Rex takes a deep breath and lets it out with a sound.
He feels a wave of calm wash over him, as if the stress that had been building up inside him is finally gone. He finally can step forward with new determination, ready to face whatever cos his way.
"All preparation should’ve been complete, and now... I can at least destroy half of Aethelgard until I can unlock an even more path for to accomplish anything I want."
"Everything is according to the desire I want..." Rex showed a wide smirk.
The room was quiet after that.
Rex sat with his back against the headboard. The system display hovered just out of his line of sight, presenting the updated balance in stark, indifferent numbers.
[CURRENT ENERGY BALANCE: 500 POINTS]
He had only five hundred desire points left after creating an avatar, acquiring the island’s bonus multipliers, and everything else that had transpired over the last three days.
He’s running low, but at least he could generate more by breaking every Nightwing’s woman.
He looked at the number without much urgency, then let the display fade and looked out the window at the city.
’I could at least hope that Lustia gives another bonus for what I will do today...’
’I know you’re watching right now, Lustia, and observe what fucked-up things I’m going to do to this wretched city.’
The thought of her watching sent a shiver down his spine, a mix of excitent and dread. He straightened up and felt a surge of determination as he got ready to face the chaos that lay ahead of him beyond the glass.
At this ti, Aethelgard had the exact density of a place that wasn’t fully asleep. The lights from the harbor district bounced off the bay, and the academy’s east tower stood out against the dark residential skyline as a lit column.
The Silver Rest’s common room still had a few people in it below the inn’s second floor. They were finishing their drinks before the staff started to close up.
Rex had been sitting there for about twenty minutes, doing the kind of thinking that didn’t look like thinking from the outside.
He was making up his mind about when the best ti to do it is because right now he can already predict a lot of fucked-up things that could happen to him at any ti, but he also needs to take the risk.
And at least it’s not an ’if.’ When he had been on the island for three days, he lay awake listening to volcanic birds and figuring out how everything would happen.
The island gave him ti that he wouldn’t have had otherwise. It was a ti when no one was watching him think, and he used it the sa way he used everything else that ca to him without any strings attached.
The only thing that mattered was timing, and the answer had been coming together slowly throughout the night.
The Apostle eting had happened and ended days ago. Elizabeth’s debriefing about the dungeon was also over.
The two-week exemption ant that Rex Rexilion could miss morning classes for a day or two without anyone noticing or needing to explain. The party at Silver Rest had already made most of the people who knew him think he was ho and resting.
Theo’s incident had done sothing useful too, though not in the way Theo had intended; it had inadvertently created a distraction that allowed Rex Rexilion to carry out his own plans without drawing attention to himself.
And also, the public spectacle had turned into a social event that people in Aethelgard would be thinking about tomorrow morning.
This ant that when the attack happened tonight, everyone who knew Rex Rexilion would have thought to put him in the Silver Rest Inn to recover from a jaw that had already healed, but still... he has other plans for that.
Rex stared at the ceiling for an extra mont, trying to gather his strength and focus on the task ahead. The clock was ticking, and with each passing second, the stakes increased.
"Yeah... fuck it."
"Let’s do it tonight," he said to the empty room. No one was there to hear him, which was just how he wanted it.
Without any ceremony, he got up, walked to the window, and opened it. The sll of the harbor and the sound of water hitting the docks in the distance ca in through the night air.
He stepped out onto the window ledge and fell for exactly one second. Then, the telekinesis caught the air below him and turned the fall into a controlled rise.
"It’s all or nothing..."
He flew away with the help of telekinesis.
Not the leisurely, observational kind of flight he used when there was no hurry and he wanted to see the city from above, but the direct kind, low enough to stay below the lamp-lit windows of the upper residential districts and angled toward the northern gate.
The city below him was made up of pieces of lit stone and dark alleyways. The air at this height felt like a night that had lost all of the day’s warmth.
The northern gate was closed at this hour, as all of Aethelgard’s gates were after the third bell, but the wall itself was a different matter for soone who could simply go over it.
Rex cleared the battlents with about four ters of clearance and ca down on the far side in the open ground between the city wall and the treeline of the Greyvast Forest.
There was dry grass and bare soil on the ground here, and it was open in all directions at night.
Rex landed and stood in the dark outside Aethelgard’s walls, looking back at the city he had just left. He breathed in the fresh air, which slled like turned earth and pine from the forest, and the cold that built up on open ground after midnight.
"Alright now," he said. "Let’s see what five thousand points actually bought ."
"I hope it’s not another scam like Infinite Regeneration."
The Avatar Creation activation wasn’t too loud. When it first ca out, it didn’t have the sa dramatic quality as so skills, especially those that ca with system fanfare and visible energy signatures.
This presence felt like a second entity materializing beside him. It was subtle and appeared instantly. The resolution took about fifteen seconds, as if it had been designed flawlessly from the outset.
"Holy shit..." Rex was actually surprised with the result. "It’s like looking in a mirror, but having a twin might be a more accurate description."
Rex was staring at himself.
He was not looking at a reflection or a mirror image with his hands turned around. Instead, he was standing in the grass two ters away, wearing the sa clothes he had left the Silver Rest in, with the sa posture and expression he had when he was paying attention to sothing without showing it.
"A real deal indeed... and to be honest, I’m fucking scared just by seeing how accurate this is." Rex wanted to touch the avatar, but then he changed his mind really quick.
’Nah... that might be kind of gay. Forget that.’
The Avatar turned around and looked at him.
"This is..." Rex began, but then he stopped because it was really interesting to have his own face look at him with the sa steady judgnt he used on other people.
"Yeah... this looks so fucked up."
"Greetings, Master... I’ve co to your call, and I’m fully functional to accept any orders from you," the Avatar said.
Its voice was on point like his voice, the sa register and pace, and the specific lack of performative quality that Rex had spent years developing. "So... what are the operational paraters?"
"You sounded just like ... yeah, that’s a wrap." Rex tilted his head. "You already know them, right?"
"I know the system’s baseline," the Avatar said. "I’m asking you to confirm the priorities, because your read of the situation and the system’s encoding of it aren’t always identical."
"Nice answer, twin."
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