I left the room before my time was up. The pill I’d created was nestled safely in //ENDLESS, its effects a strange addition to Firestorm-Devourer that I didn’t really want to use. I’d ignored the fact that //ENDLESS had reached enough mastery to reveal a new upgrade, and that it had actually upgraded itself with each point of mastery it gained. The skill now looked like this:

//ENDLESS(//CORRUPTED,Crafted): Core Mastery Requirement: 3

Current mastery level: 5

Ribbons in use: 2/3

Use a consumable on a ribbon to paint it in the colours of said consumable. Consume a ribbon to gain the effects of the consumable.

Ribbon recharge rate is based on the strength of the consumable it is dyed with.

Ribbon consumables have (25+Mastery)=30% increased strength.

Mastery 5: Increases ribbon recharge rate by [10+((Available Ribbons)*15)]%. Currently=40%.

Upgrades at item mastery [1/5/15/25/???]. Upgrade effects are hidden until achieved.

I dyed the final ribbon in the colour of a simple recovery potion that I saw on my way out of the armory, dusty and old but made strong by my function. The eel-blood potion had cost me the last of my remaining potential to make, something that the Scorched Bloodcoral Concoction hadn’t done, and the recovery potion forced me to convert one more node to potential. I planned to keep it in reserve for as long as I could to take advantage of the new aspect of //ENDLESS, but as I strode back into the chaos that was the burning sky of Walkalong, I knew that was wishful thinking.

“You haven’t gotten very far at all.”

I bristled at the sound of Inopsy’s voice, repressing the urge to stick my sword through his helmet once again. “I’m a very slow walker.”

“Yeah, yeah, I can see that.” Inopsy said with deadly seriousness, striding up next to me and looking me over with obvious interest. He nodded slightly and whistled when he finished. “That’s some interesting new gear. Sky-snake bone, right? Gotta be careful you get that stuff from a reputable source, or you’ll have the wrath of the courts raining down on you.”

“As humane as it gets.” I muttered. Inopsy was blocking my way, and whenever I tried to move around him, he moved with me. He was keeping me here for some reason. “Why’re you here again? I thought you were going to leave me alone.”

“What does ‘humane’ mean?” Inopsy asked bluntly. “I’ve never heard that before.”

Damn my brain and its baked-in phrases. “I, uh, I’ve got a friend who I call Hum. So something that comes from him is ‘Humane’.” I lied, tried once more to get past Inopsy, then sighed in annoyance. “Seriously, why are you blocking me?”

Inopsy shrugged. “Dunno. I saw you and wanted to come say hi. So… hi. How’s your couple of minutes been?”

I didn’t believe that for a second, and my posture told Inopsy as much. He sighed and planted his right hand on his hip, then shook his head and nodded at the building I’d just come out of. “The Matria detected a temporal anomaly somewhere in the city and sent me to find it. I’ve been waiting out here for… three? Yeah, three minutes now, but I really didn’t expect it to be you who came outta there. You got some kinda powerful being backing you that I don’t know about?”

“Not in the slightest.” I snorted. “If I did, I wouldn’t be about to go kill myself on your Matria to try and rescue mine.”

“Fair point.” Inopsy ceded, then spun me around and shoved a massive blast of fire directly into my shield. I skidded along the ground for a few feet before I sprung to my feet and whirled to face the man, but he was already gone.

And my eelbone equipment reserves were ten percent full.

“Either he’s a moron and didn’t stay around to make sure I was dead, or he already knew what my armor did.” I muttered to myself, re-attaching my sword but leaving my shield in front of me. “And fuck if I know what’s the truth.”

When I found out what was on the other side of Walkalong, I wasn’t impressed. It had somehow gone from above-ground coral forest to a rolling desert with sand like crushed glass, reflective and refractive and beyond annoying to even look at. It would have been far worse if the sand hadn’t melted into glass at many points and cratered to show wellsprings of extremely dark blue water in others.

But compared to the visuals, the battle that was being waged was something else entirely. I saw exactly one figure besieged by meteors that fell from the sky and burst apart into explosive masses of overheated coal, very few of which actually managed to detonate before they were surrounded by a mass of black scales that greatly diminished the destruction that would have been caused. What I didn’t see, though, were enemies. It looked as if there was one single person commanding the entire meteor shower; a short, stocky suit of armor decorated like a steam engine and billowing out choking black smoke from red-hot vents on their back and arms. They looked similar but not quite the exact same as Inopsy, and as the man appeared next to the shorter figure, their similarities and differences were exemplified.

Inopsy looked directly at me and waved, a gesture that the other armored figure luckily ignored as they were completely focused on killing Nia. I assumed that this was the Matria that Inopsy had alluded to, which made her the chosen of Addia that I had to protect Nia from. But something was off about the fight. It was like the two of them were posturing, but not actually at war with each other. Certainly not something that I’d have to risk my own life to save Nia for.

