November 3, 2022
Day 14
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Rahul stood in his heart-wrenching state of surrender for a few more seconds before his knees gave out and he started falling face-first to the ground.
Ivan, who was still in time dilation, saw that fall in slow motion.
The tank had seen the injuries continue to pile on Rahul's body and had been helpless to do anything about it. Even now, Ivan couldn't move, knowing that the masked man was alert and could burst into motion at any instant.
And I can't stop him by myself.
It hurt Ivan to the core, seeing the frail and broken body of Rahul fall to the ground in defeat, but his priority was making sure that his friend survived.
Finally, Rahul fell to the ground.
Ivan saw Matt running in, likely to pick Rahul up and carry him to safety.
The rogue's muscles twitch.
Oh no you don't.
As the rogue moved toward the approaching Matt, Ivan in turn rushed at the rogue, pouring in everything he had, his self-preservation instincts gone.
Rahul is the spear of this team, the vanguard.
Fury boiled within Ivan, and from that fury emerged the certainty of what he had to do.
And I am the shield.
Immutability understood Ivan's desire to protect his teammate, the desire to keep Rahul alive, and hummed in agreement. And as the presence and the human's thoughts vibrated at the same frequency, the resulting resonance reached the accumulated intent, and shaped it.
The intent that Ivan had been struggling for so long to control and navigate across his body suddenly flowed smoother.
The time intent was far from sentient, but it had a true nature, and at that moment, in its own way, the intent discovered that nature.
The intent had always known itself to be time, but now it was learning that it was so much more. That it was the intent of the presence Immutability. And time was only one aspect that made up that concept.
Till now, the accumulated intent was dominated by the desire to act like the projection of the higher-level concept of Immutability on the single fundamental axis of time.
But now, pressed by the resonance, it embraced its multitudinous nature.
What Ivan needed now was not the dilation effect that had been easy to achieve, but the reinforcing nature of Immutability, which the time intent had struggled with.
And as Ivan moved, the intent now rushed smoothly to fortify every inch of Ivan's body an instant before it came under assault. Ivan no longer needed to consciously direct his every move.
The intent knew what was expected of it.
Rahul is the spear.
I am the shield.
But a shield can do more than just protect.
With that thought, Ivan put his intent consumption on overdrive, no longer content to be the rogue's punching bag.
Time was moving slower than it had ever before, and the next punch that came toward Ivan's face came at a snail's pace, giving Ivan enough time to dodge and pull his own arm back to retaliate.
And as the rogue realized his attack had failed and tried to move back to a neutral position, Ivan's knuckles were already closing in on his face.
The fist connected with the nose with a loud crack.
The reinforcing intent had coalesced to the tips of his knuckles, and with that much intent packed so densely into such a small space, the diamond-fisted punch broke the rogue's nose.
The man stumbled back, but Ivan was unrelenting, continuing to attack the injury.
While the attack was brutal, it was not even remotely close to what the rogue had made Rahul suffer through.
Still, Ivan took great satisfaction seeing tears welling in the rogue's eyes, despite knowing that it was likely an involuntary biological response to the broken nose.
He also looked at the skill notification that had been nagging at his awareness ever since the reinforcing intent had started moving on its own.
You have gained a new skill.
Honing Intent I - Your intent now autonomously follows your direction, eliminating the need for deliberate control.
Effect - Intent now obeys general instructions autonomously.
You have gained 10,000 experience from this skill.
Not what I had expected, but just what I needed.
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Matt stood over the battered and broken body of Rahul, and one by one, poured three healing potions into his mouth.
"Thank you"
Rahul said, slowly getting up, his wounds visibly healing and closing.
The rogue, Rahul and Ivan had all been in a different league in this fight, and Matt had been a helpless and silent spectator. He had no earlier practice working with his presence, and despite all his efforts since the fight began, Matt hadn't been able to figure out a way to empower his speed with Gratitude.
He couldn't say exactly what kind of intent he accumulated, but unlike Ivan's time intent and Rahul's kinetic intent, he was sure it was something emotional and had nothing to do with moving fast.
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And yet, Matt had a skill that proved otherwise. A skill he had got when he had manifested the presence in an epiphany of gratitude during the battle with the alpha.
An insanely powerful ability that had let him down when his team needed him the most.
Stamina Control 1 : Exercise control over the stamina flowing into your muscles when executing your attacks. This can weaken or empower your attacks while reducing or increasing stamina costs respectively.
Specializations (1/unknown)
Intent Trance - For a period of time, power your movements with intent instead of stamina. This skill has an initial activation cost and a sustained maintenance cost. There is limited possibility for deliberate execution of complicated attacks.
Matt did not know why he got that skill while others didn't. When Ivan and Matt fought, weren't they burning more intent than stamina? Why wasn't their fighting recognized as a trance?
Rahul and Ivan should be pretty much directly burning their intent for speed and time respectively, and maybe that's why theirs is not a separate skill. Perhaps there's something special about the instant one manifests a presence. Something that awarded me a skill that would have been hard to attain otherwise, seeing as how the intent I have has little to do with moving fast or hitting hard.
So, accepting his reliance on the system-provided skill, Matt had waited for that magical threshold to get reached.
But it never did.
No matter how grateful Matt felt, the accumulated intent wasn't enough.
How high is this activation cost? Even as my friends sweat and bleed to save my life, the gratitude I feel isn't enough for this skill.
Matt was broken free of his chain of thoughts as Rahul spoke.
"I'm feeling better now. I still have 1 intent point left since my intent stream broke off before I had used it all. It'll barely be enough for one punch, but I'll make it count."
And with that, Rahul rushed back into the fight, not waiting for a response.
