Porasak frowned at the question and then shook her head. "No, Red, we are done with the parallel timeline. Everything was sorted out. You have the Rewind created in this timeline and the duplicate Rewind that appeared in the parallel timeline was sorted out and destroyed. You and I both know how it happened. We shouldn't even talk about the parallel timeline anymore lest someone hear the words and the song is repeated all over again."
"But how can anyone get the Rewind if not from there?" Said the admiral. "There is no Rewind other than the one we have. And no one can create anything like it."
Porasak was silent. There was some truth in his words. But it just couldn't have come from the parallel timeline. There had to be some other explanation.
"Don't let anyone know about this," admiral Red Rider said. "Go, I'll inform you of my decision in a few days."
Loops later...
Admiral Red and Porasak sat in an ordinary chariot. The inside was dark because the curtain hanging on the doors and windows was made in a way that stopped people from seeing the insides of the chariot.
"I can smell his mana here," said the admiral.
Porasak sighed and closed her eyes. Earlier, they followed the mana coming from the Rewind and it brought them to Fydeba. But when they came they realized the mana was attached to the world essence. And since the world essence was ubiquitous and connected to the wind they could not determine the origin of the source. They have been roaming around Fydeba since 3 am but had not yet identified the Rewind user.
"Let's walk into the city," said the admiral. "If we get closer to them I can figure out where they are."
There was a reason why they didn't walk into the city in the first place. Fydeba was a city they left behind long ago. When the people saw them walking around in broad daylight it would become an issue.
But in their case, they weren't worried about any gossip, not anymore. They put on ordinary robes and turbans around their heads to disguise themselves and entered the city.
They walked around the city, activating their senses to the fullest. Arriving at Niama, the admiral pointed to the restaurant from a distance. "The mana concentration is greater there."
"Do you think he's there?" Porasak asked.
The admiral shook his head. "No, it looks like he just passed by, or he's been there today. But there is no pacifist in the restaurant now."
Porasak frowned. Even though they were close, they still found it difficult to cope with the ubiquitous world essence.
Magiwatch has saved 15 seconds.
The admiral turned and headed south with big strides. Porasak followed him behind. She had been with him long enough to know better than to interrupt him at times like this.
Arriving at the city market, the admiral stopped.
"I just sensed another mana disturbance here," said the admiral, looking around.
"Can we look around the market?" Porasak said.
The admiral was silent looking at a casino from a distance. After a while, he shook his head. "The mana's fill the whole market. And I feel it outside as well. Either they are aware we're tailing them and are trying to shake us off, or they are like fish, never staying in one place."
"Now what do we do?" Said Porasak.
Without answering, the admiral turned and walked out of the market. Along the way, they arrived at a hotel called Crisstar. The admiral stopped and stared at the hotel for a long moment.
"Porasak?" He said. "I think I understand the technique our enemy uses. They continuously push their mana into the surrounding world essence all the time. So finding them through mana sense will be difficult, if at all possible."
Porasak knitted her eyebrows in confusion. How much mana did a person have to push into the world essence to create such effect? And since they had no idea who the enemy was and didn't have their soul signature, mana sense was the only way they could find them. But if their mana was connected to the world essence, and the world essence was connected to air, then there was no way for them to know exactly where they were. A bit downside of using the Rewind was having your mana being broadcast to your enemies. But this person had it all under control.
"Book us a room there," said admiral Red, pointing to Crisstar. "Make sure it's on the highest ground."
Porasak nodded and hurried into the hotel. She soon returned with the key to room four hundred and three.
He picked up the key and sent the old woman downtown to look for mana rods.
"I'll be inside when you return," he said.
At half-past two in the afternoon, the admiral and Porasak sat in the rented room, cross-legged and on the cold floor. They were surrounded by five large rods of mana, each measuring ten cubits long. Similar but smaller rods sat in front of the admiral.
After sitting there for a few minutes, the admiral turned the crown of his watch until it was six minutes and fifty-five seconds back. Then he closed his eyes and opened his senses for mana.
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Porasak was beside him, pushing her mana into the big rods to enhance the communication with nature.
They took ten minutes to complete the formation and admiral Red opened his eyes.
"Quickly check out these places: the arena, Bol street, Sizea hotel, Adnex street, and the main library downtown."
Porasak nodded and clapped her hands together in a gesture to disappear. The Admiral continued to turn his watch in an attempt to find out exactly where the man using the other Rewind was.
Magiwatch has saved 3 seconds.
You have Rewound for 3 seconds, effectively erasing everything in the said period. Only you will remember.
*
Magiwatch has saved 8 seconds.
You have Rewound for 8 seconds, effectively erasing everything in the said period. Only you will remember.
*
Magiwatch has saved 8 seconds.
You have Rewound for 8 seconds, effectively erasing everything in the said period. Only you will remember.
The two men spent the day searching but in the end, they couldn't find the culprit. The next morning they continued from where they had stopped yesterday. It went on like this for several days.
One day, they felt the power of the Rewind suddenly surged in the arena. They hurried there and quickly found a seat among the crowd to disguise themselves. The jinzidal competition, in which the nations competed for slaves, was underway.
