Aurelius saw the world swirl in front of his eyes, the world… crumbling across the edges of his vision, as he became swept in the currents of unconsciousness and frozen blackness.

  He saw Seraphine’s face move further and further away, a glimpse of the city in the background, its aperture adjusted to become a snapshot in time. He felt himself sucked into a tunnel, his body whole, and his mind sluggish.

  The world seemed to slow down, the air itself transitioning from a gas to a liquid then to a complete solid, and light becoming streaks across his backgrounds, and fading into a nothingness that he had become so familiar with.

  Did I die?! Aurelius thought with horror, immediately rebounding to the thoughts of his last moments in the snapshots of the city.

  Wha- He yelped in his mind, as panic strobed and flashed across his body throughout the process.

  However, the panic was replaced by non-being, replaced by a sense of loss… a loss of identity, of self… of death.

  And then there was none.

  When he came to, he was once again trapped within the expanse of the terrible void that suffocated him. He had… reset.

  Mother- Aurelius thought.

  ???

  “-fucker.” Aurelius groaned, opening his eyes, and rapidly closing them shut again.

  The usual scene of the crowds of people, and the tearful, idiotic Tiberius this time round came with a much more sour taste in his mouth.

  In his hours in the void of hellish boredom, he had considered carefully and thoughtfully the possibilities of his reset.

  “Aurelius! Don't go towards the light[...]” He heard the familiar dialogue and the murmuring concerns from the crowds around himself.

  The final verdict that he had reached, through the research and the suggestions made by the Sage and the ‘gang’, was the fact that the time loop was indeed limited in its authority. From his rough calculation, he believed that the reset happened… around 42 days after his death.

  At this point in time, he didn’t feel that bad about it. Apparently hours stuck in a dark void like a fly in amber did wonders for… anger management.

  And there was the fact that his ribs currently were broken in numerous, unfortunate places.

  Aurelius screamed internally, feeling the burning of hellfire spread through his chest, as the adrenaline started to lose against the waves of pain washing over his chest like a tsunami of ghoulish proportions.

  His teeth ground against each other as he shoved Tiberius aside to snatch the familiar potion from the sickeningly familiar merchant.

  “Have this-” The merchant tried.

  “Yeah, yeah. Thanks.” Aurelius replied through gritted teeth, reaching out rudely and impatiently at the potion against the pain racking his poor body.

  But just as he was about to touch the surface of the enticing, cold surface, a voice rang out in his head.

  “What in the name of Eternal Faiths are going on there?!” The rude, slimy voice reverberated through Aurelius’s brain, sending a grimace run down through the whole of his poor body once again…

  “SHUT UP.” Aurelius nearly screamed through the pain, directly at the crowd… and the merchant.

  Aurelius immediately regretted the decision. Damn this shitty angel!

  “...Young man, you’re being rather rude right now!” The merchant said indignantly, putting his hands against his hips, and withholding the potion from Aurelius.

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  “Gruggg”Aurelius creaked, feeling the pointed bony ribs brushing up against his lungs, as he reached desperately for the potion.

  “Young man!” The merchant chided haughtily.

  “Well, I must be dreaming! Did a seal break?! I’m even at liberty to talk with such… limited restrictions!” Pultris commented delightedly, sending another headache running through Aurelius.

  What the hell do these idiotic pieces of dragon dung want from ME! Aurelius cursed, half his eyes closing from the pain of his situation.

  “...Aurelius, that was actually kind of rude. You should apologise. He’s offering you a potion as well!” Tiberius urged next to him, a clear showcase of his inability to grasp the situation.

  Aurelius wondered why, in the name of the four orthodox deities that he was being forced to apologise when he was actively DYING on the street!

  Clearly his death would be worse for this damn merchant’s business! And why was Tiberius on the merchant’s side and not his best bloody FRIEND?!

  And did this ridiculous merchant’s ego really go so far as to withhold a potion he was WILLING to part with just moments before, based on a single comment?!

  “I’m sor-hic-ry mister merchant… I kind of really-hic-need that potion…” Aurelius gurgled out as sincerely as possible, hiccuping as he felt the coppery smell of blood filling his mouth, folding to the… demands of the situation.

