Master of the Loop

Chapter 162

The Measure of Eternity

You have died.

Save point ‘Death’ has been initialized.

“AAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!”

That had been the ninth attempt, Sylas recalled. It was quite... visceral, all things considered. He wound up being disemboweled, chopped limb for limb, and eventually beheaded still because he remained alive through it all. Though he was virtually numb to pain, it still wasn’t all that pleasant, watching his own guts and organs spill out from his body onto the white snow.

There was an issue that he was trying to remedy--he realized that it would be impossible to kill the Shadow ‘properly’, even if he trained for the rest of the winter and came to face the man. The gap between the two was simply astronomical, both in terms of skill as well as the amount of energy the two possessed. However, it wasn’t as though Sylas couldn’t kill the Shadow--he’d already done it. Twice, in fact.

The problem was, however, that he died alongside the Shadow due to the whiplash. Even if he could kill the Shadow without using both of his 'lives', the recoil not only blew his arm into smithereens but also fried his brain. Ever since then, he was playing around to find the perfect ratio of energy to survival--how much he needed to kill the Shadow without also killing himself in the process.

Within the five attempts since, he realized that the ratio had to be virtually perfect. Not only that, but he also realized that charging energy had a finite time limit--anything longer than a few seconds, and the Shadow would immediately latch toward him, killing him immediately.

It was a very delicate situation. Luckily, he thrived in delicate situations--not because he had the intimate know-how in dealing with them, but because he had the infinite repeats to simply stumble into the right answer.

Once again, he departed from the castle with the wind in his back as the only companion. That and a tiny, leather backpack with enough rations to last an ordinary person two days. However, as he continued to understand his Way better, with each new life, he also started to understand the laws of energy in this world. They weren’t all that different than on Earth--he couldn’t simply ‘create’ energy, nor could he destroy it. He was like a battery in a sense, storing the energy and then discharging it after the fact.

The minute control that he’d developed allowed him to effectively ‘feed’ on the energy, extending the period of satiation by days at the minimum. It wasn’t only that--applications kept ‘popping out’ with each new step he took.

The latest part he’d figured was also the one that made him the giddiest. Sitting down in the deep of the night, he bent over the few relatively dry branches he’d found. Above them, he flicked his fingers together, causing a spark to ignite the wood and start the fire. Though it was just a tiny spark, he used the energy within and without him to start a fire. If that was possible... then, by proxy, all ought to be possible.

Roasting the freshly caught rabbit, he once again drifted into his thoughts. They had expanded, considerably, yet also narrowed. He’d stopped caring about the dead and he’d stopped caring about other Kingdoms and the worlds beyond the peninsula. All that mattered was the throne, and his mission to put Valen on top of it. He’d even ignored the side-quests he had in terms of powering up, for he was already enough.

There was no need to develop his archery or even probe much deeper into the Heartseeker. Those were secondary to the two things that truly made him unique--his Way and his quasi-immortality. His Way didn't thrive on the technique, he'd already realized it. It wasn't skill-based but leaned on the side of absolute simplicity. It orbited the idea and the notion of the pure, raw output of energy in a condensed, focused form.

As such, the most important things were his body and the storage of energy within him. As long as he could develop his body further and stabilize even more ‘hearts’, he could kill everyone and anyone. Him being able to kill the Shadow confirmed that. Even if he was outmatched in every imaginable facet, that singular strike still could not be blocked or dodged.

He imagined that, originally, that part of the Heartseeker Mantra was simply a last-ditch effort of the assassin to slay their target. Life for life. Heart for the heart. He was a bit of a cheat, though, an unintended consequence, an aberration never foreseen. He not only had a life to give but had several of them to sacrifice. And still breathe after felling his opponent.

And even if killed still... he’d live. He’d come to realize how naively childish and moronic he was, always saving whenever offered, as though hurried by the cosmos. Then again, in many ways, he had to be broken to be rebuilt. There was nothing left of that man who suffered for decades in a nightmare-driven pandemonium. No, there was still a tiny part left, buried in the depths of his soul--that anger, that rage, that primal desire still lingered within him, and likely would until the end of his days.

Taking a bite out of the roasted rabbit, he sighed, looking up toward the clouded sky. He learned to let the time simply... be. Weeks-long journeys used to be something he’d have to plan for months, and would still find almost unbearable. Yet, now, they were just... things he did. Those weeks barely registered to him. Most days simply bled into each other, blending into a singularity that he could not distinguish.

He’d cut down the journey to six days--something that likely no other person on the entire peninsula could match, short of using some manner of the teleportation magic. He barely rested, barely slept, and barely did anything but walk forward at a constant, uninterrupted pace.

Once again he found himself staring at the Shadow--at the man cloaked in darkness, voicing out the confusion over the topless, barefoot, homeless-looking man intruding out of nowhere. Sylas didn’t speak--he’d learned all there was to learn from the man. In fact, he likely knew more than the man about the things that mattered.

While Sylas may be blind to the truth of the Empire and the Kingdoms that came to inhabit its lands, he didn’t care. That wasn’t his journey, nor was it his story. Because he stuck his head there, he suffered unnecessarily.

