Chapter 38: My Own Personal Graveyard

  I reawakened at the Anchor Point beside the stone bench, immediately clutching my neck.

  My brain screamed that the wound was still there – phantom pain flaring – but it wasn’t. My skin was whole. I wasn’t bleeding.

  I had no time to waste. Every second spent recovering here would make things down there progress differently. If I don’t move now, the entire scenario might shift. The Turret might pick a different spot. The Guardian might not follow the same path. The Enforcers and the Insurgents might turn their attention to me quicker.

  So, I ran, summoning the Armor-Piercer mid-sprint, my legs and feet burning just like before.

  Passed the first two fighters clashing with blades – same position as last time. Then the second pair – drawing enough attention for the Enforcer to get killed by the insurgent and then for the insurgent to escape the Guardian. Then rushed past even more battles.

  And there it was. The Turret. Still in turtle form, making its way to the fountain, just like before.

  I raised the pistol, wanting to stop and line up for the perfect shot. Hopefully to get it down with one bullet. But I reminded myself of the Guardian.

  Out of the corner of my eye, I caught its movement, looming on my left, steam hissing. Too close for comfort already.

  If I paused even for a second, it would torch me.

  Should I go for the Guardian first after all?

  No. That thing’s too big. If I want it down, I’d need all six Aetheris Bullets. And even then there’s no guarantee it falls. Regardless, while I tried, the Turret would gun me down just like last time.

  Damn it.

  I wished I had set the Checkpoint earlier so I'd have more time to strategize.

  Then, an idea crossed my mind.

  The Guardian…it was Libra’s. But the Turret? Ironwatch’s.

  What if, instead of fighting me, I made them fight each other?

  Instead of keeping my course toward the Turret, I shifted left, running past the toppled Porter Carriage and straight at the Guardian.

  Automatons can’t exactly express emotions, but I bet this one was surprised.

  I summoned a Cryora from the Inventory and jammed it into the COG’s Channel Core. The needles pierced into my forearm, injecting me with its mana.

  I briefly wondered if my COG saved the overheating progress from my pre-Checkpoint run. Because if it did, even a single cast of magic now would send it into a half-hour cooldown.

  I couldn’t dwell on that thought. I only had one shot at this anyway.

  I aimed my hand down and released a surge of ice that flooded the ground ahead, spreading toward the Guardian’s feet and beyond.

  Just as the Turret started firing, and the Guardian raised its flamethrower hand, I leapt forward and dropped to my knees, sliding with the momentum, using the frozen path to glide cleanly between its legs.

  The Turret’s bullets tracked, and at the exact moment I passed beneath, they hit the Guardian. That was when the Turret completely locked onto its new target. And while it did little damage to the powerful humanoid automaton, it grabbed its attention – the Guardian now turning toward it, then sprinting to meet the new enemy.

  Perfect. That went far better than expected.

  I scrambled upright, rushing to the sidewalk, hugging the wall of the closest building – which was mostly intact, panting hard from the adrenaline.

  A millisecond later, the COG told me it was done for.

  [OVERHEATED]

  [COG Channel Core overheated – Cooling Cycle initiated]

  [Estimated Downtime: 00:29:59]

  Damn. So, the COG is the same as the Inventory - it does not revert to its previous state after Checkpoint activates.

  There was no time to linger. The Calibration Hall was right ahead.

  I ran, weaving between the wrecked sidewalk and fallen bodies, and stopped just long enough to send the Armor-Piercer back into the Inventory. In its place, I grabbed a handgun from a nearby dead Enforcer. Not ideal, but better than wasting an Aetheris Bullet.

  I was one building away.

  And then it happened.

  The building to my left detonated without warning – explosive fire consumed its front in a flash, shattering the walls, door, and windows.

  The concussive blast struck me with power and the shockwave hurled me through the air like a ragdoll.

  I felt like something punched into my ribs – glass, stone, and metal from the building – and then I hit the pavement with my back, rolling once or twice before I stopped.

  My ears rang loudly, silencing everything else around.

  Pain exploded through me.

  I couldn’t even move my head to assess the damage. Couldn’t move any limb, for that matter. My chest burned with every breath. I still felt something lodged in my side, and blood pooled in my mouth.

  Everything hurt wildly like I had never experienced before.

  Damn it…I was so close…and now, I’ll forget…

  But then, the Déjà vu System flashed an odd message.

  [Checkpoint: Amount of uses per run is increased to 2]

  What? I’m imagining this…

  The message vanished from my vision, and then the light swallowed me whole.

  [You’ll now reawaken at the Anchor Point]

  ***

  I gasped as I reawakened next to the stone bench again, grabbing at my ribs out of pure reflex, the pain still echoing through my body.

  What the fuck? A second revival?

  My body trembled, screaming from the pain that wasn’t really there.

  Why did it revive me again? Don’t tell me that’s another way for the System to ‘mess up’…

  Well, at least this time, I can use it to my advantage.

