82

Truth

Appearing within the circles were two Knights in full plate, black capes billowing, the visors of their steel helms covering their faces. They unsheathed identical broadswords and dashed toward Rian.

These are…

Rian dodged their swings, keeping light on his feet. He took in as much information as he could, using his Perception to its fullest. The Knights weren’t terribly fast—at a glance, they were only level 40. His Agility outmatched them, but the snow on the surface of the tower made it tricky to keep his footing, and he hadn’t fully adapted to the movement potential of his body beyond the level cap yet.

Already the Knights were working to surround him. They attacked in a pincer formation, kept the perfect distance to cut Rian with the tip of their swords while leaving him out of range for a counterattack.

When their blades struck his skin, he almost screamed. A red rose of pain blossomed from his chest and shoulders, spilling hot blood down his uniform. He retreated toward the edge of the tower floor. The Knights pursued, their bodies cutting tunnels of emptiness through the snowfall, their armor and blades flickering blue when they caught the light of the portal overhead.

They kept predicting his movements, anticipating his dodges. There were no openings, only feints—layered feints in the way they positioned their swords, appearing to attack from one angle, then fluidly transitioning to slashes and stabs from directions that Rian couldn’t anticipate. And when he did, the second Knight punished him for dodging the other. They were coordinated, manipulating him with their tactics, a mind game that he was rapidly losing against.

So he dashed in, grabbed hold of one of them, and maxed out his Endurance with Mirage: Flux while keeping his Perception steady. His body suddenly felt like it was made of lead.

His Power, Agility, and Resolve were all at 1. He could hardly move, but it didn’t matter. All he needed to do was hold on long enough for Dash’s cooldown to reset.

The Knight struggled, slammed the hilt of its broadsword against him, and the other stabbed at him repeatedly, but none of the hits went through. They barely scraped him, his skin like hardened stone, his passive healing already closing the wounds. If there was pain, Rian didn’t feel any.

After four seconds of tanking hits, Rian reverted his stat changes and cast Earthen Resonance.

He had positioned himself at the edge of the tower and was facing its center—that way, the second Knight had gotten behind him to go for back-attacks.

It was exactly where he wanted them.

Still holding on, Rian spun himself and the Knight around to line up with the second Knight. He had more than enough Agility and Power to carry the Knight and all the armor attached.

Rian dashed.

A sword-less Dash would end short only if he ran into anything along its path. But if he was holding onto anyone—like he’d done with Chrono in 2-1—then Dash would affect them too. And although the snowy surface of the tower had made it near-impossible to get traction for a burst sprint, Dash would always bring its user a few inches off the ground.

He timed it perfectly. As he and the first Knight careened toward the other Knight, Rian let go, and they all slammed into each other. The outer Knight went airborne before landing on the edge of the tower. The other Knight fell and slid, gauntlets scraping the floor through the snow.

Rian steadily picked up speed, finding traction, and tackled the furthest Knight as it began to stand up.

They went over the edge together.

Rian focused all his attention on the feeling he’d tried to grasp before as freezing winds enveloped him in free fall. He could sense it, the weight of things, a field of negative energy that drew everything toward itself.

Temporal energy wasn’t just the power of time—it was inseparably entwined with something else.

The other side of the coin, a duality: temporal energy was spatial energy, too. And the ability to manipulate such a thing, to draw it toward or away, meant he could curve it around himself. He could step outside of it.

The wind roaring in his ears lessened. His fall began to slow. He let go of the Knight, who fell into the cloudy mists, flailing helplessly, the wind whipping the cape around like a black veil.

And then, steadily, Rian ascended through the air.

Rising above the edge of the tower, Rian looked upon the snowy surface, and the remaining Knight merely watched, standing in wait.

Upon seeing Rian hover into the space above the tower, the Knight tossed its sword aside.

Yindra made a sound of disappointment, blowing air through her teeth. “I was hoping it’d take you a little longer to figure that out.”

He gently landed on the snowy floor and then stepped up to the Knight, who made no further movements until Rian was close.

The Knight slowly reached up and took off its helm.

It was as Rian had thought. At first he’d expected someone else, a deceptive trick on the part of Yindra. But he’d already made the connection, fit the pieces together long before he’d set foot on this tower. It was no surprise to see his own face staring back at him.

He was Raven; his past selves were.

All this time. The deja-vu he’d felt, the way everything flowed together in combat the more he fought, his uncanny rate of improvement at controlling his Vessel. He’d been accessing the memories of his past selves without realizing it. That was what had filled the missing one percent of his mind in the Cognitive Mirror before he’d died. Before he’d merged with Corvis.

Raven, whose empty gaze remained only upon Rian, vanished in another red circle of runes.

Silence filled the air again. A troubling thought arrived, and Rian’s breath caught. He turned toward Mom and Yindra, who were still at the center of the floor.

“If those two were me,” Rian said, approaching Yindra again, “where’s the third one? I know how you work. There’s always four with you.”

“When I made the first iteration of you—when the first Raven failed,” Yindra said, her voice carrying through the distance, “I tried again with the same conditions and made a second one. That one managed to win the first Fata Morgana tournament.”

“What do you mean?” Rian said. “That doesn’t sound like failure to me.” Fighting against them for even a few seconds, he’d seen a glimpse of it: the peak of combat ability for a level-capped Vessel.

“Fata Morgana,” Yindra said, “is controlled by the GMs. The winner doesn’t come here. They just pick a GM to dress up as me and grant the winner a modest wish through the System they control. It’s pathetic, really.

“What Raven failed to do was fulfill the necessary temporal conditions—to reunite with your mother in the past, which would ultimately lead you here. So, for the third iteration, I took the opposite approach. I made significant changes and tried again. One of those alterations was memory. And identity.”

