"I have the skill points to take the path of the assassin, if that will help," I shouted above the whistling wind.

  "It will not," curtly answered the Enshrouded.

  "Drop him," came a yell from behind us. "I want him, not you."

  We ran on in silence for a few seconds longer, the part of my mind not busy panicking instead trying to work out why he was so pissed. It wasn't as if I'd sent the count into the dwarven ruins.

  From what I'd heard about divine punishment and Unbound, it was obvious that the Krullian Empire hadn't been trying to create one. The best explanation I could think of was that my messages and resulting knight and adventurer task force had caused the count to rush the final step of his plan. Whatever he had been doing had obviously 'worked' on Sir Khris, but failed on him.

  "If I give him to you, you don't get to die," said the Enshrouded, and it took me half a second to realise he was talking about giving me up. Was he serious, or was it a bluff? I'd only just met the man, and had only seen his face for a couple of seconds. There was no way I could judge! "You spend the rest of your life working for me."

  "Why should I agree to any sort of deal when you can't outrun me? At least, not with that dead weight. Or are you forgetting what happened the last time we met? Impressive you got your arm back so quickly. How many more elixirs is this kingdom stockpiling, I wonder?"

  At least that rendered moot the judgement as to whether his offer to sacrifice me was serious. What could I do to escape this situation? There had to be something. With all of my skill points, all of my stat points, why was I so bloody helpless?

  Here I was, trapped between two superpowered individuals, one who gave the impression that he'd stab his own mother for the sake of the kingdom, and the other unreasonably angry because I'd had the gall to tattle on him, despite fighting alongside the people who'd done the actual invading of his canton. That hardly seemed fair.

  If anything, I should be angry at him. He was the one who'd dared abuse my stolen soul crystal. If only this stupid body of mine didn't lack the ability to handle mana properly, I'd rip his soul out and use it to make myself a new crystal!

  ... Wait.

  I blinked a few times, slightly worried about that last thought. It... didn't quite feel like mine. On the other hand, if I had the ability to rip his soul out, that would be kinda useful... Was that an ability I had in my previous life? Not that it was any help right now. Maybe whatever I was thinking would work with [Mana Manipulation], but there was every chance it wouldn't, and besides, I had no idea what 'it' was.

  "I don't suppose you have anything on you that would temporarily boost my Memory?" I called. "Preferably something that would take it up to the point I'd get [Eidetic II]?"

  "Boosting you that high is impossible. I can give you seventy-six more points, if you're certain it will help."

  The heck? Why did he have something like that on him, even if not quite as much as I wanted? I suppose I hadn't made a secret of the link between Memory and [Ancient Soul], and besides, they'd obviously seen my Status and hence presumably knew I lacked [Eidetic I]. He probably brought it in case I needed it in the ruins. Or maybe it was simply one of his personal magical items.

  Seventy-six was half my current total, so presumably Stats couldn't be boosted by more than fifty percent. Would that be enough to remember what I needed to take down the black knight?

  "No, I'm not certain, but it's the best option I've got," I shouted as I desperately spent my skill points, uncaring of the headache and nausea. A headache was good. It was proof I still had a head. If I could end this situation with a headache, I'd consider it a successful resolution.

  My vision of mana sharpened, the cloud chasing us condensing into the shape of a humanoid.

  The definition increased again, individual muscles visible beneath the enchanted armour. Not just the armour, either; his main sword and a pair of daggers tucked behind his back.

  No, not just the daggers. He had a set of smaller enchanted darts hidden away, too.

  The headache was getting really bad. I could see faint flows of background mana everywhere. The landscape was a psychedelic whorl of colours. But I still had the worst one to go.

  Thankfully, there was no state-change in my perception, even if my vision did sharpen further. Rather, I found that if I concentrated on the spirals of colour, they responded. Now I had a body that could handle mana properly, so the rest was up to that mystery thought of past-me.

  This story has been unlawfully obtained without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.

  ...

  Of course, nothing happened. I was me, and perhaps some stray memories popped up from time to time, but it wasn't as if there was an entire second person living in my head.

  "Okay, I need those extra points of Memory!" I shouted as I spent my last few stat points.

  Damn the me from a few minutes ago, wasting them all on balancing things out. A thousand points of Strength and Dexterity might help me now, but ten wouldn't. Memory was my only hope!

  "Okay, that's enough," shouted Sir Khris from behind us. "I gave you your chance to hand over the kid. Now you can both die. Black Arena!"

  "Shit!" exclaimed the Enshrouded as the sun winked out. "He didn't have that the last time..."

  "It was from a skill crystal that belonged to my lord, before your interference turned him into a mindless beast."

  I blinked a few times as my eyes adjusted to the sudden darkness, as the Enshrouded put me down. Everyone had stopped running, largely because there was nowhere to run to. Whether the Skill had warped the land around us, or transported us elsewhere, or simply created some sort of massive illusion, I couldn't say. What I could say was that the ground beneath us looked and felt like black ash. Sounded it, too, as I shuffled my feet. The sky was black, without cloud, moon, sun or star. Surrounding us were ruined structures of stone, arranged into a circle, in some sort of massive bowl shape, but through the gaps, there was nothing. Just the same black void as the not-sky. We appeared to be on an island floating in nothingness. The only light came from pale white flames, burning in censers placed periodically around the circumference of the ruins. 'Arena' was a good description. A prison in which he could fight us without us having anywhere further to flee. I didn't really want to find out what happened if I fell off the island.

