75

The Beginning of the End

Rian dashed out of the way only to realize that Devon wasn’t targeting him. With enough speed to nearly topple Rian, Devon passed by and brought his sword down onto Maia.

It struck a barrier, leaving just enough time for her to cast another spell that enveloped herself in a halo of light.

Rian had only enough time to glance at Kat, wondering why she hadn’t pushed Maia out of the way. Kat was charging up another spell, black storm clouds gathering above her.

Devon’s burning sword broke Maia’s barrier and cleaved through her. She died in a single hit.

The light around her body gradually intensified. A section of the clouds above parted to let through a ray of sunlight, but she remained motionless. It was some kind of delayed revive spell, Rian had to guess.

Meanwhile, Devon had turned his attention to Kat and was preparing to attack.

Rian refreshed Earthen Resonance and dashed in between them. He’d pulled it off in time, but it felt wrong. He knew Devon was baiting him into defending Kat, but he had no choice.

Even as Devon surged forward and raised his sword, Rian thought, It’s a feint. But why?

“Rian!” Kat shouted.

In that split-second, he heard the assertion in her tone. She wasn’t concerned for his life—it was a cue. She was telling him to make a play.

Rian went in. As he raised an arm to throw a punch, electricity jumped between his gauntlets. The Voltaic keyword had reset.

With one smooth motion, Devon feinted with his sword, opened his inventory, and swallowed an item.

Lightning crashed from the sky and into Rian’s gauntlets, nearly blinding and deafening him as his punch connected. The discharge of electricity sent out a wave of lightning that wrapped itself around Devon.

And yet it hadn’t done a single point of damage. Whatever item Devon had used put him back to full HP, and he was still moving as if he wasn’t paralyzed.

Devon smirked. “Dumbass.”

Then Rian saw the info on the item.

Aetherian Orb (Consumable)

Grade: S (Sacred)

(Via Ezre’s Lament): for 4 minutes: All Lightning Damage heals the user. All Lightning-based stuns are negated. Damage taken by the user from other elemental types is doubled.

Of course he had some kind of ridiculous S-tier item he’d been saving. Rian shouldn’t have been surprised. It was the same thing Devon had pulled during their first fight in Elmguard when Rian had been only a Beginner.

As Devon repositioned his sword, Rian backed away. To Rian’s confusion, Devon brought the blade to his own arm and cut.

Blood flew everywhere, splattering the arena floor and flying far enough to coat half of Rian’s uniform, which caught fire. The initial, scalding spray had chunked down Rian’s health, but now it was ticking down each second.

Rian kept retreating, only to see that Devon was using another Mirage skill. A red aura emerged around him, then extended in a wide circle.

Mirage: Infectious Rage (Level 1 [MAX])

Cooldown: 4 minutes

Activation Cost: 1 Colorless Tesseract

For 60 seconds: everyone within 20 meters of the Berserker gains the skill Hot Blooded and loses 1-25 INT (minimum stat: 1). All blood can now burn when ignited, dealing 5-50 Fire Damage per second until extinguished. If a target is fully ignited and their HP is less than 20% of Max HP, the target explodes, dealing AOE damage equal to their remaining HP.

Rian struggled to read the skill.

His INT was now sitting at 1.

Never before did he want to ream himself out so badly for not raising that stat more. It felt like his vision had narrowed to a single point. All his cooldowns had lengthened by entire minutes.

He couldn’t even see Devon’s movements. All Rian heard was the sound of a burning sword flickering through the air. All he saw was the glow of flames approaching.

And then he was at the edge of the arena, his Perception having returned to normal, all the blood on his uniform gone. There was a faint heat-haze of temporal energy in the air around him.

Kat had swapped places with him using the Best Friend perk. Even the blood on Rian had moved onto her instead. And as Devon’s sword struck her dead-on, an explosion consumed them both. Devon’s HP went down by a mere chunk, and Kat’s health bar emptied.

Rian felt like his heart had stopped, seeing Kat’s body fall to the ground, smoldering.

Maia has revived Katrin! (Cooldown: 24 hours)

It was the Confidant perk. Maia was standing again. Rian hadn’t had time to notice when her self-revive spell had finally gone off. As Kat retreated on a gust of wind, Rian sighed with relief. It wasn’t over yet.

But now that he had room to think again—or even just the capacity to, standing outside the range of Infectious Rage—he understood just how bad the situation was.

