[…. Would you like to activate the skill: Foresight?]
[Yes.]
[No.]
The message populated in front of his eyes again, but unlike in the past, he had the sense that it was like a computer prompt. Whether he took a second or five minutes to answer was the same to the System; it was fulfilling a purpose, and emotions weren’t part of it. Unlike in the past when his glitchy AI minion would have underlined the text or insulted him to get him to hurry, he could take his time.
Logan didn’t know what that scrambled message had meant, or what was going on in the background. To him, that first System message should have meant that the ‘anomaly’ had already been dealt with, and the fact that it broke through to rant at Logan was concerning.
But he wasn’t going to get anywhere by speculating. He was in a holding pattern—frozen in time. There was only one way to find out what [Foresight] did, and that was by moving forward.
Filled with resolve, he concentrated on the System’s message, mentally focusing on the [Yes] as he confirmed his choice.
Ding!
[Acceptance noted. Activating Foresight in 3… 2…. 1.]
As the countdown ended, reality shifted.
He had no sense of time passing—forward or backward, but he knew he was moving. He felt vertigo, as if he had an ear infection while traveling on a rollercoaster.
And just like that, he could see.
A flash.
It was as if the System had never interrupted and the fight had never stopped.
Logan was back in the viewing arena, and time had restarted.
But the rest of the guards acted like nothing had happened. They weren’t aware that there was any interruption; to them, the fight continued.
Jabbing his skill ring onto his index finger, Thorin was screaming in defiance. With a popping sensation in his ears as if Logan had just jumped in elevation, five more Thorin copies materialized one after another.
All of them had the same scarred, pockmarked faces. Mouths curved into snarls. They held the same massive swords, swords that made Logan’s baseball bat look like a child’s toy. Each clone had a presence all their own. They felt solid. Real.
Thorin had just created five other level 99 Thorin clones.
And was… holy fuck! Did they each have their own Karma pools? [Liche Siphon] was still active, but it was draining Karma from the original Thorin only; the others were flush with full reservoirs. How was that possible?
“Brothers,” said Arsen, flicking his dagger from hand to hand. The blood and mud stripes on his face made him look ferocious, his hedgehog bangs standing up with mud-covered spikes, his eyes dark with resolve. “Let’s finish this. Once and for all. Do it for Asthea, do it for the clan.”
The other guards and clones let out growls. It was as if Logan had stepped into a den surrounded by predators who wanted to tear him apart.
The original Thorin and his five clones prowled around Logan in a circle, their long silver hair draping down to their waists, wolf-like ears standing straight up.
Errol strode forward as if he didn’t have a care in the world, his thick metal whip ready in his meaty grip, his thumb brushing over the coils as if he were gripping a horse’s reins. His mouth was in a snarl, nothing but malevolence in his eyes.
[540 seconds remaining.]
A flash.
Each time he moved forward, he was cognisant that he was seeing the future, but it felt as if it were happening in real time.
Up above, the Cursed Rope was slithering, creeping silently as it crawled across the ceiling and peered down at the fight. If it had eyes, they would be wide with eagerness.
Do something, rope, Logan sent. If I don’t survive, you’re next.
The rope swelled in size, acid dripping in a deluge. The user will get strong, the user will get strong. Opening its mouth, the muscles in its neck moving like a reverse regurgitating snake, it coughed like it was trying to expel a furball.
Something flew out of its mouth. Something that glinted and bounced on the floor with a clang, something that resembled the four other rings on Logan’s fingers.
Hell yes.
Asthea’s True Grit Ring. It was behind the guards, just out of his reach. If Logan managed to grab it, the rings would dissolve into his body and the doubling effect would turn into a tripling effect. That meant he’d increase his strength attribute from 232 to 348; his agility attribute from 242 to 363. Not to mention the others.
Even if the guards were wearing a True Grit Ring, there was no way they’d managed to get their hands on five each. Despite their massive level discrepancies, Logan might have a chance.
But first, he needed to get that ring.
“Fuck you, furballs!” Backpedaling a few steps, Logan then crouched and envisioned the pink sock launching him into the air over the heads of the guards. Adrenaline surged through his body as the sock obeyed and rocketed him into the air. As he flew over the heads of two of the Thorin clones, at the last second, he slashed his talons into the shoulder and neck of one, shredding armour and skin and slicing to the bone.
[480 seconds remaining.]
A flash.
“Trickster!” bellowed the clone. Blood sprayed, splattering Logan’s armour and faceplate. Logan had slashed it so deeply that it swayed before slamming to the floor with a groan. It wasn’t dead, but Logan had incapacitated it. That was one down.
