Alex always had a sense for danger, but betrayal had a distinct coldness to it— bitter and unmistakable. When he thought he’d grown numb to its bite, it surprised him once more, plaguing him with a bone-chilling omen.

  The Immortal will betray you.

  Now he laid twisting in agony, groaning. The betrayal was pushed farther from his mind as a jagged metal edge squelched across his stomach. Blasts echoed faintly from the chamber’s center, muffled by the ringing in his ears; through blurry eyes and dense fog, he saw blood well from a contorted tear in his chest piece. Even his armor had turned traitor, it seemed.

  He blinked, clearing the last vestiges of the explosion’s haze. By the time his sight returned he almost wished he were still blinded.

  Alex Smith

  Tier 2 - Level 47, Expert Rank (Cursed)

  Former Nightmare Initiate

  Indenture: 100 years of service —or— 100,000,000 Essence Crystals

  Class: Ironblood Reforger

  Bloodline: LOCKED

  Affinity: LOCKED

  Health: 27%

  Mana: 7%

  Stamina: 11%

  > Traits

  [???]

  > Titles

  Cowardly Survivor

  Backstabber

  Unlucky Bastard

  …

  Dragonblade Forger

  > Attributes:

  Resiliant Body

  Hardened Vigor

  ...

  Orion’s Wrath

  > Ailments:

  Concussed

  Heavy Burn

  Bleed

  Alex was slumped against the chamber wall, a good ten feet below where the explosion threw him. His left arm was gone. He tried to stand and was met with fierce pain. It meant his legs’ nerves must be intact, albeit their mangled state inspired no confidence they would carry him far. The blast’s scalding temperature had acted as a crude cauterizing agent—that alone had saved him. It had also melted all but his head and chest into an indistinguishable, grotesque meld of his flesh and misshapen armor.

  Yeah… it’s over.

  Breathing shakily, he attempted to access his inventory but only triggered a cascade of error messages. Weaponless, potion-less, healer-less, his only escape was death. And even if I’m blessed with a quick one…

  The Boss unleashed a guttural roar and he trailed off, squinting into the fog. Faintly, he could see the Demonic Core embedded in its chest—the prize they’d risked everything to retrieve—and for just a moment, his hand tightened around the hilt of his broken sword.

  Then he noticed the Immortal. His eyes caught on her shadow, where nightmarish silhouettes emerged from purple miasma, weaving with an unsettling gait. One of them stopped. Its neck contorted to return his stare, and in the second they locked eyes, Alex saw a twisted resemblance to the man the creature had once been. His gut sank, urging him to flee—and that’s just what he did.

  Pulling himself upright, he hobbled towards the opposite end of the chamber, away from the ongoing battle. It wasn’t long before he found what he dreaded. Again, he was the only one left.

  Alex collapsed beside the corpse of his party leader with a ragged sigh. Jordan's legs and lower abdomen had fused with his armor, similar to Alex’s own injuries. Dissimilarly, the rest of his torso had been gouged away, leaving entrails strewn from yawned ribs. Likely, it was the only reason he hadn’t risen as one of those abominations.

  Good. The man had earned his rest.

  Heck, Alex half-considered ending it all right then—blowing himself up rather than risking becoming one of them—but he lacked the means. His lucky smith hammer was the only thing left intact and it made a poor weapon.

  That didn’t stop him from reaching for it anyway, but when no hand appeared where it should have, he had to look down at his absent limb to stump his confusion. Bile rose in his throat.

  “You might be lucky, Jordan,” he said. “A clean death isn’t any escape from necromancy. What happened to Frisk, Chon, Lyphie… it will be coming for me too.”

  He was met only with silence, but he could imagine what Jordan might’ve said to that. The old man with his half-lackadaisical, half-serious jests, leaning against the bar, bottle in hand and waving it about, “Well shucks, Alex. Guess you just gotta survive then.”

  He laughed, his scorched throat burning. Survive how? The journey here took them three weeks. What, was he supposed to make the slow crawl back up on his last legs?

  Yet, on some level, he couldn’t accept this as his end. If he’d known an Immortal Ranker would be joining them, he wouldn’t have—

  Warning: HP has reached below 20%

  He grimaced, recognizing the lie for what it was.

