"Knock it off, all of you. Settle down." Rover delivered a karate chop to each of the Impermanence Heron's three heads. "You two weren't even biting hard, and everyone knows it."
He recalled the Overlord Class bird into his Pangu Terminal.
The two heads had looked like they were pummeling the left one, but both he and the female Rover could tell at a glance they'd been pulling their punches. Less genuine aggression, more the quiet exasperation of older siblings stuck with a stupid little brother.
Yangyang, meanwhile, was still reeling.
"You leveled your Data Dock that high in such a short time, and you captured an Overlord Class Echo on top of it? As expected of a Rover. That's incredible!"
"Hey, my Rover's haul wasn't exactly small either."
"Well, of course not. Though Abby deserves a lot of the credit."
Watching the two of them drift together mid-sentence, Yangyang sighed inwardly. These two really were head over heels for each other.
He shrugged. The old saying went that a single day apart felt like three autumns. They'd been separated for eight hours today. By that math, it had been roughly a full year. Of course they missed each other.
"So what are you all doing in the middle of nowhere?"
"Following the leads from the keepsake."
"Wait, you're still working on that thing?"
His eye twitched. He'd nearly forgotten about it.
But the expressions on the three women's faces were grave.
"After investigating, we believe the Magistrate may have been trying to warn us about an organization called Fractsidus. Something terrible happened in this village, and they were behind it."
The moment she said the word "Fractsidus," Rover felt a tiny tremor from the blue butterfly perched on his shoulder.
He knew what they were. A deranged, lethally dangerous organization dedicated to artificially inducing Resonance and fusing humans with Tacet Discords. Their ultimate goal was nothing short of apocalyptic: awaken the slumbering Threnodians scattered across Solaris-3 and burn the world to ash.
Because the organization believed the current Solaris-3 was beyond saving.
Only through destruction could rebirth follow.
Yangyang produced a black card. Printed on its surface was an emblem like a ram-headed demon.
"We found this in the village. Every villager has vanished. I've seen this card before, in classified files connected to some of the most atrocious incidents on record. Its owner is a Fractsidus Overseer. A dangerous maniac by the name of Scar."
Her expression hardened. She remembered the first time she'd read those files. The sheer disbelief that a human being could be so deranged, so extreme, so cruel.
Scar, Overseer of Fractsidus. A freak who reveled in the overclocking state that other Resonators dreaded, who treated beauty and order as things to be trampled, who watched suffering and death the way others watched sunsets. He lived for explosions, for carnage turned into spectacle.
No rules. No ambition. No restraint.
A textbook villain taken to the absolute extreme.
Though... there were also some hard-to-believe rumors that this bloodthirsty Overseer was remarkably skilled at... making clothes.
Yangyang: That has to be bad intel...
"Talking behind someone's back isn't a great habit, you know. Even if everything you said was spot on."
A voice cut in from behind them.
A man materialized without warning. Close-cropped white hair. A crimson coat. His face was a patchwork of burn scars and blade marks, and the madness rolling off him was palpable, his eyes brimming with the hunger to break things.
Between his fingers, a card spun in lazy rotations. The same ram-headed demon. Identical to the one in Yangyang's hand.
Fractsidus Overseer: Scar.
"Finally, we meet. Both Rovers, in the flesh. Let's share something wonderful together, shall we? But first... I'm going to need these three bystanders off the stage. Ladies, if you'd kindly exit."
Five pairs of eyes widened at once.
The card in Yangyang's hand erupted into a gate of crimson light and swallowed her whole, along with Jianxin beside her, in the span of a heartbeat.
Rover was already moving the instant the gate appeared. In the split second before it could take Danjin too, he lunged forward and shoved her clear with a palm to the chest. And in the same breath that the portal consuming Yangyang and Jianxin winked shut...
"STOP!"
The Temporal Mandate detonated outward, and time obeyed.
Scar's eyes flew wide. The portal he'd been about to close had frozen mid-collapse. The two Rovers locked gazes for a fraction of a second, and understanding passed between them without a word.
While time held still, Rover threw himself through the portal without hesitation.
The female Rover drew her blade, golden eyes locked on Scar with killing cold.
"...Well. That was unexpected."
Scar let the silence hang for a few seconds before he spoke.
The card he'd planted in the village had been a trap, a construct of his Forte. His power was the creation of pocket dimensions and spatial teleportation. In the hierarchy of abilities, it was absurdly overpowered.
When time was off the table, space was king. That wasn't idle talk.
The plan had been elegant. The moment Yangyang picked up the card, it became a beacon. He could open a portal using it as coordinates and instantly teleport her and anyone nearby into a dimension he'd created and controlled.
Remove them from the game before it started.
The reason was simple.
These rare and exquisite young women were in the way. They'd interrupt his quality time with the two Rovers.
Scar wanted the Rovers. Only the Rovers.
Taking hostages was a bonus. After half a day of observation, even he felt a twinge of unease.
Their master had assured him the Rovers would be at less than a thousandth of their former strength upon awakening, memories gone, utterly disoriented. The perfect window to recruit or eliminate them.
And yet "a thousandth" still felt too strong.
The female Rover had torn through hundreds of Tacet Discords across an entire Tacet Field today, solo. When she'd finished, forget a scuff on her clothes. She hadn't even broken a sweat.
I can probably handle one of them. But if there are two...
That was a problem.
One was already dicey. Two was unwinnable.
So he'd made a tactical decision: use his Forte to teleport Yangyang, Jianxin, and Danjin into a pocket dimension. Hold them hostage. Force the two Rovers to stay calm, sit down, and talk things out like civilized people.
That way, even if they wouldn't cooperate willingly, they'd at least hear him out. And if persuasion failed, three hostages might be enough leverage to force them into Fractsidus.
What he hadn't expected was Rover's reaction speed.
Shoving Danjin clear, then diving through the portal himself.
By all rights, spatial teleportation couldn't be stopped.
But...
When time was off the table, space was king.
When time entered the equation, it was a whole different dimension of power.
Well. The plan's gone a bit sideways, hasn't it...