But there was a problem.
Errol had anticipated his move. He wrapped his whip around Logan’s ankle without him realizing it. As he landed behind the guards, Errol snarled and jerked his whip, sending Logan off balance, making his next jump turn into a crash instead.
Shit! The True Grit Ring glinted not five feet away, but Logan had landed on his back, and even with the cushion of his armour, his head slammed to the stone floor so hard he saw stars.
Scrambling, his vision blurring, he tried to get up and jump—
Fuck!
Thorin planted his foot on top of Logan’s chest, grinding down over his chest plate and creating fine, hairline cracks in his armour. It felt like the force of his grip was immense, as if the weight of a house were pressing down on top of him and crushing him to death.
As he struggled, he could see the discarded ring. Glinting. It may as well be back on Earth for all it would help him.
[420 seconds remaining.]
A flash.
His mind scrambling, Logan desperately scanned through the contents of his spatial collar, searching for anything that could work. His baseball bat would be useless, not to mention that it would shatter like splintered wood if he hit the guards. Logan had advanced too far, gotten too high leveled and his bat had fallen behind.
His barbeque lighter would do shit—what was he going to do, light a shirt on fire and wave it in their faces? Plus, his body was creating a crater in the floor as Thorin continued pressing down, his eyes full of unhinged glee. The only other…
The guns!
With a blink, Logan willed out the handgun, his finger already on the trigger as he pointed it at Thorin. With a click, the gun discharged, a sound like a backfiring engine making his ears ring.
At first, he didn’t understand what had happened.
But then he realized that a small, trickling pool of blood was dripping down Thorin’s leg.
The man glanced at his injury and laughed. “Is that the best you can do? What a weakling!” The other Thorin clones laughed with him, earie, echoing chuckles that made Logan’s stomach lurch. It was as if they were having the time of their life and Logan was the butt of the joke.
One of the other Thorin clones stomped on his arm, pinning his wrist and sending the gun flying.
The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.
[360 seconds remaining.]
A flash.
Straining, Logan screamed as he tried to get away, but that only caused his chest plate to shatter and Thorin’s foot to press directly on his bare chest. He’d tried to give that area a cushion, but he might have made it weaker rather than stronger. A consequence of the sandstone material.
A sharp, agonizing pain stabbed through him as he heard a crack. His ribcage.
Without [Idiot’s Paradox], the pain would have been so bad he could hardly think let alone fight, but the pain reduction skill might give him a chance.
Rope, Logan sent, his mental voice tinged with desperation. I need you to jump down to the floor and throw the ring over here. You’re my only hope.
There was no response.
Rope!
“It’s too bad he isn’t a higher level,” said Errol. “Not much XP to divide amongst the three of us.”
Arsen licked his lips, staring at a spot around Logan’s neck. “I suspect there might be other loot that’ll be just as good.” He gave Thorin a look. “You better do it. You’ve weakened his armour, but my daggers won’t break through that layer around his neck.”
“This’ll be fun,” said Thorin with a shit-eating grin, his sword held in a two-handed grip.
“No!” Logan’s eyes bulged as he strained with everything he had to get away, every ounce of his strength attribute. His veins stood out from his skin as his armour continued to crack and rain sand around him. Everything was unreal, as if he’d taken a mental step back and he was looking at himself from outside of his body.
This couldn’t be happening. This couldn’t be real.
Thorin’s sword flashed as it swung towards his neck.
Weak like Hallkelsdottir after all, he heard the rope say.
[300 seconds remaining.]
A flash.
Logan screamed internally, his heart in his throat, mentally beating at the walls of the skill to let him out. When he’d deployed [Foresight], he thought it would be a tactical advantage, but he’d never once thought it would let him foresee that in less than ten minutes, he’d be dead. If he weren’t frozen, he’d be sick, a deep pit of dread opening inside of his stomach.
But just because he’d seen his death didn’t mean the skill was up.
Logan’s body was slack, lifeless, his head decapitated and gushing blood like a tipped over gallon of paint.
Thorin was holding up Logan’s spatial storage cat collar. It was covered in blood and the tags jiggled as he moved it. In puzzlement, he scrutinized the ‘Name: Idiot, a large male human’ engraving.
With his mouth gaping in shock, he clenched his fist around the collar and looked at the others. “The clever off-worlder tried to disguise his spatial storage device as odd-looking pet jewellery. But brothers… have I got news for you! It’s S Grade.”