  “I have the most important job offer of your life,” Jordan had posed three weeks ago. “But I can’t reveal the client or the details. So, how much do you want to die?”

  “Not at all,” Alex had answered. Yet here he was.

  He’d known Jordan since his days on Earth; the man wasn’t truly asking after wasn’t a death wish, but about the strength of his endurance. How much longer could Alex bear it in this shithole? A decade? A lifetime? Even knowing the risk, he would’ve accepted, and Jordan would've known that.

  There was nothing to begrudge him for. On a backwater planet like Uern, Immortal Rankers were practically the rarest of natural disasters. When the Death Priestess, Camilla, pays a visit and has you assemble a Master rank party, you oblige and hope the storm passes quietly.

  And if it had…

  No, Alex killed the thought, quelling his desire as that Demonic Core shifted into sight again. The Immortal probably thought he was already dead; it was best he kept it so. She was probably right anyway.

  The worst part was he couldn’t even guess what she stood to gain from this. The mind of an Immortal lunatic was beyond him, but he couldn’t conceive she’d have any use for the Core at her realm. All that was clear was she had no intention of sharing it—or leaving any witnesses. Dead men tell no tales when they march in your army.

  After all this time, to think he’d kick it at the hands of a fellow Earther… it was almost enough to make him laugh. Even if Alex told her they’d fought together in the war, he doubted she’d remember. She was the most self absorbed of her ilk, and he was unrecognizable from who he’d once been. The Demonic Core was his only chance at starting anew.

  And there she was, toying with it.

  The Boss screamed. Alex sighed. It’d been ten years since Earth had fallen, and with each year that passed… this world had nothing left for him. No friends anymore—only acquaintances. And of those, the one he’d known the longest lay dead beside him.

  Now, it was his turn to die.

  He laid back at the admission, staring up at the fog. No tears fell. He didn’t tremble. He didn’t even feel relief for finally reaching an end. He watched his life seep from every gash, and felt only one thing: the burn of a long dead fire within him.

  Belatedly, he realized he was still gripping his Wyvern sword’s hilt—just the hilt, its blade having shattered in their final attack. He lifted her close enough to see.

  He remembered the shiver he’d felt at the Immortal’s betrayal, but more, he remembered the voice he’d heard from his sword afterwards. She’d spoken to him and their focus had narrowed to a knife’s edge. The energy he’d concentrated in her point… the power behind that attack could only have come from one place. To think his first glimpse would come at his end…

  Alex laughed bitterly, cursing his fate. Then he closed his eyes. Soon a sound like a coursing river rose from the depths to embrace him, taking away the pain in his final moments. It brought him silence.

  At least until the system glitched.

  ?WARNING?

  Galaxy 2374 experiencing temporal divergence.

  Requesting authorization for temporal patching.

  “What the—”

  ***

  “Alex, stop dragging your feet,” Jordan said.

  Alex stared at the man. Suddenly, words warped across his interface.

  4 Divergent factors detected.

  Scanning Iteration Prime for Divergence.

  Then the message glitched out, becoming forgotten to him. Now there was only Jordan. He stood at the Boss Gates, their runic glow casting his graying hair a tinge blue. But his ribs weren’t exposed. His intestines weren’t….

  Jordan raised a quizzical brow. Alex’s Dangersense sent a chill down his spine, warning him of… something. Not danger exactly—but something. Strange. He was going crazy. They hadn’t even entered the chambers and he was already imagining their deaths.

  And… he was still staring, wasn’t he?

  It was Jordan’s coy smirk that finally got Alex to look away. He snorted. Whatever that sensation had been, it couldn’t possibly matter now. In a few minutes they’d charge through those gates regardless, and whether they met feast or famine relied solely on the Immortal’s whimsy at this point. The only thing he could control was the condition of their equipment. So, he’d see to that.

  He spotted Chon leaning against the far wall and thought to ask if he’d had a change of mind about letting Alex mend his heirloom gauntlets.

  Chon grunted dismissively at his approach. “Hmph. It’s the deadweight.”

