Billy woke up to a buzzing sound. At first he tried to ignore it, but then it came again. Growing increasingly louder and more forceful. Like he had a nest of wasps in his head.
He grumbled as he woke, forcefully torn from a deep and restful slumber. He groused as he sat in his bed, stretching a little as he waited for the last dregs of sleep to leave him. He wondered who’s bright idea it was to create a spell-based data construct and directly install it in his mind instead of just making a phone band like he had done for the girls, and then give it an alarm.
“Nh….Is it possible that I really ‘am’ an idiot?” Billy mused. His ears still ringing.
He watched the noonday sun filter in through his curtains.
He sat up, swinging his legs out of the bed and checked the message that woke him up. A holographic screen appearing above the palm of one of his hands. The message was from Edna. Which made a great deal of sense since she and Elena were the only two who had his personal number. Someone calling the phone’s work number would never warrant the alarm function being set off.
“Hey, what’s this Cold-Mercury Angel business?!” said the text.
Billy answered, directly using his thoughts rather than typing with the keyboard that appeared on the screen.
“Your new handle?” said Billy. The text crawling onto the screen.
“And what if I don’t want a new handle, Will?” replied Edna.
“Really? I kind of got the impression that you didn’t really care.” said Billy.
Edna’s next text was just a long line of ellipses. Billy nodded satisfied that he’d won against her for once.
“Just go with it.” he said. Sending one final text before flopping into bed to see if he could re-capture those last few dregs of sleep again. He almost managed it when the buzzing in his head returned. He opened his eyes. Projecting the data into his consciousness because it wasn’t like there was any real need for him to actually look at a screen.
This time the message was from Elena.
“Where’s ‘my’ new handle, love?” said Elena. Her text accompanied by a magnifying glass emoji.
“You don’t need a new handle.” said Billy.
He’d actually considered giving her a new handle as well, but found that a) his naming sense wasn’t all that exemplary and b)there was no name that fit Elena Maddoc better than the one she already had.
“I’m afraid that for now you’re going to have to be satisfied with being our one and only Tyrant Queen, Ell.” he said. Apologizing and wondering if he should give rethinking her name a go again.
“D’aw...You’re a sweetheart.” replied Elena. Her text cluttered with little pink hearts.
Billy blinked finally pushing the communication construct back into its passive mode. He considered trying to go back to sleep again, but found that that boat had sailed. He looked at the time, staring at the clock on his wall and sigh.
“Might as well get up…” he said. Muttering to himself.
The girls had headed back to Gene a few days ago and now Billy was living in his new house by himself. He’d continue doing so for the foreseeable future. Having decided to take on the role of an solitude loving ascetic.
Billy showered, and for his first meal of the day he ate last night’s left-overs and a vat of vaguely medicinal mutagens that he’d whipped up a few days ago. He kind of regretted drinking the mutagens, after he’d done so. Not because of anything that happened, and not even because the taste, which was surprisingly minty and sweet.
He’d just felt it was probably bad practice to just go around drinking mystery goop when he had no clear reason to do so. It was a bad habit that had been picked up from his earlier years in the cosmos, drinking bubbling medicines and swallowing glowing orbs of power like the hapless protagonist of adventure novel.
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Being strapped down and used as a test subject by various sinister alchemists and maliciously inquisitive souls. Several eons later, it’d just kind of stubbornly held on. If a substance was consumable and even vaguely magically, he’d almost feel compelled to drink it. If only so his body’s internal workings could analyze it for making the hazardous portions less hazardous and incorporating any beneficial traits or materials.
*****
After going through his morning routine, he left the house. Strolling through the jungle-like environs of that particular portion of the Argus Hinterland with his hands jammed into his pockets.
This wasn’t a run. Aside from the times he did it to assuage boredom, Billy no longer went on runs because it was no longer beneficial for his body. His modified physique and liquid realm cultivation meant that the days of training via regular physical exertion were pretty much over. Now running and walking was just a leisure activity.
Billy walked for a few hundred miles. Alternating between this and a few short range teleportations. He walked a circuit, that took him around the territories he’d claimed for his new home. Making sure no new demonbeasts or bandits had drawn near. With that done he teleported into Gene.
Passing his home but not entering because that wasn’t what he was there to do that day. He walked down a busy street. Passing a few shops and buying up any materials that caught his eyes. Then he purchased a coffee at cafe and then teleported away, using an inferior teleportation method so as to avoid shaking loose the pair of ‘ticks’ that had settled onto his tail.
