"To begin with, you’ve been brought here to participate in a multiversal tournant. You’ll compete against teams from worlds in different universes, for a most sought-after prize. You’re currently in a dinsional space that exists within the multiverse, and this space belongs to .
Here, I’m in control. See, I experience ti differently, it’s like everything and nothing is happening at the sa ti, and it gets boring. So, to keep myself entertained, I sent out thousands of invitations to different worlds all over the multiverse."
"In other words, we’re being forced to participate in this tournant for the sake of your amusent?" Surmised Aster with a grimace.
"Well, yeah, I suppose that’s one way of looking at it. To be fair, the majority of people who accept my invitations know exactly what they’re getting themselves into and what they’re fighting for. It’s pretty unusual for people to end up here without aning to, like you did, I don’t often get unwilling participants...but what’s done is done, so you’ll participate regardless."
"You ntioned a reward, what exactly is at stake here?" Inquired Antel warily.
"Well, it’s a prize that countless worlds have co here to fight for, so rest assured, it’ll be worth the trouble. It’s a device that lets you go back in ti to a fixed point in ti, just once. Whoever activates the device will keep their mories, along with anyone else they’re in direct physical contact with when they activate it.
Everyone else will simply forget whatever happened beyond the specified fixed point in ti, so you’ll have to keep that in mind if you win. Once you use the device, you’ll essentially reset your world from the point you travel back to, it’ll be your new present, and the ti that was undone can never be restored. For instance, say you traveled one year into the past...there’s a very real possibility that kids who were conceived during the ti that was undone will never exist."
"You an, like, the butterfly effect?" Inquired Akila with a frown.
"Mhm, exactly. It’s a real thing, so I’d advise against going too far back in ti, the smallest, seemingly insignificant, changes can result in massive deviations. The further back you travel, the more things are going to change, I’d say traveling back three months or less would be ideal, too much further and the changes will be imnsely drastic, and more often than not, for the worse."
"This doesn’t seem like all that great a prize to , it sound like the drawbacks are far too severe, I would say that they outweigh the potential benefits. What’s the point of using this device if it’s that risky?" Responded Jules with a grimace.
"Well, let’s say a big disaster happens in your world, where tons of people die and everything is ruined. Wouldn’t you want to have a way to travel back in ti in such situations, situations where you have nothing to lose?"
"I...suppose that’s true..."
"Like I said before, the device can only be used once, so it’s sothing you should only use I’m case of ergency. Oh, and also, only the surviving mbers of the winning team can use the device. Let’s say you win the competition, and take the device back to your world. Once every one of you dies, the device will be useless.
Therefore, if it remains unused by the ti you all die, it’ll disappear. If you win the contest, you can specify the fixed ti you want to set the device to, and you can always update it afterwards. Each ti you update it, the point in ti you’ll travel to becos the instant you make the update. For instance, if you already had the device and updated it now, and then activated it later, you’d travel back to this mont again.
Well, that’s only a hypothetical, I’m not going to allow anyone to enter this place without an invitation, so yeah."
"Does that an we can’t set it to take us to an earlier point in ti, before the ti that was set in the update?" Raven asked him.
"Mhm, precisely. Think of the update like a save point in a video ga-...wait, it seems those don’t exist in your world. Well, whatever, it looks like you all get it, so it’s fine."
"That does sound pretty useful. Too bad we can only use it once," Lexia sighed wistfully.
"Yeah, the device will disappear after it’s used once. But, hey, being able to ti travel even once is pretty incredible, wouldn’t you say? And I’d say it’s a fair trade for entertaining . Giving you the ability to ti travel endlessly would be way too much, so yeah, it only gets one use."
"Damn it, do we really have no choice but to play along? While that device does sound like it would be incredibly useful to have, I don’t like the idea of doing as soone else pleases, just to entertain them," Jules frowned, feeling conflicted, before continuing her train of thought, "Well, if our only option is to fight, then I suppose we should pay attention and get all the information we can. We still have no idea exactly what we’re in for, after all."
"Guess I’ll get into the details of the tournant. To begin with, it’s called the Multiversal Clash of Space and Ti, or MCST for short. Five teams of fifteen will clash and participate in a number of competitions, and whichever team has the highest number of points by the end, wins. I should say, the possibility of being killed is very real.
While killing isn’t explicitly necessary, a lot of the competitors I’ve hosted have resorted to killing their opponents in the competitions, since eliminating key players in the other teams raises their own team’s chances of winning the whole thing. So, even if you win, there’s a possibility that your team might suffer a few casualties."
"So, killing isn’t necessary, but doing so could make the rest of the tournant easier," Surmised Colt thoughtfully.
"Wait...for this to work, wouldn’t five of your invites across five different worlds need to be activated around the sa ti?" Spoke up Raven.
"Hah, please...in case it wasn’t clear, ti is my domain, so that makes no difference to . I’m one with the flow of ti across the entire multiverse, so from my perspective, such delays aren’t an issue. The concept isn’t comprehensible to normal people, so there’s no point in trying to explain how it works."
"Hold on, if that’s the case, couldn’t you easily pick a different team from a different world, since, you know, we don’t want to be here?" Chid in Kora with a frown.
"I suppose I could, but I’m not going to. It’s too much of a hassle, so I’ll just have you guys participate."
"What if we, and the other teams, all refuse to participate?" Inquired Celia.
"That won’t happen. Your team is the only one that doesn’t want to be here. The others all activated their invites deliberately, they ca here for the reward. Oh, another little detail, when activated, the invite selects the fifteen most powerful individuals within a five hundred ter radius, in case you guys were wondering," Explained the figure, before adding as he narrowed his eyes at Akila, "Hm? Hold on...are we from the sa world? Yeah, we are, looks like you’re from the era before WWIII."
"Huh? There was a third one? Wait, so you’re human? From the future of my old world?"
"Yeah, that’s right. Though, I’m not really human anymore. When I was human, my powers were a lot more limited but I was still the most powerful being in my world. My ti-based abilities kept from aging, I outlived everyone I knew while my power kept steadily growing, until my physical body could no longer handle it. My body effectively died, but my soul was way too powerful to pass on, even the Divine Beings who rule over the multiverse can’t do a thing about , so they usually just leave alone.
Basically, I can’t die, and there’s no point in forming connections with others because I’ll inevitably outlive them. Even those who are immortal don’t last forever, but I do. And, well, it gets really, really boring. I usually entertain myself by observing random worlds and getting invested in the stories of random people, but as my power continued to grow and I ssed around with it, I figured out how to use it better, which led to creating the one-off ti travel devices and coming up with this tournant."
"I suppose I can sympathize, but I’d be a lot more sympathetic if you weren’t using us as a source of entertainnt for yourself, it’s rather degrading, God of Space and Ti," Replied Jules dryly.
"Hm, that’s a bit of a mouthful, so for the sake of convenience, just call ...Kilzachs."
Reviews
All reviews (0)