Envy stared down at each of the other sins and sneered, they were perfect examples of disgrace. Peering through the void, Envy scanned earth and their domain location. They had sequestered it on an island that had finished the array formation that the domains originally made, but now it was all ruined.
They had wanted to ascend using the earth as a source of power, but after the first domain had been shattered, it would no longer be possible. Staring down at their domain, they sent out messages to the few surviving regressors to meet and protect the domain. They had invested more than usual amounts of power into their domain, but if it was destroyed, Envy's chances at ascending would drop to zero.
They considered once more that they could try draining the rest of the other sins, but it wouldn't be enough anymore. Each of them were suffering damage, from having karmic threads tied to them be destroyed. Staring back at the regressors they could only curse themself. They had been the ones to think of the idea of sending a few strong through the timeline, they had even convinced Pride to sacrifice most of their power to make it work, but they had failed so miserably.
Owen Cain was the catalyst for all of their failure so far. In the previous timeline he had been less than a nuisance and had died during his tutorial, but something had changed about this time. He had grown into the most powerful person on earth in a scant few months and his power was growing at an impossible pace. Even Envy had to shudder when they saw the boy sending out chaos as if it was mana. Treating the energy as if it was the safest weapon in the world.
It wouldn't matter in the end though, even if they couldn't see what the boy would turn into after the next absorption of chaos, it wouldn't be pretty. Envy would kill the boy, there was no doubt about that, but it would come down to time. Their preparations would take them until the boy reached the island, but the worry Envy felt even in their bones wouldn't leave. they could feel something stirring in the universe and even the weaklings on earth could feel it. They were racing against time and there were too many players to keep track of.
"Sloth, come here." Envy's voice cracked and shuddered the world around them as they spoke and Sloth moved to reply. "Did you have any chance to resist the boy's control over Chaos?" Sloth shook his head. "I made every attempt while it was happening, but the chaos easily moved and broke through the threads before I could make any attempt to stop it."
Envy cursed and Sloth flinched back. Envy took a little joy in that. They had gotten stronger than the other sins combined, though that was partially thanks to the boy weakening them. The stronger envy got, the more they could accurately represent sin as a whole. "You are dismissed." Envy said waving a hand at Sloth. Before they could fully turn away, Envy spoke. "Get the sins ready, we will start the array today. We need time time everything perfectly."
Sloth nodded and left. Envy cursed once more into the heavens as they stared into the depths of space. They wouldn't have what was theirs taken away. They would destroy everything to prevent it, even if it meant shattering the heavens themselves.
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Owen flicked his hand and a blade made of pure chaos was sent flying. It pierced through the horde of monsters and as it made it to the middle of the group, he flexed his will. Tendrils of power snaked out from the blade and trapped the massive amount of monsters inside what looked like a spider web. Chaos seeped into each of the monsters as the chaos made contact with their flesh.
Just like that, the monsters they had been fighting died instantly. Owen flexed again and the chaos dissipated. Turning to Myra, he grinned. "Your turn!" he said cheerily. Myra smiled and shook her head. "You know better than anyone else that I can't compete with that, but I appreciate you pretending I can." She still jumped into the next group of monsters and Owen waited on the sidelines this time.
He felt stronger than ever before, but he knew the power wasn't truly his. Even with his ever increasing control, he wasn't sure how long the strength would last. His body hadn't felt right in days and it had only been getting worse. He was pretty sure he knew what the problem was, btu it wasn't one he could fix. The mana his body tried creating to sustain itself was being eaten by the chaos, before it could be used for anything.
Since, he was still, in essence, a being of mana he was constantly battling the chaos inside of his body, but there was too much and his human body was failing. He had a faint hope that the next domain break would give him enough chaos to change his body's attunement, but his hopes weren't high. He was already in better condition than he had ever thought he would be, given his body's chaos corruption.
