Bella watched with horror as the dungeon boss threw Zoe over the side of the mirror-clad yacht. For a brief instance, she saw Zoe’s face, all blood and shattered teeth, eyes wild with animal fear — did their glances meet across the turgid water before she vanished?

Down into the yawning depths of the hole.

“No!”

Bella stumbled forward, feeling the uselessness of her actions before her shoes splashed into the lake.

“She’s gone,” Anton’s voice flat and tight. “Nothing we can do.”

Bloody water lapped Bella’s knees. Was she crying? She wiped, dry, hopeless. Zoe was the strong one. All her Might. All her Skein. She even had the Charm Of The Monsoon Fairy to boost her attributes. If she failed against the dungeon boss…

What hope for the rest of them?

Her hands wrung empty, the runeblade back up the shore thrust into the ground, and her mind empty of chatter. Empty of all thoughts save one.

What were they meant to do now?

She remembered how easy it had been to say they would reach level 20 together. Hell — her whole life flashed — how easy is it to say anything? So much of her life had been talk, plans that never materialized, even the friends she visited in America turned out to be…

How quickly plans fall apart.

Dark shore soil crunched under Anton’s shoes.

“I’m going.”

“Then go.”

A moment of lapping water. A moment of dread as the dungeon boss’s yellow eyes burned into the back of Bella’s mind before the yacht turned away and continued its weaving route between the half-submerged houses. A moment of dawning realization.

Anton still stood behind her.

For a minute she breathed and watched the yacht slide away.

“Why are you still here?” she couldn’t turn to face him, not after he persuaded her to stay. “Didn’t you want to leave?” But whose fault was it that she didn’t charge the yacht with sword in hand? Hot wind shrieked through her veins. She glanced down, at the sword she gripped tight — the only thing she could trust — and whirled on Anton. “Why did you make me stay?” She swung at him, low and lazy, and he backed away with widening eyes. “You’re such a damn coward! She did everything to save us. We should have done more!”

She chopped, blade pulsing heat.

[Skein 20/57]

Anton leaped back up the shore. Stared down at her. Hands by his side, flexing, unflexing.

“I won’t fight you.”

“Then stop moving and let me hit you!”

Bella charged.

[Skein 19/57]

She slashed for his chest, and he bent over backward to dodge. He was quick, but she had leveled up. Closed the distance between them. Her Dexterity was higher.

The runeblade touched Aton’s shoulder. He rolled even as the scorching metal sliced him. A thin groove dug into his flesh, blood steaming, as he kicked out. His foot struck her hip, knocked her down, and launched him away.

Heaving, they watched each other.

Anton trailed a finger along the burn on his shoulder and glared at Bella. More emotion than she ever saw on his face. He stabbed a finger toward the lake.

“She told us not to fight among ourselves. Were you just waiting for her to die so you could attack me?”

Yes, whispered the runeblade, brambles coiling along her wrist, hack him to pieces.

She screamed and threw the blade aside with disgust. As though throwing away a piece of yourself will remove it forever. She sank to her knees and sobbed. The world blurred behind a wall of tears.

Anton watched, his wound still steaming, and if he felt awkward, or compassion, or anything at all, he hid it behind a stony mask.

Bella cried, and the lake answered. Deep splashing. Footsteps upon the muddy shore. Hope rose.

A monstrously huge mirrodile crawled out of the bloody lake. One eye scratched away. Three skeletal arms dangled from its mirrored hide. Bony fingers dug into the flesh like clay, still grasping, twitching like leeches. The mirrodile shuffled onto land.

It eyed them, yawned its savage maw, and the cranetongue poked out.

“Punish all trespassers!”

The mirrodile waddled toward them, building speed, sprinting. Anton leaped down from his high ground to Bella’s side. He kicked the swooping beak, and spun, landing a heavy blow into the mirrodile’s flank. It slid down the muddy bank.

Anton grabbed Bella’s arm and hauled her to her feet. He stooped for the sword, but a fiery pain swept through Bella at that sight.

“Don’t touch it!”

