Tristan shivered as the atoms that sustained his body reformed, the first flicker of light striking his eyes as his retinas materialised. Sitting on the cusp of a pool of swirling power, he stretched, before inspecting a neon set of numbers engraved into the centre of his palm.

Run 5645

Sighing, Tristan got his nude form up, sauntering forwards through the circular temple. He blinked a few more times as his vision stabalised, strolling into the only passageway out of the expanse.

How many more runs? He inwardly pondered, dust billowing through the air in vivid detail, as sunlight filtered through a pair of gradually widening doors. How many more runs until my soul is properly ruptured?

Such was the cost of these endless rebirths. His anchor dragging him back to this archaic jumble of crypts was the soul-bond he had formed with it. Whereas his flesh may wear-away a thousand times over, his essence would only wilt to ash ever-so slowly, serving as the kindling to his brief jolts of life. Nevertheless, no resource was infinite. There would come a day when the core of Tristan would be undone, when the very iotas that sustained every crevice of his being would be sacrificed for the now.

But presently, he didn't have the privilege of deliberating over his own fate.

Tristan had watched this world fall to the forces of chaos countless times over, and if his soul would be the price to stop the slaughter, to put an end to the mindless bloodshed, he would gladly pay it.

He stopped at the brink of a wide opening leading to the hellscape that spanned ahead, breathing in deeply. He took one step forwards, and a timer above began counting overhead.

The beginning was always a blur, but as the hoarse screams of beings not of this world split the skies in twain, muscle memory alone allowed him to skirt away from the toppling clusters of shrapnel. Tentacles struck out at Tristan through tears in space itself, and, as if rehearsing a centuries old dance, he passed by them all without so much as a scratch.

Earth was upheaved, with creatures of unspeakable descriptions cluttering out of the Deep Below, traversing across entire dimensions to eradicate anything and everything in their path. Barely a thought stirred within the nexus of Tristan's addled brain, as he sidestepped past the fiends — knocking aside a few in the sheer ferocity of his breakneck pace.

Twenty seconds hovered above him, a blur of sparkling colour in his upper peripherals.

Faster! Tristan inwardly screeched, chomping his teeth down as with each passing second, thousands more were stripped of their lives.

One swipe of some distant god's blade, and the skyscrapers in the distance were sent buckling to their knees, the force of the blow resounding through the air for hundreds of miles all around.

Further than last time, just get further than last time!

The same thought that always spurred him into action surfaced in Tristan's mind, and, despite any forced motivation, some motion off to the side, and he knew it was over.

A being older than the very planet they invaded struck a gigantic head out the ground, sending Tristan scrambling. Empty eyes, impossibly ancient, bore into him, vacant of anything remotely resembling remorse. As Tristan anguished at his own pitiful inability to save his own species — not to mention the Earth he loved most dearly — monstrous teeth relieved his skin of its contents.

A few fuzzy moments later, and Tristan found himself sitting adjacent to that mystical stream once more. Breathing heavy, brain aching at the futility of it all, his palm came into crystal sharpness.

5646