The two practitioners using the aether trail he’d left to follow him as he teleported away. He continued his walk pretending not to notice them. Teleporting to a portion of the hinterland that was on the far end of the Argus continent. Just barely adjacent to, two nearby kingdoms.
Billy went through his exercised. Going through a series of fast and clean. Martial stances. Checking that his movements were as accurate and on point as he needed them to be. With the warm up done it was time for the main event.
He stood staring up a nearby mountain. The first part of a thousand mile long mountain range. The Bluepeak mountains were a hinterland. They were one way to tell the difference between the northern hinterland and the southern hinterland. Tall enough, distant enough and desolate enough that none would think of living there or climbing them. Just perfect for Billy’s needs.
The aether circulated through his body, his aura spiking, rising as he drew on his power. The heavens shifted. He crouched and took up a horse stance. Then his arm shot forwards.
Within a single heartbeat’s time the blue peak mountain range was no more. Within a single instant thousands of miles of towering rock and stone were suddenly and inexplicably erased. Swallowed up a thunderous flash of nothingness, force and bright darkness. Leaving only a massive gulf and molten, flash cooked earth.
*****
The rankings spoke of world breaking, reality bending, concept forming, but in truth it all amounted to a small shift in the flows of heaven and earth. The world growing more distance while the skies still and were painted all one color. Like a background in a play or a skybox in a game. The world became less real and was made uniform. This was what was known as the monochrome phenomenon. The world grew stubborn resisting change, preserving and restoring itself, while punishing those whose very presence would do it harm.
This was the power that lay beyond the first realm. A cyclone gathered, drawn in and consumed by Billy’s aura. His body creaked and crackled as it was set upon by all the forces of the world. Reality and the world’s aether flow, actively trying to break him before he broke it.
Being an individual who ‘supposedly’ possessed world bending power wasn’t as easy as the tables would have one believe. Similar to how having the power to overtake a city or a kingdom wouldn’t automatically give one the right to topple one. Or even how having wings didn’t necessarily mean you could fly. The fact was, that for all powers and forces there would be counter powers and counter forces. For every reaction there wasn equal and opposite.
Billy felt them now. He felt them acting on him, burning away the blood in his veins and cooking the marrow in his bones. He felt them pressing down on him, trying crush him flat.
To surpass the first realm was the same as going against the heavens, against the laws of conventional physics and common sense. This came at cost and generally meant that while those of the higher realms were always stronger than the comparatively mundane folk of the first realm, they weren’t allowed to use their full power. Incurring debilitating, possibly fatal, costs were they to break this taboo and go against the resisting force of the monochrome. With cultivation towards the higher realms holding the goal of gaining so much strength that the those resistant pressures could completely ignored.
*****
Billy looked at his arm, staring at the smouldering stump. Aware that no potions or magics he had ready access to, would be able to recover the limb he’d just destroyed. Preparing a spell that would help him regain the limb wouldn’t be cost effective, requiring enough preparation time that he might well have healed already before the preparations were half-way done.
While the limb wasn’t gone forever, for a few days at least he’d have to accept being right-handed. He’d be better off trying to treat his other wounds. He’d sustained a not-insignificant amount of backlash, from moving against the restraining forces that had been working on his being.
His senses drifted to the lands at his back, where the two ‘ticks’ hid. Terrified and awed. All this was a power play. Be it changing his and Edna’s names. Or his decision to play the part of an eccentric hermit sorcerer. Or the little show that he’d just put on for the two spies. Moves that one couldn’t make while being small fry. It was all for one single goal. All for sending a single message to everyone who might have their eyes on their little company.
Billy turned around, his gaze sharp, sweeping across the wood at his back. He felt it as the spies fled. Sensing that their loss of composure might have ‘finally’ tipped their target off to their presence. Watching them flee Billy looked at the ruined smoking remnants of his arm again and nodded. The kingdoms that neighbored this hinterland would note the loss of all of those mountains. And Regardless of who had hired those spies he could be sure that within a week, everyone would know he was responsible for this. And yet it was an unclaimed mountain range and unclaimed land, and a practitioner needed ‘somewhere’ to test their abilities, right?
“Nh...Good bargain.”
He’d lost an arm, but he’d bought some peace of mind. Trying to scare people into acting and control them was always hard and always dicey. Using intimidation and deterrent force to ‘stop’ people from doing things on the other hand….Now that was an entirely different kettle of fish. The only shame was the fact that he knew that the purchase, just like the loss of his arm, would ultimately only be temporary. For now.
“The Rest is in your hands, Ed.” said Billy. Texting his friend as he headed in for the day. Deciding he was in the mood for an early evening nap.
Seconds later he got a reply.
“???.....Wait, What?”