Sempiternity (COMPLETED)

VII

"This battle will likely be the last they will subject us to," Arend stated simply. These were the first words he had spoken in hours, for the entirety of his mind had been subjected to serious thinking and constant analysis of every possible outcome in front of him. He stood, in his eternal vigil, with his hands in his pockets and with his back to the wind. Klaytaza stood beside him. They were both standing on the roof of a skyscraper that was not very far from Arend's house. The skyscraper, which used to be an office building turned factory, was now one of many abandoned structures in the city. There were no resources available to remove these extraneous structures and no parties willing to use it for the moment, so it simply continued to stand among the cityscape. There were as many dead, empty buildings as there were ones lit up by efficiency and lights, and they all stretched past the horizon in every direction.

Both the Key and her Master were in their school uniforms, as usual, even though they had been at their perch for hours after school for the day had commenced. Now that the climate was beginning to change, Arend began to wear his jacket instead of giving it to his companion, for he could feel the cold and Klaytaza did not.

"That would be the most logical action for them to take, and they most likely will come in a group in order to distract us quicker," Arend continued. His theory was becoming more and more clear to him as the temperature continued to drop over the past two weeks since he destroyed the man that was once his teacher.

The Collapse had scarred the world and had come close to outright ending it. What persisted and now continued to live was a fragment of its former glory; held back from what it could be and lost from what it once was. No aspect of it had changed in those years since it had occurred - the temperature rarely changed; diseases and ailments ceased to adapt and spread through the populace; mutations and aesthetic variations in humans slowly but surely phased out; all was becoming one weak contingency. Change had ceased to exist.

That was why this sudden and noticeable change in climate had been so stressful to Arend. He had never experienced anything like it before - while he had anticipated some part of his normal life and visible environment to change as a sign of the world beginning to be destroyed and reborn, he definitely did not expect it to come in the form of climate change, or at least not for this change to be one of the first visible signs. How was he supposed to combat that? Where was the contingency plan, how could that be manipulated by time control? Klaytaza was so powerful and her boundless power was all his to command, but there were limits even to his intelligence, and this was just something he could not wrap his head around.

But even though he did not know how it was occurring, or how yet to stop it, Arend was completely sure that the Thousand Eternal ritual was indeed beginning. He knew that without a doubt in his mind or a waiver in his heart.

Even though he expected it to begin soon, and he had known the scope of its purpose, seeing it in action was beginning to shake him. It was just so mind-boggling; the whole thing threatened everything he knew about logic and understanding of the physical world. To change the climate of the entire world would involve affecting the rays of light and radiation coming from the sun itself; this could either be accomplished by erecting an additional atmosphere layer around the entire earth or weakening the power of the sun as it burned ever bright in space. Both options were equally terrifying.

Would he really be able to fight something like this, and win? What was worse - it was entirely possible that the temperature drop was just the result of one Key's powers. That would mean there were still 996 Keys he would eventually have to destroy, all with their own unique powers that could rival Klaytaza's own. The odds were definitely against him.

But that was simply something he would have to endure if he wanted to prove to the world that what he pioneered was indeed the truth. The true fate of humanity - the fate that it deserves without a doubt - would be decided in the Thousand Eternal ritual. That was what Klaytaza said; that was what all the Keys knew. That was what the Creator had told them.