The air grew unbearably hot in an instant, and the words that followed carried like a shockwave after a massive explosion. “Addia has called us to war, my fellow Matria.”

I felt the tension in the air grow palpable as the meteors slowed their rain, no single one going uncovered from Nia’s technique. Yet that only made Nia grow more cautious.

Her words carried through the winds like ripples on a calm lake. “I am aware.”

“But you’re still resisting.” The other Matria sighed and shook her head, crossing her arms and glaring down at Nia. “Just leave the drowned town, Percy. It wasn’t worth your time ten years ago, and it’s not worth it now. Let one of the people who deserves to get their heads smashed in come and defend it.”

“Those people will destroy Walkalong before they defend it.” Nia responded. “I stand my ground.”

A hissing curse escaped the other Matria’s lips. “I knew you would. Please, Percy; just go. I don’t want to hurt you–”

“The feeling is yours alone.” Nia cut in, then disappeared with a crack. She reappeared next to Inopsy, slammed a fist into his stomach, then followed through with an explosive shockwave that sent him hurtling far, far into the distance. “If I am to die, I will die defending what I believe in.”

The two Matria stared at each other for a long moment, then the other one nodded solemnly. “Your recruits won’t be harmed if you lose. Can you give me that much for my soldiers?”

Nia turned and shook her head. “When I return to the training grounds, your soldiers will have determined their fate by the amount of blood they spilled. That is all I will give.”

“Then I really hope I trained them right.” The other Matria said grimly, settling into a low stance as a stone spear built itself up between her hands. Her armor began billowing black smoke at massively increased levels, and the sand fused together under her feet.

The desert lunged at Nia. A surge of glassy sand followed the other Matria’s thrust, forming a massive glass needle that spun and grew in size as it travelled, then crashed into a lattice of black scales before it could come anywhere near Nia. The glass exploded into a million glittering particles that floated in the air like frozen snowflakes, distorting my view of the fight as the other Matria followed up on her initial attack.

For all I’d seen in my last life, I’d only witnessed anything like this from the final bosses of high-level hazards. The monsters that we’d only managed to take down with coordinated strategies from a team of four or more. The other Matria crashed down where Nia had been standing with the force of a meteor, causing a tidal ripple of glass and dark blue water that would’ve killed me ten times over. Nia appeared off to her right and slammed a massive blade of scales into the other Matria’s side, where a shield of molten rock appeared out of nowhere.

Orange flared through the linked scales, vibrant and powerful, and the rock wall stood no chance. The other Matria raised her spear to defend and was constantly pushed back, creating two gouges of fused glass along the desert as she struggled to block Nia’s offense. The orange then flared once more, physically dripping out of the blade and onto the glass sand below.

The other Matria screamed out in pain and deflected Nia’s overwhelming strike. Her scale blade sailed through the sky in the blink of an eye, physically distorting the air around it as a sonic boom followed. I felt the wind from the strike bite at my armor along with countless small shards of glass and cried out in pain, my armor warning me of countless integrity breaches and the small wounds that came along with them.

Nia roared and silence reigned. The fury of an army crashed down on the other Matria as scales etched with gleaming orange symbols knit themselves into inhuman creatures with spines that were far too long and jointless limbs. The created monsters were met with spikes of shiny black glass that erupted from the ground and carried them upwards, distracting the creatures for the briefest of moments before they recalibrated their bodies and continued their assault on the other Matria.

A rock spear slammed into the ground, black smoke coiling around its length until it reached the top and billowed out into a flag. The glass sand cracked apart as lines of molten red spread from the spear, creating a zone of absurd heat that made the air inside distort and shift as if I was looking into a mirage. The scale-crafted monsters reeled up on their hind legs and split down their middles, revealing gnashing voids of tiny scales that would have ground anything unlucky enough into dust.

Then they all disappeared. The other Matria strode towards her planted flag with another spear in hand, this one made of dark metal filigree with a molten red core that shone through and a point like a harpoon’s. She seemed to burn hotter while near the flag, her smoke growing somehow darker as her armor grew close to white-hot and the spear’s core followed suit.

Nearby, a massive tree knit itself out of black scales. The trunk was littered with runic etchings and the leaves were small conglomerates of scales that mimicked the look of willow leaves. Nia appeared at the trunk with one hand planted on the tree, her body turned to face the other Matria as well as she could while staying connected.

Orange thrummed down the tree into roots that were burrowed under the sand, and then half of the desert began glowing orange. The other Matria once more leveled her spear at Nia, who disappeared within a mass of scales that formed into a suit of armor that would have been at home on any of the truly evil knights in legend.

Nia removed her hand from the tree and orange light erupted through the ground like scars of twisted auroras. Her words cut through the silence, and carried with them a knife. “I’ve witnessed death in every form. Today, I deliver it.”