Die. Respawn. Repeat.

Chapter 125: Book 2: Loop 15.1 (4)

We spend the rest of that loop fighting together within Isthanok's streets, finding out everything we can about the meteorites—their abilities, their attack patterns, even their preferred targets. The harpies in my first raid had a certain sadistic method to their attacks; given the opportunity, they would target someone they knew would upset me, would break my spirit. Like a child.

The meteorites don't seem to have any such innate sadism. I'm not sure if it's something I should be thankful about or not. On one hand, they aren't intentionally maximizing the amount of pain they cause; on the other, they're less predictable, reacting to even the smallest change around them.

That doesn't make them impossible to predict. As far as Vahrkos and I can tell, they go for the first thing that moves. Failing that, they go for whatever emits the most Firmament, including inanimate objects like street lamps.

Easy enough to manipulate if I'm within their range. Far more difficult to predict at a wider scale. I doubt they're going to remain very consistent between loops once they land. If I can catch them midair...

"Thys and Thaht are going to be in trouble," Vahrkos mutters, interrupting my train of thought.

"What?" Guardian of Fate still hasn't shown me anything about either of those two—but even as I speak, it flickers, as if a vision is on the verge of manifesting. Not quite there yet. That's strange; the skill is new to me, but it's been pretty good at showing me definitive outcomes so far.

"Their workshop is full of Firmament." Vahrkos nods toward a nearby shop getting smashed up; I sense the flickers and bursts of Firmament exploding into fireworks of power as the living meteorites destroy everything within. "Like that. Once they're sniffed out, they'll be a target."

"Ah. Great." Another thing I'm going to have to worry about.

"They're good at hiding." Vahrkos grunts, shoving a piece of rubble out of the way. "I mention them only to keep you aware, not to make you worry. They can more than likely handle themselves."

Guardian of Fate is going to have to pick up the slack there. I have too many things to keep track of individually as it is. I wouldn't be surprised if I've already forgotten some things.

As far as we can determine, the meteorites themselves aren't anything special. Their main trick is the dispelling Firmament that bursts out of them whenever they're hit too hard, but besides that particularity, they're about as standard as you can get. They have great strength, incredible durability, mediocre speed, and nonexistent reflexes.

It's pretty much just the absorb-dispel trick that's a problem, amplified by the fact that their outer shells are resistant to most blunt-force attacks. Even with stacked skills it's difficult for me to break through even one, let alone the dozens raining down across all of Isthanok.

...I'm starting to miss the scythe I stole from that Ahkelios-expy that killed me whenever I woke up. Maybe I should've kept a copy of it. Or at least stolen one from the dead monster in the research lab.

Ahkelios tunes in to my thoughts. "Can't you hit the inside of them?" he asks. "With Phaseslip."

I grimace. "I'm not sure what happens if I try to disable Phaseslip while I'm inside something, but I'm pretty sure it's nothing good. The Interface tries to stop me from doing it."

"Ah." Ahkelios nods, as if expecting this answer. "That probably means you'd lose a limb."

"...You say that like you have experience with that."

"Part of the memories I got back." Ahkelios says this as casually as he can, but I can sense the undercurrent of stress and tension in his voice—there's something unresolved there. "Don't worry about it for now. If the Interface is telling you not to do something, probably best not to do it."

"Or I'll try it at the end of a loop, where it doesn't matter as much," I grunt.

That said, a Phaseslip isn't my only option to get through these things. Now that he's brought it up, I remember doing something similar to Thaht's mechanoid suit in an Arena fight that feels like it was forever ago. Timestrike doesn't have any restrictions on where I punch, only when; I should be able to use it to bypass the external armor of the meteorites the same way I bypassed Thaht's suit.

And if I pay enough attention, I'll have the positions of every meteorite as they fall toward Isthanok. I could prime a Timestrike for them, depending on how it interacts with the subloops. The only problem with that plan is that it's significantly more positions and times than is reasonable for me to memorize within a hundred loops, let alone the four or five I'll have.

I grimace. I should probably still try to memorize a few.

"I'm going to go see He-Who-Wanders," Vahrkos tells me. He isn't looking at me. If anything, he's looking distinctly away, staring out at the carnage that's been strewn across Isthanok. Broken and melted glass lies across the streets. Sounds I've long since tuned out echo across the city, and I'm trying desperately not to hear them. Not to hear the crying of an infant, not to hear the sheer, grieving, anguished scream of a father that's lost his son, not to hear the rage-filled yell from a mother fighting to save the last of her children.

I don't have many loops to get this right. I can't afford the time to—I can't afford the time to process.

"Vahrkos." I want to warn him. Guardian of Fate tells me exactly what state Wanders is in; whatever he finds isn't going to be pretty. The words die on my lips as soon as I see the Firmament rising from him.

Anger, grief, worry, fear... the colors are so bright I see them even without Firmament Sight. The strength of his emotions cover him in a distorted cloak of power, but one light shines through them all—a shimmering blue.

Hope.

I can't bring myself to snuff it out. It's nothing I haven't already told him; he knows Wanders is dead. But I have to admit, I'd feel the same way: if I don't see it myself, I wouldn't quite be able to let go.

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Vahrkos has helped me as much as he feels he can. He's been thinking about Wanders this entire time. We both know that I'll end this loop soon, and he's decided he wants to spend his remaining time with the silverwisp, even if all he finds is a corpse.

It's almost uncomfortable how much I understand,

"Good luck," I say.

Vahrkos gives me a nod. His eyes meet mine, and I see the smallest flicker of something in them. A question he won't put to words.

I nod back; a silent promise. I'll make all of this right.

Vahrkos vanishes into the streets. I take a deep breath, forcing myself to put all the chaos around me out of my mind; Ahkelios watches me with concern, but he knows as well as I do that there's nothing more we can do. Anything I try is just going to be erased as soon as I rewind into the next loops. I just... have to make everything I do do count.

