Before I can react, Premonition activates again, and I leap out of the way just in time; the monster crackles through the air, static Firmament bursting out of every scale in a cloud of bristling energy. I try to ignore the way the cactus cracks, and wrack my brain to understand what's happening.

[ Warning: New anomalies detected in loop. ]

That has to be it. I'd assumed those anomalies were directly related to the actions I took in the last loop — evidently, that assumption was incorrect.

No time to dwell on it. This new enemy is fast. Premonition is the only thing allowing me to keep up with it, and I don't know if it would have been easier with the upgraded version of Quicken Mind.

Crystallized Barrier. Hexfold Shield.

Firmament pours out of me to form a crystalline wall, followed by several casts of Hexfold Shield in quick succession. I don't know exactly how strong this thing is, but I don't feel like dying this quickly into the loop.

"What is this thing?!" Ahkelios yells at me. He's doing a remarkable job of controlling himself. I hear some panic in his voice — which surprises me, considering how well he's handled himself against most of our other opponents so far — but I also recognize the pulsing Firmament that indicates he's about to try something himself.

Premonition activates.

I swing the barriers around just in time to meet the dragon-centaur — I really don't have a better name for it — head-on, wincing as it pierces through my Crystalline Barrier with a thunderous crack that sends shards of Firmament flying. The Hexfold Shield afterward manages to stop it, but only for a moment. I feel the sting of Premonition again, see its tail swinging around to swipe at me—

Verdant Armor.

Green Firmament swirls out of the air and settles around my shoulders, coalescing around my body as solid plate armor. I feel almost immediately the draw of Firmament as it pulls from everything around it, but Premonition still blares a warning, and I let out a snarl as I try to draw on everything I can.

The Void Inspiration surges within me. I see the tips and edges of the Verdant Armor turning black as Void-tinged Firmament spreads throughout it. The strength of the armor abruptly multiplies and magnifies as it pulls everything it can out of everything around me; I see leaves around me drying and cracking, and plants in a small radius almost instantly withering.

Verdant Armor flares brighter just as the dragon-thing's tail slams into me. I skid backwards, letting the momentum toss me away and trying to catch my breath. Even with all the protection I have, I can feel the sting of the blow; whatever this thing is, it's strong. Stronger than any other monster I've fought before, except perhaps Naru and that robot-thing in the Fracture.

I can't stay on the defensive. I take a breath and combine Crystallized Strength, Amplification Gauntlet, and Lightning Rod for the speed boost. For good measure, I activate the Mirror Inspiration, feeling a deep anger reflect from myself and into my skills.

I won't have much time. This strains my Firmament usage to its limits; the Mirror and Lightning Rod are both difficult to use and even harder to maintain, especially on this many skills at once.

Black lightning courses through my body, then turns a silver-red. The Amplification Gauntlet does the same, gaining a faint crimson glow. The quality of Firmament changes, becoming something deeper and more profound.

The dragon-thing charges at me.

This time, Premonition doesn't activate.

I swing my arm forward, feeling the combined skills coursing through my body. At the same time, Ahkelios does something strange, flashing forward and briefly merging himself with my gauntlet. I have no idea what he's doing, but I feel something about the gauntlet solidify, like it's been stabilized from within.

And then I hit the monster.

The Amplification Gauntlet provides some protection against the sheer force of my blow — I think I hear the air cracking around my fist as it slams into the dragon-thing's face, its own momentum working against it on top of everything else. I prepare myself to counter whatever it does in return, mentally going through my options...

...except it doesn't do anything.

I blink.

Ahkelios forms again out of my gauntlet, this time distinctly exhausted. He's panting even though he doesn't need to breathe, and he's half-doubled over, heaving.

"Are you... alright?" I ask. I'm not much better off than he is. I keep a wary eye on the monster, which is currently standing completely still, and also not breathing. There's text on the Interface, but I don't dare look away to observe it.

"I'm fine," Ahkelios says in between breaths. "That was just more tiring than I thought it was gonna be. It's dead, by the way."

"It doesn't look dead." I mean, it does, but only because it's not breathing and standing completely still. I have a feeling if I push it it'll topple over.

I glance at the text. Sure enough, the notification is there on the Interface.

[ You have defeated a Guilty Chimera (Rank B)! +102 Strength credits. +57 Durability credits. +42 Reflex credits. +5 Speed credits. +20 Firmament credits. ]

Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on the original website.

That's a lot of Strength credits. Stacking my skills the way I did must have stretched me far beyond what I've been capable of so far. My head is throbbing with pain, probably from stacking Lightning Rod with the Mirror; the Inspiration's cost seems to scale with the skills I use it on, and with Lightning Rod already being incredibly draining...

I'm lucky I'm alive.

"It's dead," Ahkelios says again. He straightens, groaning and doing a little stretch. "Wow, that really sucks. Your gauntlet is really tight. You should make more space in the thing."

"Care to explain what just happened?"

