37

Omission

With its red aura shining brighter, the tesseract-powered Runeknight swung faster at Kat, and she was forced to retreat to where the surrounding field of pillars began. As she did, the pillars lit up and formed a wall of light. Against it, the only shadows left were hers and the Runeknight’s. She had no way of escaping with Shadow Walk.

As Rian made his way near, he looked over his shoulder at Decha, who was holding down his pointed hat as he hurried toward them.

Sprinting, Rian felt each step resonate up his body as he cast Earthen Harmonics. He dashed into the center of the room. Fortunately, the innermost pillars didn’t activate to form another energy wall when he came running up. It seemed they were only responding to anyone attempting to retreat, and with the Runeknight bearing down on her, Kat was cornered against one of the walls.

Rian dashed, canceled the skill, and leaped through the air. Just as the Runeknight swung its saber onto Kat, Rian kicked its arm sideways, nudging the path of the blade to miss her. At the same time, Kat threw a smoke bomb at the ground, enshrouding all three of them in thick black fog.

It had worked: Rian had arrived just in time to save her from the hit. And though he couldn’t see much of anything, he could still see the Runeknight, its crimson aura shining through the smoke.

In the span of a heartbeat, Kat’s silhouette appeared through the fog—behind the Runeknight. She back-stabbed repeatedly, critical hits chunking down its health bar. And yet its hulking figure barely responded, as if the blade puncturing its armor was a mere annoyance. Rian thought he saw it raise a hand, and then a tracing beam shot out from the glass orb in its palm. An instant later, a much thicker beam of light screamed past him, cutting a spiraling tunnel through the smoke.

Seemingly blind for the moment, the Runeknight hadn’t fired at either of them, but the beam was tremendous compared to what the other soldiers had fired from their rifles. It struck one of the pillars in the ring surrounding them, and then—

The struck pillar shone so bright that it disappeared under the light. It didn’t just dissipate the energy—it exploded, shattering the pillar with a tremendous shock wave that spread to the surrounding pillars, destroyed them, and moved on. A chain reaction.

“What the hell?” Rian said, but he couldn’t even hear himself over the noise of cracking stone and the air turning to plasma. Just how much power was in that beam? He hadn’t thought the Runeknight was that strong here, what with Decha’s equalization spell. And yet even Kat was struggling with the fight.

“It gets stronger over time!” Kat shouted. “We have to kill it right now!”

Rian stepped back as the ignited saber slashed through the air in front of him. Just as he began to consider whether the blade was something solid enough for him to parry, electricity surged around the Runeknight’s gauntlets, and the saber grew even brighter and wider than before.

Running, Rian kept his steps along the ring of pillars surrounding them, each one activating in lock-step to prevent his escape. The Runeknight followed, moving faster than anything he’d seen before. Despite being entirely mechanical, it ran like it was an Olympic sprinter.

Panicking, Rian looked for Decha.

The kid was still running toward them through the pillars. Coming from the side, the chain reaction was out-pacing Decha. A wave of light was approaching him.

In the moment he had to spare before the Runeknight caught up to him, Rian saw Kat sprinting to the edge of the ring, escaping the encirclement where the pillars had been destroyed. She Shadow Walked and reappeared behind Decha, grabbed hold of him, and dashed back into the ring just as the light consumed the space where they’d been standing.

Your party’s bond with Decha has strengthened!

Companionship Level Up! (Lv. 1→2)

“Decha” is now your Friend!

All party bonuses: +8% EXP; +4 to all stats; stamina usage -10%.

Decha aimed his staff at Rian.

The Runeknight, cutting off Rian’s path, swung the enormous energy blade to cleave him in half.

It struck a barrier.

As Decha’s barrier around Rian shattered under the saber’s impact, Rian got close enough to nudge away the Runeknight’s hand with his own. Time slowed. Rian extended his other hand and chopped down onto its elbow. The limb severed, sending the arm flying through the air as it leaked oil and steam, the saber’s glowing blade extinguishing.

