Levi was rarely ever speechless. The opposite, in fact; even in the most tense, precarious situations, he always seemed to manage to somehow put his foot in his mouth and say the exact wrong combination of words that invariably resulted in some sort of political incident or another. And yet, as he looked down at the very decidedly inhuman girl who’d just greeted him by name despite never having seen her before, Levi found that words had completely escaped him.
She was beautiful. Inhumanly so. Black hair, black eyes, skin so pale that he could see veins filled with silver ichor beneath her skin. Her features were flawless and perfect, too perfect to be human. He already knew that though; no human could survive complete immersion in liquid mana. She looked to be about his age, perhaps a bit older, though Levi knew better than to assume. Her expression was emotionless – no, that wasn’t the right word.
Emotionless implied that showing emotion was an inherent, natural state, yet she looked to be completely at ease, as though emotions were an aberration to her. It was like calling a rock ‘emotionless’; the term simply didn’t apply.
Levi’s eyes flickered downward as he scanned the rest of her form. She wore nothing, and he noted both the distinct lack of trained muscles and also the small scar running from her ribcage to just above her navel. It was perhaps four inches across, an ultra-fine line barely a hair’s breadth. It was the only mark marring her otherwise flawless skin.
Wait. Levi channeled more magic to his eyes, his True Sight intensifying, and he nearly swore.
It wasn’t a scar. It was an open, metaphysical wound – and it was where dark magic was spilling forth into the world in unfathomable waves, unceasing and constant as though her very body was a reservoir of corrupted mana. Indeed, her very presence felt wrong, as though she didn’t belong to this world.
Perhaps she didn’t.
“Who are you?” Levi breathed.
The girl tilted her head. “Excuse me? Is this your attempt at what they refer to as ‘humor’? You know who I am, Levi Ironwood.”
“I’m sorry, but I don’t recall.”
The girl’s eyes flickered with something that might have been worry. She considered him carefully. “Have all your loops finally driven you mad?”
Levi tensed up. He’d expected her to have known the former Levi Ironwood somehow, but he hadn’t thought that she would know about his nature as a regressor. “Not quite mad,” he answered, keeping his expression impassive, trying to not give anything away. “But I would appreciate a refresher all the same.”
“I’m hurt,” she said, not sounding hurt in the slightest, or even sardonic. Her voice held the specific tone that indicated she understood the language enough to know what words to say without knowing how to generate the accompanying emotions behind them. Levi had met enough nonhuman beings to immediately recognize that tone. “You’ve forgotten me already? At least you remembered enough to come rescue me. For that, I thank you.” She tilted her head. “Though, you don’t seem to be as flustered by my state of undress as last time. Your cheeks are not as red.”
Levi blinked. Huh?
Oh, right. She was fully naked. Levi didn’t really care. He had seen too many corpses by this point to be flustered by a bit of nudity, and he was professional enough to maintain a clinical mindset. But he supposed his counterpart might have been a bit different.
“Last time?” he asked.
“When we first met,” the girl said. Her accent was peculiar, almost lyrical in nature. “When I told you to disable your System and find me when you awakened.”
Levi’s eyes widened fractionally. What? He nearly dropped her in shock. She was the one responsible for the former Levi Ironwood locking his System? She was the reason why his counterpart had struggled so much during this loop? His expression set.
“Who are you?” he asked again, this time in a harder voice. “What are you?”
The girl smiled. It was an utterly mechanical movement, devoid of any and all emotions. “I am–”
Her next word wasn’t a sound. It couldn’t be perceived by mortal sensory organs, more a collection of impressions and distortions. Yet, Levi heard it anyway. He flinched as cold shivers shot down his spine, the hairs on the back of his neck standing up.
“–though,” the girl continued, “I understand if you lack the ability to pronounce my name. As I said before, you can call me Selene. As for what I am…” Her eyes flickered. “I am the last remaining person of my home world. The sole survivor of the Consumption.”
Levi went still. The Consumption. That was the ruinous calamity that the former Levi Ironwood had been trying to prevent. The cause of the shortening of souls’ lifespans using the System’s connection to every living being as a medium.
This world wasn’t the first world to be afflicted by the Consumption? There were others that had fallen victim?
And Selene was a survivor?
“What is the Consumption?” Levi asked. “Who is behind it? What… What happened to your home world? What happened to you?”
