John undid the Possessions he had left along the ascension path. Their purpose had been fulfilled and there was no reason for John to keep spending that mana. Only two more Possessions stayed in place afterwards, his glasses and the coin he had flicked at Ahanu earlier. Even that was separated once John made the coin heavily vibrate in the man's pocket. After all, the targets had arrived.

That Sigmund was completely restored, from his arm to his eye, was something that John simply took as it was. It pissed him off hugely, new limbs and eyes bought by tearing apart the lives and bodies of hundreds of others. Selfish indulgence rewarded with a body stronger than 99.9% could even dream off.

“Him again?” Sigmund asked. “The Gamer is not a challenge anymore, Sam. I am not even sure if he was the first time we met.”

Quietly, John clenched his fists. That was absolutely correct, but that didn't mean it was any less of a dent in his pride. 'Soon I won't have to hear that fucker ever again,' he thought, glancing over to Seminaris.

It was paramount to get Seminaris to use that first spell on him. Everything afterward was going to be a simple question of time. “No, he isn't who you're here to fight,” Seminaris told her master and smirked at John. “He just happened to know Eliza.”

'Wait, they're here for Eliza?' John blinked in confusion. That they came to fight him in addition to another army or just Ahanu, that had been his expected reasons for their invasion. 'Can't ask them quite yet,' he scolded himself and said what he needed to say. “Look, I can only give you the warning, turn around or die.”

Ultimately, their reason for being here didn't matter. Only that they were here did. If it were up to John, he would have taken them ignoring the warning every day of the week. His mind was made up after everything. Ironically, the true win for him (and the world at large) would be if what he wanted didn't happen.

“He is threatening us,” Seminaris giggled. “Sig, feel free to ignore the puppy.” They both raised their hands and John immediately followed into the barrier.

The storm of blue light within the monument was still whirling atop the mountain ridge, a swarm of souls confined to an arena of ancestors and nature itself. Immediately, Sigmund knew where his target was. Seminaris raised an eyebrow, “Seems like we're interrupting something.”

“I am serious…” the Gamer began, but Sigmund was already stomping forwards.

Four elementals manifested around him, only to immediately switch into their item forms and wrap themselves around the Contender. A chattering, greenish air spirit first, palavering about the fun they were going to have today, turned into an amulet that settled around Sigmund’s neck. Second, a woman made from flowing blood, a black skeleton floating loosely inside. Still a liquid, she flowed over Sigmund’s body and covered his skin up to the collarbone. Third came the armour, born from a woman with skin as black as obsidian, with a voluptuous curvy body that was covered by nothing, yet she covered Sigmund entirely once she turned into the stone plate. Last was the black manta ray, the shadow spirit flew one circle around his contractor, barely bigger than Stirwin at first, then turned into the black, tattered cape that hung from Sigmund’s back.

Extending his hand into the air, gripping into a pocket space, the black swordsman retrieved the last bit of his equipment. Bit by bit, the massive claymore Tietan was pulled from nowhere, energy rippling through the air as the semi-sentient sword writhed invisibly with anticipation.

The Contender didn’t take further notice of John, not even of the fact that the Gamer was standing in the way. With the same amount of effort or care that it would take someone to pass through a door, Sigmund shoved John to the side. Letting it happen, John flew a solid two metres to the right, his glasses flying off his nose and landing somewhere else entirely. In response to the threat, and to restore John’s field of view, his elementals manifested. Undine took her usual spot around his arm.

“Have fun, Sig,” Seminaris shouted after him and the Contender gave a quiet thumbs-up that may have looked cool if John hadn’t hated the man’s guts.

“You’re going nowhere!” John shouted, clearly telegraphing his attack where he normally would have simply thrown a Shardbound. As he wanted, the response came immediately. Seminaris produced her staff from nowhere. The small scythe-like blade at the top cut into space itself as she quickly whirled it around. John, the ground he lay on, the elementals around him, they all were suddenly placed elsewhere.