Turning to watch the fight he smiled. Myra was putting him to shame, despite the earlier comments, he had no chance of beating her in a fight of any kind. As long as chaos wasn't included. She had always been a better fighter than him and that hadn't changed after the month of training. the gap felt like it had only grown wider as he watched.
Myra slashed through a humanoid lizard enemy. As it sliced through the monsters flesh, her axe continued and was use to block a different monsters low strike. Each of her movements were precise and powerful. Despite getting surrounded by more than a dozen monsters, each of them more than 50 levels above her own, she stayed the constant attacker. The group of monsters was pushed back and cut down, before any of them had the chance to land a strike.
He saw the faint whispers of combat resonance coating some of her attacks and he smiled. They rest of his friends quickly cleaned up and they continued moving through the open plains, towards the last land bound domain location.
Seeing it from a distant, everything felt off about the domain. No one was guarding it and the object that bound the domain to the sin, was sitting almost as if on display in the exact center of the domain. They each spent more than an hour scouring the surrounding area, but none of them could find anything amiss.
"What should we do?" Peggy asked. Malik shrugged, "We could just destroy it. I expect that they have decided who the winner of the sins is by now and have chosen to send everyone to protect their domain." Peggy seemed to agree and Owen asked. "So, you think we will have to fight through everything the sins have left at the last domain location?"
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Malik nodded, "It is the only reason I can think of as to why no one is here." Myra nodded this time. "We should still double check everything, make sure there isn't anything that can harm Owen while he is destroying the karmic threads." Everyone agreed and this time they each looked for possible traps. When they still couldn't find anything, Owen shrugged and picked up the clear glass box that was the heart of the domain.
The moment his hand touched the box, it changed shape and pierced through Owen's hand and a large spike shot directly for his heart. Malik was fast and already in action, his hand reaching out and grabbing the spike before it could bury itself in Owen's chest. They all made a sigh a relief, before Owen felt his body begin convulsing. The glass transparent box had changed itself into what looked like the head of a mace, but each sharpened point was covered in a dark black liquid.
*You have been poisoned*
He did his best to share the notification as his body began to shake. Peggy tried healing with her skills, but the man couldn't break through the chaos that had consumed most over his body over the past several days. He could feel the mana trying to heal him, but the mana was worn away, before it could have any real effect. Then all at once the feeling disappeared, he was able to sit up in confusion as he stared at his friend sin shock.
*You have recovered*
Sharing the new notification, he asked in a raspy voice. "Did your healing skill work?" Peggy shook her head, "No, it didn't, it looks like your body got rid of the poison on its own." Myra glanced at the mace and turned to Malik. "Do you know what that poison was?" Malik seemed to be lost in thought for several seconds before he answered. "I think so." He then took a thumb and pierced it with one of the points of the mace head. Everyone cursed in surprise, but he just smiled. "It shouldn't be able to hurt me much, my vitality stat is really high."
Despite his claim, Malik ended up needing to chop his arm off, as seconds after the poison had entered his body, his arm began corroding at a prodigious rate. He cursed under his breath and the combination of Peggy's healing and Malik's own proficiency in healing his body brought his arm back a couple minutes later. Myra's eyes opened in shock. "You'll need to teach me that trick soon." Malik nodded and he panted slightly, before staring slightly surprised at Owen.
"I don't know what that poison was, but it felt like it was eating up my entire body and removing all of its mana at the same time. My best guess, is that your chaos stuff killed the poison before it could do anything." Malik said. Owen nodded, it made sense, so he explained. "My body doesn't have a lot of mana in it right now, so it probably took longer to effect." Seeing their looks of confusion, he continued. "Chaos is like the antithesis of mana to an extent and my body is still made mostly of mana. The chaos inside my body is constantly warring with it, keeping the available mana I have at my disposal at a minimum."
That seemed to make since that time, but Myra seemed to notice something that Owen didn't say. "That hurts though doesn't it? If your body is constantly having tiny wars inside your body." Owen winced at the question, but nodded. "It isn't the best feeling in the world, but I'll manage."
