27 Chapter 26: Regressor's Dream
She spent 5 years getting herself up to the standards she'd like, then she started setting the stones for a brand new organisation.
Regressing for five lifetimes was starting to show it's worth.
Donning a mask, she created a new identity and using knowledge she had amassed over her lifetimes, she targeted people who had the potential to become stronger and powerful, in various sectors and drew them into her fold.
It took a bit of prediction, a bit of coercion, trickery and promises to get them on her side but she was successful, however this turn only lasted 60 years and the world deemed her and her organisation a threat.
After watching all her friends and subordinates die in front of her due to her actions she gave up.
She turned tail and hid, she couldn't give a damn about the world anymore. The world ended in this turn because after destroying her organisation the massive powers had infighting to get the resources she had amassed.
The next few turns were very traumatic to her as she would regress to either close to when the organisation was about to be destroyed, or after it had already been destroyed.
During these turn, the only thought on her mind was getting power, so she doing all her best to become be at the pinnacle.
Perhaps if she was sane, she would have noticed that her efforts weren't useless, as every thing she fixed in the last turn, every effort she made always somehow finding itself into the next turn with her.
Even without her paying attention to her organisation, in each turn, they grew better and stronger, and eventually found a way to stay hidden under the radar.
Unfortunately this happened after countless hundreds of turns.
Over the period of her chasing after strength, she had met a lot of people, both good and bad.
Some she subdued and made to join her, others she destroyed to ensure peace. She had lost count on how many regressiona she had been through at this point, but she had finally did it.
She was at the pinnacle of ascendancy, it would take only a god to stop her.
She began her absolute rule with the organisation she created behind her for support.
Finally it was going to end. Eons of repeated tragedies and always being the only one to survive.
She couldn't count how many times she had tried to kill herself, but somehow the world never allowed it happen. No matter what she did.
Even cutting of her head wouldn't work as her body would evade it at the last second by some miracle.
This was the truth of how she survived all these turns. She didn't know who or what did it or what purpose they had, but she just wanted to end it, and her chance was finally here.
She was took over the world and applied rules and maintained the order through her force.
Perhaps there was a better way to do it but this was the fastest way she could think of before the damned races found a way to end themselves again.
But it only lasted for a short while before all races fought back as rebellion.
A dictator they called her, a monster bent on world domination and destruction.
Many peak ascendants hidden in different areas of the world came out from their seclusion and joined in the fight against her.
Once again she watched everything that she built get destroyed, the very world that she had tried to save for God knows how many times, for even she had lost count was against her.
She broke.
Like a stature she stood still and watched on as destruction happen. The very force she created to protect them was now tearing them apart.
The ones that should have been protected and living a normal life where now picking up arms.
What was the point of all this, wasn't the end already declared, yet another end.
After everything and everyone die out she'd loop on again forced to live through this eternal and unending hell.
Besieged on all side by peak ascendants just like her, while she could fight back and probably win, she didn't do anything.
The ascendants saw it as a signal of defeat and where going to just kill her and return the world to its rightful state, then it happened.
Five ascendants appeared in front of her trying to protect her from the world.
They weren't part of her organisation, just people she had helped out on a whim after knowing of their ends in different turns.
The calamity witch, one who had ended the world on her own in different turns, before being shown the love of a sister by herself.
The demon emperor, a walking disaster that once split the world in 2 perfect halves just because he was annoyed (in one of her turns of course)
The walking armoury, a dwarf, who had reached the pinnacle of his craft, but lived a miserable life of exploitation and eventually self destruction no matter the turn she was in before she stepped in.
Sometimes he went out alone, other times she took out the world with him when he did.
A dragon that called itself the will of the world. The only one of the the five that had never tried or successfully destroyed the world. Although she had come close on multiple occasions in battles against the other four.
And a masked man. Of all the five, he was the most peculiar, he always had one of 3 elements in different turns regardless of when she regressed.
No matter how much she researched about him, she never found a clue about his identity or origins, the closest she had got from him was a conversation in a bar after he had wiped out a whole squadron sent after him.
During these turn, she had encountered and saved them all from their miserable fates, partly because she didn't want anything to obstruct her in her final turn, and the other because of their sad ends.
They reminded her a lot of herself and when she met them, instead of killing them she helped them.
Who would have thought they would have stood by her side now.
But it was all useless, she just wanted it all to end.
"Sister, I don't know what goal you're chasing after but I do know you do not deserve this end, so I shall stand by you"
"Honestly I just saw a good battlefield and I was bored and I decided to jump in cause why not, I only picked your side as your my friend"
"Ahhh, is this why you refused to answer my calls and see me, listen here Araceli, I love you, and I don't mind going against the whole world because of you, hell I already had prepared for it, I'll wait until you're ready to open up to me but until then, well, let's get rid of the trash first"
"It is not time yet, the answer you search for is at hand, this is not the destined end so I shall guide you to it, for all our sakes"
Then there was the last, the masked man
Turning his face to her and constructing a wall of ice that encapsulated only the 6 of them, he took of his mask.
The presence he had was enough to deter the joint ascendant forces from attacking, allowing him to have a conversation with her.
"You asked who I was right, well this is who I am, well I am but a man with no place in the world. Maybe if it was you could have helped me.
Gamora, 576 Glaciers, that's where it all begun. If there's a next life, I can only hope we would meet in better circumstances"
Allowing the mask to fall off the ice crumbled before turning into numerous ice swords, each emanating a force equivalent to a peak ascendant.
"Now let's have a good fight shall we"
Watching as the world was on the road to destruction once again and the people standing between her and the world just for some act she had done in the past she looked back to her countless regressions.
"Enough"
She said and the world and it's inhabitants froze.
Lightning clouds started to gather in the sky, a sign of her ascending into godhood, perhaps the end she searched for was finally here.
But looking back at those five, no, her friends, she knew it wasn't time yet.
"One last try"
She stretched out her arms and reversed the flow of time, sealing up a portion of her memories along with it, keeping only the important bits.
She didn't want the darkness of all her previous turns affecting her actions in what would be her last.
Looking at the five once again in the frozen world she mouthed
"We shall meet again soon and this time, I, Araceli make a promise, that it shall be different"
And with a flash she vanished, back into the flow of time.
She didn't realise it yet, but the world didn't end in this turn.
