shrieked as an azure arc illuminated its recoiling form. It stared menacingly at Karma, who was waving at it with a familiar stone hand.
"Looking for this?" asked Karma, sporting a devilish grin.
"Heeee?"
"How?" Incinerating its severed hand with potent flames, Karma spilled the blackened detritus between the gaps of his fingers. "Well, slowing down a saber composed of light is pretty pointless. Slowing me down? Even more so."
"He—" brandishing its stump, concentrated distortions wracked its wrist, gathering the granules at Karma's feet into a blob. In mere moments, it smilingly displayed its new hand. "He-heee!"
Clap-clap-clap.
Karma whistled, "Time reversal, eh?"
Flashing into the air and flexing his Euclidian Anchor, he hollered, "But can you heal this?"
Karma thrust his palms forward, a marble of incandescent flame blossoming before him.
Accelerate the creation of flame. Decelerate its volatility.
Karma's spiritual energy plunged as the marble graduated to a melon.
75%
Soon, it was as tall as Karma.
65%
Shortly after, it was much, much taller than Karma.
"Hehee ..."
50%
Frowning, Karma noticed the blazing meteor twitch. It's trying to reverse time to before the ignition? Oh well—it's probably plenty big.
Negating the reversal with his linearity acceleration—bringing him down to 42% capacity—Karma shouted, "Catch!"
And dropped a miniature sun on the arena.
"HEEEEEEEEEEEEE!"
Karma, enamored as his self-prescribed divine punishment torched the Kronoseum floor, murmured, "Mmm, I can't wait for 32."
**
After landing upon the scorched ruins, Karma foraged the smokey arena for his ugly foe, soon finding a hollowed suit of armor dripping with pus.
"Oh ..." he exhaled, "so it wasn't a chimera, it was a creature piloting a puppet-like artifact."
Karma cautiously hefted its legs, shaking the armor-turned-kiln back and forth.
Rattle-rattle.
"C'mon, almost there."
Rattle.
Thump.
"Gotcha!" Loosening his grip, he loped to a cube of anomalous, onyx-colored metal.
"Hm, this is a solid 1/2 of the Promise requirement. No wonder the challenge was so difficult!"
"That was difficult?" blurted Anlîthëma.
"Of course! It took me more than half my spiritual energy, after all."
"So? Have you never—"
...
"Never what?"
"Never mind!"
"Alright."
...
Snickering, Karma asked, "Hey, want to hear something funny?"
"Does it involve me getting flayed?"
"It does not."
"Please proceed."
Without ado, Karma snatched the cube of Temporal Ore, automatically triggering the Kronoseum's displacement formation.
Zip.
"Namo Buddhaya, Benefactor," greeted the leftmost of four bald, browless men in loose-fitting, burgundy robes. Each wielded a metal-tipped, unadorned bamboo staff with brass bells tied around both ends. "Congratulations, your victory is a testament to the Dharma's boundless light."
"Alas, worldly attachments are impermanent," continued their neighbor, tone indistinguishable from their predecessor. "You have stolen the dew of another's leaf."
"Doyen Tathāgata requires the Temporal Ore in your possession," resumed the penultimate monk, softly ringing their topmost bell. "Relinquish it at once."
"Or perish," concluded the final monk, slamming the pommel of his staff onto the earth, "and surrender to the Sea of Bitterness."
"That's ... not funny. It's actually a bit sad. Though centuries may have passed, I was and still am an honorary monk of Pure Land Buddhism. I will take no joy in seeing you cut them down."
"These are members of the Cittamātra Sect—a minor branch of the Mahāyāna Order. You know, the 'bald-headed fanatics' you cited as having chased you to your final breath before nearly killing you?"
"I will derive much joy in seeing you cut them down."