Nihility [ Isekai • Dragon Evolution ]

I woke up feeling a massive pain all around my body and in my soul. It was a sensation like I had never felt before, it seemed like my nerves were being constantly set on fire, and then the fire immediately put itself out, only for the process to start again. It's worse on my soul, though. It feels like someone punched me in my soul's gut and placed my insides in a blender.

I couldn't move my body or use any skills without sending a jolt of pain throughout my whole body, and this pain wasn't something that [Pain Resistance] was working, actually, it probably wasn't even working.

I was feeling something strange, and as I couldn't do much of anything, I tried to understand this strange feeling. What I discovered was that it wasn't a feeling at all, it was the lack of feeling, to be more precise. Right now, all my skills were somehow deactivated, forcefully, judging by the pain I was feeling.

I opened up my status to see what I was dealing with.

The first thing I noticed was how my physical status got halved, even if I was currently in my true body lying belly up on top of the bed inside of the inn's room, the next thing was my magical status were– A pain surged around my whole soul as I instinctively tried to use [Mathematical Cortex] to calculate the percentage of debuff I was experiencing.

My HP was down as well, and my MP was actually capped at 10% of my total, at least this one I could easily figure out without having to rely on my skill to act as a calculator.

A lightning bolt hitting the city's shield took my attention back to the magical storm currently raging outside. It felt… different, weaker, hollow, somehow. I wasn't sure about what to make out of it.

The last thing I remember was going out of the city by trying to teleport and being hit with one of those bolts–I tried to get out of the bed quickly, but immediately regretted it as my body screamed at me for even trying to move, and I fell back into the bed.

My breath was a little ragged, with a small amount of pain on each breath I took, only being able to turn, trying to get my belly down, after what seemed like an hour. Unfortunately, the bed wasn't big enough for me to do it, so I ended up falling on the ground. At least it was the normal amount of pain one feels when falling out of bed, and not the paralyzing one I was currently feeling whenever I tried to activate any type of skills.

This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

I could still feel time around me, although it was like watching TV through a translucent glass. I could still feel it, but the details were lost, that was how I felt the strange feeling of a strand of pure temporal energy all around me, tying me to something I couldn't make out. Trying to touch it was out of the question, unfortunately. I needed [Time Manipulation] to hold it, but I couldn't activate the skill.

I didn't know how long I had been out after being hit by the lightning– it had caused serious damage to me, I didn't even know how I was alive– but I still needed to prepare myself for my encounter with Jack, whenever it would be.

I spent the rest of the day trying to get up, but my limbs couldn't even hold my weight, and I collapsed every time I tried to get up.

The continuous tries left me exhausted, and I ended up falling asleep, waking up an untold amount of time later by the sound of the room's door being kicked up and flying across the room, hitting the glass, breaking it and falling outside of the inn.

I barely had time to move my head and look at Jack before I felt the cold sharpness of his sword across my neck, and the next thing I knew, everything was frozen and reverting.

My head came back to my neck, the door came back, and the glass fixed itself. I watched as everything, including my body, reverted to the moment I woke up in the room.

As soon as I opened my eyes, it felt like molten rock was poured on my insides as that temporal strand around me settled back after being activated and causing some damage in its wake.

I was locked in a silent scream for several moments before I lost all my strength, managing to only poorly breathe as I didn't have the energy to do anything else but breathe and to process what had happened.

Somehow, I was back inside of a loop. I didn't really understand how it was possible, because I didn't have any recollection of doing it, but I was glad it somehow had worked out.

The trigger to the loop seemed to be myself, or rather, the temporal strand that was wrapped around me, so if something happened to me, it would activate and revert everything back.

That took a weight off my shoulders I didn't know was there. I had the time to properly heal and rest from this soul burn, or whatever.

I was so relieved that I ended up falling asleep again, only to be awakened by the sound of the door being kicked open again. This time I managed to look at Jack's extended leg from kicking the door open, scanning the room, and immediately jumping at me with his sword in his hand.