  Alas, it appeared not. Alex sighed. “The only deadweight here is—”

  His retort died on his lips as Chon’s head exploded like a melon, showering the room in blood and brain matter. Alex’s eyes widened, searching for any traces of the attack. His almost drew his sword when… Chon towered over him, bringing all the height of his Half-Orc lineage to bear.

  “The only Deadweight here is what,” he said.

  Alex gaped. Chon’s head was still on his neck, where it was supposed to be, whole. He nearly fell on his ass as the barbarian thudded his shoulder. “What’s Jordan thinking? Leaving our backline to a Blacksmith…”

  Alex just watched him pass. The vision had disappeared as fast as it had come, leaving only the chill. Staring at the back of Chon’s neck, he could almost recall it, but then he rubbed his eyes and it was like it never happened. Hallucination? Or just wishful thinking?

  Christ, I must be losing it.

  Or perhaps his trait was the one losing it. Afterall, he’d never gotten it appraised as true Dangersense. Maybe it had gone haywire after three weeks spent with the Death Priestess; from bearing the killing intent she never bothered to suppress.

  No matter. There was nothing to do now but get ready. Alex fastened his armor straps then traced the sigil for luck on the flat side of his forge hammer. He was no enchanter, but the act had long since become part of his ritual—not that it’d helped the man he learned it from. He secured the hammer onto his belt, drawing his blade for a final inspection.

  Lys (Rare)

  A Wyvern blade hammered with the desperation to surpass one’s limits

  Trait: Mana Induction

  She appeared just an ordinary arming sword—her form indistinct by design—but a glint beyond her steel spoke to Alex.

  “Thank you for your protection,” he said quietly, “I’m afraid I’ll have to ask for it again.”

  At the gates, Jordan repeated everyone’s roles for formality’s sake. Frisk, the young healer who was native to this layer, listened intently. The elven wind mage, Lyphie, stood beside him, her hand tugging at his pinkie. Chon just kept an indifferent attitude, glaring as Alex joined them.

  Alex was the only Expert ranker in this party, but he held no insecurity about his talents. A blacksmith capable of defending himself was worth his weight in gold for an enduring delve like this. And as a warrior, his role now was simple: Protect the backline. Call out threats. Ignore the Immortal’s endless shadow that lurked further down the cavern’s reaches. If he could just do that, maybe he could treat the last fifteen years as a bad dream and move on.

  Granted, it was hard to stay positive when the shadow materialized into something slightly more tangible behind them.

  “Enough with the strategizing. If you lot could defeat the Boss on your own I would’ve employed you for your swords, not your guidance.”

  The Death Priestess’ voice echoed coldly. Looks of stricken fear flashed across his party’s faces, reminding Alex that not everyone had the pleasure of knowing when they were watched. No one dared turn their heads. They wouldn’t glimpse her form even if they did.

  Private message from Jordan: Have there been any changes?

  He showed no reaction to the message. Jordan was the only one who knew about his trait—it’d been one of the reasons he’d hired Alex. But trying to parse the Immortal’s intentions had proved futile. She cared so little to hide her foul aura that after spending three weeks with a constant chill down his spine, all Alex could determine was that she was incredibly dangerous, and that entering the Boss chambers with her would be a terrible idea.

  Jordan wasn’t nearly as subtle when he read Alex’s reply. “Al-Alright. Everyone geared and ready? Let’s get this show on the road, then...”

  Frisk hurriedly finished casting his protections. As soon as the gates opened, he cast an invisible seeking arrow to sound out its location. Unless the boss had slugs for legs, it wouldn’t do any more than that.

  Alex crouched in a defensive stance beside Frisk and Lyphie while Jordan and Chon took vanguard, leading them in. The Boss chamber was vast and nearly circular, with a fog that thickened along the perimeter where they stayed hidden. Blue flames flickered on the chamber’s opposite end, behind the shadow of a massive throne. Then something massive moved from that throne, blowing the fires out. He heard the doors slam shut behind them. All at once, everything unraveled.

  Unraveled?

  Alex stopped cold, his hair on end as the air turned stale on his tongue. Had that been what his trait was trying to warn him about? That everything was… ‘unraveling’? What the hell did that even—

  He glanced back. The healer wasn’t moving forward with the group.

  “Frisk! What’s wrong?” He snapped.

