62

3-1

Rian and Corvis went a bit further before finding a small clearing between the trees. Without a word, Corvis opened his inventory and dropped a fire pit complete with stones and chopped wood, then ignited it with his staff. As Rian had thought, Corvis had stored a bonfire he’d created on a previous night.

Rian was tempted to sit down and relax, but if what the Onsolian had said was true, a creature would be visiting him shortly. The forest was completely silent again, and Rian steadily watched for any sign of movement.

After nearly a minute had passed, he said, “Why are you acting so two-faced around me? Half the time it seems like you’re trying to help me, and the other half you’re trying to sabotage me.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Corvis said, staring off.

Rian glared at him. “Fine. Just stop toying with everyone I meet. You’re gonna get me killed at this rate.”

Waiting, then considering whether he should switch to half-sync, Rian brought up his game-time info. Timing his half-sync posed a problem because the 1:3 time-dilation effect had altered it completely. Instead of the game requiring half-sync every four hours, it was now every twelve—he would have to relearn the timing of it over the day. Sitting around in slow-motion for an entire fifteen minutes wasn’t going to be any fun, either.

Already, something was coming from the forest, and Rian could tell it wasn’t human. The size of it, the looming sense of its approach told him it was massive. Firelight caught reflective patterns running up and down its fur-like hair, round and solid black eyes the size of bowling balls.

Noctris (Level 41)

HP: 3291/3291

Difficulty: B+ (Rare)

“A gigantic airborne creature kept afloat by miniature wings. Strongly attracted to sources of light. The eyes on its main wings are thought to produce a hypnotic effect.”

He was already having flashbacks to the quadriform creatures he’d dealt with in the Overworld. But instead of a nimble owl, this was a moth the size of a car. Antennae like spider legs crawled from its head. There were hundreds of smaller wing structures across its body, twirling and flapping incessantly to somehow keep it in the air. As the creature passed between two trees, it unfolded a pair of tremendous wings, and Rian glimpsed the patterns upon them.

Instinct told him not to make eye contact, and he diverted his gaze at the last moment, watching the creature now from periphery.

As it entered the clearing, the hundreds of twirling wings suddenly stopped, and it flapped its larger wings once with strained effort. As it rose and fell a few feet into the air, the smaller wings all across it stopped twirling and suddenly aligned themselves in the same direction—at Rian.

They shot off from its body like a spray of needles. Rian dashed out of the way, hearing the projectiles twang as the first wave punctured the ground. When he glanced at the noctris again, more of the miniature wings were sprouting from its body to replace the ones it had fired at him.

Something flashed upon the creature aside from where he was looking, and he made the mistake of looking at the patterns on its wingspan. They were eyes, like that of the quadriform, but with a pinpoint pupil at its center, a gaze that somehow shifted and locked itself upon him.

In an instant, he was paralyzed.

You’ve become entangled with a noctris!

Noctris has fed upon your temporal energy!

World 3 time limit reduced! (-1 hour)

Time remaining: 14 hours, 38 minutes (Overworld).

Rian stumbled in place. Nothing around them had visibly changed, but something was missing in his sense of time. A discontinuity. As if an hour of his life had disappeared. The feeling was unmistakable: like he’d just woken up, his vision blurring before it cleared.

He closed his eyes, gritting his teeth. He’d been expecting some kind of status effect for looking directly at its wings, not a time penalty. He hadn’t considered that the World time limit wasn’t just there to pressure him—it was a resource all on its own.

He swore under his breath, hesitant to move or open his eyes again. What, am I supposed to fight this thing blind?

“Would you like some help?” Corvis said.

He was so surprised at the offer that he almost didn’t believe it. “Uh…yeah?”

Rian heard Corvis open his inventory. Taking the risk to glance back, Rian watched him retrieve a bucket of water and dump it onto the campfire.

The noctris squealed in rage as the light diminished.

Keeping his eyes open, Rian couldn’t see anything. His eyes hadn’t adjusted to the near-complete darkness in the absence of the fire. Bracing himself, he yelled, “I don’t think that’s helping!”

Corvis sighed. “Why don’t you think ahead for once?”

Standing there for a moment, Rian understood.

He dashed toward where he’d last seen the creature. If he had to guess, its hearing wasn’t all that great if it relied on light. So if he couldn’t see it, it couldn’t see him. And if he couldn’t see, the threat of the eyes on its wings was gone.

When he struck the creature’s body, he took damage in return. The array of tiny wings on its body had acted defensively, sharpening themselves to needle-like points whenever he went in for a hit. But once Spirit Fists activated after the first strike, it provided enough cushioning against any further damage.

With careful attention to his stamina, Rian delivered a rapid series of punches and kicks, wishing for the moment that he’d chosen Combo Attack for his level 35 skill. The creature was more stationary than most, a damage sponge and stamina check if anything.

It cried out as it fell. The body dissolved into particles of light and Rian’s EXP bar gained a meager boost. Aside from that, nothing else happened, no gold or loot in the creature’s wake.

Standing in the silence left behind, Rian whispered, “Nothing, huh?”