You have died.

Save point ‘Death’ has been initialized.

“AAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!”

There was certain poetry in death, he mused. It was the morbid kind of poetry, but it was there. Its beauty, however, eluded him. After all, death for him was... nothing. It was akin to falling asleep and waking up, fully rested and renewed, if heartbroken anew.

You have died.

Save point ‘Death’ has been initialized.

“AAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!”

As a form of taking a break, he limbered about the castle for a few months--chatting with Valen, with Ryne, with Derrek, and simply loitering about aimlessly. It was necessary, he learned, to take a break from dying. After all, it can get very dull.

You have died.

Save point ‘Death’ has been initialized.

“AAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!”

There the Shadow stood again--asking questions, wondering, pondering, confused. ANd there Sylas was--topless, barefoot, looming in the white snow beneath the silver moonlight. His eyes were impassioned, lips sealed shut, body armed with energy that tickled the twine.

You have died.

Save point ‘Death’ has been initialized.

“AAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!”

Two swords crossed in the shimmering moonlight, the sparks flying off. Two figures bled into blurs, speedy and colossal. The snow that decorated the hillside melted around them, turning into a torrent of water that swallowed the village down below like a maw of a beast. The two, yet, ignored it. Suddenly, one of them pulled the sword back, energy coalescing into a tiny singularity before being brutally unleashed.

The single spark of light bled out into a cone, decimating all in its path, opening up a wound in the earth that would never heal. The man fell to his knees, armless, gutless, eyes flickering with the last dash of light.

You have died.

Save point ‘Death’ has been initialized.

“AAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!”

The winds whipped his unkempt hair, the strands dancing in the moonlight. It was the nineteenth life and the nineteenth death to the Shadow.

You have died...

A sword gutted him cleanly before sweeping over through his neck. His head flew, sight turning upside down for a moment. The world was... delicate. Kind. Blossoming.

You have died...

There he was again--on his knees, his legs having been cut off. The Shadow asked questions, but he stayed silent. Words were wasted on the life that stops and recedes. As were the tainted breaths.

You have died...

You have died...

You have died...

He was getting closer to it, Sylas felt. In the forty-four runs of the same fight, he had been narrowing the timing. He had been perfecting the exact amount of energy. He was close, twice, though merely by the stroke of luck. That wasn’t enough. He’d have to be able to repeat it, for he would fight this fight many, many, many more times to come. The march south would not be smooth and would not be done in a single attempt.

You have died...

The night was dark and silent, and he hid in its shadows, drinking the tasteless wine. However, her footsteps still emerged. She found him. She had a knack for that, he realized. No matter where he hid, as long as he never departed... she’d find him.

“Hey,” she gestured gently as she sat down by his side, taking one of the bottles and joining him.

“Hey,” he greeted back.

“How you’ve been?”

“Promising.”

“... the hell does that mean?” she looked at him askew.

“No clue. Sounds cool, though, doesn’t it?” he chuckled.

“The dumbest things sound cool to you,” she sighed. “You know what’s really cool?”

“What?”

“Taking me to see you fight.”

“You mean to see my ass being whooped time and again?”

“I do need new material to make fun of you with,” she said. “You owe me that much.”

“... it’s a long journey just to watch me die, Asha.”

"Haah. I remember the days when the concept of death... scared even me," she said, chuckling bitterly. "Now... now it feels so hollow. I hate you for it, you know. Most of life's excitement comes from never knowing when it will simply... stop."

“Perhaps,” he said. “If you need death to motivate you... you ain’t quite right to begin with.”

“... you gotten any closer?”

“Yeah,” he nodded. “It should be over, soon.”

“Then what?”

“Then you get to join me. With the rest of ‘em, too. Should be fun, listenin’ to the kids bitch and whine about the cold.”

“You bitch and whine plenty, too, about many things,” she chuckled, leaning her head against his shoulder. “Gets really annoying, to be honest.”

“... thank you for putting up with it, then.”

“Eh, what are you going to do? Can’t just ignore the poor, confused, and angry kid.”

“Damn. You really just... understand me. On like a deep, deep level.”

“I really, really do. And so, I ask you, to not be a hero,” she added. “You just don’t have what it takes.”

“... alright, damn. That one cut deep.”

“You want to be a hero?”

“Every kid at one point wanted to be a hero, dammit,” Sylas said. “You don’t just come out and say ‘yo, you, you ain’t got what it takes to be a hero’.”

“You’re not a kid, though?”

“You’re lucky I’m mature enough to forget and forgive.”

“Ah, yes, yes. Lucky me~~”

“Lucky you indeed.”

“Haah, why do you drink this awful crap?” she asked, tossing away the bottle. “I’ll give you however much wine you want, even if you choose to ignore me the entire loop.”

“Thanks but... I dunno. I kinda like this awful crap,” Sylas chuckled, looking at the bottle in his hands. “Reminds me of something... deeper. Something that I don’t ever want to lose.”

“What? Bad taste?”

“Ha ha ha, yeah, I suppose it’s the bad taste, ha ha ha...”