Die. Respawn. Repeat.

"You could have at least warned me you were going to try it," Ahkelios complains.

He's been justifiably upset for a while now. We're taking our time and walking back toward Isthanok, although it's a long way away; the Knight covered quite a lot of distance while he was out of control. I'm almost back to the Cliffside Crows. My memories of traveling are somewhat fragmented, probably because I spent some of that time fighting the Knight for control over our shared body—I have a vague recollection of passing through the gates to the Great Cities, but I don't really remember landing on anything that wasn't a tree.

I glance at Ahkelios, who's still looking at me, affronted. "I know, I know," I say with a little sigh, reaching up to nudge him with a finger. At least it's easy enough to follow the trail of destroyed trees, grass, and cratered dirt back to Isthanok. I can't imagine what the guards at the wall are going to think. "In my defense, I don't think I was entirely in control when that happened."

"You weren't in control at all." Ahkelios looks away, grumbling.

"I mean when I used the Inspiration," I say. I can't really be mad at his grumbling. A lot of his annoyance just comes from genuine worry, and every little gesture he makes reflects that worry. "It wanted to be used. I... don't know how else to explain it."

Ahkelios makes a noise in his throat. "And it won't happen again?"

I hesitate. "I don't think so," I say carefully. "But I'm not ruling anything out. You get to manifest yourself whenever you want, but the Knight and I... we have to share a body. It's not so simple for us."

The little mantis looks away. That point hits home. The truth is, the situation with the Knight is more complicated than I'm ready to think about. For one thing, it's both aware and strong enough to influence me. That's something I'm going to have to keep in mind—even now, what we have is tentative.

Trust takes time to build, and the Knight might be willing to put a little faith in me, but it doesn't yet trust me. Not entirely.

And even when it does, I'm going to be influenced by its thoughts and feelings. It's a little like Ahkelios and me, in a way, though the way the partnership manifests is different.

Even now, the Knight feels like it's... sulking?

It's sulking. At least a little. It knows it can't take over again without risking damage to me, and it doesn't like feeling trapped.

Honestly, I can kind of sympathize.

"Are you sure you can trust this Kauku guy?" Ahkelios asks, changing the subject. I frown a little, thinking about it. I hadn't actually considered how much I should trust the guy—not in depth, anyway.

"I mean... I don't see any reason not to trust him," I hedge. "But I want to find out what he is anyway. You know. Just in case."

"Any ideas on where to start?"

"Just a few," I say. "There might be something in the Empty City. He says there's a memory important to him in there. That implies that he was there, doesn't it?"

Ahkelios hums thoughtfully. "Or that he really wants to find out what happened in there," he points out.

"Or that." I sigh. I do have a second thought—I'm pretty sure the Knight is related to Kauku in some way, the same way the Void and Accelerate Inspirations are supposedly his children. It's possible the Knight knows something. The only problem is... well, I don't think it consciously knows whatever that something might be.

Inspirations as lifeforms are, as far as I can tlel, fundamentally different from most other creatures in the universe. They're more based in concept than they are in reality—in some way, they're always shifting and changing based on their host's perception of the concept they embody.

Which means they necessarily lose a part of themselves whenever they're bound to a new partner. The Knight has its memories, but most of those memories are locked away, buried within a psyche it hasn't managed to align itself with yet.

It'll unlock those memories eventually, but there's a long road ahead of us before that. A long road where we figure out how to work with one another and fight together.

In a way, it's nice to have another member of the team, even if I wish Kauku had given me a little more of a warning about all this.

Almost on cue, I hear the sound of Guard's thrusters. I look up, startled—he's absolutely speeding through the sky, the crack of a sonic boom reaching me long seconds after I spot him. He changes angle when he sees me, aiming for the ground at my feet, and I take a few quick steps back.

The automaton lands in front of me with a thundering crash that sends a cloud of dirt into the sky. Even as far away as I am, I find myself coughing to clear away the dust. Meanwhile, Guard's singular eye is scanning me with a kind of desperate concern, and before I can say anything he picks me up and starts rattling me around as if he's worried something inside me was knocked loose.

"Ethan," he says after a solid three seconds of this. Ahkelios has relocated himself to the top of Guard's head and is watching with amusement. "You seem... well?"

"I was better before you started shaking me," I grumble, somewhere between irritated and amused. There's a trail of smoke in the sky that implies he chased after me pretty much as fast as he could. It's a little endearing, if I'm being honest, but... "Just so you know, shaking humans around like that isn't how you perform a diagnosis. You're going to give me a brain injury."

This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

"Oh." There's an undercurrent of embarrassment in Guard's voice. "I apologize. I am... unfamiliar with diagnostic methodology for humans. And it's uncommon for someone under my charge to transform and vanish."

"Yeah, I wasn't expecting that either," I say dryly. It's convenient that he's here, though—I'm almost ready, and it won't take me long to roll for the rest of the skills I need. "And I'm not your charge. We're a team."

"Right," Guard agrees, although with the way he looks at me, I suspect he's saying that more to placate me. I shake my head, sighing, although it's more out of amusement than exasperation. Clearly, it's going to take some time before we're on the same page.

So I decide to change the subject. "How are things in Isthanok? Are we good to head for the Empty City?"

