Chương 90: Mythic Capability

[New Trait (Mythic rarity) → Time Attunement (Grade-I)] [You have achieved a greater connection to the temporal stream. Grants a greater sense of its ebbs and flows, and in heightened states near death, allows for slight manipulation of its effects on you.] The information scrawled across her perception. She ignored it. The data was already in her bones. She reappeared in a blink, mid-slash, her chainblade screaming to turn the old veteran into a biology diagram and split him into two meetings.

In the split second before impact, his eyes went wide. His face cracked into a mad, crazed grin. His systems flared to life, nanotech and biotech moving as one. They punched a gravity well into the air right in front of him, yanking her attack off-course and slamming it into the floor like an unwanted gift. The resulting explosion was massive, efficient, and brutally effective—all that force just cleanly diverted into prolonged existence. Her weapon cut through the ground. Then the floor beneath it.

Then the sub-flooring. Alarms blared. A hole between two floors was turned to ash. In the distance, the wall leading to the building's exterior was gone. The rest of the surrounding area was turned to rubble. As was Kelly's arm, her leg, and the left side of her chest and upper body, her ribs an open art exhibit. With her remaining shaky hand, she grabbed the vial of healing medical nanotech and jammed it into her neck.

A cool rush of chemical agents and microscopic machines hit her system, giving her repair a head start. She switched back to her Fortress of Vitality title and felt a surge as her body decided to visibly put itself back together. Flesh knitted, bones sealed, organs remembered their jobs. She hoped her regeneration would beat her failing systems and the big, dark 'off' switch creeping in. Kelly hoped she would survive, for the first time since… ever. She did. The old veteran, Ren's, crazed grin never quit.

He looked completely fine. The attack that could've scarred a low Elite-level augmented combatant hadn't even mussed his hair. Ren's sharp, breathless laugh cut the air.

"HAHA! Yes—that's it. That's what connection looks like!" He was smiling in a way Kelly didn't recognize. If she did, she'd know it was the triumphant bark of a drill sergeant who'd just watched a recruit finally clear the wall.

"That—that right there—is success. Don't ever let dying turn you soft and make you forget this feeling. This is what it takes. This is who you are!" For the first time since the test—or the training, or the brutal dismantling of her every assumption—began, he stepped forward. His gaze finally tracked away from the empty space where she'd been to land on her currently regenerating body and the tattered remains of her clothes.

"And you're alive," he added, a beat later, the statement flat.

"Barely. Even if it was closer than I'd like. We'll need to work on that." He gave a single, slow shake of his head.

"Don't get used to dying your way forward. It makes people sloppy. The real gains come when you push everything you've got into the moment you're in. You got this because you pushed everything you had into the moment." Support creative writers by reading their stories on Royal Road, not stolen versions. His tone shifted, the triumph banked into something analytical.

"That mutation is powerful. Not as powerful as Gideon's. Not the biggest anomaly we've recorded." A pause, then a conceding, low noise.

"But HA—damn if it isn't up there." He fell silent for a long moment, his focus turning inward before locking back onto her.

"Kelly. Dr. Voss… I think that there is more to your mutation than you suspect. That… is clearly only one application. You should explore it at every opportunity." Kelly couldn't speak. Her body was a universe of wrongness, a map of pain. A deep, profound ache centered where she suspected her soul to be—a raw, bruised focal point of her entire being—caused every movement, every thought of movement, to reverberate with a strain she had never experienced. It wasn't muscle fatigue. It was a foundational groan.

She managed to force out a single, raw croak that was more vibration than sound. But with this result… she finally had true success. The beginnings of a path forward. Ren paced the crater's rim with a clipped, electric energy, a drill sergeant circling a promising recruit, his stoicism a thin veneer over clear fervor.

"Now rise, hurry up, let's go for round two. Do you need a break? Another medical vial?" He didn't wait for an answer, barreling on.

"We'll need to work on your close combat. Your stance is atrocious, your guard is non-existent, and you telegraph your spatial manipulations half a second before execution." He shook his head, tsks clicking in his throat.

"Can't even use your mutation without almost dying. Tut tut." He began muttering to himself, listing drills and corrective forms under his breath as he paced. Kelly began to rise in the new pit, the chainblade whining down beside her. She looked at the hole she'd made, then at the missing flooring. She felt the new trait humming in her veins, a second heartbeat out of phase with the first. The veteran stood at the edge of the crater, his grin settled into a firm, professional line.

The expression on his face held one thinly concealed word; " good," it said. The word was a stamp of authorization. She glanced from the devastation to him and back. The universe's edit job was messy. Hers had just gotten a whole lot messier. And she had learned something. A real, concrete thing. Throwing her life at a problem was officially retired. That was the old math. The new math was different. Now, there would be a method to the madness. A point to the chaos. She liked the new math better.

Her still regenerating smile was all teeth. Ren—Sato the ghost—was a powerful… friend? Ally? Master? Teacher? Whatever he was to her, he was key. Yesterday she would have thrown herself at him again without thought. Now, Kelly had a reason to exercise pragmatism. Kelly decided that the next loop, she would do something different. She wouldn't be immediately rushing to battle with this insane, wondrous, martial-arts-obsessed, gloriously war-crazed pensioner the second tomorrow's reset began.

Not until she figured out just what this new power of hers was. It felt like a live grenade she hadn't read the manual for yet—something heavy and dangerous sitting in her hand—so she needed to know its kill radius, its balance, how many seconds it took to explode, and whether she could cook it off with intent or if the only outcome was losing her thumb the moment she tried. She needed to break down the facets of exactly how it worked, and maybe even test how far it could go.

Obviously, she was going to hack the living hell out of it. Ren stopped pacing. He turned back to face her, his grin settling into something sharper. His palm raised toward her and began to glow.

"Prepare yourself," he said. Kelly rose. Her body was still stitching itself together. The chainblade whined in her grip. She stepped forward to meet him.