Time felt slow.

Almost as if the clocks stopped ticking and the world froze in place.

Risible, Esther, the guards, and the Elven Queen all sat in a cold metal room. The air was slightly chilled and Risible was in complete shock.

“E-Esther- What do you mean? She's your mother?!”

“Was.”

The Elven Queen leaned forward and laughed a little.

“How cold of you~”

The queen’s eyes then lit up a slight blue as if she were scanning something.

“You’re still all flesh? How pitiful.”

Lydia motioned to the guards and they quickly grabbed Risible. The queen was smiling again as the guards holding Risible started dragging him away.

“Heh-”

“How about I fix that my dear Esther~”

Risible held his ground firm as he slammed his foot into the steel floor.

“Now I might not have done anything so far… but I won’t allow you to touch her. I wouldn’t abandon Cyn’s partner that quickly.”

Risible’s eyes started glowing a light-blue as he started pulling out of the guard’s grip, he went to warp his body into a slime state when one of the guards reached around his face and placed their finger on his left eye firmly. Light-blue electrical currents erupted across Risible’s body as he fell onto his knees. His body shot into pain as it reverted back to its human-like state and went limp. The guards swiftly got hold of him and dragged him out of the room.

Leaving Esther and the queen alone.

“What did you just-”

“That’s how they work~ I had a little testing done and found out that was their core… it’s so sensitive that it can make them temporarily paralyzed. Isn’t that funny~”

Esther glared at the queen.

“What are you plotting?”

“I’m just going to replace your spine.”

She said it coldly while she stared with wide eyes toward Esther.

“Tch- Lydia-”

Lydia smiled vibrantly as she snapped her fingers. These metal claws rose from the ground quickly and grabbed Esther’s body tightly, she winced from the sudden grip.

“My daughter should always call me ‘Mother’~ maybe I’ll fix your brain as well.”

“How did you even become the queen-?”

“I think you’re pushing your luck a little dear~”

…

“Fireball!”

A purple flaming ball formed above Esther’s head and went flying toward Lydia… right before it hit the flame died off and the sparks wisped away in the air.

“Awww~ how cute. Magic doesn’t work here Esther and it’s thanks to Cyconis’s reformations. It will never work as long as you’re inside~”

Another door opened on the side of the room, it was on the wall up around a story or two. The arms dragged Esther toward it.

“Have fun~!”

Lydia waved toward Esther with a sadistic smile.

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The guards threw Risible’s paralyzed body into his cell before they reactivated the triple lock door. Risible laid on the floor twitching slightly as he stared at the ceiling.

“Wow… I didn’t expect that…”

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“Oh- Ode, you up?”

Risible sat up weakly and shook his head, he weakly pulled himself up onto his bed. Only his left arm was working, and he could only get his upper body onto the bed. He struggled to get his legs up before he laid down flat on his back. He sighed heavily before looking up toward the ceiling again.

“Ode, I’m gonna rest up in the Lacuna for a bit.”

Risible closed his eyes… his consciousness slipped out of his body and fell into nothingness. A quick flash appeared as he fell onto the Lacuna's platform. He cracked his neck slightly and walked over to Ode’s desk, Risible typed a set of commands before a screen appeared in front of him. It was a side view of his body laying on the bed in the elven cell.

“Good. It worked… Imma take a nap for a bit, I can barely move my physical body so nothing better to do~”

A couch formed up a little off to the side, roughly across from Six’s couch. Risible fell down onto it and leaned his head back.

“Ahhh… so soft…”

Ode watched him as he started snoring.

“How can you be so irresponsible sometimes…”

Ode sighed and started looking through his screens, he checked Deadeye’s, Four’s, and my progress. Deadeye and Levin were closing in on the tree, but they still had a bit to go. Four was sitting on a beach while consuming a whale… his sharp teeth digging into the whale’s flesh. And I was sleeping in Laviel’s car as she continued driving me closer to the World tree.

Ode turned his chair around and looked toward Six’s couch.

Six and Harbinger were sleeping there.

“Hey guys, time to wake up.”

A few clicking sounds were made as Harbinger sat up, he yawned and then looked toward Ode. He turned back around to look at Six who was still sleeping, he raised his hand and formed it into a fist before slamming it into Six’s gut. Six jolted awake and grabbed his stomach.

“What the fuck-”

“He said wake up.”

Ode clapped his hands together.

“Alright, who wants to play a game?”

“Huh-... what type?”

A deck of cards formed in Ode’s hand and he started shuffling them.

“Well we could play…”

…

“Yeah?”

“Uh- well, I can’t really name anything off the top of my head.”

“You can’t?” Harbinger looked at Ode with a disappointed expression.

“It’s been a while okay?”

Six yawned and looked up for a second before responding.

“How about we try making a pyramid then.”

“That’s easy though.”

“It’s just a suggestion…”

Ode formed two more decks and tossed them to Six and Harbinger.

“Let’s do it.”

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|Around Seven Hours Later|

⊰───────•✦•───────⊱⊰───────•✦•───────⊱⊰───────•✦•───────⊱

“Why the fuck can’t I get it to stack?!”

“See. It’s hard.”

Out of all the fifty-two cards in Harbinger’s deck… he only had two cards that were barely standing.

“Hard my ass!”

Behind Six was a giant house of cards, it was at least two times taller than him and it was made from hundreds of decks. He was sitting in a beach chair while reading one of his manga.

Ode was laying on the floor, his soul looked like it was sucked out of him. He was only able to make up to a fifteen card pyramid.

Harbinger’s arm started transforming into a cannon-like shape as he aimed it at Six’s house of cards. Six looked up quickly as the cannon charged, he flicked his hand making Harbinger’s shadow reach up and pull his arm down.

“Heh-”

The cannon ignited and the ground beneath Harbinger blew up. He was now laying there as Six went back to reading his manga.

Ode sat up and sighed.

“Well I guess I should get back to work… haaaaah… I don’t want to…”

He stood up and walked back over to his chair and sat down. He flicked through a few screens before slamming his head against the console.

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“The nerve of this guy… waking me up at three just to fall asleep in my car-”

Laviel squeezed her wheel tightly.

“Hey! Cyn wake up!”

I opened my eyes a little slowly before turning my head toward her.

“What?”

“Stop sleeping. You have to struggle with me.”

“I don’t feel like it though~”

I suddenly felt a strange pulse in my body, like there was another piece of me opened up. It must have happened while I was sleeping…

“Laviel, can you go faster?”

“Yeah, why?”

“I have a bad feeling.”

She pressed the gas a little more, making us go slightly faster. We were quickly approaching the World tree, but not as fast as I would have liked.

I sat up properly and went to open the door.

“Huh-? Cyn what are you doing?”

“I’m just gonna fly there instead, it’ll be faster.”

“That’s a no-go, absolute no-go.”

I looked back toward her.

“Why?”

“Cyconis has a bunch of military functions that prevent things that aren’t authorized from approaching. You’d be taken down way too quickly.”

“Then how are we getting in?”

Laviel smiled and reached into her pocket. She pulled out this card that dangled on a keychain, it had a picture of her on it… her position which was a military general… and-

“Wait- your name is…”

She smiled at me and made a gesture with her hands. Her finger over her lips in a shushing motion as she winked toward me.