Chương 4: A Grindstone Called Death

The first thing Alcyr decided was that he would not speak of the time loop openly. Ever. During his previous iterations, he had not fully understood the unusual nature of his resurrection. He had tentatively assumed it was a strange, one-off premonition and had acted as per usual, unwilling to trust the hazy memories conjured by obscure nightmares. But the situation had changed greatly. Until further evidence suggested otherwise, Alcyr was effectively unkillable.

Now, survival and injuries mattered little next to what he could carry forward between loops: experience, skills, and levels. Every reset restored his body to full; he could take risks with little worry for his health. However, secrecy would be paramount in the event he managed to advance past 'today'. Though he still did not fully comprehend how the loops functioned, it was clear that it was a disgustingly powerful ability, on par with the greatest of Mysteries.

No one could ever know of his temporal immortality, lest they seek to exploit him. He had no intention of becoming anyone's slave. The current loop passed in a blur. The battle in the afternoon commenced in its usual bloody fashion. Alcyr had volunteered for the vanguard once more. The barbarians knew little fear. They ran eagerly to meet his blade, axes lashing out with a monstrous strength fuelled by their shamanic alchemy.

The battlefield gave him no shortage of opponents, and the desperate situation his platoon found itself in worked to his favour rather than against it. In his fourth loop, Alcyr threw himself deeper into enemy lines, ignoring the urgent calls or desperate pleas of his squadmates. His actions weren't just reckless. They were completely suicidal. But that was the point. Growth correlated with danger. If he wanted his skills to level at their fastest possible pace, suicidal danger was the least he required.

He killed the brutes that opposed his advance. At some point, as his sword grew blunt and his body became awashed with gore, he found himself confronting three berserkers at once. Not just barbarians. Berserkers. Fur-wrapped and armoured in boiled leather, these gore-thirsty northmen were some of the finest warriors the tribes could deploy on their frontlines. Despite being even larger and taller than their peers, they remained damnably fast and agile for their size.

And the reason for that was clear: All of them were at least within the Low Journeyman tier. And Alcyr was facing three of them. The soldier glanced around, but his allies were either dead or too far to help him. Two-on-one at the same tier was a lopsided match for any soldier, no matter how good they were. But three-on-one against superior opponents? That was a death sentence. However, he didn't have a choice. More importantly, Alcyr wanted this fight.

It was the reason he threw himself into the melee so recklessly in the first place. The berserkers came at him together, eyes bloodshot and screaming like maddened animals. Alcyr exhaled. His eyes sharpened.

"Come on, then. Show me what passes for violence among the wretched sons of the north." The first opponent howled a challenge in response. A series of short, chopping swings forced Alcyr back. The soldier gave ground deliberately, keeping calm and ignoring the crazed braying of his foes, waiting for one of them to overcommit. When an opening presented itself on the fifth swing, he parried the axe aside and struck fast, opening the Northman's throat with a single, masterful riposte.

[Movement has improved to 15] [Combat Sense has improved to 5] One down. The second berserker immediately jumped at him. Completely ignoring the death of his ally, the brute's battleaxe tore through the corpse of the first berserker and struck Alcyr on his left side. Though his leather armour caught the blade, the overwhelming force of it drove him sideways into the snow. Something in his ribs gave with a hot, bright flare — cracked, possibly broken.

[Armour Discipline has improved to 12] Alcyr got his shield up on instinct as the third berserker attacked with a powerful side swing. The axe head bit through the wood, and the blow left his arm numb to the elbow. His wrist muscles burnt from the stress. Undeterred, Alcyr roared. Pushing strength into his legs, he came off the ground fast — faster than the berserker expected.

The axehead was still stuck in his shield, so he twisted it at an angle, forcefully exposing the foe's arm before performing an upward vertical cleave with his sword. The severed arm flew through the air. The brute screamed — more in rage than in pain. The northman clawed at him with his remaining arm, bellowing the entire time.

With savage technique, Alcyr smashed his broken shield into their face — breaking their nose and staggering them back — before forcefully ramming the pommel of his sword into their forehead. The iron cap went through the skull with a sickening crack. The barbarian gave one last grunt before collapsing. [Shield Discipline improved to 14] Two down. There was no time to rest. Quickly dismissing the flood of notifications, Alcyr pulled the base of his sword out, ignoring the warm and wet matter clinging to the grip.