"That's him," said the admiral with thinly-veiled excitement, pointing to Tyren as the young man battled Nazára in the quarter-finals. "He's using my Rewind. I can smell it on him."
"But..." Porasak was silent, choosing her words carefully so as not to interrupt her master's excitement and hope. "He is not strong enough to push so much mana into the world essence that it prevents us from seeing him. And he's from LA, I can sense that man's energy in him."
Admiral Red seemed to consider her words. What she said was right, but he still smelled the Rewind in the arena, and most of it was coming from Tyren's body.
"Or maybe he dealt with the culprit not long ago and that's why the energy is on him," said Porasak.
"If so, "the admiral said. "How do I smell the Rewind in the arena?"
At that moment, Tyren tripped and he paid for it with his arm. Just to prove his point, admiral Red turned his watch back.
Magiwatch has saved 20 seconds.
You have Rewound for 20 seconds, effectively erasing everything in the said period. Only you will remember.
Instead of repeating what he had done in the past, Tyren simply changed his actions to save his arm.
Seeing this, Porasak and the admiral shared a concerned look. They had finally caught the thief, but some things just weren't adding up.
Like patient vultures, the two waited in the crowd until the end of the race, and they followed Tyren to a secure alleyway.
Tyren
Today was exactly eighteen days before The Master removed him from the loop. He didn't complete the task assigned to him by The Master, which was to reach the final round of the jinzidal competition, so he was deemed expendable. But Tyren had no intention of apologizing or leaving the loop like the rest of the dread. Either way, he would use his skills to stay in the loop until the very end. Just as the marines and The Master had joined the loop, he would also find a way. If his plan didn't work out, there was always Mr. Lake to extort.
As he thought of ways to achieve his dream, the chariot suddenly stopped, throwing him off balance to hit the chair in front of him.
He opened his mouth to complain but he heard the driver shouting at someone outside, probably children crossing the road.
"Hey, keep an eye on where you are going," said the driver, Kredic Linson. "Move or I'll move you?"
Tyren peered out the window in front of him. A man stood in front of the chariot watching them, with no sign of moving out of the way anytime soon.
The man's face was covered with a turban, but from his gait and complexion, he looked somewhat like a noble.
"Aren't you moving out of the way?" Kredic yelled at him again. Seeing that he didn't move, the driver released the horse's muzzle.
The horses neighed and jumped forward. They almost ran over the man when they abruptly stopped and stood obediently in front of him. Kredic whipped them to move, but they refused, ignoring him completely.
"Come out," said the man. His voice commanding like he was talking to his slaves.
Tyren frowned. He marveled at people's arrogance. The nobility thought they were better than everyone else. They thought everyone existed just to serve them. But what they didn't realize was the loop had changed the rules. Any person who thought they had it all in the past, now would have nothing. But people would never realize it until the loop was over and the world had returned to normal. Then the powerful would realize they had nothing left to be proud of.
However, this didn't preclude one from being taught a lesson now and then.
"I'll do it," Tyren told Kredic.
Lazily he got out of the chariot and walked to the arrogant man.
"Move out of the road, mister," said Tyren, standing in front of the man. He waited for the man's answer so he could judge him based on the level of his arrogance.
The man opened his eyes. A black, ominous hole appeared where the eyes should be.
Tyren jumped back, his body trembling. "Q... Qatalan? You are Qatalan!"
"Since you now know who we are, XM0911," the man said in a low voice. "I want to know, are you Tyren Ayurvada Onis of Thaha, or Tyren Ayurvada Onis of Taha."
"I'm Thaha, my lord," Tyren said politely.
An old woman next to the man, whom Tyren was just seeing, opened a large book in her hand and flipped through it.
After a minute of reading the book, she nodded. "He's on the Register."
The black-eyed man nodded to her and turned to Tyren. "Let me see your magiwatch."
Tyren looked at the Qatalan and then at his watch. He could run and hope to get lucky, and he could stop and just show them the watch. He didn't know what they were looking for but there wasn't anything in his watch that would attract Qatalan to him. And if he ran, they would follow him in the next loop. It was clear they knew who he was.
"Here," Tyren said. He handed them his watch hand.
The Qatalan held the watch and stared at it for ten minutes straight. Although he was sweating, Tyren withstood the burning sensation in him as the Qatalan ran his mana through him. Once he let him go, Tyren jumped further away from him, gasping for breath. He seemed to have fallen ill all of a sudden.
The Qatalan turned to the old woman and shook his head. The woman in turn took a deep breath and closed her eyes.
"You should have lost your right arm while fighting Nazára," the Qatalan said to him. "How did you survive it?"
Tyren blinked his eyes in confusion.
"I don't understand," he said. "What arm?"
The Qatalan just stared at him. After a while, he pulled out a card from his pocket and handed it to Tyren.
"This card has the address of the Council of Loop Masters on the first world. You can go there whenever you have any information on the loop that you think the Qatalan will need. And, of course, I don't have to tell you that this meeting should be kept a secret."
With that, the Qatalan and the old woman turned and left.
Tyren took a deep breath and wiped the sweat off his face.
"That was close."
He walked back into the chariot. Inside he met Kredic in the driver's seat, unconscious.