  The young man stammered, “N-Nothing, just had a sudden chill, that’s all.”

  This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.

  His face was pale. Though he seemed coherent, his eyes were far distant.

  “Relax,” Alex told him. “It means noth—”

  He saw it before it happened, like a glimmer of the future overlaying reality by a mere second. The healer’s chest caved in and he fell dead.

  Divergence Factor located.

  Scanning Iteration 2.0 for Divergence

  Lyphie whirled back in confusion, her eyes unfocused. Alex instantly moved to cover her, only barely deflecting the ax that broke the fog near her head, skewing its path by mere inches.

  “Healer down!” Jordan shouted. “Defensive formations!”

  The Death Priestess ignored the order and rushed in–something Alex could only tell by the oppressive wave of dread that passed by.

  “Dammit!” Chon cursed. “How the fuck did it find us so fast! I thought we prepared for—”

  The Barbarian grunted under the pressure of another ax.

  “Doesn’t matter!” Alex shouted. “No time for distractions!”

  There wasn’t, but that familiar burn seared in Alex’s gut nonetheless. He ignored it, his eyes darting for sharp movements in the fog. Even though his trait warned him of attacks, its thickness made it difficult to deflect them. The pattern of attack made little sense either. He deflected one ax, then immediately had to pivot as another emerged from opposite of Lyphie.

  Were there multiple enemies? No–he only felt one gaze on him. It was heavy, suffocating, and every bit what he’d expect from a Boss with a Demonic Core.

  Another attack came. His hands throbbed, but instinct screamed for him to keep moving. He coursed mana through his steel and leapt, swinging down where he knew the next axe would appear.

  Fallen River

  It shattered against his blade. Sensing another ax, Alex seized the initiative with an upward swing again in the same motion—Reverse Current. It wasn’t a formal skill, just the result of expert mana manipulation. It bought him precious time.

  “Jordan!”

  “Already on it!” Jordan yelled. He signaled Chon, and the two charged toward the chamber’s center, where Alex sensed their foe. They needed pressure on that Boss yesterday—gods only knew what the Immortal was doing!

  Normally, he’d agree with grouping up but it wasn’t the right move with Frisk dead. There’d be no sustainability to their defense without healing, and Chon and Jordan’s heavy armor and weapons made them a liability against these rapid attacks. Without Alex’s senses, they could only leave the defense to him.

  Speaking of…

  “Lyphie,” Alex barked, “Snap out of it! Protection field, now!”

  The pale-skinned elf stood frozen. Then she finally tore her sunken eyes from the healer’s corpse, surveying her surroundings as though she’d only now realized a battle was underway. To her credit, when she finally raised her staff, her incantation was flawless.

  Alex slashed his blade in a sweeping arc, energy rippling outward. Then an invisible wall of wind shimmered around them and the next ax lost its momentum, clattering harmlessly to the ground. His vision was limited but he saw brief flashes of the hulking silhouette and heard the clashes of metal. Then, finally, his skin crawled from an all too recognizable miasma. Somewhere out there, the Boss contended with the Immortal.

  Alex allowed himself a moment to relax. Slightly. His hands shook uncontrollably. Even with the shock absorption of his sword’s tang, he’d been forced to use a two-hand grip deflecting those axes. Still, it wasn’t their force that concerned him, but their precision. Each strike had come at his most awkward angle, and with the most difficult timing. It’d felt like the Boss already had a read on him somehow, despite this being his first time fighting it. If his Dangersense hadn’t warned him...

  He shook the thought, glancing at Lyphie. Jordan, Chon, the Boss, and the Immortal, were all just vague silhouettes to him, but judging by Lyphie’s troubled expression, her spiritual sight revealed more than that.

  “What is it?” Alex asked.

  “Oh—uh… nothing. I think.”

  She clutched her staff, turning back toward the healer’s corpse. Alex hadn’t missed the glances shared between the two, nor their conspicuous absences. If he were kinder, he might have warned them off. But she was of elven blood. This wasn’t her first loss; his kindness would only patronize her.

  Alex chewed his bottom lip. “Do you regret coming?”

  He wasn’t the talkative sort nowadays but he needed her focused.

  “No,” she said, “The layers are no home for an elf.”