He straightened, breathing carefully around the grinding pain in his side. The last berserker circled him, watching him for weakness. Alcyr kept his guard up, but the pain made his arms weak. It was difficult to draw breath — he was certain one of his ribs was broken. His shield arm was numb from blocking. Without warning, the final barbarian leapt at him with a mighty, two-handed overhead swing. Alcyr cursed as the axe slammed into his hasty shield block.

His left wrist, already strained beyond reason, finally snapped. Rather than recoil in pain, Alcyr clenched his teeth and bodily tackled the foe. With the ground slick with blood and frost, they both fell into the snow, the barbarian beneath Alcyr. His sword was lost in the fall. The following struggle was bloody. Alcyr's muscles burnt as he desperately pinned the northerner's axe-wielding arm with his weight. He drew his dagger and began stabbing the foe over and over in his side. More blood sprayed into the snow.

The barbarian, thrashing and screaming like a panicked animal, grasped for Alcyr's face. As the brute violently fumbled, he somehow managed to jab his thumb into Alcyr's eye. The soldier howled as his vision turned red, but he fought through the pain and kept stabbing. In, out. In, out. He aimed the blade between the ribs as he was trained, seeking vital organs. Eventually, the body beneath went limp. [Dagger Discipline has improved to 11] [Unarmed Discipline has improved to 16] Three down.

He rolled off the corpse, panting hard. Three Journeyman kills in a single battle — a new record, and a feat that perhaps no other Initiates had ever pulled off. He would be proud if his injuries weren't so dire. Alcyr mentally assessed his wounds: a broken left wrist, an axe wound through the flank, and a damaged right eye. All were crippling injuries that could potentially end his career as a swordsman. But it doesn't matter, does it? He thought tiredly to himself. Heavy footsteps approached.

Alcyr raised his head.

"You're here earlier than I expected," he said. The warchief stood before him, flanked by his cadre of berserkers. His gaze found Alcyr, as well as the three berserker corpses at his side. Something shifted in the warchief's expression — irritation, accompanied by curiosity. To Alcyr's surprise, the warchief spoke.

"Dying three-to-one against a Morwyn mongrel," the giant growled. He was eerily fluent in the common tongue — a trait not often shared by the rest of his kind.

"Not a shred of talent among these pups… Letting them wean their axes on fresh prey was a waste of my time. Our berserkers have declined from their days of glory." Love this novel? Read it on Royal Road to ensure the author gets credit. Alcyr tried moving his left hand. Useless. The slash earlier had crippled it for good. Nonetheless, Alcyr met the giant's gaze. There was no fear or hesitation. He picked up his sword and painfully stood up. The warchief chuckled slowly.

"Or perhaps I shouldn't blame them too much. You have a good look in your eye, foreign dog. Warrior blood must run in your veins. If half my people had your vigour, we would have driven the invaders from our land years ago." The warchief rolled his shoulders and raised his axe.

"Know my worth, and be honoured: I am Ragna of the Frostcoil Tribe, proud son of Warlord Bjorn. I hold the ancestral blood of the Twelfth Saint in my veins. And I'll kill you myself." Alcyr didn't bother replying. He lunged with his weapon, but his wounds were too much. Slowed by his injuries, his sword thrust was parried with casual, contemptuous ease. A mere flick of the warchief's wrist — fuelled by the strength of a High Journeyman — and Alcyr's blade flew from his hand.

[Sword Discipline has improved to 21] [New Title: Low Journeyman] He had no weapon left, but he still had his teeth. Undeterred, Alcyr threw himself forward, jaws opened as he aimed for the warlord's throat. [New Skill: Mortal Defiance 1 (Rare)] There was a whirl of movement. His vision flipped upside down. When he came to, he was lying on the snow. He couldn't feel his legs. Alcyr coughed, hacking up blood. Not all of it was his own. The warchief touched the wound on his neck.

A bleeding bite mark — nothing deep enough to kill, but the fact that Alcyr managed to draw blood at all was astonishing. The bronze giant pulled his fingers away and examined the dark smear at their tips. He smiled.

"A pity we did not meet years later," Ragna said.