Both the Runeknight’s body and severed arm were enveloped in the red aura of the tesseract. Now that it was in two places at once, the aura seemed to destabilize: the energy released itself from both the mechanical body and arm, and it conjoined mid-air, reforming the colored tesseract which revolved in the surrounding light of the pillars’ destruction.

The light began to fade as the chain reaction tapered off, leaving behind nothing but the shattered remains of stone on the floor.

All motion and light within the Runeknight ceased as it knelt to the ground, inactivated as if someone had flipped a switch. It was almost anti-climactic, in a way. Its HP bar was still visible, and there was still some HP left in it, but the fight was apparently over.

“Yes!” Kat shouted, dropping Decha as she raised her hands in triumph.

Decha, landing hard on the floor and dropping his staff, winced.

Stage All-Clear! (Time remaining: 15:01)

You have gained experience! (+2910)

LEVEL UP! (Lv. 22→23)

You have gained 10 Max HP! (627→637)

You have gained 10 Max MP! (405→415)

Available attribute points +2

Rian, out of breath, looked down at his hands. They were shaking, but at the same time he felt exhilarated. He’d thought he was dead when the Runeknight had cornered him. Decha had saved his life—or rather saving Decha had.

“Whew,” Kat said, breathing hard as well. “That was a bit tougher than normal, but good job. Disabling the RK there was definitely the right call, even if it gives a little less XP.”

“Instead of what,” Rian said, “killing it directly?”

“Yeah,” she said, walking over to the Runeknight’s severed arm. She knelt. “It used up enough of its power reserves during the fight to use only the tesseract as an energy source. De-limbing it causes some weird quantum stuff to happen since the tesseract’s power is everywhere in the body—and you can’t have a tess be in two discrete places at once, so it gets ejected instead.”

“It…goes backward in time?”

Kat straightened up. “That’s—actually pretty accurate. I never thought about it that way.”

Corvis stepped out from behind Rian as if he’d been following him all the while. “Indeed. It’s as I suspected: the lost part of your mind in the Cognitive Mirror is leveraging the Aeyai to enhance your combat abilities.”

Wait, what? Rian furrowed his brow. That was some out-of-the-blue news. If he was tapping into the AI subconsciously while fighting, he wasn’t noticing it. It just felt like everything was happening naturally. “Did you figure out if there’s any danger?” he whispered, turning away from Kat.

“If there were,” Corvis said, “we wouldn’t be having this conversation. However, your condition is enough to consistently shift the weight of the game itself toward—shall we say—more challenging prospects. More so than usual.”

So that was why the game was getting more difficult than normal. It adapted to the players based on what it judged they could handle. Between Kat’s innate prowess and whatever the AI was doing to him, they really were playing on some kind of special “hard mode.” Rian felt competent enough, but it always seemed like things were getting just out of control to where it was making him sweat.

It was fine if the game was always ramping up to the point that he could barely overcome it, but he had to wonder if or when it would overtake him—give him something both he and Kat couldn’t beat on their first try. It seemed like he’d run into a wall eventually.

And just how far off is that wall?

He looked over the combat log. With all the experience stacked up from the foot soldiers combined with the Runeknight’s defeat, it was enough to fill his EXP gauge almost two times over. Once they got the combat bonus after exiting 1-2, it would likely be enough to push him to level 24.

Decha pointed his staff at the still-floating red tesseract above the deactivated Runeknight. The cube hovered over to him.

Kat, meanwhile, was prying the saber’s hilt out of the Runeknight’s grasp. When she got it free, the hand separated from the arm as well, and two windows appeared over them.

Temporal Pyceian Light-Dagger (Level 25)

Grade: A (Legendary)

Temporal (Item will disassemble itself into materials upon returning to the present.)

Pyceian (Utilizing condensed and solidified light, attacks performed with this weapon are unblockable.)

Weapon ATK +14

Temporal Runeknight Gauntlet (Level 25)

Grade: A (Legendary)

Temporal (Item will disassemble itself into materials upon returning to the present.)

Runeknight (Item can unleash a beam of solid light; activating this keyword will damage the item by 50%.)

Weapon ATK +14

“Nice,” Kat said, holding the empty saber and the gauntlet in her hands. “Looting these is a bit easier when the arm’s off.”

