The Convergent Path (Reincarnation/LitRPG)

Fin sprinted along the eastern wall of Crie with explosive speed. The ground blurred beneath him as he pushed his enhanced physiology to its limits, the sounds of battle ahead creating a savage symphony. The city's air had become a toxic miasma of burned fur, fresh blood, and the acrid stench of overcharged mana that made his enhanced senses recoil.

His Electromagnetic Synchronization painted the battlefield in his mind's eye with perfect clarity, guiding him like a compass needle finding true north toward where Harbour and Onrio faced the flanking High Tier Three beasts that threatened to collapse their entire defensive strategy.

He skidded to a halt. The scene in front of him was chaos. Harbour moved like liquid, weaving through the strikes of a massive direwolf whose fur was matted with enough blood to suggest it had killed extensively before arriving here. The beast stood easily seven feet at the shoulder, its jaws snapping with enough force to shatter stone, but Harbour danced just beyond its reach with inhuman grace. Her twin daggers flashed in the afternoon light, each strike peeling away ribbons of flesh that painted the ground in abstract crimson patterns.

Nearby, Onrio struggled desperately against a nightmare made flesh, a nine-foot direbear whose hide was covered in battle scars. The creature's fur bristled like steel wire. Onrio's light orbs darted around the beast in complex patterns, flashing with brilliant intensity, but rather than being deterred, the bear seemed only to grow more enraged. Each flash made it roar louder, its massive paws swatting at the magical constructs with increasing fury.

Fin drew his twin short swords from his dimensional storage in a smooth motion, the newly acquired weapons feeling right in his hands despite their unfamiliarity. The black blades seemed to drink in the light.

"Onrio!" he shouted over the cacophony of battle. "Support Harbour! I'll handle this!"

Onrio's thin face twisted with doubt and concern. "Are you certain?"

Fin's grip tightened on his sword hilts. "Go!"

Onrio gave a shallow, almost apologetic bow, then bolted toward where Harbour continued her deadly dance with the direwolf. His orbs streamed behind him like a comet's tail, already repositioning to provide support.

The direbear's eyes locked onto Fin. Its roar shook the ground beneath his feet. Saliva dripped from jaws that could snap him in half, and its claws that gleamed like polished steel.

Fin didn't bother responding with words or posturing. Instead, he activated Lightning Armament, and his entire body erupted with crackling electrical energy that wrapped around him like a second skin.

The bear lunged with shocking speed for something its size, its massive paw sweeping through the air with enough force to pulverize stone. The wind of its passage alone was enough to make Fin's cloak snap behind him. But his enhanced speed, pushed even further by his lightning-augmented nervous system, made the attack seem almost sluggish. He sidestepped with inches to spare, feeling the displaced air kiss his cheek as he brought both blades around in a crossing strike aimed at the beast's exposed flank.

The swords connected with flesh, but his strikes were frustratingly shallow, barely penetrating the direbear's incredibly thick hide. The beast's natural armor was like cured leather layered over solid muscle, and his attacks merely skimmed the surface, drawing blood but causing no real damage. The direbear roared, more from frustration than pain, and spun with surprising agility for its bulk, trying to catch Fin in a bear hug that would crush him like an overripe fruit.

Fin danced backward, his feet finding perfect purchase on the blood-slicked ground as he dodged a follow-up swipe that would have disemboweled him. He circled the beast, testing its defenses, looking for vulnerabilities while his mind raced through tactical options. Conventional attacks weren't going to cut it. He needed something with more bite.

Drawing on reserves of power he still barely understood, Fin channeled his Unmaking concept into the tips of his blades. The effect was immediate and dramatic, the black metal began to glow with a void-like shimmer that seemed to absorb light rather than reflect it, the edges taking on a quality that suggested they existed slightly outside normal reality.

The direbear charged again, committing fully to a crushing tackle that would have ended the fight if it landed. Fin waited until the last possible moment, his Convergent Inevitability providing perfect timing, then sidestepped and struck. This time, his blade slid through the beast's thick hide like it was made of morning mist rather than muscle and bone. The Unmaking concept didn't just cut, it erased, the flesh dissolving in a cascade of ash and light that painted the air with particles that flickered between existence and void.

The direbear's roar of rage transformed into a gurgling scream of agony as a massive wound opened across its side, organs and bone dissolving into nothing. It tried to turn, to bring its still-lethal claws to bear, but Fin was already moving. His second blade found the creature's neck, and the Unmaking concept did its terrible work. The direbear's head separated from its body not through cutting but through fundamental erasure of the matter connecting them.

The massive corpse collapsed like a felled tree, shaking the ground with its impact before beginning to dissolve into the same ash and light. The dungeon's mechanisms were already reclaiming the matter, returning it to whatever reservoir of energy spawned these scenarios.

Fin staggered, suddenly aware that the technique had cost him dearly. Almost a third of his mana had drained in those few seconds of enhanced cutting, leaving his core aching with the hollow sensation of rapid depletion. His breathing came hard and fast, sweat beading on his forehead despite his enhanced constitution.

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But then Convergent Inevitability pulsed and he felt ambient mana from the dungeon's very air begin flowing into his depleted reserves. The sensation was strange. His core filled with startling rapidity, the ache fading as power returned to his exhausted channels.

He straightened, catching his breath just in time to see Harbour drive one of her daggers through the direwolf's eye with surgical precision. The blade punched through to the brain, and the massive predator crumpled mid-lunge, its body already beginning to dissolve before it hit the ground. Onrio stood nearby, his light orbs dimmed from sustained use, staring at Fin with eyes gone wide with shock and something that might have been fear.