Anton’s finger stopped inches from the blade’s hungry runes. He raised an eyebrow.

“I’m just picking it up.”

“No, I’m sorry,” she bent and lifted her curse. “It’s not something anyone else should touch.”

The mirrodile charged again. Cranetongue screeching. The circular pattern on the feathery forehead glowed, and the lake water twisted into bloodied whips. Bella swung the blade down and gouged out the mirrodile’s remaining eye.

It hissed and retreated. Bella and Anton took the opening. Together they made short and messy work of the monster.

As the cold rush of death energy filled her, Bella felt a returning calm.

“I’m sorry,” she said.

Anton waved her away.

“I was being an asshole.”

“You’re still an asshole.”

He watched her for a moment.

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“Are you poking fun, or do you still want to cut my head off?”

Bella grinned.

“Yes.”

His lips twitched, before settling into his casual poker face.

“What do we do now?”

“How about we work together? Maybe we can even get Zoe back from the pit? There’s so much we don’t know, maybe she isn’t…”

He nodded.

“Sounds like a plan. You want to explore the island, or should we wait here and grind these shiny gators?”

“I still think they’re shiny crocs.”

Three of the creatures slipped out of the water. Their heads swung toward the pair on the shore, and they charged.

Bella lifted her sword.

“I want to explore the island,” she said. “But first, let’s blow off some steam.”

###

Rue sulked.

Alone in his pavilion, hunched forward on his couch, staring at a display of fragmented metal that showed only darkness. The dark of nothing.

He brooded, and the weight of his emotions flattened the intricacies of the red crystal ground, grinding prisms down until the landscape was smooth as a billiard ball. The sky of clear-cut stars gazed down, as he gazed inward, and finally, sighed.

Why did all his projects fail?

Did he push her too hard?

And the young boy he once was, the one who thought adventuring in the cosmos would be fun, laughed. Innocent laughter from deep in his soul. It echoed, clanging like a bell in his mind, though his lips remained still. Serious. Grim as a blood-crusted blade.

When did he last laugh like that child?

He had laughed many times since the war camp, since his enslavement, since he donned the mantle of the Bladed Forest. But when did he last laugh with childish and unadulterated joy?

He dismissed the black projection. No point staring at nothing. He stood, alone under the stars, with the steady crystal pulse rising through his soles.

Even if the woman lived, would her fate have differed from his own? A weapon forged by a different smith is still a weapon in the end. Nothing changes.

Footsteps. Two people approached across the red waste surface of the Bloody Eye. Lorrilla emerged from the horizon, with Esme shadowing her. The younger commander’s form draped in darkness, vaguely feminine, and her head bisected like a half-eaten boiled egg.

They bowed before Rue. So, an official visit.

“Rise,” and the weariness in his voice depressed him further.

“Lord Rue,” Lorrilla said. “It is time to release the settlement polyps.”

He wanted to dismiss them. He wanted to sulk. But duty ever calls.

“Lead the way,” he said.

They strode across the red crystal, and Esme walked beside him.

“How goes your project?” she asked with her dark whisper.

“Failure.”

“Oh?”

“She… tried to solo a dungeon boss before her body was forged. Before she received her first gate. I… may have had a hand in pushing her.”

“A bright light casts a long shadow.”

“I suppose.”

Lorrilla laughed.

“I believe our lord is too forlorn to ponder your sage advice, Esme.”

Esme smiled. A wondrous thing of soft obsidian. When a mouth is all you have, it becomes quite expressive.

“I merely mean,” she whispered. “That our lord should realize the standards he sets for those who would follow. High as yonder stars they are, and such a burden they make.”

“My high standards led to her death. Is that your meaning?”

“Death, my lord?” Esme’s smile widened. “Why then, does your quest persist?”

Rue stopped.

He checked the System.

[The Burden Of Being Interesting]

[Quest Status: Active]

Rue smiled, and then he laughed. Booming, raucous, and joyous. Almost, childlike.

As his gaiety persisted, the others smiled. It was good to see their lord happy, after all this time. After everything they lost.