Errol stopped pulling off the rings from Logan’s fingers and looked up, frozen in shock. “What did you just say?”
“Got your attention with that, didn’t I?”
As the Silverdagger Clan continued to shout in exuberance as if they’d discovered a pile of gold, Logan’s shock turned to… something else.
Rage.
Pure, unbridled rage.
Would he have to watch these fuckers dig through his belongings for the remainder of the skill?
[240 seconds remaining.]
A flash.
He soon had his answer.
The System had sent him somewhere else.
He caught glimpses of warriors—men and women with wolf-like ears assembled on a battlefield facing an army of humans. The wolf warriors stomped their feet and howled a battle cry as the ground vibrated like an earthquake.
At the front, stood Asthea.
Her silver, long hair was loose down to her waist, her sharp cheekbones flushed with red, wolf-like ears pointing straight up and at attention. She was wearing battle regalia—full armour with a fur-lined cloak, silver filaments in her hair and war paint on her face.
To one side, she held her crossbow, but her other arm was missing. Noticeably missing, the empty sleeve drooping to the side.
On the other end, the humans stood motionless, stoic, not flinching, automatic rifles slung over their shoulders, their clothes covered in splashes of dried blood.
And amongst the crowd was Lara, looking like death worn over. She’d pulled her hair into a long brown ponytail, a streak of blood on one cheek. She was wearing jeans and a long-sleeved shirt with a vest fastened tight to her throat. Over one shoulder was a rifle, a knife in her other hand.
That more than anything made his heart race. Lara was a great shooter—but with crossbows, not guns. Until work had overtaken her free time, she’d attended the local shooting competitions and could kick the ass of any man. More than a gun range, bow shooting was huge in the Okanagan.
Then the scene was gone. Logan tried to grasp onto it with all his mental fortitude, but it was too late.
Fuck. His heart was racing. Beyond witnessing his own death, that scene filled him with terror more than anything else. Was this what would happen in the future?
He needed to help Lara!
[180 seconds remaining.]
A flash.
Logan felt his adrenaline surge as he saw Ernie underwater, waving his tentacles and pacing up and down a line of undead sturgeons. A pale Ernie swished through the water, his tentacles going so fast it made him look as if he were a conductor.
The sturgeons’ red eyes were glinting in adoration, their ratty black tails wagging like dogs as they listened to Ernie with rapt attention.
Logan felt a flutter of hope at seeing that—Ernie wasn’t drooling like a rabid zombie in the Walking Dead; he wasn’t mindless; he was Ernie.
Logan tried to say something, but the System swept him away to the next scene.
[120 seconds remaining.]
A flash.
And something… else had materialized instead.
Logan stopped short, not knowing what he was looking at—the sight didn’t compute.
In front of him stood a man. He was tall, slender, with salt and pepper hair and a long aquiline nose. His face was bare of facial hair, his eyes pale blue. He wore nothing but black—well tailored black slacks and a leather belt, and a black long-sleeved shirt.
In front of him, immense unlit billboards covered a boardwalk. Next to the signs were hotels—resorts. The air smelled of asphalt and oil, that greasy street smell, but the streets were empty of cars.
Logan had been here before.
For Lara’s wedding.
Vegas.
The slender man walked down the empty street with a face devoid of expression. Logan got the distinct, odd feeling from him. Even though he wasn’t scanning him with [Idiot’s Inspect] and in fact couldn’t if he wanted to… the man gave off an aura, a killing intent that would have made the hair on the back of Logan’s neck stand up.
In the background, Logan could hear fighting, the sounds of a struggle. And gradually, he became aware of people—people staring into the street in fear; people rushing down the sidewalk and overpasses, bundles of water bottles in their arms; others who gave the man speculative looks, calculating looks before suddenly blanching and fleeing.
The man continued walking in the middle of the street as if he didn’t have a care in the world.
It was hot, so hot the sun should have forced beads of sweat to run down his forehead.
But he wasn’t sweating; it was as if he were made of ice.
He came to a stop. And stood there. Staring.
Holding out his hands palm-side up, he looked up at the sky, his eyes flashing blue once before… something happened. A dark, oily substance emitted from his palms, seeping out of his pores, a deluge. It spread from his hands and over top of his head, drifting like an oil spill.
Like a black cloud. It covered the blue sky and blocked the sun, creating a film-covered world.
The man’s eyes flashed one more time, and then the black substance increased to a flood, spreading like an oil-tanker. The cloud covered the whole street and began to drift over to the billboards, then the hotels.