Matt did not know what thoughts were going through the young man's mind. He had seen him having a complete meltdown earlier, and he knew that what Rahul was doing now was reckless and desperate.
But also brave.
As Matt watched, Rahul disappeared, and then reappeared a few seconds later, a triumphant look on his face.
He managed to land that punch after all.
But now, he's out of steam and standing right in the middle of the fight.
And right in front of Matt's eyes, Rahul's entire body shook under punches that came too fast to see and were too numerous to count.
Then they stopped, probably because Ivan had managed to occupy the rogue again.
Matt saw Rahul reach for his belt and take out a health potion. After drinking that potion, he disappeared.
Did he do that on purpose? Take a beating to recover momentum?
He wasn't sure. But whatever Rahul's plan was, it had worked, because he didn't become visible to Matt again.
Once again, Matt sat and waited as his two friends went to every possible extent to fight and save the island. As he waited, without any obvious external trigger, he simply felt the accumulation of gratitude reach a tipping point, and he instinctively tried to activate the Intent Trance.
Unlike Rahul's cold trance which required the right mindset and then repeated actions to slowly meld into it, Matt required only the mindset and a vast store of intent.
And I've long had that mindset to do whatever it takes to help my friends.
The final rogue of the Laysan Bastion thought as he jumped into battle and activated the skill.
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Even though he had rushed into the battle without hesitation, Rahul was not as nearly as confident as he had hoped to be. Despite knowing full well that he would need to take a beatdown to recover his intent, his bravado had failed him with the very first punch that he received. It was a blessing in disguise then, that he had no intent left to speed him up, and all the endless punches felt like one incredibly fast attack.
And when the punches stopped and Rahul kicked into motion, the suppressed feelings of helplessness he had tried to bottle up threatened to come back to the surface.
What kept him going was a conversation he had with Daniel after the frog invasion. That day, as Daniel had been caught alone and assaulted by the frogs, Rahul had frozen up, while Ivan had acted decisively and saved the manager. Afterward, Daniel had talked to him, not only ridding Rahul of all the guilt but filling him with purpose.
Make sure it'll never happen again.
So, despite being at the edge of his sanity, Rahul had rushed into battle. He simply couldn't leave Ivan alone to face this grave threat to their settlement.
And while his plan to recover his intent by getting beaten worked, his heart refused to let go of the panic. The only way he could move was by refusing to give himself a chance to think.
Rahul knew this wasn't healthy, but right now there were too many things pushing him to fight the rogue.
The arrival of Matt went a long way to soothe his panic, and finally, Rahul's breathing eased.
It took even longer than I had anticipated.
He had seen Matt's trance with the alpha, and seeing how overpowered it was, it wasn't hard for Rahul to imagine that it would take a lot of Intent Points to activate.
And when he saw Matt match the fighting trio in pace, he had to agree that the intent points were well worth it.
With a presence that has nothing to do with speed or time, the cost has got to be prohibitively high. Maybe as much as the supercharged Kinetic Cleave that upgraded my Weapon of Mass Destruction.
Rahul's chain of thought was suddenly broken when the rogue, now pressed on all three sides and taking consistent damage, suddenly shifted gears and started moving twice as fast.
That's just ridiculous. Could he have done that all along? Is the bastard using some skill he had been saving for emergencies? Or does he too have a presence?
Regardless of the reason, Rahul was forced to burn more and more intent to keep up.
Ivan too was outmatched. Despite the recent qualitative leap in fighting prowess that had let him take on the rogue solo and manage to land attacks.
But Matt was still going strong.
His trance has adapted to keep pace with the rogue, most likely at the cost of the active duration. It means that Matt can subconsciously react to major changes in the flow of the fight even in the trance.
That gave Rahul an idea.
This would be risky, since the cold trance only allows for limited thinking capacity and is focused heavily on repetitive movements. But if I can manage it...
He had had a very long day, and after the brutality that the rogue had shown, Rahul knew he didn't have the luxury of second-guessing himself. He spoke to Momentum.
Buddy, can you keep the stream of intent open while I get into my cold trance?
On receiving acknowledgment, Rahul got to work reducing the complexity of his movement attacks and switching to simpler repeating patterns and flows.
As this was going on, Ivan had the same idea and was instructed by Immutability on how to get into a specific trance, the Time Reverie.
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The hooded man could tell that Rahul had reached the precipice of a breakthrough, while Ivan had actually made one and levelled up. The result of these two events was that he was rewarded with a notification of his own.
Melee Trainer II - Train melee fighters in intermediate level skills.
Effect - Melee fighters gain and improve eligible skills 20% faster under your tutelage.
Changed to
Melee Trainer III - Train melee fighters in advanced level skills and help them discover specializations.
Effect - Melee fighters gain and improve eligible skills 30% faster under your tutelage.
With that, the Sniper Sergeant had reached at least the third level of advancement in training skills for all three combat classes. He had received the Mage Trainer II and III skills a bit earlier today, and training his elite squad of hooded snipers had advanced the sergeant's Ranged Trainer Skill to the fourth advancement two days ago.
One step closer to getting my desired specialization.
The man thought while continuing to fight the three entranced men.
They are adequate, at least for their level. There might be hope for Laysan Bastion yet.
Looking back through the events since he had come to this island, the rogue was pleased.
A good day, all things considered. Now time to put an end to this farce.
A black hole appeared near the rogue's shoulder.
The accumulation of despair is more than enough to cover the entire island. Maybe it'll help some of these guys gain some resistances, netting me even more progress on my trainer skills.
Well, who am I kidding...
Without wasting any more time talking to himself, the rogue suffused his voice with the entirety of his intent and spoke one word.
KNEEL