With that lightning-absorbing item active for Devon, Kat’s role in the fight was reduced to utility. There were invisible walls at the edges of the arena, so pushing Devon to his death wouldn't work. All other wind-based attacks would involve slashing or piercing, which would set off Devon’s Hot Blooded passive and end in disaster at close range. And as if that wasn’t bad enough, Rian’s Voltaic gauntlets were going to heal Devon every so often.

Devon was burning through all their resources one by one.

With his eyes glowing red, trailing light as if they were aflame, Devon turned to Rian and began to casually walk toward him.

Devon produced another tesseract, crushed it.

A fog of ghostly spirits surrounded him. Rian saw the similarity to Yatagara’s Six-fold Slash, but instead of the ghosts surging forward to attack, they wrapped around Devon’s body, incorporated themselves into his armor.

Mirage: Cry of Souls (Level 1 [MAX])

Cooldown: 12 minutes

Activation Cost: 2 Colorless Tesseracts

For 2 minutes, the Berserker is enveloped in Spirit Armor generated by the souls of every creature they’ve slain. For every lifetime kill, Spirit Armor provides +0.01 Armor, +0.01, Spirit, and +0.01 Strength. (Max bonus is +40 per stat).

Devon spread his arms, laughing maniacally, looking every bit as evil as he sounded. Rian could feel the temperature in the air dropping just from the density of the spirits gathering.

“Go on,” Devon said. “Hit me. Do your best.”

Rian hesitated.

“It’s just like last time,” Devon said. “There’s no way out. Give it your all and show me what you’ve got. It’s your last chance.”

You have gained a buff: Altir’s Blessing (+35 INT, +35 SPR). Time remaining: 120 seconds.

Rian risked glancing at Maia. She had aimed her staff at him, taking the opportunity to buff Rian while Devon was talking. The spell would at least negate the INT debuff from Infectious Rage when Rian got close.

But most of his skills were still on cooldown.

Dammit, is this really it?

Just like last time, Devon was inviting him to attack. Just to toy with him. Just to get satisfaction out of seeing Rian try his best only to fail. Devon was fully buffed, likely strong enough to kill Rian in one solid hit even at full HP. He was in position to end the fight whenever he wanted. It was already over.

Rian turned his head, spat blood onto the ground, and raised his fists.

“Corvis,” Rian said. “I’m keeping my word.”

Devon’s smugness faltered—whether because he thought Rian still had a plan or just from Rian’s confidence, it didn’t matter.

Rian would go down swinging.

Crushing a tesseract with one hand and sipping his second usage of Breath of Goam with the other, Rian sprinted forward. His HP and stamina—all at half—suddenly shot to full.

At the same time, he saw something go hurtling into the distance out of the corner of his eye. Like a black needle trailing a golden thread, careening over the Penumbra.

Your HP and Stamina have been restored!

All cooldowns have been reset!

This was it. Corvis had used his strongest spells.

There was no turning back.

Rian re-cast Earthen Resonance, the effect stacking onto itself from before and doubling his Agility bonus. He moved so fast that he could feel the air almost cutting his skin.

Devon didn’t defend himself. He only held his arms out as if to present himself as a target. Even his Bone Sword’s Inferno keyword had deactivated, the flames dissipating.

Every punch, every kick, and every shock wave off them met Devon’s Spirit Armor and hit for zero damage. Rian didn’t care. He kept going, laying into each combination of strikes with everything he had, building up Spirit Fists, maximizing Combo Attack’s bonus damage and offloading it into full-powered Charge Punches. When Voltaic activated, Rian kept punching anyway to make up for the single healing hit.

When he struck the same spot enough times, it broke through the Spirit Armor.

Devon’s posture shifted. He was surprised, Rian knew. Neither of them had expected Rian to muster enough damage to break through, but that wasn’t what was happening—it was that Rian’s Spirit Fists were interacting with the armor and pushing it away, thinning it.

Rian had found a weakness.

Devon stopped standing there and brought his sword close to slash at Rian. Even with a double-cast Earthen Resonance, Rian’s Agility only managed to match Devon’s buffs.

Rian used Mirage: Cancel, dashing and ducking with one of his selves and parrying with the other.

He had pushed himself too hard, he realized, trying to mentally sustain two bodies performing two different skills. In the midst of a fight like this, the pressure was too much.