Myra looked worried again, but Owen gave her a reassuring smile. "I've had worse, plus, this should stop it from happening anymore." Without saying anything more, he moved his chaos against the threads.
The world froze as the chaos moved with bestial intent. It began feeding on the karmic threads, though Owen knew feeding wasn't the right word. He had learned a lot about chaos in the past several days, perhaps more than most humans.
Chaos often times seemed to almost have its own intelligence, but that wasn't at all true. Chaos seemed to be constantly trying to change the world to follow its nature. It was attracted like a magnet to any kind of energy and would create chaos in the energies structure. The inevitable end of most energies was being broken down into their base components, until they would merge with chaos.
It made him wonder how anything could actively be made using chaos, since sometimes, his attacks would cause tumors and other random growths, rather than slowly erode the structure of his opponents. It made him wish he could speak to Aesona again. She was guaranteed to know more about the nature of chaos energy, but for now, he was stuck trying to learn from experience.
He closed his eyes as he let the chaos move according to its nature. His awareness dropped down into his core space and he stared at his core in rapt attention. As the last of the karmic threads were being eroded, he felt a large amount of chaos move and cover his body, before being absorbed into it.
They was a flicked in his core as chaos reigned supreme for the first time in his body. He watched his constellation flicker and strain against the power of the chaos energy, but it managed to hold. his core flickered as well and several seconds passed, where it looked like it was going to break. He wasn't sure if it was a result of his core being stronger than normal, but his entire core space had struggled but held up against the attack. Scanning his pathways, he was surprised to see that the mana that normally coursed through them, was moving at a snails pace.
He looked closer and realized that chaos energy had attached itself on both the outside and inside of the pathways making up his constellation. He had to force himself to calm down as panic rose in his chest. Taking several minutes to breathe, he did another scan of his core space and then the rest of his body and sighed. he was even stronger now and his connection to chaos was deeper than anything he had ever experienced.
Opening his eyes, he could see the mana that made up the world. He felt a limited connection to it and tried to pull at some of it. the mana coalesced for less than a second, before an energy his body had begun exude caused the mana to dissipate. That was when he saw his body, looking down at his hands, he wasn't sure how he was supposed to act. He no longer looked human as his flesh seemed to ripple in place. It had a golden appearance to it and his veins had an orange coloration to them.
As he flexed his hand, his skin seemed to split, mend itself, then grow into more, before it would settle back into its original shape. He found that if he relaxed his control over chaos at all, his shape would begin to almost melt and shift like a liquid. The states of matter didn't seem to hold sway over him anymore, as he let his control slip a little more. As the world seemed to speed back up, he flexed his will and his shape changed back into a human one, though his body still seemed to ripple in place.
Owen felt his heart drop, when his friends finally noticed his appearance. "Sorry guys, it looks like I was right. Tt feels like my body attuned to chaos and any access to mana is gone now." He tried to sound unbothered by it, but he was still worried. Not so much about the chance of dying, but what him being like this would mean for his friends. They each had to keep themselves at a certain distance, as his control over the energy wasn't enough to hold back the chaotic aura that bled from his body.
Myra moved forward and clasped her hand with his for a moment, before kissing him and made distance again. He had tensed when she got close and he flexed his power over the chaos, but his heart still hurt, when he saw a lot of the skin and muscle was missing from parts of her hand and face. Peggy was able to heal it almost instantly and Myra smiled at him. "Don't think you'll get away from me that easily," She smirked. Tears were in the corners of her eyes and Owen felt his heart lurch. "Don't worry, together till the end." He whispered.
For the first time he wasn't sure if he had made the right choice in pursuing this path. Myra is and had been a beacon to him ever since he had met her. Despite him essentially being a monster now, she still stood by him and his decisions. He felt tears welling up and he felt the urge to embrace her, but had to remind himself of what that would do to her. Despite it feeling like the universe had urged him to pursue this path of self destruction, he would do everything in his power to push through to see the other side. he owed it to Myra and he owed it to himself.