  The damn handgun didn’t make it into the Inventory – it must’ve flown from my hand during the explosion and my rough landing. And with the COG overheated, my only option now was using the Armor-Piercer. The one thing I didn’t want to waste a single bullet of. But I had no choice anymore.

  Reaching the Calibration Hall without the COG was going to be tricky…but still, I had to try.

  But when I leaned forward to run, I realized I wasn’t moving.

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  My feet stayed rooted in place.

  “What’s going on?” I muttered, bending down to check my legs for injuries.

  Of course, there weren’t any. I’d literally just reset to this position.

  It wasn’t my body holding me back. It was my subconscious.

  I was scared. No matter how much I didn’t want to admit it.

  My mind remembered how it felt to be torn apart by shrapnel, to choke on my own blood. Twice. It refused to let me leave for a third time.

  “Oh, c’mon.” I growled, slamming both fists against my thighs. “We need to move!”

  I had to do it. I had to find a way to read Aetherprints. I had to find Thea. I had to save those dear to me. I had to stop Valdemar and save the world.

  And still, I didn’t move.

  The seconds bled away. I was already behind schedule.

  Snapping, I slapped myself as hard as I could across the face.

  A sharp, burning sting shot through my cheek – and for a second, it drowned everything else, giving me just the moment I needed to lunge forward and throw myself back into danger.

  But I’d lost time, and the battlefield had already shifted. I couldn’t follow the same route I took the last two times because it wasn’t the same route anymore.

  So I veered left from the start – toward the sidewalk where the building before the Calibration Hall had exploded.

  This time, I’d stop before I reached it and take cover. I’d wait for the detonation, then move in.

  But things were worse now. The battlefield was even more chaotic.

  The Turret had already taken position by the fountain and was firing indiscriminately at anyone not marked as Ironwatch.

  “Stop right there!”

  Barely fifty steps in, and I was already stopped by an Enforcer – the same one who’d been dueling the Kinetra-enhanced insurgent before. He must’ve killed her and turned his attention to me.

  “I’m not with them, I swear! I just got caught in this mess by accident!” I shouted, turning to him with my hands up, voice cracking and body trembling as the fear of dying again slowly creeped back.

  He didn’t look convinced at first. But after a moment, he lowered his arm and stepped closer, cautiously. “Get to the Calibration Hall. That’s where the others – “

  He never finished.

  A sword pierced through his chest from behind.

  “This is for Mara, you son of a bitch!” A male insurgent coated with Kinetra's mana shouted.

  Then he turned to me. “You all deserve to die!”

  “Wait – I’m from Orlinth!” I shouted, scrambling back.

  But to no avail.

  He drove the blade straight through me, pinning me to the wall.

  Before I died, another message flashed before my eyes.

  [Checkpoint: Amount of uses per run is increased to 3]

  Oh, for fuck’s sake…

  [You’ll now reawaken at the Anchor Point]

  ***

  I reawakened next to the stone bench again, immediately throwing up, clutching my chest and gasping for air.

  Fuck…that’s fucking horrible. The human mind wasn’t built for this – wasn’t built to die three times in ten minutes and come back.

  Okay. Fuck this shit. I’m rounding the buildings. If the Calibration Hall doesn’t have a back door, I’ll make one. I’ll scrape my damn fingers against the stone until it gives. No way I’m going through that avenue again!

  I took off, circling around the buildings on the left side of the avenue, still nauseous.

  The backside was just a wide grass lawn stretching a few hundred meters toward a nearby residential cluster. No back doors. No gaps between the buildings. No way through.

  Still, I’d rather bash my head against the wall until it cracked than go back to that meat grinder.

  I sprinted toward the final building – the Calibration Hall.

  Nothing. Just a stone wall. Windows, but all barred tight.

  My COG?

  [Estimated Downtime: 00:22:34]

  So fucking long.

  I backed away from the wall, breath shaky, trying to steady myself.

  “I don’t want to go back there. I don’t want to go back there. I don’t want to go back there.” I whispered to myself constantly, attempting to calm myself down this way.

  Then, right on time – an explosion.

  The first floor of the building next to the Calibration Hall detonated, the blast tearing through the back wall and its windows just like it did to its front. The shockwaves slammed into me and knocked me on my ass, but not hard enough to injure.

  I blinked dust from my eyes, staring at the broken building, the gears in my head already turning.

  I could go through it. Cut through the collapsing mess of this building and come out on the other side. From there, pivot left – hopefully, the Guardian and the Turret got knocked back by the explosion – and straight to the Calibration Hall.

  “I have to do it. I have to do it. I have to do it.” I muttered, over and over, forcing my legs to move.

  I scrambled to my feet and ran.

  I reached the burning building’s back and used my COG to clear the shards from a cracked window, sweeping them away with the metal bracer. I hauled myself up and climbed through.

  Inside – it was a mess.