As Devon’s sword cut through the missed Parry, the blade reignited.

Rian’s severed arm spun in front of him. Blood filled the air. Each droplet burst into flames like oil catching fire, a wall of consuming heat as if a portal into Hell had opened.

You have died.

Returning to Overworld in 10 seconds.

“And stay down,” Devon mumbled.

Everything was burning. The fire mixed with Devon’s Spirit Armor, the flames upon him shifting blue as he turned away and walked out of the inferno.

If Kat or Maia or Corvis were yelling for him, Rian couldn’t hear it over the roar of the flames.

Warning: system instability detected.

Failed to load from player origin.

Loading from Cognitive Mirror…

Load complete.

Cognitive Mirror 96.21% operational; minimum benchmark achieved.

***

All cooldowns have been reset!

This was it. Corvis had used his strongest spells.

There was no turning back—

Rian slid to a halt mid-sprint. He felt like he’d woken from a dream just now, a nightmare in which he’d been dying, burning alive, but now he was standing in front of Devon again, who was spreading his arms and inviting Rian to attack.

Devon raised an eyebrow, then chuckled. “What? Not even gonna try?”

Everything was back to how it had been a few seconds ago.

What’s going on? Did I just go back in time?

Judging by the look on Devon’s face, he hadn’t noticed anything unusual.

Did I…just see the future? Or were those the memories from a parallel self?

“Fine,” Devon said. “Die then.”

He ignited his sword and dashed toward Rian.

I don’t understand. Did I lose my opportunity to beat him, just now? Why show me the future if I’m just going to die anyway?

No, I have to do this…

Rian stacked another casting of Earthen Resonance and focused on his footwork. Each swing from Devon brought the burning sword within inches of Rian, the flames passively ticking away at both of their health bars. Every near miss scorched Rian’s skin.

He couldn’t go in just yet. Devon was striking to kill, leveraging all his Agility and delivering a flurry of cuts that Rian had only mere instants to anticipate. The margin of error was on the scale of milliseconds.

Rian watched Devon carefully, the telegraphing of each maneuver, the subconscious cues of his next attacks.

An overhead swing, a two-handed lateral swipe—then Devon released one hand from the sword to throw a punch—a twisting of his wrist to draw the blade back into a lunging stab that would transition into another slash.

There has to be an opening here.

Rian lined up a Parry, but Devon saw through it and redirected his attack at the last moment.

Please, it has to work!

The blade missed Rian’s hand and connected with his torso. Hellfire swarmed up, burning away everything.

You have died.

…

Cognitive Mirror 92.57% operational; minimum benchmark achieved.

***

All cooldowns have been reset!

This was it. Corvis had used his strongest spells.

There was no turning back—

Rian slid to a halt mid-sprint, groaning with gut-wrenching despair.

It was even worse than he’d thought. He was stuck in a time loop, and for some reason his deaths were carrying over. Each time he came back—each time the loop reset—he could feel pieces of himself vanishing.

Memories, fading.

His sense of self, diminishing.

Everything was beginning to blur together. His breathing was staggered.

Only one life left. One more death and the integrity of his consciousness would drop below 90%. The Cognitive Mirror would try to reestablish his connection with himself on Earth, only to find that there wasn’t one. And then he would be gone.

“Fine,” Devon said. “Die then.” He ignited his sword and dashed.

Rian knew the routine this time. Everything was happening like before. He latched onto this fact, let it guide him through the surge of horror he was experiencing.

It’s just like speedrunning. I know exactly what’s going to happen, and that’ll let me—

Rian closed his eyes and entered Meditation.

Execute.

First was an overhead swing, then a two-handed lateral swipe. Dodge the follow-up punch. Watch for the draw-back, then the lunge.

Each attack came as he predicted it. Each one he evaded with effortless grace without needing to see it coming. Meditation’s healing countered the ambient Fire Damage from the ignited sword.

When Rian started to line up the Parry, he finally opened his eyes. The surge of INT gave him just enough leeway to reposition, adjust to Devon’s misdirection.

Devon’s sword bounced off Rian’s hand.

In slow motion, Devon stumbled, off-balance. He smirked as he looked down at Rian, then drew in a massive breath.

War Cry’s base cooldown was two minutes. With Devon’s INT lowered from Berserker’s Fury and Pact, the cooldown was extended, but Rian hadn’t known by how much.

His time had finally run out.

