Enraged by his embarrassment and without his Combi and no way to tell which of the very real appearing Chaotics were real, and for several moments, Sen did just that. Punching, kicking, throwing, and slamming the temporal afterimages with reckless abandon. Their exploding frames dissociated motes glittering as they returned to Reality in clouds all around him.

Several micros into his burst of impotent fury, Sen noticed that his breathing was growing harder, and his limbs began to slow. Sen shook his head and stood in a wide base with bunched fists at his sides, taking in deep breaths. There was no reason for Sen to get tired. While he needed to have a physical avatar in this material matter iteration, the body was powered by Ka, which was eternal. There is no reason for it to get fatigued... Sen’s shoulders tightened in the growing frustration of his failure. What has he done to my avatar ... this time–

“Achem. Sorry to interrupt what looks like an internal moment for you ...” The Chaotic’s pleasant demeanor fell away to reveal a harsh expression delivered in a bitter tone. “...But we are in the middle of unfinished business.” The last words were bitten off tersely as he shook a stiff-as-a-board Damni easily in one hand at Sen. Completely rigid, she had an oblong, gray metal sphere stuck on the center of her thin blue forehead. Purple and green lights pulsed on the object in what appeared to be random intervals.

The Actor raised Damni’s body once more in a sea of afterimages and pointed a lance-tipped fighting knife at her core. “We’ve come to the end, Sen. I’m going to kill her-

Sen surged jerkily forward and split the afterimage in two with a poorly balanced sidekick.

His avatar’s words came out just as stutteringly. “... It’s... not... h... her.”

“No, it wasn’t. Good call, Sen.” Sen was barely able to turn his avatar around and grab the Chaotic's robes as he materialized behind him. The move was so slow and feeble that he didn’t even resist Sen’s grab as he continued speaking. “...But this one is. Or maybe it’s not ...You better stop me if you’re not sure.”

The Chaos agent again jangled a frozen Damni with a blinking gray-metal sphere stuck to her forehead at Sen. “... What’s the matter, Senyak? Can’t move your avatar any longer? Well, you better shed your physical avatar and come at me with the hold card you’ve been keeping ... Go full Immortal presence and ‘End me here!’” The Chaotic through Sen’s words from so long ago at him.

And Sen did. It was time to end this farce! Masters be damned, Sen’s reputation would never recover from this embarrassment, but this Chaotic would pay for Sen’s shaming.

... Nothing happened when Sen willed his Immortal Ka form to manifest–

An impish snigger came from directly behind Sen’s ear. “You can’t, can you? Didn’t think so!” The Chaotic said in a friendly and cheerful manner again.

The Actor’s shoulders sagged in faux fatigue of his own, and the image of Damni disappeared. “Good Sen, I tell you, even not battling you is exhausting!” The Chaos actor patted Sen’s frozen shoulder chummily. “... And it’s much better this way. Really! If the Ka blocker I impregnated your avatar’s physical spiritual interface didn’t work ...” A sharp evil leer replaced the friendly expression on his face. “I would have destroyed most of this solar system and detonated my Anima Array to get away ... I mean, it is true, I was feeding on these mortals’ souls for a long time ... But what would your friends, the Masters, think if I killed all the life on this planet and left a giant hole in time and space?

“Instead, I’m going to harvest your, thankfully, still mostly full fourth-tier physical Ka core to make up for the losses I have suffered due to your interference. So, like I said ...” A malicious grin spread his face wide as he brought the diamond-shaped tip of the 60-centimeter fighting knife to Sen’s eye level. “...This is much, much better.”

The Chaotic pulled the blade out of Sen’s paralyzed eye-line. “But first things first!”

Hantal highlighted his words with a wagging index finger pointed at Sen’s face. “As you are a fool and easily duped. I feel the need to explain what you have cost me by forcing me into all this trouble.” Hantal raised his hands, indicating the destroyed street and the mounting pile of vehicles. Then he tapped the base of Sen’s neck where he had slapped him after yanking him from the primordial pocket dimension. “This is a physical-matter immobilizer. It is something the Biologic Union worked on together with the Techno Lords... and quite possibly some covert agents from the Masters themselves. Its main purpose is to stop Immortals from running amok in the physical realms. Just as you have.” Hantal finished by tapping Sen’s forehead on the pronoun with a genuine smile on his once again darkly handsome face.

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Glancing left and right, taking in the destruction around them, Hantal shrugged. “It does seem that we tend to wreak havoc when we show up unsupervised... but I digress...This immobilizer cost me more than I want to admit. Use of it will take a sizable chunk out of the diminished returns from my early harvested Essence Array.” The Chaotic again stared sharp edges at Sen and spoke through clenched teeth. “... Significantly reduced, again due to your interference.”

Hantal leaned over and tensely smiled in Sen’s face. “But don’t worry about me! With all the Essence in your physical core to compensate me for this loss, I’ll come out way ahead.”

