I woke up with a gasp. I reached up and grabbed my arm… I had my arm back. No more burns, no searing pain in my side, no residual ice around me. I shot up and hurriedly looked around to see the same wrecked alleyway I’d come to everytime I’d died. Had I not defeated him? Had dying reset everything and I would have to beat him again?! But then I paused as my eyes caught something. Instead of the red door that had always been right next to my respawn point, there was… a green staircase. I stared at it for a moment, but then scrambled to run into the stairwell before it could randomly disappear for no reason. I threw myself down the stairs and probably got a few bruises in my mad rush to get here, but it didn’t matter. Because when I looked back, I couldn’t see the wrecked alleyway anymore. Just a green wall of the stairwell. Fresh chapters posted on 𝚗𝚘𝚟𝚎𝚕·𝚏𝚒𝚛𝚎·𝚗𝚎𝚝 I took a shaky breath and then released a relieving sigh as I deflated. No more trial and error by death. No more having to deal with a smug jerk and his condescending comments. I shifted into a sitting position and bumped my head against the wall. I probably sat there for a whole hour, just trying to get my limbs to stop shaking. Trying to stop the panic mode my mind was still in. I barely even read the chat. People were probably congratulating me or asking whether I was okay. I was not okay. I’d just died a dozen of times. And then I’d beaten a guy to death. And I didn’t even feel bad about it. How fucked up. Hadn’t even realized I’d stopped caring about the whole murder thing. I had killed him and could only feel relief. No guilt, no regret. Just relief. “He was already dead… He told me he was already dead…” I justified to myself as I rubbed my brow. But who was I kidding? The way the fight had ended… reminded me too much of my second ‘fight’ with the archer in the city dungeon. The way I’d just gone berserk… yeah. I could say all day long that neither one of them had been real, but it didn’t change the fact that I had gotten used to extreme violence like that. Would I even be able to get back to normal life after I’d returned to Earth? I sighed again and craned my head to look down the staircase. Then I froze as a thought hit me. Where did this staircase lead? The demon had told me that his would be the final trial. But if that was the case, why would there need to be another staircase? Wouldn’t the Limit Break just end? I swallowed and tried really hard to calm down my shaking limbs. I failed. I didn’t want another trial. I couldn’t do this anymore. Fuck the sunk cost fallacy. I was going to enter the first red door I saw if this kept going. ...After a little break. I didn’t even want to move right now. “Chat. Please tell me it’s over. I don’t want another one.” Jeofffff: could be a bonus level Jeofffff: maybe you dont have to beat it SunOfABeach:probably gonna meet the weaver SunOfABeach: he said you would meet him after that trial “...Oh. You’re right… That could be it.” trelipideliberitation: what if he lied tho “Don’t say that, Trelip! You’re making me paranoid!” KaiEbikoOfficial: this has been too much KaiEbikoOfficial: please just enter the next red door you see “That’s the plan… If this isn’t over yet, I’m leaving the first chance I get. I’m too exhausted to keep going.” JamieWasTaken3:yo but u were really cool JamieWasTaken3: really showed that asshole I wasn’t sure how I felt about that, but I appreciated the sentiment, at least. More people chipped in and I replied. For a moment, I pretended to have a ‘just chatting’ stream and forgot the fact that I’d just fought someone to death… multiple times. I had no idea how long I just sat there, decompressing, occasionally fighting off panic attacks or bursting into tears, but eventually I fell asleep on the stairs. When I woke up, I immediately decided that I had to stop sleeping on stairs. My back hurt like hell. Even if I could magically heal it with Ether, there could still be some long-term effects. “Okay… Okay… I guess…” I sighed. “I guess it’s time for the next trial… or time to punch someone in the face.” For that, I cradled my soul and let it wash through my fist in preparation for Soul Strike. Like reloading a gun. Then I finally got up, stretched, took a deep breath, and walked down the stairwell. When I reached the bottom, I stopped to take in the next area. In contrast to the first trial, this stairwell led to a bright white place. It felt like it should hurt my eyes, but somehow, it also felt like complete darkness surrounded me. “Stupid bullshit…” I murmured. I stepped into the white darkness, head on swivel looking for any red doors leading to salvation. I scowled but kept walking. After a full minute, just when I thought this trial would be about sensory deprivation, it appeared. I felt it before I saw it. The pressure weighed down on me, dropping me to my knees instantly. My breaths stopped and all my muscles tensed so hard I thought they would rupture if my mind wasn’t too busy screaming in terror at the moment. It was right there. Right in front of me. Floating in the air. “Congratulations, Aoto Nana. You have broken your limits.” I nearly gasped, but the muscles in my throat refused to move. Still, I tried forcing myself to move. To at least look at that abomination. It felt like I would need to break my neck to crane it up though. “Thank you for fixing my mistake.” Yet even through all that pressure and terror, my mind focused on it’s words. ‘Mistake’?! Fuck this bastard! I gripped my Intra, flooded my body with it, and forced it to move. Only by a tiny bit, but that was enough. From the corner of my eye, I saw it. A grotesque colorless creature shining in all colors that existed and didn’t exist at the same time. Humanoid yet not. Colossal enough to dwarf the universe itself, yet smaller than an atom. I had to fortify my mind with Intra just so I could keep looking at that thing. “I expect you to go far. Don’t disappoint me.” It had eight eyes. Two clusters of four plastered on a mockery of a human face. It had horns, a tail, wings, scales, skin, leather, fins, gelatin– I clamped down on my Intra even harder. “Farewell. Good luck. And. Do not break the timeline.” Congratulations! You have broken your limits! Suddenly, I was back in the forest. Right where I’d entered the Limit Break. A ticket floated down in front of me and something thunked next to me, but I ignored it, too focused on the massive screen in front of me. Th^s iS t*e F#t% W&a~e+. (*@&#$RřH*(#$@6Q$R5|#I(*$Y#@QWůIoX The text kept getting more garbled further down. And then it curved, ignored normal conventions, and began snaking all around the system window, and then outside of the system window. The longer I looked at it, the weirder it got. The moment the text fucking reached out of the window to grab me, I recoiled and closed it. Then I noticed all the other notifications. ‘Muted Nightmare’ title unlocked! Free skill Fusion and Specialization unlocked! Object Crystallization unlocked! Memory Temple access unlocked! Incausal rift access unlocked! You can now purchase duplicates of fully upgraded skills for half the price! A lot of stuff. Stuff that the system hadn’t told me about before. And also a ton of skill points and new skill slots. But I couldn’t even be happy about those. Couldn’t even celebrate because my mind still reeled from meeting the Fate Weaver. My shaky limbs finally gave out and I crumpled down from my kneeling position. Then I used the last ounce of my willpower to flip myself so that I could lie on my back and look at the sky. I lay there for a few minutes, solely focusing on my breathing. Trying to calm down after… everything. Eventually, I closed my eyes, took a deep breath, and then let it all out. “...Chat. I think punching the bastard will be pretty hard.” Another breath, another exhale. “But, hey… I’m a gamer, right? I can’t back down from a challenge.” I chuckled, probably sounding a tad unhinged. “I’ve just been wandering without much of a goal... besides trying to return to Earth. But now?” I remembered the thing’s visage again and clenched my fists so hard they might have started bleeding if I wasn’t so durable. “Now I finally have a goal.” I scowled. “I know you’re listening, Fate Weaver. I don’t care how powerful you are. I don’t care if you created this whole system, maybe even this whole world! I don’t care if you live outside of time and space or whatever!” I grit my teeth and locked my eyes with one of the clouds, where several of the Tempor eyes probably were. “I am going to kill you.”