  He was clearly, and unfortunately in no position to stand up and corner the man to argue about the fact that he was literally DYING.

  “I ask who owns these eyes…” Pultris started at this moment, lowering his voice with malicious delight evident from every syllable of his sentence.

  Dammnit, Aurelius thought as he swore to himself that he would find a way to cave this damn angel’s spiritual face into oblivion…

  “I will grant you the wildest dreams, your wildest desires. And all you must do is…” The idiotic womanising creep continued whispering, crowding Aurelius’s mind with the ravings of the mad angel.

  “That’s more like it. Remember to always be poli-” The merchant replied, his displeased, rather punchable face in stark contrast to the ugly, pathetic and sweaty nature of Aurelius’s pained face.

  As he spoke, he started to once again hand the potion over, but was interrupted. An occurrence that had never happened before in the previous loops.

  His words had been cut off by a simple change in the air right next to him.

  A line of complex geometric patterns had appeared on his left, a bulky figure emerging from its thin, unnatural disruption in the fabric of reality. Teleportation.

  And the shape sent both a sense of disgruntlement and gratefulness in Aurelius’s poor body.

  “What the HELL is going on here?” The figure asked, whipping her head left and right with her usual scowl.

  “...Very unfortunate. Let us run, contractor!” Pultris quipped cheerfully, the disappointment barely masked behind the hope that he said the sentence with.

  “And, the most important question, who the fuck are you?!” She interrogated, trudging over to Aurelius with the most horrifying glare surely capable of melting a low ranked monster on the spot.

  The crowds and Tiberius immediately shifted like the tide, moving further and further away from the growling beast. The growling beast known colloquially as Sage Yvette Yeltz.

  ???

  “...Could you please -hic- heal me?” Aurelius hiccuped, grimacing against the remainders of the pain, lying on the couch of the Sage’s office like a ridiculous homeless man.

  Sage Yeltz had arrived, threatened the man with her sheer size, and teleported the man to one of the Commission’s incident report counters within seconds of hearing the story from a nervous Tiberius and bystanders.

  Very cathartic, until you understand that Aurelius was in PAIN the entire time.

  However, Sage Yeltz did do a singular good thing for Aurelius, taking the potion off of the merchant’s hands, into his, for consumption.

  This was before using a series of impressive magic to close the merchant’s shop for the day on the behalf of its missing owner.

  This was all fine and dandy, with the potion already having alleviated most of the pain. But now, this ridiculous, emotionless, SOCIOPATHIC woman was watching him suffer on the couch, making the most masculine, misogynistic pose possible. Legs wide, and peering over her entangled hands.

  “...” Sage Yeltz stared, unfazed by Aurelius’s request.

  “Haa… Why did it have to be her?” Pultris grumbled, his volume barely audible in Aurelius’s brain.

  “Shut up before I feed you to an Archangel.” She replied pointedly, before backpedalling immediately.

  “...Actually, answer me why the hell you’re contracted to the boy.” She asked accusatorily, glaring at the very essence of Aurelius’s soul, and undoubtedly creeping Pultris out from the comfort of his own pen-like prison.

  “Do you have no fear for an Angel unrestricted!” Pultris cried out threateningly, sending a chorus of irritating pangs in his brain.

  Aurelius snapped right then and there.

  “You little shitty angel. Shut your damn mouth. EVERYONE here knows that you’re restricted, and that you can’t protect me even if this woman across from me attacked me with her bare fists!” Sage Yeltz raised her eyebrows in pleasant surprise, which quickly turned to a frown as she considered why Aurelius would even be privy to such information.

  “If your ego was as large as your phallus, maybe you would have gotten away with it too! Or is it your micropenis that gave you such a hard time in your life!” Aurelius slandered, sneering all the way in contempt.

  The pain had made the hate very focused, and very easy!

  “And Miss Yeltz! Please heal me now! I swear I’m your ally! I don’t know how you found me, but I’m sure that there are things about me corroborating that fact!” Aurelius cried out in sheer frustration.

  “...You’re right. But you know what they say about trust…” Sage Yeltz started.

  Damnnit I cannot take this bullshit! Aurlius complained angrily to himself.

  “I’m in a time loop and I know that you have mana rejection! I have a cure for you!”