34

1-1

Twelve blue-white beams of light shot across the air. Rian gripped his fists as he prepared to dash away—to the side or even backward as soon as he could ascertain the trajectory of the shots.

But after a moment had passed, the Pyceian soldiers and Rian were staring in confusion.

The beams from the rifles weren’t hurtling forward. From Rian’s perspective, they were moving slowly—at a speed fast enough to reach him, but also at a pace slow enough to dodge with ease.

Aside, Kat was dashing toward the incoming line of shots. She gracefully weaved her way through, finding an opening between two beams, and continued toward the soldiers.

“If you’re wondering,” Corvis said, floating near Rian, “this is the same effect that the Undoing has upon projectiles in Miriad’s present. There’s a permeating field that reduces the velocity of objects according to the item’s or user’s stats.”

That explained how ranged classes were balanced, at least. Having arrows or bullets traveling at realistic speeds in combat, during the early levels or so, would be completely unfair.

Rian squinted, then stepped aside and tilted his head as he let one of the slow-motion lasers pass right by his face. He could feel the warmth of the light.

Damn, he thought. I must look so cool right now.

“Ah,” Decha said, watching as the beams passed over him, though one nearly clipped his pointed hat. “Beautiful. All that temporal energy from your summoning is getting put to good use. It’ll start wearing off in a few minutes.”

Taking the cue, Rian cast Earthen Harmonics and dashed forward, surrounding himself in a momentary whirlwind. He careened past the lasers and toward the line of soldiers, who were beginning to panic as, ahead of Rian, Kat had closed the distance.

She vanished and reappeared in one of their shadows, then back-stabbed a soldier for an absurd amount of damage. The Pyceians scrambled, losing any sense of order. A few of them took aim again, but the beams from their weaponry were slow enough for Kat to duck under and dash with her body almost completely against the ground. As the dash ended, she thrust her palm down and catapulted herself up, launching herself into a flip, and landed with her leg against a soldier’s head. With her momentum still going, she spun herself around the soldier’s body using one of her legs as the pivot in a single maneuver that made Rian’s jaw drop. Falling over the Pyceian’s shoulder, Kat planted the dirk into their back on the way down. In the same motion, she then pulled the dirk free and threw it into the visor of another soldier that was approaching.

She was pushing herself even at this level. Rian could see it in her exertion, her expression—glee when her tactics linked together, and frustration when the soldiers managed to retreat from her.

He felt sudden admiration for her, and then a bit silly to be standing there, only now noticing that she shared the same approach to gaming as him. Speedrunning wasn’t just about optional challenges or aiming for world record times and such. It was, in a way, the heart of gaming itself. It was the art of improvement.

Any player who could call themselves one of the best wouldn’t have gotten there without thorough knowledge of the game and a level of dedication that would blow any casual gamer’s mind. Even Rian was impressed. He’d seen Kat fight before, but this area was practically a playground for her. Her true skill was finally on display.

Your bond with Kat has strengthened!

Even the game agreed.

Running up alongside Kat, Visha leaped and clamped onto a soldier’s neck. Distracted, the soldier flailed, only to fall to an easy backstab moments later from Kat as she dashed over to exploit the opening. She weaved past more of the beams and sprinted with precise and effortless steps.

Before the soldiers could even react, she planted her dirk into their necks and pulled, spraying oil and broken machinery as their bodies collapsed.

Again Rian caught himself hesitating, looking at the remains of the soldiers. They’re all…machines?

Chain-kill x3!

EXP bonus: 246

(Time remaining for next chain: 00:04)

“Keep going!” Kat shouted. “Don’t let the chain drop!”

Rian dashed toward the nearest soldier who hadn’t taken aim yet. Up close, it was like a scrawnier Runeknight minus the years of wear, the beige armor still having a rounded, almost chunky shape to it. Far less intimidating than the level 85 version, at least.

It wound up to hit Rian with the butt of its rifle.

Rian dodged—toward his target. It was tricky, overriding the innate urge to dodge away from an attack, but it was the same tactic he knew from Shadow Spirits, just from a wildly different perspective. It had taken him a few tries with Kat during their sparring sessions, but she’d drilled him on it repeatedly. It wasn’t as easy to ignore the sense of fear in a first-person perspective.

As the soldier attempted to strike him with the rifle, its movement drastically slowed—from what Rian assumed was the level equalization effect. It was as if time was stretching from a parry, but only for the soldier.

Kicking off as hard as he could, Rian felt the speed difference his higher DEX was finally making—he could coast through the air at about half the speed of a dash. Planting his foot as he landed, he pivoted and threw his fist into the soldier’s side. He winced, feeling his nearly-bare hands impact the armor, but there was no pain as the plate buckled against his fist.

The soldier staggered as something cracked inside, almost half its HP vanishing. Recovering, it aimed at him. A blue glow emerged within the barrel of the rifle.

Rian dashed and extended his foot. Airborne, he tore through the mechanical soldier as it exploded in a spray of metal and circuitry.

Chain-kill x6!

EXP bonus: 872

(Time remaining for next chain: 00:04)

As Rian landed, he could hear Kat tearing through more soldiers. He spotted Decha, who was completely unguarded and sitting in the same spot he’d been before. The remaining soldiers had made their way toward him.

Dammit, he’s defenseless right now.

Rian squinted.

Decha was sitting and…making tea? He was pointing his staff at a whistling kettle, and then he lifted the kettle and poured steaming water into a ceramic mug resting on the ground. Three soldiers were approaching from the side, closing the distance to make up for the slower travel of their beam weaponry.