There's one more thing I want to do before I rewind time. I have to admit, it's probably for the best that Vahrkos isn't following along with me for this one.

Whisper's cathedral stands before me, a gleaming, impenetrable fortress of fortified crystal. I know Whisper's aware of what's happening. There's a whirlwind of raw Firmament strong enough that every meteorite that gets remotely close is immediately deflected and sent crashing into the ground.

And even if I disregard the storm, the Firmament here is in chaos.

Not a single thread of Firmament survives long enough to make it into the castle proper—it's ripped apart, torn to shreds long before it can reach Whisper. I can only imagine why. It was bad enough for me to be on the streets, listening to the cries of every citizen of Isthanok as they were torn apart.

Whisper must have had to listen to everything.

My range is tiny compared to Whisper's. She would have had to hear every scared, hiding child, to every person begging for their lives, to the sound of her perfectly crafted city being torn apart. Isthanok is a reflection of Whisper's vanity, after all—the crystalline buildings all designed to look like they're made of glass, a city standing strong despite its apparent fragility.

Half of those buildings are shattered now. Reinforced or not, they might as well have been made of glass to the might of the Integrators and their raid.

I sigh and take a step into the storm. Firmament Control wreathes its way around by fingers, the skill's power coiling around me, but...

The storm makes way for me. It's almost as if it knows I'm there—I have to reach out time to time still, to prevent stray strips from cutting into me, but for the most part, it's almost as if there's a protective bubble around me.

I think I can even sense it. It's barely noticeable at first, visible only in the most violent collisions of Firmament, but there are flickers of familiarity within the storm. On impulse, I activate Firmament Sight, squinting against the chaos of color around me and trying to peer at those flickers.

There's nothing for a long moment. Just a storm of power, raging around me. I push the skill harder, trying to remember what it is that this reminds me of—why this is so familiar. I can feel the Firmament within me reacting, as if this, for some reason, is important.

An image comes to mind. A memory of what I saw in Thys and Thaht's workshop when my Void Inspiration made contact with Hunger Firmament. At the time, I needed a combination of All-Seeing Eye and Firmament Sight just to glimpse into that gap beneath the Firmament.

Now, it feels like something's changed. The seedling that Gheraa left with me is reacting to that change—I feel it beginning to sprout and blossom, like the leaves of a flower bending toward the rays of the sun. Gheraa said I would have to feed the ones I make manually, but this isn't made out of an abandoned skill, this is made out of... well, him.

And whatever small piece of him remains seems to sense an opportunity. It's drawing in all the Firmament it can from the pressure that surrounds me, feeding purified Firmament into my core.

I check the numbers.

[ Firmament base attunement: 95.2%

Progress to next phase shift: 73.7% ]

They're growing.

[ Firmament base attunement: 96.6%

Progress to next phase shift: 82.4% ]

Rapidly.

[ Firmament base attunement: 99.5%

Progress to next phase shift: 92.9% ]

Almost there.

It's only when Ahkelios starts tugging at my collar that I regain enough of my senses to slow down. It takes effort—I have to force the Firmament away from me with Firmament Control, create a second bubble around myself that's clear of Firmament.

"Are you okay?" Ahkelios asks, concerned. I nod quietly.

Now isn't a good time to push myself to the next layer. The last time that happened, I had to fight a whole internal battle and align my sense of self. With an ongoing raid and a confrontation with Whisper just minutes away, I can't afford to phase-shift now, as useful as the growth in power might be. If I have to do it, it should at least be after I reset time.

I take a deep, shuddering breath, then take one last look at the storm around me. Something within my Firmament clicks, as if the growth in my Firmament has unlocked some deeper insight, and I... see.

[ Mastery of Firmament Sight has improved. ]

Every so often, in the space between—in that oh-so-ephemeral something I glimpsed that Gheraa claimed was beneath even the lowest layer of Firmament—there's a flicker of intent.

Path, it says. Open.

The concept of passage.

That's Whisper's intent. I'm not sure how I know that, only that I do. It's like I've managed to peer into a gap that isn't supposed to exist. A useful gap, at that; I can already envision the uses. If I can tell what an opponent is trying to do before their Firmament even reaches me, then I've got an unshakeable advantage.

As long as I don't accidentally peer at the authority beneath it all. The thought makes me wince. Even now, I'm steadfastedly ignoring it—I don't need to pass out again from accidentally taking a look. It wasn't a pleasant experience the first time.

I wasn't expecting to get better at Firmament Sight here, of all places.

"Um... Ethan?" Ahkelios's voice is almost timid. It's a testament to how much the storm is ignoring us that I can hear him clearly—like we're in a muted bubble of clear sound. Some of that, granted, is due to my own control over the bubble surrounding us. "Is Whisper letting us through?"

"Seems like it," I answer. Ahkelios looks like he wants to ask another question, but I shake my head. I need to focus. Even putting aside what just happened, it's not going to be easy for me to stay calm.

I know part of what I'm going to find, and that means I have to brace myself for it. I can't allow myself to be reckless here. This time, I'm holding all the cards. Despite all of Whisper's many, many faults, she isn't going to let her city stay destroyed, and right now I'm the only person that can reverse everything that's happened to Isthanok.

That means I can make a deal with her. It means I can force her into making a deal on my terms. Her information is incomplete—she doesn't know how long I've been looping, who my allies are, and it's unlikely she even knew I was the Trialgoer prior to me showing up on her doorstep.

She knows now, of course. There's only one conclusion you can draw when a stranger appears during a raid. I'd be surprised if she thought I was anyone else.

The only question is whether or not I can stomach making a deal with her while Tarin's corpse rots away in the room above.

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