  The ground floor had been torn by the explosion: walls blown open, chunks of concrete missing. Flipped, splintered, and burning office furniture. Black smoke filling the air. The ceiling above sagged, steel beams exposed and jagged downward – on the verge of collapsing.

  I pushed through it all, climbing over the wreckage, my right forearm shielding my face, my left hand over my nose.

  I was close. The avenue was visible just ahead through the shattered windows.

  But before me was the trickiest part – a massive portion of the ceiling caved in, the beams moaning, ready to fall.

  I considered turning around, but then I remembered the only other way to the Calibration Hall was through the front where I had already been killed three times.

  I didn’t want to go through that again.

  Grimly, I nodded, bracing myself and pushing faster.

  And then –

  [Checkpoint: New Anchor Point set]

  [Current anchor will be lost upon death, or after thirty minutes. The earliest of the two.]

  [Checkpoint lvl. 1: Time left until Anchor expires – 00:29:59]

  Wait – what?

  [Checkpoint: Amount of uses per run is increased to 13]

  Before I could process the message, the ceiling collapsed.

  A scream escaped my mouth as the concrete and steel crushed me from above, killing me instantly.

  [You’ll now reawaken at the Anchor Point]

  I jolted back to life – just before the ceiling caved in again.

  I wanted to jump forward. But I was too slow.

  Crushed again.

  [You’ll now reawaken at the Anchor Point]

  Jump forward!

  Not far enough.

  Dead again.

  [You’ll now reawaken at the Anchor Point]

  There wasn’t even time to mourn my sorry predicament as I –

  [You’ll now reawaken at the Anchor Point]

  I growled – desperate – and threw myself backward with everything I had left in me.

  My head slammed against the corner of a shattered desk. Pain followed. I was bleeding from my forehead.

  Behind me, the ceiling came down and a steel beam crashed inches from my foot, scraping the sole of my boot.

  I yanked my leg free, losing the sole in the process, panting like a dying animal.

  My brain was buzzing. I couldn’t feel my body. I wanted to stay down. I wanted to die for good and be done with it. But I couldn’t. Not with Checkpoint set to twenty-five.

  If I died here now – of smoke, of fire – I’d be dropped back under the falling ceiling to die again.

  So...I crawled.

  I crawled through the jumbled and jagged mess that was now a mix of the exploded first floor and the crashing second. I dragged myself with trembling arms, body aching from the deaths I couldn’t forget.

  When I reached the front windows, I barely had enough strength to shove myself outward through one.

  Back in the street, I didn’t even try to stand at first, pretending to be dead.

  From my awkward angle, I tilted my head toward the fountain and watched the insurgents’ Guardian rip through Ironwatch’s Turret. Then a different Guardian barreled in a second later and the two clashed.

  I dragged my limp body forward, inching closer toward the Calibration Hall.

  Almost there.

  “Where do you think you’re going, Skyhavener?” Someone called behind me, followed by a laugh.

  Did…did the insurgents win?

  Still on the ground, I twisted my head to look back.

  Black uniform. Libra. I was right.

  Not this shit now...

  He strolled over, sword in hand, and kicked me hard in the stomach.

  Air escaped my lungs from the impact as I rolled onto my back, coughing.

  Then he stepped on my chest, pinning me down.

  “You don’t get to live after all we’ve been through down in the Foundry, dirt bag!” He snarled, lifting his sword and aiming its edge at me.

  The System chose that exact moment to interrupt.

  [Checkpoint: Amount of uses per run is decreased to 7]

  At that moment, something inside me snapped.

  After everything that happened during this run – after all the deaths – I wanted to die. But it was because everything that happened during this run – because all the deaths – that I couldn’t.

  I suffered too much to die here empty-handed.

  Remember what you're fighting for, Viktor.

  I raised my left hand and summoned Armor-Piercer directly into it.

  It manifested instantly, the barrel already aimed at the man’s face.

  He barely had time to blink.

  I screamed as I pulled the trigger.

  The bullet punched straight through his right eye socket with a burst, sending skull fragments and blood into the air behind him. His body jerked once before collapsing beside me, the sword clattering on the ground.

  Still on the ground, I screamed again.

  Then I turned my head toward the two Guardians still locked in battle, crashing into buildings on the other side of the avenue, oblivious to me.

  Good. May they kill each other.

  I forced myself upright, feeling numb. Like I wasn’t myself anymore. And yet, I felt somewhat content. Somewhat…calm.

  I’d just killed someone. I should’ve felt something, right? But my mind was too shredded to process it. There wasn’t room.

  I staggered to the man's body, grabbed his sword and the handgun holstered to his belt, and turned toward the Calibration Hall.

  I walked up to the double doors that were already slightly ajar, and kicked them open.

  And as I crossed the threshold, I whispered the only thing keeping me upright.

  “I’m not dying until I get what I came here for.”

  [Quest Completed: From A to B]

  [3 Level Upgrades Available]