“But you can’t—”

“Can’t what? Alter the memories of my creations? That only applies to humans wearing headsets, Rian. Living humans. I can raise the dead all I want and mold them to how I see fit. Where do you think the power to create Vessels for all you Earthlings came from? It was stolen from me.”

She began to laugh deliriously. “You were fighting yourself the whole time, Rian. Don’t you understand? That lust for power, for accumulation. Selfishness. Greed. It all came from within you. Ogrot was just a soulless puppet made in your likeness—of your true self. It was your characteristics that made his foundation.”

“What?” Mom was breathless. “That’s not…”

“Oh, yes, the delicious irony of it,” Yindra drawled. “I knew how you wished to reunite with your son. And all this time, your other self had been accompanying a facsimile of him. Another failed iteration.”

“Devon was nothing like my son. Don’t you dare suggest that.”

“But did you ever truly know him, Emily? As well as I do?”

“Shut up. I know my son. Your mind games won’t work on me. You altered Raven’s and Ogrot’s memories and act like that’s how my son really is. You know there’s more to humanity than that. You just wanted to prove your own point to yourself because you refuse to see the good in people.”

“Then Devon wasn’t real?” Rian said. “Everything that happened in the alleyway—was it all made up? Did you alter my memories?”

“You misunderstand,” Yindra said. “The real Devon was an actual person who assaulted you on Earth. But Devon never entered the game. The Vessel, Ogrot, was simply masquerading as him. He wasn’t being piloted by anyone. Just another NPC, as you’d call it, but one that I gave elevated privileges—enough to evade detection by the System. He was a blank slate. A puppet I designed using your memories of Devon. But he was also seeded with your personality traits. Just like Raven.”

Rian blinked, trying to fit the pieces together. “So he was…looking for my mom, too?”

“He was,” Yindra said. “I transplanted certain memories of yours into him. Though I ensured he would never admit his goal to anyone. That temporal bridge between you and Emily in the past—it could only exist because there was no external interference, no leaked knowledge of what transpired during your conversation with her. All anyone knew was that you—or someone like you—would eventually contact her from the future. But no one else could know what information crossed between the gap until the loop closed. Not I, nor the GMs. It was perfectly sealed away by the System, kept in an unobserved state, if you will. After a century of trying, I couldn’t even read it from Emily’s mind.”

“Even if I tried to tell someone,” Mom said, “the System would physically stop me. I had to stay in Miriad, as well, but…”

“I was nearly certain that my third iteration of you would pull it off,” Yindra continued. “Complete the loop. Fate had told me so. But it was only partially true. In the end, Ogrot only succeeded in creating the path for you, the fourth iteration.”

“Then…” Rian’s breaths quickened. “Did you manipulate my memories, too?”

Yindra’s laugh was melodic, like wind chimes.

“She never had the chance to,” Mom said. “Because I stopped her.”

That mischievous smile played on Yindra’s lips again. “But soon that won’t be off the table. Once I’m free, I think it’ll be time for some…reprogramming.”

As Rian arrived beside them again, having walked back across the floor, he looked up as a wave pulsed through the air. The falling snow had halted for an instant as if the world was glitching.

“In fact,” Yindra said, “it appears your time is almost up.”

The snowfall slowed to a complete stop. Then it began to reverse, and all the snow in the air rose into the sky—toward the blue ring of light.

Yindra looked at Rian, raised her brow and shook her head, frowning mockingly. “You had your chance, Rian. This could’ve gone much better for you and her if you’d listened to me.”

He could feel it in the air, a rising sense of potential. Like a dam about to break.

“What’s going on?” Rian glanced at Mom. “I thought you were suppressing her.”

Mom winced. “I don’t know, it’s like—”

“Like the balance has shifted?” Yindra said. “There are limits to what the Observer can do, Emily. The more elements at play, the more temporal disturbances, the less effective your gaze. Nor is it perfect. I’ve always had a trickle of influence that’s escaped you.”

Yindra took a step toward her. The sound was a window breaking, ice shattering. Cracks in space like blue lightning appeared and faded around Yindra.

“In a few more seconds,” she said, “the balance will tip. You’ll have spent this past century—staring into me, living life at a standstill here and through Ossyra—all for nothing. Oh, I’m going to enjoy the next century of pain you’ll endure.”

Rian stepped back, but he dearly hoped it was just a bluff. “But…then why did you offer me a choice, earlier? Why would I let you go if you were going to break free anyway?”

“You short-sighted human. You’re no different from the rest, still believing that you had a choice to begin with.” She smiled humorlessly at him. “My full power may be suppressed, but I can still reach through the System to influence the future. That was the purpose of Fata Morgana S. To build up a Vessel of sufficient power aligned with me, and then lure them into coming here. To use them to break free from the Observer’s gaze. I’ve been siphoning temporal energy from you since the moment you arrived, Rian.”

Pressure exploded from Yindra’s body, blasting away the snow in every direction and knocking Rian and Mom across the tower floor.

When Rian tried to right himself, he was no longer on the ground—the floor was still below, but gravity had left him entirely. He tried to influence it, tried to regain control of where he was hovering to, but he just kept rising against his will. Aside of him, Mom was floating helplessly as well. It was affecting everything: the snow, the air itself.

And the tower below them.

It shuddered with a tremendous rumble, loud enough to shake Rian’s body. He and his mom were nearly fifty feet in the air when the tower floor began to surge toward them.

“Now say farewell,” Yindra said, floating out of the way. “Oh, and thanks for playing.”

Rian braced himself as the floor collided with him, and then everything was rising again. He lay pinned as the tower hurtled into the sky.

He could only watch as the blue ring grew brighter and closer—a distortion in space, a disk bending light at its edges. It was like a gigantic pool of silver reflecting an image of the ground.

He closed his eyes as they passed through the portal.