And then he began to fall. Gravity pulled the Gamer down, just like it did with Seminaris. Clouds soared around them; the First of Patience said something mocking but the rushing of air made it impossible to make out. They were high above ground, that much John could discern rather easily. Some Protected Space in the distance that Seminaris had chosen to use as the dumping ground.

If there was one weakness within Seminaris’ teleporting powers that John knew about, it was that the First of Patience always teleported herself along with her unwilling victims, even when using it aggressively. The drawback of being contracted as a supporting force, most likely. It would have been a problem for John if she was still with Sigmund, assuring his retreat.

A short skirmish exploded in the sky. Salamander and Sylph circled around the flying Seminaris and bombarded her with spells. Something that turned out to be a massive mistake as the First of Patience opened portals all around her that flung the attacks of one at the other. No damage was taken by either side, Sylph darting off to the side while the endflame elemental waved away her sister’s misguided attacks with a wall of flame.

They were at a stalemate, but John just smiled as he followed all of this with the borrowed eyes. Falling like a literal rock at his side, Gnome was way more startled at their accelerating fall. Even the earth spirit’s words were dragged away.

‘Just go incorporeal,’ he told her with some amusement, himself uncaring about the fall. Following that advice, the brunette vanished into thin air, as did Siena, while John ordered back Sylph and Salamander. There was no sense in attacking Seminaris right now, not if she just flung every attack back at them. John also wasn’t exactly hard-pressed to defeat her.

Which turned out to be a bit of arrogance on his side. While Seminaris couldn’t forcefully teleport someone else without her accompanying her victim, the same could not be said for people going through portals that she opened in their path. Evidently having deemed John to have reached terminal velocity, she opened a portal under him that connected straight to the ground.

With a jolt of panic so intense that it synced his mind up with Sylph, he and the thunderstorm elemental came to the immediate solution for this problem in the form of a massive gust of wind that threw the Gamer sideways. Not watching that idly, Seminaris opened another portal a few moments later.

With even his glasses ripped away, the Possession too distant to still use it, all the Gamer could do was feel his body tumbling through the air and watch it happen through the perspective of Sylph. It was like he was the ball in a funfair game. Which, given that it was giving him absolutely terrible nausea, was everything but fun.

The game came to a sudden and thankful end when Salamander caught him by the arm and slowed him down to a gentle floating the rest of the way to the ground. “Well, that was… something,” John shook his head and held onto his fire spirit; even while blind everything was swirling. All that tumbling had thrown his balance in a complete mess.

Reaching around himself, John felt soft soil under his shoes and the gentle tickle of wheat against his palms. He was standing in a field somewhere, a clearly magical house, the top floor was floating, in the distance. Some Abyssal had found his love in agriculture and his field would now be used as a battleground, it seemed. The Gamer just hoped the explosions in the sky had been enough to tip whoever was living here off that they had to leave for a few hours.

Seminaris landed a few metres away from John, settling softly amongst the golden corn. All about her was a confident defence pose, one that transformed into a relaxed mockery when John began to laugh. “Did your bad luck turn you insane?” the First of Patience asked. “I have to admit, running into Sig’s path thrice is…”

“No, no, no,” John waved off mockingly staring in her direction with his milky eyes. “You don’t know, that’s what’s funny.” Seminaris tilted her head in an amused fashion, still thinking he was going cuckoo. “I wondered again and again, how come you risked killing me? With Eliza around, I thought people would be wiser than that. Now I get it, a lot of people just don’t take it seriously, because they don’t know everything and YOU just don’t know at all.”

Taking a pause to fix his suit, the Gamer revelled in seeing the black-haired woman catch onto the fact that there was something amiss. Nevertheless, she was maintaining her perceived superiority. “I looked at your Eliza,” Seminaris let him know with a smirk on her own. “My eyes perceive all power, and I can tell you as a matter of fact, she is weaker than Sigmund is right now.”

“Okay,” John shrugged. “Good thing he isn’t fighting her then.” Now Seminaris’ gaze became bewildered, and John, although he should have played for time, couldn’t help but gloat. “Do you really think I wouldn’t have made a plan for you the third time around? I was expecting you to come around, especially once I learned you were in the city.”

