Infinite Paths: The Raging Phoenix-Chapter 1535: Unseen future

As the tension in the air thickened, Lonos suddenly materialized in the midst of the battlefield, his presence commanding attention and sending a wave of apprehension rippling through the warriors. At the sight of him, a collective gulp echoed among the ranks...

Initially, some had dismissed Lonos’s voice as a mere ploy, a trick orchestrated by Fortus to instill fear in their hearts. But as Lonos stood before them, resplendent and unscathed, it became painfully clear that this was no illusion. The overseer had indeed graced them with his presence, and his intentions were as inscrutable as ever.

With a sinking feeling in their hearts, the warriors realized the implications of Lonos’s arrival. If he had come alone, it could only mean one thing: Rain had fallen in battle. The realization sent shockwaves through their ranks, a somber reminder of the stakes they faced in their struggle against the machine gods.

"... WhaT happened to him?" Terra asked while glaring at Lonos.

"He was defeated, that is all. Or do you want to know the details of his death? I suppose that must be something his family would want to ask. As expected of his allies, you were making Fortus work pretty hard as well. As the only remaining machine god aside from me, you can’t die now, Fortus."

With a flick of his fingers, Lonos unleashed his power, casting a spell of time reversal upon Fortus. The massive dice-like body soon began to transform.

In a matter of mere seconds, the impossible happened. The shattered sides of Fortus’s body, destroyed by the onslaught of attacks, began to mend and reform, knitting back together with astonishing speed. The once-ruined sections of his form were restored to their former glory as if the damage inflicted upon them had never occurred.

The warriors stood dumbfounded, their expressions a mixture of shock and disbelief. Their hard-won progress, the fruits of their tireless efforts, had been effortlessly undone by Lonos’s intervention. It was a sobering reminder of the vast power wielded by the machine gods and the daunting challenges they faced in their quest for victory.

"He pushed me quite a bit and forced me to use several of my best techniques against him. Still, every single being made of flesh and bones is ultimately defenseless against time. I turned his body into the state it was before it became true organic matter. You can say that I canceled what made him different from the dust that you find around in the cosmos. You can think that he became what he was supposed to be if his spirit had never existed in the first place."

Few people could understand what had been said... but they all could tell that Rain had been attacked by something that went way beyond their imaginations. Rain wasn’t the leader of the group, but his oldest friends, allies, and family were the core of that massive group, so their response to those words might cause the deaths of everyone... Still, much to everyone’s surprise, those who were supposed to be the most affected by the news were just silently healing themselves.

"All right, guys. You know the drill," Roan said. "Our hard work was canceled, so we will have to try again. Let’s learn from our past actions to make things more efficient."

"Sakaki, you obtained the information, right?" Sealyn asked. "Organize our forces to attack the enemies in the right order."

"You guys are taking this surprisingly well," Elisabetha said.

"Maybe they are thinking that Rain will return one hundred years later again, and they just had to endure until then..." Nigel said.

"We have our own countermeasures too, remember?" Jori said.

Both of the machine gods looked a bit confused... while the overall strength of the group was many times higher than they had predicted, their behavior was completely off... it felt like they had a better card than Rain... while they could tell that some people were missing on the group, that didn’t seem like a true secret plan.

Thanks to the confusion and lack of focus, the machine gods gave everyone enough time for them to heal themselves... the best of them like Terra only needed ten seconds to heal a completely battered body, whil the slowest ones needed thirty seconds... they trained a lot their healing skills in those ten years.

Still, that came with a price: The group only had so much mana left. Their best option was to rely on stamina, so they activated their maxed-out Limit Breaker.

"... It seems that you will be in a bind again, Fortus. If I don’t give you a hand, the future isn’t set in stone this time... we lack enough information about their plans, apparently. Given enough time, all of them can become a problem like the other one. It seems that I was right in making that promise to him. Their connection and the power that they all share is something that can truly shape the future."

"... Thanks to the previous attacks, all of my spells were canceled, so starting all over again with their experience might be troublesome, as you say. We don’t want those two attacking us after we expend our resources and show all of our abilities, so it might be advisable if you help me here."

"You have a point, but I want to see how far they can go against you and maintain the future uncertain. Since I faced that human, it seemed that things were changing, and this had never happened before... I believe it is because we never faced a group that could change the future. In the end, our mission stands above our interests, so I will help you this once."

Lonos snapped his fingers, and then time stopped completely for everyone except him and Fortus. Before long, Fortus began to spin again to select the best ability that he had to eliminate all the enemies. This time, he spun for a while since that was how his body worked... However, all of a sudden... Lonos’ face was smashed by a punch, and he was pushed to the distance.