###

Bloody and broken, Zoe fell through a pit between worlds. The wind tugged at her scabbing skin, tore free flakes, and sent them drifting up like gory snow. Rain fell with her, a vast ring of water drained by the yacht’s abyss. It created a thin wall in the dark, and she fell in the center like a speck in an eye.

Hopelessly ruminating.

What could she have done differently?

There was no way to run. No way to get past the boss’s barrage of lightning. The island, ever elusive, was a tease, but never a target.

She thought she was strong enough to take down the boss. Hadn’t she taken down everything else that came her way? Wasn’t that the lesson of her life, that if she was strong enough, she could win? Her strength let her survive after her mother abandoned her. It got her through medical school when she had nobody to lean on. It helped her navigate sordid business deals with a criminal organization.

But it didn’t stop her mother from leaving. Didn’t stop Ben from betraying her. Didn’t stop Cassy from turning into a monster. Didn’t stop the dungeon boss from crushing her under his heel like a bug…

Tears leaked from her eyes as she fell through the void like trash down a chute.

It was all a lie.

Her strength was a falsehood.

Deep down, despicably deep, she had felt a sense of relief at the end of the world. Finally, a world where your worth was measured by your strength. Skein was the sum of your attributes, and Skein was everything. She’d even experienced a perverse thrill when she saw how much more Skein she had than Anton or Bella.

The curse had been accurate. She devoured the bell fragment because of gluttony. She deserved the punishment, and she wondered… was there really an increase in hunger? Or was it all psychological?

She supposed it wouldn’t matter soon.

The circle of sky above her shrank into a blue coin. Shrank into nothing. How long before she struck the bottom? Or she might fall forever. The dungeon boss said it would be an eternity, after all. A fate worse than death. Though she couldn’t fall for eternity. There was a clock counting down her time…

[The Burden Of Being Interesting.]

[Objective: Reach level 20.]

[Time to Complete: 4 days, 15 hours, 34 minutes, 12 seconds.]

She had hoped that the quest would deactivate when she fell into the hole. Falling here felt like falling through a dream. If she passed beyond the world, beyond her dimension, then surely the quest would end. Why should the System punish the others for her mistake?

Because she had the pride to act as a leader.

Tears rose as she fell.

[Skein 7/117]

Every time her Skein ticked up, she instinctively redirected it toward Vitality. Healing her body as much as possible. Skin sealing over as scabs flaked away. For no reason other than her flesh stubbornly refusing to quit.

[Skein 5/117]

She wanted the deep unconsciousness that came from reaching zero. She wanted to close her eyes and never open them again.

[Skein 3/117]

A tooth wobbled and fell as a new one pushed into place. She barely felt the pain after everything else that happened.

[Skein 1/117]

How long now had she fallen?

[Ti?e to Co?plete: 4 days, 15 hours, 32 ?inutes, 37 seconds.]

She frowned. The expression drew blood from her scorched flesh. Something was wrong. She counted, slow and even under her breath. One minute in full, and then checked again.

[T??e to Co?????e: 4 ????, 15 ?our?, 31 ??n?te?, 36 ?econ??]

Her eyes widened.

What?

Her Vitality continued repairing her body. She continued falling through the shaft of darkness. Counting under her breath, trying to keep the number even despite her rising mania.

Another minute.

[???? ?? ????????: 4 ????, 15 ?????, 31 ???????, 35 ???????]

That confirmed time was slowing. One minute registered as one second on the clock. She experienced something like this when crafting her technique, but this felt different. This wasn’t her perception of reality, but reality itself slowing down around her.

But why was the System scrambled? Why couldn’t she understand the voice in her mind?

She counted another minute.

And this time, when she nudged the System, it came faint, like a whisper from the other side of a hallway in a language she couldn’t understand.

[???? ?? ????????? ? ????? ?? ?????? ?? ???????? ?? ???????]

And then the whisper died.

For a moment, the purest silence she ever experienced. So absolute she heard her stomach gurgling in her ears. Before…

[Ding!]

[Welcome to the Black Star System!]