  He nodded. Thankfully, this sparse exchange did the trick. Lyphie raised her staff, summoning all the wind spirits in the chamber, and chanted a lengthy incantation. Her silvery hair lifted as mana buzzed around her. The look in her eyes told him this would be a finishing blow.

  Alex gripped Lys’s hilt tighter, retaking his guard. He was close. So close. Just one shard of that Demonic Core would contain enough essence to pay off his remaining indenture. Then once he was out of this shithole, there’d be countless opportunities to trade out his dead-end Class. He’d done everything he could. Now, all he could do was wait.

  Lyphie’s mana surged. Her wind spirits chirped. A whirlwind condensed into a deadly point at the tip of her staff, aimed in the Boss’s direction. Her magic swelled in potency, this battle’s end imminent.

  Yet, a nagging feeling pulled Alex’s attention elsewhere. He looked at the Healer’s corpse, struggling to recall which attack it had been that had caved his chest.

  The Healer bore no wound.

  And when Lyphie unleashed a massive surge of wind—only to collapse immediately after, there were no wounds on her corpse either. Only the flickering vision of her head twisting from her neck. And the overwhelming sense that something had unraveled.

  Divergence Factor has been located.

  Scanning Iteration 3.0 for Divergence

  “Alex! What the fuck are you doing?!”

  He stood in stupor at Chon’s words, staring blankly at Lyphie's corpse and the notification that glitched on his interface. This didn’t make sense. None of it made any sense! His trait was screaming a warning, but with all the coherency of a babbling five year old for fuck’s sake—

  That suddenly changed as Alex’s Dangersense made itself extremely clear. He dove to the ground, avoiding another axe, only belatedly noticing the elf’s wind barrier had died along with her.

  “You fucking deadweight!”

  Chon disappeared again through the fog. Alex grit his teeth. No one could blame these circumstances on an Expert ranker, but Jordan had trusted him to protect them. He’d had one fucking job, and dammit—he just knew; If his promise hadn’t been stolen from him, he’d have nothing to fear right now.

  His insides roiled. His curse had long since taken the touch of fire from him, but he could still feel the cinders of its memory, burning him from within. He bit his lip, letting the pain filter his emotions out in a stream of dark red impurity, leaving his mind to sharpen. Then he channeled mana into Lys with no bother for rationing his supply. He wouldn’t cower alone like some weakling while others fought for him.

  No more what-ifs.

  Alex pushed himself up and stormed into the chamber’s center. His momentum lasted all of three seconds. He’d expected an immediate struggle of life and death. That was not what he was met with.

  Time Warden - Level 330 Demon Realm Boss

  They knew its level would be below 400—unusually low for a Demon Realm monster—but this was… he’d never seen anything like it. The Boss looked almost like an albino minotaur with a satanic goat’s head. Its horns were twisted in elaborate curves, its fur shimmered like liquid silver, and its eyes were blank, gazing at everything with indifferent emptiness. It was beyond strange.

  No, strangest of all was the fact it was still alive. That instilled more terror in him than anything else, and the chill he felt firmly shattered any illusion of hope. He wasn’t terrified by the boss. Only the fact the Death Princess hadn’t bothered to kill it.

  Jordan and Chon were still fighting for their lives. He couldn't blame them—they’d probably never seen what an Immortal could do up close. But Alex remembered:

  A burn-scarred man sat atop an army of corpses. His eyes glowed red like a demon’s, and his left hand clutched the beating heart of a World’s Keeper—crushing it, sending a pulse of energy rippling across bloody horizons. The proclamation of Earth’s ruin.

  Ten years ago, he would’ve recognized it so much sooner. The way Camilla moved unseen to their eyes—with the grace of an assassin and the ferocity of a... no, how could he have been so blinded! If she’d wanted the boss dead, she would’ve simply strolled up and flicked it. That was what an Immortal Ranker was capable of.

  And that’s almost exactly what she did.

  For the first time the entire delve, Camilla, the Immortal Priestess of Death, fully materialized. She wore long, leathery black opera gloves and a purple Hydra-skin dress that squirmed as though alive. Alex fell to his knees. The hems of her dress, nine writhing shreds, snapped at his face as she walked by.