A hundred feet.
Two hundred.
Three.
With a self-satisfied smile, the man slowly dropped his hands, but the black film continued to hang over the sky, covering the area in darkness.
Logan might as well be standing next to the man.
There was a pressure in the air, a thickness. It would be like trying to breathe through a straw stuffed full of cotton. And on top of that, the tar-like substance was insidious. Seeping into a person’s lungs one molecule at a time, then seeping into their bloodstream and robbing them of oxygen.
Gradually, Logan could hear sounds. Sounds of distressed people.
Screaming.
Running.
The man smiled.
Logan shuddered. He had no idea what that black film did, but he suspected the man was leveling up as he watched, standing there and absorbing XP increase after XP increase.
With a passive XP farming skill like that, he could move from city to city, spreading that darkness and leveling up. There would be no need to fight monster swarms, no need to fight at all. The consequences were difficult to grasp. Frightening in its scope.
[60 seconds until skill depletion!]
Logan gasped. As the scene of carnage continued to play out in front of him, he divorced his mind from it as urgency surged. If the skill ‘depletion’ meant that the System was about to send him back to the viewing arena right before it had frozen him in place, he didn’t have the luxury of time.
He now knew the value of [Foresight]. Without it, he would have made a huge mistake. A mistake that would have resulted in his death! It was like having a head-on collision and getting the chance to retrace your steps before the crash. He could avoid it. Avoid his death. If he were smart, if he thought outside the box.
Logan had made two mistakes.
First, not being offensive right away. After the shock of the attack on Asthea, Logan had tried to appeal to the guards’ better sensibilities. That was the guilt talking.
It was in his nature. If he’d attacked the Silverdagger Clan right after his own weapon had eaten Asthea’s arm… well, one of Thorin’s clones might as well have taken over Logan’s body. But being apologetic, trying to deescalate the situation… it had been a mistake.
After all, Logan had already come to the conclusion that if it had been Lara in Asthea’s place, he wouldn’t have listened to reason. He would have come out swinging. Questions about why someone had attacked would be the last thing on his mind. He wouldn’t have cared.
Acting tentative wouldn’t be how he’d win against those odds. He’d been too wishy-washy. To survive the fight against people who were higher leveled than him, he needed to think five steps ahead.
That meant he needed to be ruthless.
His second mistake had been focusing too much on his physical attributes. Even if he managed to grab the last True Grit Ring and triple his attributes, it might not be enough. Not against the three guards and Thorin’s five clones. Instead of deploying his best assets, he’d relied on his armour and talons and [Liche Siphon], expecting that would be enough to win the day.
Other than fighting the men in the cabin, Logan had never been in a fight against a person one-on-one. He could make an argument that he had fought the golden blobs, but the stakes had been too low. If he had lost that battle and lost his life, he would have come back anyway—they were NPCs.
But the Silverdagger Clan were real. They knew the System and how to deploy their physical attributes to the best advantage. People who knew how to fight. Fight and win.
The guards were familiar with physical attributes, but they were less comfortable with anything outside of it. It would be safe to say that Logan had seen everything they had on offer, and the best skill was Thorin’s clone ability—but again, that was physical.
Arsen had warned the others that Logan had [Life Cycle Master]. He’d been wary as if the skill were uncommon. In a life-or-death threat where he needed his best assets, why hadn’t Logan gone with what until now had been his most valuable, epic skill? It could create a star. If he couldn’t figure out how to deploy it against three assholes, then he deserved the ‘Idiot’ name the System had given him after all.
Logan thought he had a way forward.
But he had a hair’s breadth chance of success. One wrong move and he’d be back under Thorin’s sword.
Unlike last time, he was coming out swinging, he’d be ruthless, he’d be smart.
He was going to fuck them up.
[Skill depleted!]
***
Logan opened his eyes with a gasp, feeling a shudder ricochet through his body that shook him to the core. He felt disoriented and on shaky ground.
But he knew this scene.
He knew what was about to happen. Thorin was about to stop chasing the Cursed Rope and devote all his attention on Logan. He was getting ready to deploy his clones, but Logan could stop him.
Unlike last time, he knew what he had to do.
“Thorin!” Clenching his fists, his diamond covered talons glinting in the lights of the room, Logan gave them a bright grin, trying to look purposely unhinged. “You’re giving up that easy? Don’t you know what it’s saying to me? Whispering in my ear? The Cursed Rope thinks you’re weak. That you’re pathetic. And that Asthea was the weakest of you all.”