Chuckling to himself, Hantal thumbed the blade’s edge. “I mean seriously, Senyak, if I had known it would be this easy to harvest cultivated Essence a full tier above mine, I would have shown up to our duel five hundred solar cycles ago. Forget about the adharmic genocide Essence. Thanks for being so predictable... again!” Hantal’s face beamed with glee and malice.

Senyak’s eyes quivered in his face as he struggled to move... to cycle his cultivated Essence... to accomplish anything! Anything but to fail as horribly as it seemed he was... And so, so foolishly...

“Struggle as much as you like. Inside a physical body, within a material realm, we are bound by all the same laws as these mortals.” Hantal continued whimsically, “We typically have a great deal more power than they do, for sure... but you won’t break through this with your cultivation channels interrupted. The wires have been cut from your batteries, boy! What is it that the local mortals say? Why run from me? You’ll just die tired!

“But keep trying! It does my heart good to see you struggle so futilely.” Hantal widened his eyes as he cackled madly.

Hantal stood there waiting as Sen’s struggles inevitably lessened and stopped. The shame of failure hung about his still form like a foul odor.

“There you go! I knew you would see it my way!” Hantal spoke brightly, tilting his head, and sent a cheerful wink at Senyak. “The name is Hantal Brundox, by the way. And this...” Hantal slowly raised the blade through the small space between their faces in a decidedly menacing manner while maintaining his friendly, upbeat tone. “...This is an anti-serene core blade. It can take the dharmic core from those insufferable white-hat-wearing busybodies who run around for the Prime Motivator.”

“Yes! Even with their internal cultivation shielding in place.” Nodding, Hantal answered Sen’s imagined question.

Leaning a fraction closer to Sen, he smiled widely and hissed through unmoving lips, “I’m sure it will have very little trouble harvesting yours.” Hantal’s smile was quickly replaced with his bared, clenching teeth. “Do you know how much you have cost me with your silly ‘Let’s all save the mortals hobby?’” Hantal’s face hardened into a severe expression as he raked his fingers through his hair. “I’m going to tell you something for free, Senyak. Maybe get through that thick skull of yours. I’ve been here for the last four thousand Ka nexus cycles, one hundred thousand local solar rotations of this planet. I first arrived when these mortals were still traveling in incestuous family groups, hunting beasts and gathering berries in the forests. Before even an agrarian society existed. I fostered those civilizations to boost their numbers and raised them like cattle for my purposes. I know them like a mortal parent knows their own children. They have been, and always will be, a murderous, uncaring group of powerless monsters. They have never changed, and they will never change. Not one little bit. Why do you think it is so easy to get them to kill each other with such wanton abandon hmmm? Believe me when I tell you, they aren’t worth it. Nothing more than a distasteful, hopeless group of smelly, unenlightened sheep.” He shook his head, seeing that he was wasting his words. “Anyway, if you don’t get it now... you never will. For that, I should end your Ka on pure principle. And I would. But sadly, all I can do is pack you up and ship you back to your Polar Neutral iteration of origin. Minus your current tier of cultivation and your physical core, of course. I’ll be taking those with me. They will fetch a reasonable price on the gray markets and help me recoup my losses so that my time spent here will not have been a total waste.

“Never fear, though. I’m sure you and your family will have quite a few things to discuss when you finally make it back. Good luck, Junior! Oh... and I haven’t forgotten about that mortal you involved in this. Joshua? Was that his name? He and I will have extended conversations for the next several Ka nexus rotations.”

Hantal took a moment of thoughtful repose and exhaled a cleansing breath. “Well, let’s get to it!” He smiled maniacally and slowly raised the blade to Sen’s physical core. The tip touched Senyak’s abdomen and slowly slid into his skin and muscle...

Burning pain and—fear? —erupted in Senyak’s mind.

After penetrating a centimeter in... the chaos agent suddenly stopped. The rest of his body was also unmoving.

A disembodied voice spoke deeply, “Yes, we surely have a lot to talk with him about.”

A strong hand erupted from Hantal’s chest, simultaneously holding his Immortal Ka core and his physical cultivation core. Something Senyak had thought was impossible to accomplish outside of an Immortal iteration, at least he had thought so until this very moment...

“You, on the other hand, have said quite enough. I find you detestable. Good riddance.”

Desperation flooded Hantal’s eyes for the briefest moments as he found his Immortal center cut from his physical body in a disembodied hand and disappeared. A small squeak made its way from his unmoving lips. Then oblivion swallowed him. So ended the path of the Immortal Hantal Brundox.

The lights on the orb stuck to Senyak’s forehead stopped blinking, and it dropped to the street with a heavy clunk. Sen sensed Damni being released from some form of suspension and flashing to him through material space. Senyak held up a hand behind his back and motioned for her to stop where she was. He then stood straight and brushed off his clothes.

Swallowing past a lump in his throat, Sen’s voice cracked as he spoke with a dry mouth. “Grandfather?”