“Wait, a dagger?” Rian said. “I thought that was the saber.”

“Well, it’s a dagger now.” Kat winked. “The game knows what we’re after.” She dumped out a bunch of broken gears from inside the gauntlet before tossing it to him.

It was the Runeknight’s hand—with the glass orb in the palm and everything. When Rian slipped it on, replacing the Silk Hand-Wrap on one of his hands, the gauntlet crackled with electricity for a moment.

It felt kind of odd to equip two different weapon items at once, but he couldn’t pass up the opportunity. Compared to the measly eight Attack of his hand-wrap, the gauntlet was a huge step up. It was a shame he apparently couldn’t use it in the Overworld, according to its Temporal keyword, but he was excited to see just how strong it was in action, especially that laser cannon in the palm.

These weapons, Kat told him, were meant to give them a boost for what was ahead. 1-3. The boss fight against Galthera, the commander of Pyce. An even faster version of the Runeknight.

It wasn’t even a question, then. Rian dumped all of his new attribute points into DEX.

“Damn,” he muttered, realizing he was still two levels away from getting a new skill.

“Is something wrong?” Decha said. When Rian explained how he’d been hoping to obtain another skill in time for the end of the Rift, Decha nodded. “Then allow me.”

Harnessing the red tesseract, Decha aimed his staff at Rian. Everything blurred for a moment.

“What just happened?” Rian said.

“I’ve given you a bit of temporal energy,” Decha said. “Just enough to give you temporary access to certain powers you’ll obtain in the future.”

Sure enough, there was suddenly another skill point at Rian’s disposal. It was like he’d already leveled, but there weren’t any extra attribute points.

He spent the skill point.

Charge Punch (Level 1)

(Passive)

The Fighter’s meter increases upon receiving damage (-1% of Max HP grants +1% meter) or dealing damage (+1-5% meter depending on severity of hit). When unleashed, the meter empties and the next hit deals +100% damage.

It wasn’t a huge damage increase at this level, but it was something. And, as he remembered from the level 10 version, the hit would eventually scale up pretty hard to +400%. The point also brought his Earthen Harmonics skill to level four, Parry to level three, and Vital Strike to level two, their stats gradually rising alongside each other.

“Just keep in mind: it’ll revert as soon as you return to your time,” Decha said. “And if we’re all done here, we should open the final rift. This tesseract will destabilize if we don’t use all of it soon.”

Walking up to them, Kat nodded. As Rian looked around at the mostly destroyed remains of the sanctuary, he had the feeling that there was something he was overlooking here. It wasn’t just the bad feeling he had about the upcoming fight, given that the Runeknight had been enough trouble already.

Something about those pillars…

Decha pointed his staff at the contraption in the center of the sanctuary, the metal stalactite that ended just above a pedestal. The red tesseract, revolving, floated over to it. As it locked itself in place above the pedestal, the room began to shake.

With his hands folded behind his back, Corvis stepped up to Rian. “You’ve done well so far.” At first he looked pleased, but then his lips curled in. He was hesitating. “However. I feel that…perhaps I should warn you—”

He looked at the ground, then up at Rian again.

“It’s clear to me that you care for our kind,” Corvis said, glancing over at Decha for a moment. “That you care for others beyond yourself. I hope that you won’t take this as a sign of carelessness, but I fear I may have violated the trust that exists between us now.”

Rian squinted at him when he made sure Kat wasn’t watching, but she was standing right next to him, so he couldn’t say anything. What the hell are you saying?

“I must confess,” Corvis said, “there was more I could’ve done to prevent this. And it is only now, when it is too late, that I feel regret. You may think of me as indifferent. The truth is, I have distanced myself, in a way. Perhaps you will understand—not now, but someday in the future if such a chance exists again.”

“Dude,” Rian whispered. “What is the problem?”

“I lied to you, Rian, that night in the Elmguard forests. When you suspected that someone was spying upon you.” Corvis’s expression darkened. “From that very moment, we have been followed.”

The red tesseract exploded, and everything disappeared beneath a blinding light.

Temporal Rift 1-2 Complete!

Advancing to 1-3…