Chapter 131

The blade descended from above. I only had the vaguest awareness that it was coming.

This might seem passive of me. You might be raging at this account, furious that I was lying there, wounded, making no attempt to protect myself or fight on. But I was wagering. In a way, I was protecting myself. I understood there was nothing I could do against his POWER attribute, no matter how unjustly he had acquired it. Lance had made mistakes the first time, but he always seemed to learn from his errors faster than I did. I couldn’t imagine him making those mistakes again.

Against the power he now wielded, I was utterly impotent. The voice had said as much. The only way to beat him, it had told me, was to wait for his POWER to run out, then seize the opportunity.

But I had quietly disagreed.

I had seen one more way to beat him. And what I was doing in that moment was betting on myself. Since the start of the Choosing, I had rarely found a way to believe in myself. I had gained attributes faster than any account in history that I could find. I had employed the footfield earlier than any contestant ever. For all the inadequacies I had felt in my physical skills, my connection with the suit was nearly miraculous.

So I bet on that connection.

I had skipped levels before. This would be quite the leap. But even as the sword fell through the air, I focused on nothing other than flexing that strange energy I felt coursing through my bones.

And then it happened.

Time quite literally stopped. The sword froze above me, utterly stationary, Lance's body behind it a statue locked in a pose of dynamic, enraged motion. Even my lungs seemed not to be moving. All of existence entered a pause. Before my eyes, letters and digits appeared and flickered: "POWER 0.3" flashed before me. The digits faded away, and a "1.0" replaced them.

The voice came to me then. It said, "Holy fucking shit, you did it."

I said, "What’s happening?"

"You raised POWER to level 1, you dolt!"

I asked, "Why is everything frozen?"

It said, "Oh, that? Yes, well, I have to tell you, I don’t really know. This seems to happen when the first level of POWER is achieved. I think your merry friend with the sword here probably experienced the same thing when he activated his relic. You wouldn’t have noticed it, but he probably did. He probably found time frozen."

I asked, "Why… how?"

The voice was dismissive, "Oh, I don’t know. Order and Entropy do things to time. They speed it up, slow it down—who cares. I’ve been on this merry-go-round before, and I can tell you it’ll stay like this until you make your choices."

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I was hesitant. "My choices?"

The voice said, "POWER is a different attribute from the others. It’s directly influenced by your overall level. For each degree of overall level you possess, you get to add a point to a base attribute, like speed, strength, or toughness. That young man standing over you, believing he’s delivering the final blow of the tournament, has achieved level 2 overall. That’s a substantial feat for anyone in the Choosing. So, he applied two points of increase to speed, and, well, you saw the result. You get time now to choose what to do with it. As much time as you need. Time will stay like this until you allocate your points."

I was stunned by the wonder of it. I had done this. I had bet on myself, and this was the result. "My level…"

The voice said, "You started high, if you recall."

My mind swept all the way back to the start. My first moments in the suit, distracted by the numbers and words that filled my HUD. I had thought I misread the level the suit had informed me of. Morningstar had completely disbelieved me. The other contestants had thought I had been lying. Well, I had been lying, but I’d only buffed the number by one.

It had seemed so meaningless. The numbers that had mattered were CUT going from 0.0 to 1.0 to 2.0 to 3.0. The same for BEAM, SHIELD, AGILITY—all the rest. Those were numbers I could use. I hadn’t paid the tiniest attention to my level since those first couple of days.

I said, "I’m level 8."

The voice said, "That you are. Lance gained two levels over the course of this whole thing, but the higher you are, the more experience it takes to increase a level. You’re nudging up toward nine, but for now, you’re still level eight. Still, I think that might suffice for now, don’t you?"

I couldn’t smile. My body was frozen in the same stasis as the rest of the world seemed to be. But all the same, I could almost feel my lips curling up in a savage grin, baring my teeth. I had announced myself to the world before with my attributes. What would the world think of what I could do with all of this at my disposal?

***

To the world outside of my suit, there was no lapse in time. All Lance saw, and all the crowd saw, was my defenseless form lying there, and his blazing sword arcing down toward me. What followed was so fast it was almost impossible to track. Lance could follow what happened—he had two levels of POWER directed at speed. But the crowd would need to watch the replay later to understand.

His sword was slicing through the air toward me. It was all over; no one could conceive of any outcome other than Lance winning the suit.

Then, my visor blazed with light. At the same time, my sword came up, the light of CUT flaring through the haze of smoke from the spreading fire.

The power I felt was heavenly. My superior CUT, delivered with heightened speed and strength, sent Lance’s terrible blow crashing into the lumber beside me.

Shock registered on his lips. I rose effortlessly. I was still hurt, but I lifted myself in a way that felt casual to me, though it appeared blindingly fast to those around me. Lance was raising his sword to strike again. It’s hard to express, but he was still using his Level 2 speed. So, to an onlooker, that sword was moving faster than the eye could track. To me, it was still swift, but I could follow it easily.

My CUT blazed again, and steel screeched on steel as I knocked his blade aside. It was so casual, so easy.

He attacked again with fury. Rage and frustration boiled out of him. His visor still shone with the light of the POWER he had stolen. Every blow was easily knocked aside. It was suddenly like fighting a child. Lance spent everything he had hacking and attacking. Eventually, he sagged, his body heaving with exhaustion. I just stood, impassive, feeling my eyes want to roll back in my skull from the satisfaction of it all.

Lance staggered back, gaping at the fire burning in my visor. He understood. He completely understood what had happened. But he struggled to believe it.

His voice cracked as the words escaped him, "Impossible… this… this isn’t possible."