***

One after the other, noctrises came lumbering toward him from out of the forest. Each time, Corvis rekindled and extinguished the campfire as the creature floated into the clearing. Rian closed his eyes as he engaged, rushing them down and tanking their needle sprays to the detriment of his health. The rate at which the creatures appeared was random, sometimes giving him enough time to rest between fights, and sometimes ambushing him one after the other. After a few false starts, he used the opportunity to try out Meditate for its healing effect.

Standing completely still, as his stamina reached 75%, he closed his eyes and listened to his thoughts. It had been a long time since he’d tried to meditate in real life, but he still remembered the proper method. He’d often used it to calm himself down before a world-record attempt in Shadow Spirits.

In through the nose. He took a steady, deep breath. Out through the mouth.

The only sound was the crackling of the bonfire. It took some practice initially, but once he let go of conscious control over his breathing, he heard a distant pinging noise which he assumed was the Meditation buff activating. An increasing warmth suffused his body. With no visual cues, it was a strange feeling. Somehow he could tell his HP was recovering, a sense of fullness against the calm emptiness of his mind.

Losing concentration, he let his eyes flicker open a few minutes later. The INT bonus manifested itself as a sense of awareness spreading much farther than anything he’d ever experienced. It quickly shrunk, receding toward him like a collapsing sphere as things beyond his sight and hearing vanished into darkness again. Another noctris in the distance was approaching already.

Rian flexed his hands. He was back to full health.

***

It had been nearly three hours. He hadn’t been counting, but he thought he was getting close to a hundred kills. Though he didn’t mind grinding and appreciated the steady EXP gain toward level 37, time was disappearing with no apparent change in the situation. He was beginning to worry if he was doing something wrong or if this stage was a test of the players’ fortitude.

He punched a tree in frustration and then flinched as Spirit Fists activated, encasing him in blue flames. Recalling the conditions for the skill—a Monk gathers spiritual residue from any living creature they strike—he stood there a moment in thought.

Tree…equals…living creature? He blinked. You know what, sure. That does make sense.

He heard another creature approaching. Then it appeared, lumbering its way toward him from between the trees: a noctris with golden fur, iridescent against the camp’s firelight.

That had to be it. All the others had been either gray or white.

It seemed he was in luck: his Charge Punch meter happened to be full as well. He punched a tree again to proc Spirit Fists, then lined himself up with the golden noctris, and dashed as Corvis put out the campfire again to momentarily blind the creature.

With perfect timing, Rian opened his eyes as he got within range, then Vital Strike’d the creature’s weak points and blew it away with a single Charge Punch.

Like a well-oiled machine.

As the noctris died and ignited, dissolving to nothing, a momentary portal appeared in its place as if a tesseract had been used to craft something. In the air was a thin, metallic wand. Rian held out his palm and the item drifted into it.

When he inspected it, the wand was more of a nondescript metal rod, like a piece of machinery that had been misplaced. Rian had a feeling he’d seen the item before, but he couldn’t recall from where. Shrugging, he placed it into his inventory.

You have obtained (1) Goam’s Dimensional Key!

No fanfare or System message was appearing otherwise. It seemed the first stage of World 3 wasn’t over yet.

With the campfire extinguished, Rian looked up at the cavern’s ceiling. If he looked long enough, he could see the cracks beyond which were the moon and stars, providing the faintest light. It wasn’t enough to illuminate the forest, nor could he see the ceiling clearly enough to use it as a directional guide.

Then he remembered the Onsolian’s map. He retrieved it from his inventory, unfurled it, and began to walk. Sure enough, the details of the forest revealed themselves wherever he moved. The map was oriented such that he was at the bottom, so he assumed it was a matter of moving toward the top. After walking for a bit, he found his way forward.

All the other distant campfires of other players gradually disappeared as he went. When he checked the map again sometime later, he was nearly a third of the way across the cavern.

The trees fell away to another clearing. A branch of the river from the start of the World cut across the path in a straight line, forming a shallow stream.

Seated directly atop it was a black structure, a monolith, perfectly rectangular and featureless. Rian hesitated at the ominous sight of it, then glanced at Corvis, whose expression showed no concern.

Rian began to walk toward it. Waves of pressure built in the air. With each step Rian took, the waves grew stronger until he could feel them pressing against his bones. There was no wind. The force radiating from the monolith was something else.

The key. He pulled it from his inventory.

The moment it appeared, the key broke the waves of force against Rian’s body like he was cleaving his way through the raging current of a river.

Corvis stood behind him as if to stay out of the pressure wave, then nodded. Rian stepped forward.

As he passed over the stream and past the looming monolith, the sense of pressure in the air vanished.

Temporal Rift 3-1 Complete!

You have gained experience! (+17497)

LEVEL UP! (Lv. 36→37)

…

World 3 time remaining: 13 hours, 4 minutes (Overworld).

“Well done,” Corvis said.

“Sure, I guess.” Rian started to allocate his points for the level as he walked again. “Seemed more of a luck-based stage than anything. What was the spawn rate for that golden noctris, one percent?”

“0.4444 percent. You’re luckier than you think.”

Rian jumped at the sound of a gate closing behind him.

Where the stream and the monolith had been before, there was nothing: a wall of black had consumed all sight of anything beyond. It was as if a cliff had suddenly appeared behind them, or that they were now standing atop a plateau. A cold wind drifted past.

“It just means there’s no going back,” Corvis said.