"What in all the realms was that concept?" Onrio asked, his voice carrying a mixture of awe and concern.

Fin ignored the question entirely, dismissing his swords back into dimensional storage with a thought. "We need to get back to the others immediately. The battle might be over, but I don't like leaving them shorthanded."

They sprinted back toward the main gate. When they arrived, Fin saw that the tactical situation had shifted dramatically. The translucent wind tunnels that had channeled the horde had collapsed entirely, their magical structure dissipated. Triana's mana reserves must have finally hit critical levels, forcing her to drop the sustained working.

Only about forty beasts remained of the original three hundred, a manageable number under normal circumstances, but these weren't normal circumstances. Vance and Daryl tore through the remaining direwolves and direbears with the kind of savage efficiency that came from extensive experience, but even from a distance, Fin could see the signs of exhaustion creeping in.

Vance's greatsword swung in heavy, slightly sloppy arcs that spoke of muscle fatigue and depleted reserves. Blood sprayed with each successful strike, painting his armor in layers of gore that made him look like some avatar of war stepped down from ancient mythology. Daryl's knife work remained precise, but his movements had lost their earlier fluid grace. He struck at vital points with mechanical accuracy, but each kill took fractionally longer than the one before, exhaustion making him a half-second slower with every exchange.

The two men bounced between opponents with the practiced coordination of warriors who had fought together countless times, but the quality of each kill had degraded noticeably. What had been effortless execution was now hard-won survival.

Onrio immediately scrambled up the wall toward where Triana must have been maintaining her position. Harbour turned to Fin, her dark eyes unreadable as they locked onto his. When she spoke.

"Help Daryl. I've got Vance covered." Then she simply vanished into the fray, moving with speed towards Vance. Her daggers gleamed as she engaged the beasts threatening Vance's flanks.

Fin didn't waste time acknowledging the order. He hit the ground running, his lightning-enhanced speed carrying him across the blood-soaked field in seconds. A direwolf lunged at Daryl's exposed back while the man was finishing another beast, jaws wide enough to swallow his head whole.

Fin's blade intercepted the attack, slicing through the wolf's foreleg with enough force to sever it completely. The beast collapsed mid-lunge, howling in pain and confusion, and Daryl spun with impressive reflexes to plunge his knife through its skull with a meaty crunch.

"Well, hello there, princess," Daryl said with a grin that somehow managed to look genuine despite the exhaustion pulling at his features. "Took you long enough to grace us common folk with your presence at the actual party."

"Had to deal with a couple of High Tier Three party crashers who decided to skip the formal invitation," Fin shot back, already moving to intercept another wolf that was circling for an attack angle. His blade opened its throat in a spray of arterial blood.

Daryl chuckled. "Too bad for them they picked the wrong group to mess with." He struck at a direbear's throat with vicious efficiency, his blade finding the major artery and releasing a gushing fountain of crimson. "Let's clean up this mess so we can move on to whatever fresh hell this dungeon has prepared for us next."

They fell into a natural rhythm that felt almost telepathic. Fin used his superior speed to cripple beasts, severing legs, slashing flanks, opening wounds that would slow but not immediately kill. Daryl followed in his wake like death's accountant, his knife finding hearts and necks and spinal columns.

Their synergy was seamless and beautiful in its brutality. Fin's Electromagnetic Synchronization guided his strikes with perfect accuracy, allowing him to target joints and tendons with surgical precision. Daryl's vast combat experience translated each crippled opponent into a clean kill, his blade ending threats with minimal wasted effort.

Ten minutes of sustained slaughter later, the last beast fell, its body dissolving into the ground in a shimmer of dungeon mana that looked like heat waves rising from hot pavement.

Vance slumped against a pile of bodies that hadn't fully dissolved yet, his massive chest heaving as he tried to catch his breath. His armor was so covered in blood and gore that determining its original color would have required thorough cleaning. Daryl wiped his knife clean on his pants, breathing hard. Harbour stood nearby, sweat beading on her brow, the first sign of physical strain Fin had seen from the normally unflappable woman.

Fin, his mana completely restored by Convergent Inevitability's passive regeneration, looked almost fresh. His breathing was even and controlled, his stance relaxed. The only signs he'd been in combat at all were the blood spatters on his clothes and the slight flush of exertion coloring his cheeks.

The massive gates creaked open with the tortured groan of abused hinges, and Triana emerged from the city's interior. Her face was pale, her mana reserves clearly depleted to dangerous levels. She walked with the unsteady gait of someone operating on pure willpower and muscle memory. Mayor Elmur followed close behind, his threadbare cloak fluttering in the afternoon breeze, his eyes wide.

The militiamen on the walls began to cheer, weakly at first, then with growing enthusiasm as the reality of survival sank in. Their relief was palpable, a wave of emotion that washed across the defenders like a warm tide.

Fin opened his mouth to speak, to perhaps offer some words of encouragement, but the words died in his throat as a bone-chilling howl ripped through the afternoon air. The sound was different from the previous beast calls, deeper, more resonant.

His Electromagnetic Synchronization screamed a warning that felt like ice water injected directly into his spine. A Low Tier Four signature was racing toward them from the tree line, moving with shocking speed. Its mana felt wrong.

"Mayor, get back inside the walls right now!" Fin shouted, his hand already moving to draw his swords.

Triana frowned, her depleted state making her perception sluggish. "Why the sudden panic? More Tier Threes?"

"Tier Four incoming from the forest," Fin said, his gaze fixed on the distant tree line where movement suggested something massive was approaching. "Low Tier Four, but it's coming fast and it doesn't feel right."

Daryl's smirk vanished. "Man, I'm so tired."