  "You have some serious audacity to claim some sort of moral high ground here after betraying your king and your people," I said. Maybe not the sort of thing I should be saying if I wanted to talk him out of attacking me, but it wasn't as if I had any better ideas. Besides, even if I couldn't talk him out of it, I could buy a few more seconds. Maybe this [Black Arena] Skill would expire, or help would come.

  "My oath is to my lord, not to the king or his people," replied the knight, calmly walking towards us. I backed away, for all the good it would do.

  "And when that lord is clearly batshit crazy?"

  "Watch your tongue, whelp. The king is weak, like his father before him, and his father's father before that. The first king seized his title by clearing the Deep, but what has our kingdom done since but sit on it? Impotently waiting for it to overflow once a decade, decimating our armed forces each time and leaving us at the mercy of our neighbours, who have only refrained from conquering us because they don't want to have to deal with the dungeon either. We had a perfectly viable plan to take advantage of the Empire's generosity, to make our kingdom stronger. We could have become this continent's greatest empire. Until you spoilt it."

  "No more than any of the soldiers you were fighting alongside a minute ago."

  "They were only following orders. Fulfilling their duty. No. My ire is reserved for the traitors, who I have already taken care of, and for you."

  That probably meant that Sir Galahad was dead, then. What about the villagers? For that matter, what had happened to Greyforge? No-one seemed interested in the lives of peasants, and they hadn't even been mentioned.

  Sir Khris suddenly spun away from me, sword already swinging. Metal clanged violently, blood splattering. The Enshrouded reappeared for the second time, a nasty gash carved into his torso.

  "I can see you, miserable fool," spat the black knight, kicking away the bleeding body, which slammed into the structure of the arena, cracking the stone, then dropping to the floor, limp.

  ... There was something in my hand.

  I had no idea when he'd done it, but somehow the Enshrouded had pressed something into my closed hand without our enemy noticing. Without me noticing. And then he'd risked his life to provide a distraction. I hurriedly felt the thing, realised it was a ring, and slipped it onto my finger.

  The sensation made me gasp.

  "What are you grinning at?" asked the knight as he turned back to me, apparently satisfied the Enshrouded was dead or unconscious.

  "I was grinning?" I replied. It was probably true. I hadn't felt this good since unlock day, and a quick glance at my Status revealed why. The ring hadn't just boosted Memory. It had boosted all of my Stats by fifty percent.

  I didn't only feel like I could take on this knight, with his stolen, fake power, but that I could take on the entire world. I knew it was a lie. At least the extra Processing helped me shake off the effects of advancing [Mana Manipulation]. In fact, I could go even further.

  No skill points to take it higher than the second stage, alas.

  "Okay, you obviously have strong opinions about duty and whatever," I said, taking a step forward.

  Why was I walking towards him?! He could still wipe the floor with me, however I felt.

  "So let's start over," I smoothly continued, my calm speech somewhat detached from my panicked thoughts. "You have some serious audacity to claim I wrecked your plans when your plans were based around the use of my stolen soul crystal to begin with!"

  "... What?" asked Sir Khris, sufficiently thrown by that comment that he stopped walking.

  Meanwhile, I was still walking toward him. This wasn't good. I was going to die!

  "The pale yellow glowing crystal, in the top left of that system repeater node! It was stolen from me!"

  ... System repeater node? What the heck was a system repeater node?

  "I don't have the faintest idea what you're talking about," declared Sir Khris. "Nor do I care. Goodbye. Behead!"

  He swung his sword, still a few body lengths away from me, but that shouldn't have mattered. [Behead] should have decapitated me regardless.

  Should have, had I let it. But I didn't.

  My grin widened, while the pathetic knight's brow furrowed beneath his helm, the idiot unable to comprehend why his Skill had failed.

  "You're a fool, playing with tools that you don't understand. That you couldn't understand, even if I waited a thousand years. Now you've crippled yourself, and you don't even understand why."

  "It's true that I have no idea what you just did to counteract my Skill, but it doesn't matter. I do not need Skills to kill you," incorrectly declared the unlearning idiot as he took another step towards me, sword held overhead.

  "Stop," I ordered, and he froze.

  The way his furrowed brows moved, his whole face warping as a touch of fear infected his previous bravado, was so gratifying that my own grin probably warped into a bit of a smirk. Well, that was fine. I'd earned a small smirk.

  "You're hollow," I informed him. "Instead of growing your soul, you've inflated it like a balloon. This little prison of mine shouldn't be capable of harming anyone above, say, level twenty. At least, not without getting physical, and I do so despise stooping to that level of crudeness. Yet I can harm you. Because you're fake. You've taken what you haven't earned, and now you're paying the price. Had you not stolen what was mine, there would be no way this flimsy shell could stand against you."

  "What... what are you doing?!" he exclaimed as he struggled futilely to move, the seed of fear taking root and growing at a rapid pace.

  "Isn't that obvious?" I whispered gently into his ear. "I'm killing you."

  And then, using [Mana Manipulation] to disturb his mana flow just so, I burst the balloon.

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