Even with my knowledge that I wouldn't die because of the loop, I felt all my muscles tense up when we locked eyes, something about it made my heart to beat faster, or at least start, because I was dead the next moment, only for the temporal strand to activate and send me back to two days from Jack's arrival.

I didn't really know if it was the fire-like pain ravaging my insides or something else, or the mixture of everything, but the moment I returned, I threw up to my side, most of it hit the floor, but some of it hit the bed.

I was able to calm down only several hours later. My heart slowed down enough that I wasn't able to hear it beating like before.

"Wha– what is– is happening?" I managed to ask out loud through ragged breaths.

Was I dead? Was this hell? It felt a personal hell than a time loop, honestly. I didn't know what to do. I was the most powerless I have ever been since being reborn in this world. I couldn't move, I couldn't use skills or manipulate magicules.

The same thing happened twice more, each time I locked my eyes with Jack, my heart started beating faster and faster before I was killed, and the loop triggered. Each time it happened, the pain lessened a little bit, and the anxiety I was feeling from Jack weakened.

It was only on the tenth loop– yes, I counted every single time I looped– that I managed to start using skills again. The first one being [Magicule Detection], the world regaining its lost colors I didn't even realize I wasn't seeing anymore, and the other one was [Time Manipulation].

The first thing I did after being able to use my skills was to touch the temporal strand around me. The moment the strand vibrated, the loop restarted, meaning that I could manually trigger the loop to end early if I so desired.

I was so relieved at this information that I ended up falling asleep again due to the amount of work I had to do to be able to use my skills again. I only woke up with the door to the room being kicked open again. My mind hesitated when I locked eyes with Jack again, that single moment was enough for him to come right at me with his sword.

I managed to trigger the loop when his sword was halfway through my throat. I felt as the cold metal slid backward and the wound closed as it exited, him returning to the door, and something very subtle I didn't realize before was the minuscule wave of magic returning to the moment he locked his eyes on me.

It couldn't be a coincidence that this wave hit me the moment my mind freezes up with anxiety and my heart starts to beat faster, but I didn't know what it was or how I could stop it. All I could do now was study, at least until I could use my other skills.

When the loop started again, the pain that accompanied me when I restarted the loop wasn't there anymore, although everything else was still very much there. I could barely walk still, and could only use two skills at a time, and even then, I couldn't force them much.

I closed my eyes and focused everything into [Magicule Detection]. I could feel all the magicules around me and in the room, the walls were partially shielded, so everything outside was blurred to my senses. I focused on the magicules around me, feeling their movement, their elemental charges, the ones closest to me were more temporally attuned than the rest.

I tried to remember the sensation of Farahio's presence diminishing, trying to apply it to my skill.

…

…

..

There was something, just above the natural noise of the ambient magicules. It was like a pulse, a wave of magicules leaving my own body and being projected to the world. That wave felt rough, for lack of a better word. It looked more like static than anything.

I felt the moment my skill leveled up. It became heavier and more complex. At the same time, the level up of my skill caused me so much pain that I blacked out, only awaking again an untold amount of time later, right when my head got separated from my neck and the world started to loop back.

I honestly didn't know how long I was out, if it was just that loop or more, but at least now when I used [Magicule Detection] I could feel this pulse emanating from me more clearly than before, and even though it was blurred, I could feel the same from the outside, from the people walking through the streets.

Which made me realize how different mine was at the moment. Even though it was blurred and almost undetectable, I could still make out that the pulse of the people walking through the streets were, while different from one another, very well defined, not the rough looking appearance mine had. This led me to believe that whatever damage I had in my soul, was showing through this pulse.

I also discovered in this loop, when Jack kicked the door and locked eyes with me, that my mind only freezes and my heart starts to beat rapidly when his aura slightly changes and this change hit me.

I wasn't able to properly analyse this change, because I was busy being killed, but this was clearly the reason why every time I thought about Jack, my mind was almost overcome with anxiety.

Whatever he was doing with that pulse affected my mind deeper than I thought. It was something that didn't happen with all my fights before, for some reason, but what reason was that?

It took me another loop to reach a conclusion. I was fighting a human who wanted me dead.