  Chon and Jordan also kneeled. Not from any sense of fealty, but because they simply couldn’t bear the full weight of her aura. The boss struggled under that same weight but broke free in a defiant roar. Enraged, it charged at her but Camilla didn’t break a sweat.

  That was when Alex noticed another figure emerge from the fog behind him. Her body was pale, twisted beyond the point of recognition. Her voice was airy and husk as she incanted, but the spell was give-away enough. Lyphie raised her staff, and the Boss was forced to kneel.

  “You.”

  Camilla pointed at Chon and he suddenly was standing. He stared down at his legs in amazement, then glanced warily at the Immortal. Something in Chon’s eyes told Alex he hadn’t expected her to be a woman. Something in the way Chon relaxed then only told him what he already knew. He was an idiot.

  “This is taking too long. Kill it.”

  “Naturally, revered Immortal,” Chon said.

  If he cared that one of their party members had been resurrected by the Death Priestess, he didn’t show it. He approached the Boss, bravado in his step, rearing his gauntleted fist back for an empowered blow. Alex saw Jordan straining against his invisible chains, trying to warn Chon that something was off. His mouth moved, but no words came out.

  “You will be vanquished by my fists!”

  Chon leapt and the Boss’s head exploded like a melon, blood and brain matter splattering everywhere. Then the Core embedded in its chest burst into a crimson light that consumed everything.

  But just before it did, Alex saw it—the notification glitching above the core, right where the Boss’s head had been.

  Fate Reversal

  ***

  Alex emerged from the fog expecting a struggle of life and death. Instead, he was met with Chon’s corpse. Just like Frisk’s and Lyphie’s, the half-orc bore no wounds; it looked as if he’d simply keeled over and died.

  Except Alex had seen his head burst in a million pieces.

  Divergence Factor has been located.

  Scanning Iteration 4.0 for Divergence

  Then Death aura animated his corpse. Bones stretched and bent beneath his skin then his flesh bubbled and popped and he leapt into combat as a new monstrosity. What Alex had to assume were Lyphie and Frisk joined him.

  Finally, Camilla emerged from her shadow form, materializing in front of the Boss. Overweight kukri knives appeared in her hands and a nine-horned mask materialized over her face. Her infamous Hydra-dress transformed as well: its hems becoming actual hydra heads. She passed Alex by with hardly a glance, hardly caring to oppress him as she strolled towards the Boss. The dreadful shiver down his spine told him all he needed to know.

  They had been betrayed.

  He chuckled bitterly. Of course they had. What were they even there for? They were nothing but ants; he was hard pressed to believe Camilla really needed their “navigation”. An Immortal’s intentions were impossible to parse—and that had been Alex’s only grounds for hope, but now it just felt dismissive.

  No… the truth was he was too weak to do anything about it regardless. They’d known it was a coin flip going in. It’d simply landed on the side of Lady Death.

  Alex was dead. He knew that already, and hated his body for how it reacted, yet every fiber of his body screamed for him to survive just a little bit longer. Maybe if he waited at the gates, waited for them to reopen, he could—

  “Camilla! What’s the meaning of this?!” Jordan shouted.

  Alex faltered in his step. His eyes scrunched tight as Jordan pointed his sword at the Immortal.

  “This wasn’t the deal!” He said. “But no need for explanations, I can see what’s going on.”

  The Death Priestess dissipated back into shadow, leaving her undead party members to play with the boss. She rematerialized, strolling towards Jordan. That idiot. He should’ve just held his silence and prayed for the best. But no, Jordan was a man of disgruntled honor, bound by codes that rarely survived the necessities of war. He wouldn’t flee his responsibilities, not while the betrayer who killed his team still breathed.

  Nervously, Alex channeled more mana into Lys only to realize he’d never stopped channeling his mana. Stupid. Did he think this place would be his last stand? He didn’t share his party leader’s sentiment; it would only go to waste. He inched closer to the gates.

  “I never should’ve trusted you,” Jordan said.

  Then Alex froze. He knew those words had been for Camilla, but…

  No, he’s been good to me over the years. Alex owed it to Jordan to witness his last moments. That was all he was doing. Witnessing…right?