Selene regarded him silently for a moment. “You really have forgotten everything… Well, I suppose there’s no helping it. I can scarcely blame you, after knowing what you’ve gone through. It’s a wonder you’re still sane.” A terrible look crossed her face, her black eyes paradoxically shining even darker. “The Consumption is a calamity where all the Life is drained from a world by an extradimensional, eldritch entity. We called it the Devourer. It works in tandem with another entity that we call the Chorus.”
“Devourer and Chorus…”
Names held power, and Levi definitely felt it when he uttered them. A freezing wind seemed to blow through the room, and for once, it wasn’t due to his magic. In his arms, Selene shivered slightly.
Speaking of, Levi made to set her down, but she touched his arm, making him pause.
“I appreciate the faith, but I don’t think I can stand just yet. I was held captive for a month inside pure liquid mana. I had to induce a suspended death state to survive, and my muscles still aren’t working properly yet.”
Levi nodded, instead moving over to the wall and gently lowering her to the ground. She leaned back against the wall, looking back up at him.
“Both the Devourer and the Chorus are incredibly powerful beings,” Selene said. “However, the Devourer is less dangerous. In an immediate sense, at least. Due to its extradimensional nature, it is difficult for it to conceptualize into reality. It only exists if observed, and fortunately, it is impossible for most to sense its presence. It is the one responsible for draining the Life from a world, but that is a relatively slow process, occurring over the span of years. On the other hand, the Chorus is the more active side of the partnership. It holds immense mastery over all manners of psychic and mental magic, and it often infiltrates and influences events to facilitate the Devourer, primarily through–”
“Possession,” Levi said, his voice tight.
Selene blinked, then nodded. “Correct. You remember?”
“No,” Levi said, his expression dark. “I encountered it just the previous week.”
So the Chorus was the one who’d possessed Theodore Montague. It was the eldritch entity that had attempted to kill the former Levi Ironwood numerous times in the past. Or was that the future?
And the Devourer… Existence only through observation…
Was that the presence the former Levi Ironwood had always sensed in the same room as him? Was that the one that Levi Ironwood had written about in his final diary entry?
Levi felt a chill run through him that had nothing to do with the wind. His eyes narrowed, and his magic whirled around him.
At long last, he finally knew who the enemy were.
“My home world was in another dimension not too far from this one,” Selene said. “About seven years ago, approximately 95% of the world’s population was eradicated. Men, women, children, it didn’t matter. The least resilient species died first. Humans, dwarves, beastfolk, and so on. Then, stronger beings began dying, then stronger, then stronger. No one knew the reason why.
“It wasn’t until we were down to our last thousand that a Great Elven Seer finally identified the cause. The Devourer had tapped into our world’s System without anyone noticing and used it as a medium to extract the Life from everything and everyone it was connected to. By this point, it was too advanced to stop or reverse, even if we severed our connection to the Systems. Our Time had already been depleted. We were all doomed.”
“So then how did you survive…?” Levi fell silent as he examined her once more. Noted the dark magic seeping and extruding from her form. “Oh. Oh, I see.” His voice was soft. Gentle. “They gave you their remaining Time, didn’t they?”
Selene’s eyes flickered, looking surprised that he’d guessed the solemn truth, but she nodded. “They all sacrificed themselves early so they could transfer their Time to me. A Great Archmage oversaw the whole ritual before giving me her own Time.”
“Such a ritual would’ve been unbelievably dark,” Levi said. It was very similar to what Malazar the Maleficent had done, except instead of transferring the life from others involuntarily, the population had willingly sacrificed themselves. Levi nodded to the scar on her stomach. “That was where the transfer occurred, wasn’t it? That’s why you can’t heal the scar – it’s the result of dark magic.”
Selene tilted her head. “You’re surprisingly knowledgeable for an amnesiac. You’re half-correct; that is indeed where I received the scar. However, it is well within my power as an archdemon to heal it. I keep it as a reminder of everyone’s sacrifice.”
Levi stared at her for a long moment.
“Ah,” he finally said. “I see. Admirable.”
This explained why her presence felt so vile, so wrong. Not only did she not belong in this reality – unlike him, she wasn’t possessing a native body – but she also existed due to dark sacrificial magic and was an archdemon to boot.
“After I received their Time, I then traveled through dimensions to find a world still alive. That was this world. I burst through a crack in dimensions and met you in your previous loop. You quickly figured out who I was and what’d happened, before explaining your circumstances. I was afraid at first when I discovered that the Devourer and Chorus too were threatening this world – not that you knew their names at the time – but then I felt hope when you explained that you were a regressor. Against an eldritch entity that devours a person’s Time, only someone who disregards time could possibly combat it.”
