The chaos agent had chosen to strike at the young female origin motivator in a closed space with no chance of escape. Six other mortals were present as potential Ka dominion possession victims for him to kill her with. As yet, all probability models indicated that the chaos agent had not, and most likely would not, directly intervene. He had chosen this path to avoid dealing with Sen in direct combat.

The chaos agent had also correctly determined that Sen wouldn’t match his actions by direct possessive Ka dominion. Sen really couldn’t. Ka dominion, a very effective way to accomplish one’s goals via mortal agency, caused the expungement of–killing of–the mortal by severing their soul tether. It was an adharmi—evil action. Performing adharmic activities would be an irreversible choice for Senyak. It would start him down the adharmic cultivation pathways and prevent him from maintaining his status as heir. It would likely get him banished from his family and their controlled iterations.

Sen gritted his teeth. In my introduction, I gave him this information about myself at the duel I challenged him to. He is strategically using what I foolishly considered innocuous. Sen’s cheeks burned at the excellent reminder that there were more weapons than merely those held in your hands.

It was plain the actor knew more about Sen and how to manipulate that information than the inverse. Sen could not deny the actor’s ability to leverage a favorable battleground through manipulation. Senyak’s earliest combat instructors’ teachings haunted him from some of his earliest memories.

“If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained, you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.”

So far, Senyak had succumbed in every battle...

To change this, Sen needed knowledge. He put his Combi to work. It chimed and informed him of all the weapons in the boxed lifter. Elevator, that the young female was being attacked in. There was very little. A large pair of hand shears from the bag of an elderly lady. Several flat yet hard communication devices–cellular phones–could be used to bludgeon like rocks. A few metal-shod writing implements. Two leather belts. Lastly, there was a metal and plastic four-legged stand that an elder used for support. A Walker… An interesting item, but given the space limitations, it was of minimal use.

The elevator’s occupants were even less helpful.

—The target. The young female origin motivator stood in the right back corner, talking on her cell phone. For this battle, she was a nonissue. Karma entwined Senyak, the chaos agent and the origin motivator. The chaos agent could not just take her via possessive Ka dominion and have her jump off a roof or slit her wrists. If he did, Karma’s Balance would replace her with another unidentified origin motivator to perform what she would have accomplished if not for the violation of her Karma. Such actions would put the actor back to square one.

—Two males. Both had no combat training. One was an elder, seventy-five solar rotations— years, weighing less than fifty kilograms and walking with the four-footed... walker. He stood at the left back wall. He had one of the steel-shod pens in his vest. The second was a middle-aged and heavyset man weighing 120 kilograms. He stood in the back middle next to the origin motivator.

—Four women of varying ages. From nineteen to sixty-eight years old and weighing between fifty-five to ninety-four kilograms. The most senior lady, at sixty-eight years, had the large hand shears in her bag, standing in the front center and weighing sixty-five kilos.

The last finding was—

—Anomalous reading: 0.04 percent chance of occurrence per iteration.

Sen reviewed the Combi’s information. There was no knowing what the fourth line meant without more investigation. He asked Damni to follow up on it while he attempted to devise a strategy before the chaos agent moved on to another iteration.

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Not a lot to work with here, were Sen’s first, second, and, unfortunately, last thoughts. Unless he came up with something he wasn’t currently seeing, the chaos agent would wade through these humans, reach down the young girl’s throat, and tear her heart out.

Sen’s Combi chimed. It had identified the next iteration the actor was targeting.

Sen chose the origin motivator, who was currently speaking on her cellphone, as the mortal he would reach out and communicate mentally with. Upon later reflection, he realized that this had likely been a poor choice.

* * * * *

“... I don’t know, baby... I guess we can get together after class today... But what will you do for me to make it worth it?”

“Hello, hello! Young female origin motivator in the yellow dress. Your life is in danger. You must act defensively immediately!”

“You perv! This is a private conversation! Get off this line!”

“What? Line?— You don’t understand! Your life is in danger! You need to rally support to fight off the chaos act—”

“—Your life is in danger when my boyfriend finds out where you live! Jack?! Can you hear this guy? Kick his ass Ja—Glaacck...”

Two wet thunks and a sudden snap ended the conversation as the fat man next to the origin motivator gouged out her eyes and broke her neck with three quick movements.

“... Maybe physically accelerating the next target’s responses will give you some more time to talk with them...” Damni quietly suggested.

In the next two iterations, Sen attempted to recruit the fat man to defend the girl. Damni had been right about physically accelerating the mortals. It had changed the outcome, but not positively. Instead, it resulted in not only the origin motivator’s expungement but several other elevator occupants dying as well.

The chaos agent had not been able to dominate the fat man’s psyche because of Sen’s very brief and useless mental linking. Instead, the actor chose the elderly lady with the shears. Ultimately, the elder had disabled the young woman with rapid strikes to the trachea and shattered her skull against the metal back wall of the elevator. The large hand shears had been left deep in the carotid artery of the fat man as he tried and failed to hold the elderly woman back.

Most unfortunately, now the chaos agent knew Senyak was on to him. As Sen feared, this significantly worsened things.

Seven iterations left to stop him.

Two more times, Sen attempted to recruit the fat man and instruct him in basic striking and self-defense. Sen’s efforts achieved only negligible results. The few seconds he had for instruction before the chaos agent moved in were just not enough to make a difference.

With so many iterations lost, a clear pattern of the chaos agent’s movements became clear. He systematically went down the metaphysical lines from left to right, superior to inferior within the local cuboid’s structure. Even after he had learned of Sen’s interference, the actor had only laughed and mocked Senyak, continuing to slaughter all of the mortals in the elevator because he knew Senyak was watching.

“C’mon Senyak, great and mighty second-seeded heir of the noble Marztanak Hegemony! Wouldn’t it be truly dharmic and right— not to mention honorable, to simply accept your ineptitude and failure rather than refusing to see that you have lost? All you are doing is increasing these mortals’ suffering... “

Sen didn’t respond.

“... No? Well then, let me show you exactly what I mean!”

The chaos agent then proceeded to mutilate every elevator occupant, leaving them conscious as they bled out. The fat man Senyak had linked to begged Sen to do something... anything... before succumbing to unconsciousness and meaningless death.

Five iterations left.

Sen then tried to interact with the old lady, which only resulted in the fat man taking the shears away from her, killing everyone in the elevator, and then dying himself at the end of the dominion.

“Surely you see that these mortals are just resources for us to use. This is not murder, Senyak. I’m just reaping wheat to make bread, for Transcendence’s sake!”

Four iterations left.

Damni reached over tentatively with a hand and placed it on his forearm. “Sen, you need to see something concerning the anomaly I have been looking into. If the chaos agent continues in his current pattern, in four iterations, there are eight people in the elevator, not seven. This anomalous male is a survivor of a violent attack that left him dead in 99.96 percent of all iterations at a very early age. He’s also carrying a briefs case, which I believe will significantly change the probability outcomes compared to how things have occurred so far.”

The next three iterations proceeded in a grimly familiar fashion, consisting mainly of mocking comments, laughter, bloodshed, slaughter–more laughter, and two comments about the insufficiency of Senyak’s avatar’s genitalia…

One iteration left to stop him...