"You stacked a bunch of different Firmament skills, right? You would have broken your hand again if I didn't do anything — the gauntlet isn't strong enough to protect you from what you did. I just made sure you didn't break your hand."

"That doesn't explain why it's dead," I say. "It looks fine."

"You scrambled its brains." Ahkelios glances up at the monster and shudders slightly, hopping up to settle on my shoulder again. "Whatever it is, it's got a really tough body, but all that rigidity doesn't really help if the force can't go anywhere. It wasn't made to take a hit like that."

Oh. That's... morbid. I take a step back from the monster's corpse, now significantly more disturbed by my own abilities.

"It's a good thing, though!" Ahkelios adds, as if noticing I'm disturbed and trying to cheer me up. "You beat it!"

I roll my eyes a little, but he does manage to pull a small smile from me. That smile quickly fades as I glance over the monster's corpse again. "This didn't happen in any previous loop," I mutter.

And what is it, exactly? My best guess is that it's linked to yet another former Trialgoer. It would make sense. Ahkelios being able to draw on that mantis-monster more or less confirms the connection between them, and therefore the potential connection between Trialgoers and these monsters; the Anomaly logs tell me that there have been a lot of people trying to beat this particular Trial—

A rustle sounds in the leaves. Premonition activates again, and this time it pings on to not one but three distinct presences that all feel like the chimera I just fought; what's worse is that they've surrounded me in a three-pronged attack. Was the first one just bait?

Warpstep. The strain makes my head throb, but I don't have much of a choice; I use Warpstep to head straight up, so I can see past the foliage and pinpoint exactly where the attacks are coming from, and if there are any more of them I should be worried about. I need to use it twice to create enough distance.

The good news, I decide when I look down, is that there are only three of them. That I can see.

The bad news is that they're all clearly as strong as the first, and I'm not sure I'm equipped to deal with three Rank B monsters at once. My defeat of the first one was a result of a combination of skills that were taxing to use. I might be able to pull it off one more time, but I can't imagine two without falling unconscious. If there are three...

"Ahkelios?" I say out loud. I can, interestingly, use Accelerate to keep myself floating in the air, though not forever. Unlike its parent skills, the direction I use it in doesn't have to match a direction I can physically move in.

Which is convenient, because it allows me to have a conversation in the air, and the chimeras don't look like they have a way to attack me this high up. Ahkelios looks about as worried as I do. "I'm not sure I can do it again," he warns. "Maybe one more time, but after that I'll be tapped out. If I force it again it'll damage my Firmament and you might not be able to summon me again for a while."

"Don't force it," I say immediately. It's not worth that. I'd rather cut my losses and lose this loop — I don't have anything particularly important that I've gained so far. I still don't want to die, but if it comes down to it...

I let myself fall, and bleed momentum at the last second with another Warpstep. The chimeras snarl as all three of them turn towards me.

At least they're not surrounding me anymore.

I take a quick mental note. The three of them are different, though on the surface they seem mostly the same; the placement of scars on their bodies don't quite match up.

One of them has what looks like acidic drool spilling from its open mouth, dripping onto the floor and eating up the organic detritus in a cloud of acrid smoke.

Another has invisible ripples around it that feels like some sort of heat-adjacent Firmament, proven by the way some of the drier leaves catch fire as it steps on them.

The third one is cold. Air condenses into liquid and then freezes into ice around it, leaving small crystals and snowflakes wherever they walk. Its breath is a cloud of vapor, too, obscuring most of its face.

I'm reminded of the almost electrical Firmament bursting out of the first one's scales, the way it tore into everything around it. I shudder. Without Ahkelios to boost my gauntlet...

They're waiting. I can see them starting to circle around, like they're trying to subtly surround me again. There isn't anything subtle about their movements, but that worries me — the first one was blindly aggressive, and these ones are waiting. It's like they're learning.

If they are, that's no doubt a part of why they're B-ranked monsters. I feel like the first one was a little too easy to kill for its rank.

My gaze flicks to my Interface as I call it up, trying desperately to find a better combination of skills that could help me out here. Maybe the Void-Verdant Armor combination again for defense, with the sheer amount of Firmament these monsters are emitting. If I activate Lightning Rod now and keep it activated, I can move faster than I ever could by just stacking my speed skills...

Except Lightning Rod still drains me. If I use it, I need to make it count.

I take a breath and let the Firmament crackle through me. It's do or die, at any rate—

I hear the last thing I expected to hear: A loud, cawing scream. A blur of black feathers slams into one of the chimeras and sends them both sprawling, and I sense a very familiar crackle of lightning Firmament.

Off in the distance, I see another crow, big and bulky and holding an arm up like she's just fired her husband off into the chimeras, living cannon style. Which I'm pretty sure is exactly what she did.

...and also I think her bicep is smoking?

I have no idea what to say or how to process this, so I go with the first thing that comes to mind. "What the hell, Tarin?"