Rian swore to himself. They’d hardly gotten far at all into the Rift, and there was already no way to protect Decha other than by stepping in front of him and tanking the shots, but Rian had no idea how much damage he himself would take—if it would kill him or not. Parrying a laser beam didn’t seem like an option, but he was about to find out.

As the soldiers aimed, something flew through the air: a smoke bomb, landing directly between them and Decha. It went off and spewed gray smoke everywhere, the soldiers hesitating.

Rian took the opportunity, dashed up behind them. As he arrived, the soldiers were firing at random into the cloud to pick off Decha. Rian shouldered his way into one of the soldiers, throwing off its aim and staggering it. He spun and kicked, lining up his shin with its torso. The impact was enough to knock the soldier backward, sending it sliding into the others and tumbling them over.

Without missing a beat, Kat emerged from the ground in the shadow of one of the falling soldiers and stabbed for lethal damage, skewering them. She finished off the rest, leaving them in a pool of oil and sparking wires. A moment later, they exploded into bits of metal that pelted harmlessly against Rian.

Chain-kill x11!

EXP bonus: 1991

(Time remaining for next chain: 00:04)

Rian blinked—both at the rain of metal and that he’d noticed they weren’t dropping anything, items or coins. Gold was technically the soul of whatever was slain. But these soldiers, he realized, couldn’t drop it because they were just machines.

He turned at the sound of footsteps, and his stomach dropped. One of the soldiers—the last one—had sneaked up on Decha, who was still sitting with his staff nestled against his shoulder. Decha set aside a tea-leaf filter and prepared to take a sip from his mug.

The soldier fired. Without sparing a glance, Decha picked up his staff and tapped its end on the ground as the beam approached. A shimmering barrier appeared around him, the air rippling as the beam struck and reversed, bouncing back at a speed dozen of times faster than before and tearing a hole through the soldier’s head.

Decha blinked at Rian, apparently reading the exasperation on his face. “Do you really think one Pyceian is gonna kill me like this?” Decha said. “We’ve hardly gotten started.”

As the mechanical body fell to the ground, wind surrounded Rian and Kat with the sound of chimes.

Chain kill x12!

Stage All-Clear! (Time remaining: 7:29)

You have gained experience! (+2083)

LEVEL UP! (Lv. 20→21)

You have gained 10 Max HP! (607→617)

You have gained 10 Max MP! (385→395)

Available attribute points +2

Kat had gained one level as well, putting her at 23. Rian was about to allocate his new points, but Kat motioned for him before dashing over to Decha. She lifted Decha up and carried him over her shoulder. His cup of tea levitated nearby.

“All right,” Kat said, hurrying, “that was all the enemies for this stage. We just have to get to the other side of the city.”

Decha, who seemed entirely unsurprised at ending up over Kat’s shoulder, looked up at Rian and raised a finger. “There’s only about seven minutes left before this section of the timeline collapses due to our interference. We have to move onward before that happens.”

“Yes, it’s fine,” Kat said. She nodded at Rian then took off deeper into the city, alternating between sprinting and dashing.

As Rian followed after her, he said, “Shouldn’t we have just sprinted for the exit point in the first place?”

“Oh, we could’ve completed this stage in under a minute flat. It all depends on what you’re after: either rewards or XP. None of the enemy encounters are mandatory, but they give hella experience, especially if we keep up the chain kills.”

He understood. All that fighting and pushing themselves to clear the enemies under the time limit was just to extract as much experience as possible.

“All right,” Decha said, “when we get to the cliff—”

“We’re going to jump,” Kat said.

“So this isn’t your first time, huh?”

“Wait, we’re going to what?” Rian shouted.

“Trust me,” Kat said. “We have to be in a certain spot for the next level to open. Is your Summon skill ready, Decha?”

Bouncing atop Kat’s shoulder, he was rummaging through a pocket for another gem, which he fastened to the end of his staff. “All set!”

As they approached the other end of Gorgheit, the streets had gone empty. No other soldiers approached. The bronze walls fell away, and sprawling plains emerged before them.

Out on the plains was a tremendous battle, lightning bolts and waves of fire clashing against the bright blue lasers of Pyceian weaponry. Hovering crafts with ovular, beige armor descended upon lines of people wearing ornate robes. Explosions resounded as mages aimed their staffs at approaching vehicles armed with cannons.

Wizards. Fighting tanks.

It was the most metal thing Rian had ever seen.

“Here we go!” Kat said.

When Rian looked forward, they were approaching a cliff. As they came closer, it wasn’t a cliff but a gaping fault line the size of the city itself.

Kat leaped with Decha, and Rian followed. Becoming weightless in free-fall, his stomach sank as he saw the dark, space below. Decha let go of his hat to point his staff toward the chasm. As his hat flew up and away, the light around him began to bend and shift.

Flashes of other places appeared in pockets of space around him: flowers receding into the ground, water rising up a cliff. Time, moving backward. The flashes ended as the gem atop Decha’s staff shone, and the entire world around them—the sky above, the darkness below, and the rocky walls on either side became reduced to a shrinking circle of light before everything vanished.

Temporal Rift 1-1 Complete!

Time grade: B (+150g)

Combat grade: A (+2500 EXP)

LEVEL UP! (Lv. 21→22)

You have gained 10 Max HP! (617→627)

Available attribute points +2

Advancing to 1-2…