"As soon as you are," Guard confirms. Apparently he isn't all too worried about the destruction either of us have left behind—fair enough, I suppose, considering the loop is going to repair all of it. It's mostly Isthanok itself that needs to be stabilized, and anyone with damaged Firmament helped before the loop resets.

"I just have a few more skills to pick." I would've picked them earlier, but the whole thing with the Knight distracted me. I pull up the Interface and glance at my Interface again—with what Kauku's done for me, it makes sense to bank strength, speed, and reflex. As for durability...

Well, after killing that Chimera, I have exactly 999 durability credits. Figures. I'll bank it when I get the last credit I need.

"Just one credit, huh?" Ahkelios doesn't quite manage to hide the mirth in his voice. I roll my eyes.

"Don't rub it in."

The sheer power of the Knight means I'm going to have to take it into consideration when picking new skills—utility might be better than raw power if the skills in question aren't enough to beat what the Knight can do on its own. Of course, combining the Knight with those skills would amplify them even more... but I don't think either my body or my Firmament can handle that kind of power just yet.

I have a long way to go.

There's also the fact that I'm not sure what kind of Inspirations I'm going to get next. If they function like the Knight does, then I'm going to have a suite of different evolutions to choose from, and it means I'm going to have to spend a lot more time understanding exactly how evolutions alter my skills and Firmament.

Tentatively, I feel within myself and immediately wince, prompting a concerned, mechanical whirr from Guard. Evidently that's not something I can test anytime soon. My entire body is still sore, and my Firmament isn't faring much better.

We'll start by going ahead and banking the rest of my credits, then. I go through the rolls and make my choices after some deliberation—unfortunately, I'm not lucky enough to get a critical roll on any of the stat categories this time around.

But I'm not unlucky, either. I waited to roll my skills hoping that using Once More into the Fray as a time-altering skill would impact my skill choices, and it's done exactly that.

Strength, for example.

[Causal Shattering (Rank S) obtained!]

Most of the other options I had for Strength skills were varying degrees of "punch harder," with trigger conditions that ranged from reasonable to near-impossible to replicate. Causal Shattering was the only one that did something different, and since I'm both looking for utility that goes beyond pure force...

It's interesting. Causal Shattering has two possible outcomes. The name's a little more poetic than what it actually does—for the most part, it shatters time in whatever I strike with it, causing various parts of the object to randomly accelerate or regress through time. A test of the skill on a nearby already-destroyed tree causes some fragments to heal to perfect condition, others to rot and age into nothing, and a whole fist-sized segment of wood is reverted into a seed that looks like a cross between an acorn and a lemon.

But there's a second possible outcome, according to Inspect. If I pour enough Firmament into the skill, if I understand the skill enough and manage to gain Mastery in it—and this is the first time Inspect has given me any indication of how a skill changes when I gain Mastery—then it's possible that Causal Shattering will let me strike a point back in time.

Specifically, a point in the timeline of the person I'm striking. This skill, if mastered, has the potential to alter the trajectory of someone's life. It's going to take a lot of work to get there, but the potential is almost terrifying.

Rank S skills are a whole other realm, clearly.

And then there's the Reflex skill.

[Paradox Warning (Rank SS) obtained!]

I got lucky with this one. Reflex, at almost 3,000 credits, is the closest to the next threshold—of the four options I received, Paradox Warning was the only Rank SS one. The other three were, respectively, a skill that gave me faster thinking and two variants of Premonition that were a little more specific and could reach farther into the future.

All useful. All skills I wanted. I almost picked Cognitive Accelerant, in fact, because it'll make up for the loss of Compounded Mind. But Paradox Warning is...

It lets me send a warning to the past.

It's by far the most flexible, even if the way it works is a little strange. Apparently, from my perspective, I'll receive a warning about a specific future event. The warning is meant to allow me to prepare for the event, not necessarily to avoid it. When I encounter the event in question, I have to use Paradox Warning and send the message back, word-for-word, to fulfill the conditions of the skill.

Functionally, this means I can send messages back into the past. The downsides are that there are phrasing limits, it has to be a warning, and I can't send a message back to before I got the skill, which is probably the most disappointing part of it all.

"What happens if you don't?" Ahkelios asks.

I make a face. "If I don't... send a message back to myself, you mean? After I receive the warning?"

"Yes, exactly." Ahkelios looks up at me, curious.

I stare at him. "Do we really want to test what happens if we try to break time?"

"...yes?"

"I will admit to being curious, but no. Absolutely not. Inspect doesn't tell me what would happen, but it does tell me it would be very bad. On a planetary scale."

Guard, who is simply standing next to me and watching during all of this, shudders. "I appreciate your restraint."

I move on and roll for the final skill to add to my list.

[Distorted Crux (Rank S) obtained!]

This one's simple: as long as it's active, the closer something is to me, the slower time passes for it. It's something like a weaker version of a Timestop skill, but it's still enormously powerful.

I close my eyes. Even with all the power I've gained—even with the fact that I'm a third-layer practitioner with multiple Rank S skills and an Inspired Evolution that takes me to a level beyond anything I've been able to fight at so far—something feels... off. Like I'm still not ready, even after everything I'm gained. I'm confident I'm a step above Whisper and Naru now, at the very least, but how would I fare against an Integrator? Or someone like Kauku?

You're being hunted. Kauku's words still echo in my head.

I'm not one to dismiss a warning. I'll just have to be prepared.