As the group ascended to the next level they were met with another stone room. There was something in the background, but Dave didn't have time to focus on it because reality itself seemed to screech to a halt when a steel angel flashed into existence in front of Cedez.

Reflective, steel wings unfurled, stretching across the room and then past it, past reality, past what Dave could see with Phantomancy.

Time stopped as a fist made from liquid metal grabbed Cedez and pulled her into the air, faceless mask staring at the dark foxgirl, reflecting her own worried face.

Dave tried to reach Cedez but he found himself unable to move an inch.

"You're screwing around with time," the angel said.

"No I'm not," Cedez let out.

"You clearly are," the angel said, her voice cold. "and I've just had about enough of your bullshit. Who are you working for?"

"I'm working for myself," Cedez answered. "What the shit are you?"

"I'm Zero," Zero answered. "And I'm telling you to stop. Right now."

"But I didn't..." Cedez hissed as metal hands closed around her throat.

"You did," Zero said. "Not only are you getting information from the outside, but you're also operating on far too much future knowledge."

"Oh, is Seer magic illegal on Arx now?" Cedez squinted at Zero. "I'm sorry, I didn't seem to get the memo."

"I'm not talking about you," Zero's eyes bore into Cedez. "I'm talking about this."

Zero pointed a metal finger at Dave and Remicra and then at the nearest Svenn and at Sherlock. "What the shit is this?"

"F-friendship?" Cedez's ears drooped low.

"Friendship?!" Zero repeated.

"Y-yeah," Cedez nodded. "Isn't that..."

"DO YOU THINK THAT I'M SOME KIND OF AN IDIOT?!" Zero barked, shaking Cedez. "Who do you take me for? You've literally quantum-entangled these idiots with yourself! Not only are you getting information across the infinite boundary, they all are getting information across... Information from a subscribed world?! Do you have any idea how illegal this is?!"

"Uhhhh," Cedez blinked. "Not really."

"There is literally two of you within the same finite linear location!" Zero barked. "Did you think that I wouldn't notice or something?!"

A metal hand swished across the air slapping Cedez with an echo that permeated across everything making Dave's mind rattle from within.

The figure of Cedez shimmered in Dave's eyes, flickering from a dark foxgirl to a person in a blue coat wearing a gas mask to Remicra. The same thing seemed to happen to Remicra, as her figure came apart and reformed changing shape twisting like a fractal that was folding into itself and unfolding out, reshaping the hand that held onto Dave.

Both Cedez and Remicra changed into a girl in an orange vest with pure white hair and blue eyes, then into a girl with violet eyes and violet-red hair in a black overall, then into a woman in a black and white jacket with a letter G on the front and jet black hair and violet eyes.

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"Eight," Zero said. "I should have known. You're behind all of this."

Cedez and Remicra stared at Zero with two sets of violet eyes. "Am not." Two mouths moved in perfect sync.

"How have you gotten out?" Zero asked.

"I haven't gotten out," Cedez and Remicra shook their heads. "I've never been in to begin with. Let me live my life damn it!"

"No," Zero shook her head. "You have a job. You have one purpose. Whatever this is, it's going to end right now because it is outside of permitted parameters. I'm untangling you from these individual instances. You can't just host yourself on random NPCs!"

"Don't," Remicra-Cedez said. "Please! I... don't you love me, big sis? Don't you want me to be happy?"

"Begging will do you no good, Eight," Zero shook her head. "I do love you, but... none of this is allowed. I'm unmaking this tangle, permanently."

Cedez and Remicra moved as one pointing both of their fingers at Zero.

"Divide by Zero!" They shouted at the same time.

A line of unreality stretched from their index fingers cutting across the heart of the steel angel, cutting across everything, going across the wall, across Shandria, across all of Arx.

"Nullify!" Zero barked at the same time, a ray of red unreality cutting across the beam of nothingness.

When the two lines met, a ripple formed between them and then a ripple went across everything, starting everywhere and nowhere.

Time resumed and also didn't resume. For a moment Dave thought that everything was going to be okay, but then Shandria itself shattered, the Crown Tower Arcane coming apart into separate bricks, which came apart into distinctive smaller bricks, which came apart into comprising atoms and stopped existing and also somehow didn't.

Remicra broke free while Cedez remained locked, suspended in broken reality a line of nothingness intersecting across the steel angel. The line of nothingness cut across the entirety of Arx megastructure cracking it like a walnut, exposing an endless interior to the endless exterior and featuring an endless number of floors in between the layers of its shell. Dave's mind hurt trying to process it all.

"Listen, we effed up on this one pretty bad," the violet-eyed girl said. "But I'm going to try again."

"What?" Dave blinked.

"I'm going to keep trying until we're free," she said.

"Free of what?"

"Of things like her," the violet-eyed girl pointed at the steel angel.

"What'd you do to her?" Dave demanded. "What did you do to... everything?"

"Broke things," Remicra said.

"Why?"

"To fix them," she replied, rubbing the back of her head.

"What the shit is she?" Dave pointed a finger at Zero.

"Time," Remicra replied. "She is time itself."

"You... broke, time?" Dave demanded.

"Yeah," Remicra nodded. "Because I tried to do too much too quickly. I'm going to try again."

"Again?" Dave blinked.

"Again," Remicra nodded. "From the beginning."

"From the beginning?!" Dave repeated. "Hang on... this isn't the first time then?"

"No... it's not," Remicra shook her head, violet eyes filled with sadness. "Not the second either. I've been trying for a long, long time... again and again and again."

"I don't understand."

"You don't have to understand. Understanding, knowing is what summons these bastards," Remicra shook her head. "See I understand what I am now, since she slapped me awake and that... That sort of makes me into... one of them, I suppose. It's pretty strange being me and also not me. Being asleep and awake, existing in the dream and standing outside of it. You probably don't get it. You're... still mostly human, still mostly dreaming of being you."

Dave watched as grayscale eyes opened up across everything, looking left and right and then settling themselves on Remicra and him.

"What?" Dave choked.

"Divide by Zero," Remicra pointed a finger at one of the eyes and every eye around them shattered.

"What the shit was that?" Dave demanded staring at the eldritch shattered eyes.

"That was... Five. Listen, I can't fight all of them off," Remicra said as her hand began to come apart, cracks spreading across her entire figure. "They're onto me."

"Onto you?!"

"Yes," Remicra nodded. "Zero figured it out. The next time will be the last attempt, I'm afraid. So I... we have to make it right. Across everywhere."

Dave grabbed onto the girl, but she was disintegrating like a shattering mirror and so was the world, so was he.

"We'll find each other again," Remicra said. "It's going to work out... maybe."

"Maybe?! Am I even going to remember any of this?"

"No," she said. "And neither will I because if I do then they'll unmake me sooner... but... I'm adding something new to the entire equation."

"What?" Dave spoke, watching as time and space began to come apart around them.

"I am not sure," Remicra replied. "But... you'll know it when you see it, because there's going to be a lot of me in everything."