"I would have enjoyed fighting at your prime, struggler. Now die." The axe came back around faster than Alcyr's eyes could even follow. It buried itself in his neck. Iron mingled with his flesh and blood. Even with his Pain Tolerance skill, the agony was indescribable. Darkness came, and Alcyr died once more. When he woke up, he ignored the phantom pains wrecking his body and got up from his bed. Blightwolves howled in the distance, and moonlight filtered in through the barracks window.

"Back again," he murmured to himself, smiling.

"Good. Let's try once more." Without wasting another second, he picked up his sword and headed for the training grounds.

The fifth loop came and went, as did the sixth, seventh, and eighth. Alcyr's bizarre days settled into a rhythm. Each morning, he would spend hours training in the pre-dawn frost. The strenuous drills at the start of each loop helped Alcyr build his muscles and attune him to the harsh cold. Physical Conditioning finally reached Level 21 on the sixth loop, making it his second Journeyman skill after Sword Discipline.

Natural Resistance, being a weaker skill, climbed at a greater numerical rate, gaining three levels and reaching level 18 by the seventh loop. His afternoon battles usually went the same — he would volunteer in the vanguard, witness a gore-filled clash between two armies, kill several barbarians and a few berserkers, then eventually die to the warchief named Ragna. Again and again, he witnessed the death of his platoon.

Not once did the fifty-man group even come close to escaping the barbarian's encirclement, let alone achieving victory over their foes. There were perhaps many better ways Alcyr could tackle the problem, or at least tilt the odds in his favour. He could stop volunteering to join the vanguard and be deployed in the safer second wave instead. Alcyr could even just try fleeing the military — desert his position, seek aid outside, or try finding another way to break the cycle.

To a sane person, anything else was likely worth trying. Anything but this senseless cycle of dying horrifically in battle. Alcyr knew he could do those things. He was rational enough to acknowledge these ideas throughout the repeating 'todays'. But he didn't do any of that. Because each time he died in battle, he made it through the battle a little further on his own. His swings were a little better, his reaction a split-second faster. He didn't want a convenient solution.

To him, the time loop was neither a puzzle to be solved nor a curse to be cured. All Alcyr wanted was to get stronger. And so, to his mind… Everything is absolutely perfect. Never pausing to rest or flee, Alcyr kept training, learning, fighting, and dying — growing ever stronger.

It was on the fifteenth iteration that patterns in the loop started noticeably changing. Alcyr fought with the fervour of a man who feared neither pain nor death. He advanced deep into the enemy ranks in each loop, his recklessness rivalling even that of the barbarians. In the initial loops, he died too quickly to make a noticeable presence. By the fifteenth loop, however, that was no longer the case.

It was clear from the moment Alcyr killed the first barbarian that his skills were far beyond those of the other infantrymen in his platoon. Barbarians in his path were cut down like dogs. Only the berserkers were able to trade blows with him evenly, and more often than not, Alcyr killed quite a few of them before he was overwhelmed by their numbers. It was a startling difference in performance compared to his first few loops, and the reason wasn't hard to understand.

It was common knowledge that life-and-death battles were the single best way to raise skill levels. The higher stakes in the conflict pushed warriors to their limits, forcing their skills to adapt quickly and mutate to greater heights. In the span of a few battles, Alcyr's Sword Discipline had risen three more levels. It was staggering progress, especially considering it usually took months or even years of training to gain a single skill level between Level 21 and 30.

Moreover, nearly all of his relevant combat skills had reached or were nearing the Low Journeyman tier of Level 21. A mere fifteen loops of deadly battles had granted Alcyr more skill levels than his entire past year in the military. There was also another benefit to the loops: repetition. Being subjected to the same foes over and over meant Alcyr was starting to memorise his opponent's moveset. The way the younger warriors always led with a wide diagonal swing.

The tell in a berserker's shoulder before an overhead strike. He was getting wounded less frequently, and his strikes were becoming more lethal as he exploited openings and weak points with greater regularity. Unfortunately — or perhaps fortunately — this surge of lethality also made him a priority target for the stronger barbarians. It usually did not take long for the warchief, Ragna, to come deal with him personally. Blood and flesh dripped from their weapons. Like him, Ragna had not been idle in his killings.

Their gore-soaked blades clashed amid a field of snow and corpses.