“I see. That was why you told me to cut myself off from the System in my next loop?”
Selene nodded. “You told me that every time the Consumption began, your strength and magic would drastically weaken. Severing the connection in the first place was the most effective way to prevent that.”
Levi’s expression was blank. “I see. How did you travel back in time with me, then?”
“I was able to reverse engineer a rudimentary version of your time travel magic,” Selene said, “albeit a highly imperfect version. I was supposed to end up seven years ago in the past with you, but instead I misshot my target and only returned to about a month ago. Then, in my weakened state, I was apprehended and captured by Institute researchers. I’ve been waiting for you to rescue me ever since. You took longer than expected.”
“My apologies for the delay.” Then, Levi tilted his head. “If you don’t mind me asking… Why did they choose you?”
Selene’s lips parted slightly. “You didn’t ask me this last time…” She was silent for a long moment. “You must realize that by the end, only the strongest beings were still left alive. Dragons, phoenixes, unicorns, Vampiric Lords, high elves, archdemons… Most of them have been alive for centuries if not millennia. And so, when it was time to choose who to pass their Time, their legacy, on to… I thought they would fight about it, but instead…” She swallowed. “Despite their rivalries, despite their enmity, the decision was unanimous. They all agreed to give their remaining Life to the youngest of us all.”
Levi regarded her as, for the first time, her expression showed signs of emotion. Confusion. Astonishment. Even uncertainty. As if even now, she still couldn’t comprehend their decision. “And that was you,” he said quietly.
She nodded. “I was only two centuries old,” she confessed. “They all said that they’d lived out their lives. That it was my turn now to live on in their stead.” She swallowed. “That’s what I’ve been trying to do.”
Two centuries. Barely a blip in archdemon terms. She was much younger than he’d expected. Levi looked at her in a new light.
“The reason why it took me so long is because I’m not Levi Ironwood,” he said suddenly. Selene looked at him questioningly. “Not the one you remember, at least. I don’t know what happened, but I believe the Devourer was somehow able to materialize into existence and kill Levi Ironwood. Then, because his System was locked, Levi Ironwood was unable to activate whatever skill he’d used to regress.”
“What? Then…” Selene hesitated. “How are you…”
“I am Levi,” Levi said. “Levi Ironwood’s dimensional counterpart. Just like you, I’m from another world. I was sent to this dimension on a mission to presumably defeat the Devourer and the Chorus and prevent the Consumption. I reincarnated into Levi Ironwood’s dead body about a month ago. It must’ve been only a few days after you time traveled.”
Selene’s eyes widened. “What?” She seemed to struggle to process this new information. “Then… Why did you save me? How did you even know to save me?”
“When I reincarnated a month ago, I sensed an incredibly potent and vile dark magic at the top of the Institute tower,” Levi said. “It wasn’t until today that I was able to finally gain access to the Restricted Sanctum and track you down.” He paused, looking at the destroyed door laying on the ground. “Limited access,” he admitted. “Please don’t tell anyone I was here…”
Selene stared at him. “So you broke into the Restricted Sanctum to investigate the source of dark magic?”
Levi nodded.
“Then… Why did you rescue me? You had no idea who I was. You must’ve sensed how unnatural and abhorrent my presence is. Any reasonable individual would’ve made the assumption that I was restrained for a good reason.”
Levi was silent for a moment.
Finally, he said:
“Because when I saw you inside the glass chamber… You were crying.”
Selene stared at him, completely lost. “I don’t understand. I don’t believe this body even has tear ducts. How was I crying?”
Levi smiled. “Someone wise once told me that you don’t need tears to cry. I don’t know what dreams, or nightmares, you had, but…” He knelt down in front of her and gazed solemnly into her eyes. “Things will be okay now.”
She looked stunned for a moment.
Then, she smiled. This one was slightly less mechanical than the last. “That’s what he said to me last time too, you know…” She nodded. “You truly are his counterpart. Very well. If your mission is to defeat the Devourer and Chorus, then that means we’re allies.”
Slowly, she climbed to her feet, her legs shaky. She trailed her hand across the air, and a midnight black dress of shadows formed around her body.
“What shall we do?” Levi asked. “I’ve been trying to figure out how to locate them both, but I have no idea how.”
“I’m not surprised,” Selene said. “The enemy we face is tricky. Chorus is nearly impossible to track down. Thankfully, Devourer is much easier.”
“What do you mean–?” Levi paused. “Ah. I see. For it to use the System as a medium, it must also be connected.”
“Precisely. To track down the Devourer, we must simply reach the System Source.”