More and more, the First of Patience lost her cool. Not because she necessarily thought John was telling the truth by the contents of his words, but because he was standing there with such an utter lack of care for her opinion that she couldn’t help but accept what he was saying. At the very least, she had to seriously consider the possibility.

“Ahanu, his bodyguard, they all left already. They retrieved their most venerated ancestors and brought them somewhere else, all because I informed them that THIS was so likely to happen. You don’t know what’s inside Eliza and neither do you know what ritual you interrupted. THAT’S what is funny,” John pulled his belt into the correct position and was finally done fixing his attire. “I had two choices regarding this. Either I could have postponed the ritual, told Ahanu to hide somewhere and just wait until you were sighted at some part of the continent where it would have been impossible for you to come back in time.”

‘John maybe you shouldn’t hold a villain monologue?’ Gnome carefully interrupted.

‘Shut up, this is great!’ Salamander and Siena disagreed vehemently at the same time.

“I could have freed Eliza from her burden more reliably this way. Granted that you wouldn’t have found and killed them anyway. Granted that she wouldn’t have further melded until then. Granted, that you would wreak yet more havoc upon my territories, ruined the lives of how many more opponents and innocent bystanders,” John went with the advice from the less morally righteous this time. It just felt too good to stand here and explain the demise of the Contender, watch his most trusted ally listen in shock. “Or I could have went ahead with the ritual. Be it Ahanu or whatever else you wanted to challenge, they were the bait to get you here.”

“Bait to what end?!” Seminaris wasn’t even pretending to still be superior at this point.

The smile on John’s face died off. This path would, with the utmost guarantee, block the ritual from succeeding the next time around. It would leave him and Eliza in the same situation as before. The removal of one uncontrollable maniac came at the cost of a flesh made apocalypse continuing to roam the earth.

Simply said, there was no telling what would have happened in either case. It may very well be that Eliza remained in control until the end of her life, making this choice meaningless. It may also be that the decision today would end countless more lives in the long run than Sigmund could have ever claimed.

Between two horrible decisions, John had taken the less reliable one. A sin that the Gamer was willing to bear. Because the initial reward for this would be the death of someone he hated. Because he trusted Eliza. Because the enemy he knew was better than the enemy he didn’t.

“I lost to you once, there is absolutely no denying that,” John admitted freely. “Your brute force overcame what plans and precautions I had in place. I prioritized things wrongly because Sigmund meddling in this seemingly anarchic way wasn’t something I thought was likely. This time, I might not win, what I really wanted will be impossible to attain, but the only loss today will be your ‘king candidate’ reduced to a broken mess. I don’t have to win against him myself, I just have to know the real ‘challenge’.” The word dripped in disdain, both for Sigmund and the entity John was using to get rid of him. “He may be stronger than Eliza, but can he defeat the goddess of genocide?”

Seminaris mouth opened and closed as if she wanted to retort. There were no gods within humans. Whatever other entity he was talking about, she would have seen its power. Her opponent’s confident stance silenced all of those words before they could even surface.

John had already realized that the separation that fooled Observe would have also fooled any sort of aura sight. How would Seminaris see what Romulus himself hadn't been able to? “I guess you are quite patient,” the Gamer was smirking again, openly mocking Seminaris as she threw her hand up and tried to leave the barrier. John's Fateweaver levels prevent this. “And I guess you would have a lot of people to look into, being just one person. Why read up on the person Sigmund has already shown he can beat,” he gestured at himself. “How would you find out about Thana without an entire information apparatus? Neither she or her host has done anything on this continent since we arrived. Don't take it too hard on yourself.”

Going for another approach, Seminaris whirled her staff around, about to open a portal. There was no way she was able to get all the way back to where they came from, she had nowhere enough Spellpower build up. However, John wasn't going to allow her to try.

The earth under the First of Patience's feet ruptured and their fight began. What should have been their objectives in Seminaris mind, John now had forced to reverse. One fights to flee and the other fights to delay. As Seminaris dodged the attack by flying upwards, John heard something. Through the miniscule bit of a connection he still had with his glasses.