  He watched Jordan close his eyes in prayer and when they snapped open his blade flared like an inferno, enchanted with his Constellation’s power. Camilla also called upon her Constellation, a deathly aura gathering around her kukri knives and sucking the air out of Alex’s lungs. A chill gripped him, harrowingly icy, like the frost that loomed on death’s sickle. That was more than a death sentence. Alex needed to leave.

  And maybe he would’ve—if only he hadn’t met Jordan’s eyes. For in them, he saw no resentment, no judgement: Just resolve, mingled with grief and fury for his fallen comrades, and a silent plea meant only for him.

  Run, you damned fool. Run and live!

  The Death Priestess swung. Jordan’s ability shimmered with greater heat.

  Alex didn’t realize when he broke into a run. His body moved before he could think; it did the exact opposite of what he wanted. His legs pivoted, his sword evened at his chest. He condensed his entire remaining mana pool into his blade—more mana than he should even have.

  Lys trembled, cracks forming along her length from all that power. Yet, Alex could so clearly hear her voice, pressing him for more. Flickers of pure condensed energy leaked from her cracks like lightning. She sang, her pitch rising to a shrill crescendo.

  Camilla’s eyes widened as he swung towards her with his strongest skill, their two abilities colliding.

  Energy Pierce

  For a moment, Alex forgot everything but the beauty of it.

  Sparks of white energy burst from the collision point. Lys screeched with fury, her cracks deepening as the energy consumed her. She was born for this moment—every hour in the forge, every drop of passion—all for this final breath. The gates he’d stared at mournfully his entire life opened just a crack, beckoning.

  Then Jordan’s sword exploded, casting the world in crimson fire.

  Divergence Factor has been located.

  ***

  ?WARNING?

  Galaxy 2374 experiencing temporal divergence.

  Requesting authorization for temporary patching.

  …

  Authorization granted.

  Completion: 1%

  2%

  Alex clutched his head, screaming, trying to remain cohesion. In the span of a second, the world flickered and glitched, folding in on itself a thousand times. Then before he knew it, he’d returned to himself. Whole, once more.

  He bolted upright, groaning as his armor dug further into his flesh.

  Alex looked at Jordan’s corpse, his eyes widening as his memories shifted. He’d been so focused on his attack that he hadn’t even noticed it at the time, but he saw it so clearly now. At the very last second, before his attack reached, Camilla had switched places with the boss… then Jordan’s detonation had killed it.

  Except, Jordan was the one who had died, not the boss. And it wasn’t just him, either. Frisk’s seeking arrow, Lyphie’s wind, Chon’s fists… they had all suffered similar fates. Then if it’d been Alex’s attack---if it’d been Lys’ energy pierce that dealt the final blow instead of Jordan’s explosion… then would he be the one lying there?

  The thought shook him. His vision red and blurry, he brushed what remained of his shattered sword with trembling fingers. Lys’ voice was gone now. He gave her one more squeeze, burning the feel of her hilt to memory. Before he let her go.

  Alex struggled to his knees. He’d noticed one more thing when his memories shifted, and it gave him a terrible idea. An idea so terrible that he’d probably be better off dying on the sidelines, struggle-less and forgotten. Instead he tried to walk.

  He forced feeling back into his legs—by crawling at first, by painting the ground a trail of his blood. By letting it seep—letting its warmth spread, and letting that pain in until hard-fought feeling had been won back in his legs and they could just barely support his weight. He stood finally, grunting with the effort; then stumbled forward. He signed the rune for luck on the only thing he still owned: His hammer.

  Further ahead, a miasmic explosion flashed through the fog. The Boss still fled the Immortal, its wails growing increasingly desperate. Alex bit back the urge to vomit precious blood, fighting to stay conscious as he staggered closer to death. A stray blast of miasma whizzed past his face. He didn’t bother dodging; his mind was focused on getting this right.

  Soon, the Boss’s silhouette grew clearer. It stumbled almost aimlessly now, riddled with wounds, exhaustion and hopelessness in its every movement. Behind it, Camilla licked her blade.

  “The Blacksmith, hmm?” She tilted her head. “You’re still alive? Good. That’s good. Care to finish this for me?”