Rian watched helplessly as the slow-down effect of Parry ended.

Before Devon was about to roar, there was a sound of a glass pane shattering. Followed by another, then another. Devon glanced aside.

Rian dashed backward to buy himself enough time to look, and he glimpsed the black staff hurtling toward him.

It was Corvis’s staff, trailing a golden thread from its eye. Strung along that thread were three massive reflections of the arena and everything in it, as if three giant panes of glass had been pierced and dragged along by the staff until the outermost reflection collided into the next, and so on.

The reflections disappeared until there was only one, and the staff came careening out of it and passed within feet of Rian.

When Rian turned to face forward again, Devon was swinging at him.

At some point in between it all, Rian missed when Corvis had placed himself in the way.

Corvis had caught his staff, severed the golden thread, and was taking a defensive stance in front of Rian.

No, Rian thought, closing his eyes.

He couldn’t accept this.

It wasn’t right for Corvis to die for him. It didn’t matter if Corvis would respawn elsewhere, without his memories or not. It didn’t matter if Rian’s next death was permanent.

This world had seen so much death and mayhem because of the players. Because of humanity’s greed. He finally understood it, the reality of it all.

Anyone from this world dying on Rian’s behalf was unacceptable.

If he was going to do one last thing in this world—if he was going to accomplish anything good at all—then it was going to be this.

Rian used Fast Travel.

He landed ahead of Corvis and braced himself for the killing blow, facing away from Devon. He saw Corvis’s eyes widen with shock. But there was something else there, too. Recognition. Realization. It was the fact that Rian was willing to sacrifice himself for him.

In that instant, Rian saw the notification arrive. They had reached level four companionship.

And Corvis swapped places with him.

The sound of metal striking metal—when Rian turned, Corvis had blocked Devon’s sword with his staff in one hand.

Devon stuttered, dumbfounded. “What? You…”

“Rian,” Corvis said, turning to look Rian in the eyes. “You did well. I’m glad it’s going to be you.” He was holding something else in his other palm. Something red and round. Rian almost thought it was a heart.

Corvis smiled.

“You’ve completed the tutorial,” he said, and then took a bite from the daemonfruit—the item that Rian had stolen on Jensen’s farm from what felt like so, so long ago.

Tutorial complete!

You have received (1) Adventurer’s Handbook!

To exit the tutorial instance, proceed to the—

SYSTEM ERROR.

LOYALIST INVASION DETECTED.

SPLITTING INSTANCE, PLEASE WAIT…

Rian watched the System text with cold dread as everything, everywhere, began to go dark. The ground and the air itself cracked as if the entire world had been cleaved in half, a fissure running through all of reality, centered at Corvis and Devon.

Corvis repositioned his staff like a spear, knocking Devon’s sword aside and pressing forward. The pointed end of the staff met Devon’s Spirit Armor and halted, encountering resistance—against the only thing that could deflect a nullshard weapon: Spirit.

And then the properties of the daemonfruit activated, bypassing the Spirit Armor, and the staff impaled Devon through the chest.

Aghast, Devon fell backward and hit the ground with a thud. Corvis fell with him and landed on his feet. The obsidian staff, still in Corvis’s grasp, clanged as it pierced the arena floor below Devon and pinned him down.

Corvis fell to one knee and propped himself up with the staff.

He coughed, then vomited blood.

Rian screamed his name but couldn’t hear anything, the sound of parallel universes colliding around them like a hundred glass windows shattering.

A temporal vortex opened around Corvis’s staff, producing a copy of it which Corvis pulled free, keeping Devon impaled with the original.

Then Corvis produced a needle of light trailing another golden thread. The Eye of Ezre atop the new staff opened partway, and Corvis threaded the Eye with the smaller needle and its thread.

He said something, but Rian couldn’t hear it, only read the words from his lips.

It’s been a fun journey, Rian, Corvis said. Goodbye.

Trembling, Corvis stood. He plunged the needle of light into his chest, then lofted his staff and threw it. A golden thread trailing behind it, the staff crossed the spatial fissure between him and Rian, sending cracks through the air.

Rian had no time to react. By the time he saw the staff’s trajectory, it had already hit him.

The staff impaled Rian through the heart, and his body went cold.

You have died.

Warning: System instability detected.

Failed to load from player origin.

Loading from Cognitive Mirror…

…

Error: failed to establish minimum benchmark (90%).

Load failed.