Chapter 1709 Right on Time

--- Lily ---

After failing to get into the central room through what seemed to be outside interference it wasn’t hard to just attack somewhere else. Now Lily, Meg and Pebbles were falling from the ceiling and everyone was reacting. Meg was ready, she’d swapped positions and was now heading downwards with her arm out in front with her space needles out in front. She didn’t bother wondering if it was best to keep delaying, or trying to find the ultimate weakness. She could see enough and her target was right there.

Hunter’s gun was in her hands and loaded. It was just standard ammo but having seen Meg appear and be so ready to attack she was willing to back the sloth demon up. Hunter might not know the best course of action but she trusted Meg, and if the other demon was ready to attack there must be a reason for it. She’d also run out of topics to go over so this was much less awkward.

Lily was reaching out with two shadowy claws. Unlike Meg and Hunter it wasn’t really something she was thinking about. She was falling, and could tell the others were attacking so she did. Lily didn’t have the proper experience to slow her mind down and really take things in. There was an attack happening and she knew to be a part of it. Her claws were trying to stretch out and around the figure below them, trying to lock them in place and force them to take an attack. Heck, Lily hadn’t even recognised the face on the figure. They just looked monstrous enough that her conscious mind had no issue attacking.

Strdl didn’t really know what to do… so she did nothing. She didn’t have Lily’s ingrained instincts to just attack, nor the level of perception required to really think it through. Instead, she jumped backwards and threw up a wall of crystals in front of her just in case.

Pebbles also wasn’t sure what to do but he went on the attack. Trvis had caused a lot of damage and Pebbles found himself with a target. A spell sigil sprung to life and soon Pebbles was covered in a cocoon of stone shaped like a diamond as he fell downwards. It would both soften his landing and hopefully be a real problem for the creature below him.

The creature below him had different plans in mind. A few breaths before the attacks would land Trvis simply teleported out of the way. At least, that’s what it looked like to Lily. Meg collided with the ground and quickly chased after Trvis as the other attacks landed but Hunter was faster, and she had a gun.

Hunter fired at the new location and Trvis teleported once again. "You know this isn’t going to work," said Trvis between jumps. He’d teleport right as Hunter fired ensuring that he wasn’t ever in line to get hit. Lily watched this and tried to find a way to catch him but for her it was too fast. For Meg? Well she was noticing a pattern.

Meg threw herself to the side and lashed out at thing air just before Trvis appeared… above her. Up to this point Trvis had been teleporting around the room but had remained firmly on the ground. Meg had been counting on this to strike at her target and had been rebuffed. Especially as Trvis could stand on nothing.

"I do mean it when I said it wasn’t going to work," said Trvis as he continued to teleport avoiding Hunter’s rapidly firing shots. It was a miracle that he could be understood at all. Or time magic. Probably time magic now that Lily thought about it. "I’d rather not be fighting or dodging right now as I suspect that using my powers will worsen my condition but I’ll do it if I have to,"

"You can still talk?" asked Pebbles as he started to summon obelisks from the ground as traps. Sure he was less certain about killing something that spoke… but he wasn’t willing to risk letting this Trvis go. He’d done worse arguably. Sure he hadn’t ever killed anyone before but Pebbles had robbed a lot of people, and there were a few that might not have been able to deal with the fallout after that. Still, talking might be a distraction.

"For now at least… Pebbles. An amusing nickname that I am disappointed I didn’t hear about earlier. I am surprised it didn’t come up at any point but I suppose most of the people who remember are either too scared or don’t exactly talk to you anymore," said Trvis.

"Look is everyone just going to call me that now?" hissed Pebbles as he kept summoning pillars. Soon the entire room was filled and Trvis had no choice but to trigger one. Sadly for Pebbles the hulking figure simple weathered the strike. Trvis teleport had exited right next ton one, it had launched itself at the fleshy exposed bits… and crumbled on impact.

Pebbles sighed, "Like, I don’t want to be too mad at it but really? Also why didn’t that hurt you?"

"While I am willing to be quite open about things in an effort to buy myself time that particular secret is one I’m going to hide," stated Trvis.

At the same time Lily was setting up her own traps. She’d managed to make use of the small shadows on the floor and extend her control to most of the room. The next time Trvis teleported Lily would be ready. She’d sort of gotten the feel for them, or at least enough of an idea of how the space moved to accommodate Trvis that she could track him. Darts of shadow launched from the crevices and cracks in the ground straight up at Trvis.

Unlike stone, shadows were much less tangible and Lily hoped they wouldn’t be so susceptible to whatever Trvis had done to avoid taking damage from Pebbles’ pillars. The darts connected with meaty thuds, lodging themselves into the pulsating mass that made up Trvis midsection but he seemed completely unconcerned and just teleported again once Meg got close, avoiding an attack from her and a shot from Hunter.

"He just sped up time massively around the stones," added Meg after missing.

"Right but how do we avoid it?" responded Pebbles.

"It’s not a permanently on technique, he has to actively think about using it… but honestly he’s a mess. If we can get good hit on him then he’ll die… but it’s really going to be a pain making contact with the attack. His big weakness is one he basically already knows. Using too much power will send him insane… but we don’t really want that either? Maybe?" explained Meg.

Hunter fired off three shots. One at Trvis and two where she thought he might appear but Trvis was able to, either see into the future or just sense them coming and picked a different spot to teleport to. "Why is it a maybe?"

"Because insane Trvis might just run from us, and we REALLY don’t want that. It’s an awkward impasse actually. The big issue is that we can outlast him. His defence seems strong… but his attacks are actually quite weak. As long as we’re not struck directly by him we’ll be alright, and even then Lil Sis and I will be fine… and Lily will probably be ok?" explained Meg.

’why?!’ Lily wrote in shadows. Just because she could she then sent the big ’why’ off at Trvis to try and hurt him. She failed. "Because it ages things rapidly but as thinking creatures we have more resistance. Hunter and I should live long enough that even if we lose a century or two it’s not going to kill us and our bodies can probably adjust to the shock of it quickly.

"Strdl and Pebbles it’ll probably kill… but you? I genuinely have no idea how it’ll interact. Your life is directly bound to Kat’s. You’re not going to just age out of that… but really I don’t know, I’m not an expert on this type of thing. Plus you’d probably grow older in that form so you might not be used to how it all feels and THAT could get you killed some other way," Read new chapters at empire

*Not something I’d thought to be worried about. But I can see it…* Lily shot a bunch of shadow spikes up behind her at the thought. Apparently Trvis thought he could use this chance to catch her off guard. The shadows dug into his flesh and… didn’t do much. Again. *Is Meg CERTAIN that he isn’t all that strong? Those spikes didn’t seem to do much. Do I need more mana? A better angle of attack? What can we really do here?*

Lily found that she just didn’t know. The constant teleporting was annoying and made it impossible to land clean blows. The few attacks that had hit so far were mostly her own and Pebbles but they didn’t exactly hurt the guy. So what was the best course of action?

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