"Outstanding!" The bronze-skinned giant laughed as he exchanged blows with Alcyr.

"Even with those wounds, you dare face me, the favoured son of Warlord Bjorn?! What is a warrior of your calibre doing with these worthless mutts?" Alcyr didn't bother answering. He didn't have the breath for it anyway. Getting to Ragna was an ordeal in and of itself, necessitating him to slay countless barbarians and several berserkers first. He was already badly wounded and fatigued when the duel began, while Ragna himself remained relatively unharmed and invigorated.

Some might call it unfair, maybe even dishonourable. But the world was naturally unfair, and moreover, they were in a war. Alcyr held no grudge against his opponent, though he would still gladly kill him given the chance. Seeing Alcyr wavering and soon to bleed to death, the warchief allowed himself a moment of levity. For just a second, he left himself open as he relaxed his stance to mock the dying soldier.

A mistake on his part, but to be fair, the warchief could not have anticipated the explosive burst of vitality Alcyr would receive from his newest skill, Mortal Defiance. Now! Alcyr lunged, moving faster than he should, given his wounds. It caught the warchief off guard, just as he had hoped. The tip of his sword sped towards the barbarian leader's heart. The blade pierced flesh, but the thrust was too weak to penetrate all the way to the warchief's heart.

His opponent reacted immediately, retaliating with a powerful axe swing down on Alcyr's neck. Seeing his own headless body as his decapitated head fell to the ground was a disturbingly novel experience. The phantom pains that wrecked him in the next loop's morning were more intense than ever. Alcyr couldn't get off his bed for a solid ten minutes before his false death spasms finally ceased. Despite everything, he was elated. The wound he landed on the warchief was clear proof of his progress.

It would not be long now before he claimed the warchief's head.

Ten more loops passed. Alcyr died, again and again. Sometimes, he was slain by a group of lesser barbarians who overwhelmed him, but in most loops, he fell to the barbarian warchief and his warband of berserkers, who always eventually arrived at his platoon's position. Whether it was a brutal beheading, bleeding to death, or a tearing axe wound to his gut, Alcyr always awoke back on his barrack bed again, listening to the Blightwolves howl.

On the morning of the twenty-sixth loop, he took some time to review the results of his recent battles. Mortal Defiance was a powerful tool, as expected of a Rare-tier skill. Most lowborn folk would only ever gain one or two Uncommon skills throughout their entire lives. For Alcyr to earn a Rare skill at his age, despite his lack of bloodlines or blessings, was nothing short of a miracle. The ability paired well with his current circumstances.

Mortal Defiance not only allowed him to stave off fatal wounds for several more seconds than normal, but it also gave him a massive burst of power in his final moments. It was the perfect synergy to his new, fatalistic approach to combat. All Alcyr cared about was getting more kills and securing levels for his next reset. It was the only currency that transferred between the loops. That he would have to die repeatedly and painfully for him to reap those rewards was honestly not even a concern for him.

He had made it his personal goal to slay the warchief. There were practical reasons beyond the selfish need to vindicate his strength. The warchief was the local commander of the barbarian forces clashing against his platoon. Eliminating him would not only remove a serious threat on the field but might also lead to disarray among the opposing forces. In the best-case scenario, it might relieve his platoon of enough pressure for them to survive long enough for reinforcements to reach them.

His current obstacle was threefold: the mobs of barbarian chaff infantry, the stronger berserkers scattered across the frontlines, and the warchief himself. The warchief was no longer the impossible opponent he once was to Alcyr. The soldier was certain that if he were able to initiate a one-on-one duel with Ragna at peak condition, victory would be his. Ironically, the problem now lay with the weaker warriors opposing him.

The lesser barbarians no longer presented a fatal challenge, but their reckless vigour still made them dangerous opponents. Coming out of each engagement unscathed was nearly impossible, and Alcyr's strength wavered with each wound he incurred. The berserkers presented the same issue. A small warband always followed the warchief, and their presence made things difficult.

If Alcyr was forced to fight them before he could face the warchief, then the combination of fatigue and injuries would almost certainly ensure his downfall. Alcyr was growing stronger with each loop, but he was one man in a battle involving thousands. His strength was insufficient to single-handedly oppose that tide — for now, at least. So, as much as it irked him to do so… He was going to need a few extra bodies to finish the job.