  Alex didn’t stop to answer. He’d wondered why she hadn’t come to finish him off but now he realized his survival might not have even occurred to her. He was that insignificant. It'd always been like that. He, a mere ant, struggling to survive the battlefield of giants. Even now, the Immortal saw him as nothing; suspected nothing. It was time to teach her that ants could still bite.

  The Boss barely acknowledged his approach, its will having long since shattered. Alex stared into its eyes and didn’t see an indifferent monster, but a creature, protecting what it was meant to protect: Its core. A core that with each death, with each timeline, he had seen become dimmer and dimmer until it held only a dull, flickering crimson.

  The same core that had once held his hope for the future. The Death Priestess laughed as Alex raised his hammer.

  “How pitiful. Do you really expect to—”

  Then he slugged the thing with Meld.

  Crack—

  ***

  The world spun. Alex touched his stomach and the first thing he noticed was the threads of core that lined his arm where misshapen armor had melted in with his flesh. Then he noticed the blood.

  Ah, that’s right… I’m dying.

  It seeped between his fingers in an unstoppable flood, and even the core he’d pinned his hopes on was now dull and completely lifeless.

  It had been a crackpot theory—contingent on too many unlikely variables: He’d hoped the core had weakened enough for a Blacksmith of his level to Meld it into metal, and even more blindly, he’d prayed that the armor melting into his wounds might’ve designated Alex as half-metal or something himself. Then if he could just siphon away its aura from it before it dissipated, and activated whatever the Boss had been using to resurrect, then perhaps he could’ve healed his wounds or even add an immortal to his kill count.

  Yeah… this was a mistake.

  Surprisingly, a few of those steps had actually worked, before Camilla screamed and blasted him into the wall. And now he was even more dead than before.

  Alex’s vision blurred over the threshold to debilitating blindness. Vaguely, he could still see the Death Princess before him, her head tucked against her knees. She was crying.

  “Oh, shut up,” she snapped. “I can tell what you’re thinking.”

  He tried to respond, to curse her, but his eyelids grew heavy and his mouth refused to move. She fumed, stamping her heels in anger. “Do you even know what you ruined? That wasn’t a stupid Demonic Core—it was a Divine core! I mean, sure, call me immoral for getting you all killed, I guess, but—ah! Who cares! If not for this, you’d have died to something else anyway! But no, you just couldn’t accept that! You just had to ruin it! I swear, once you’re dead I’m going to—”

  She went on and on, describing all the ways she was going to torture his soul. Alex’s ears rang too much to hear it. His thoughts drifted farther away. He thought this must have been what Aashay had felt, when he’d bled out at Drusik’s Gates.

  Or Laura... though her death had been far more gruesome and unforgivable.

  Other names came to mind, other faces. Kirin, Nolan, Yara… and countless others who had put their trust in him over the years. He hadn't even been there for his sister’s death. Nor the death of his first real party. They’d stayed behind to protect their weakest member while he escaped with the return stone.

  2% HP

  Alex’s body grew colder. Those expired cinders in his soul seared with a cold burn—as dull as any other pain now. Once, a fire had blazed there, stoked with passion for his Blacksmith Class. He’d had a vision of greatness, that he might combine it with his Warrior skill tree… but no, fate wouldn’t have it. They wouldn’t have it. That dream had been robbed of him, and now the only thing he had to burn was regret.

  And yet, when Lys had sung her last… it was all that captivated his mind now.

  1% HP

  He coughed, spitting blood.

  His already-fuzzy world now flickered with bright, almost blinding light. He always knew he’d die alone. He tried to find comfort in the grip of his hammer, but he had dropped it when the Death Priestess attacked. Her arm was on his chest now, her death magic seeping into him—a fate worse than death.

  Oh, how she must hate him.

  A bloody smile crept onto his lips as the Death Priestess took his soul.

  Skill [Meld] successful!

  Divine Core has partially integrated with Alex Smith.

  [Fate Reversal] activated.

  Error: Alex Smith has been targeted with [Fate Reversal].

  CRITICAL ERROR. ASPECT OF FATE IS DESTABILIZING

  PATCHING… FAILED

  FATAL SYSTEM ERROR

  INITIATING SYSTEM RESET