Alexia

This time around I don’t just sit here for him to attack me first. Instead I immediately swing my scythe and send arcs of quantum energy straight at him. Making him focus on blocking them instead of beginning an onslaught against me.

I continue sending arcs at him over and over again, causing shockwaves to ring out from every clash our attacks make.

Only to suddenly sense something from the side that makes me teleport away. Following which a bit of reality slams into where I was just standing.

I grit my teeth as I focus on the Architect again and find him changing up his attack plan a bit. To the point that he’s now creating glitched walls of energy and reality in the way of my arcs and using those walls to delay the attacks enough to get out of the way and give him a chance to attack me in return.

A process that works well enough that it lets him get in several attacks, only most of which I avoid.

And the ones I don’t avoid end up slowing me down and attacking him back less and less, leading to even more attacks that I can’t avoid.

In the end, the Architect begins to push me straight back to how I ended up the last time I fought him.

With me having only landed a couple of small hits on him this time around. Hits he seems to have healed simply through overwriting reality on himself, just like what I do. Except in a different way somehow.

What I do is bringing back a stasis copy of myself from the past and pasting it over my current self. What he does seems to be copying reality itself from the past and pasting it on himself.

So what he does is also altering the reality around him and the wound and not just his own body.

I’m blasted by one attack after another, but I keep up my own assault as well. I send one arc of energy after another at him. And when that proves to not be enough, and I’m repeatedly blasted until my soul is nearly depleted again, I feel the slightest hints of real anger skirting around in my head.

Something that almost never happens.

Irritation? Sure. Lots of that.

Dislike? Maybe.

Hate? Not really. I don’t have strong enough emotions for that.

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But anger? Never.

Now, though, the very idea of being killed twice by the same person?

It’s starting to piss me off.

Along with my anger, I feel my control over the energy around me growing tighter through sheer instinct. And without even thinking about it, I draw the energy into my scythe and swing it one last time at the Architect as two more glitched parts of reality slam into me. Making my vision quickly begin to darken.

But not before I see my own much larger arc of energy slam straight through the Architect’s barrier and bisect one of his screens to slam into him, dealing real damage.

Then the last thing I hear before everything goes dark again is his simple, “Eight more.”

I once again wake up inside of his chamber where he begins initializing another galaxy. But I don’t pay an ounce of attention to what he’s doing as I just walk up to the man and begin studying his body for any signs of weakness. The man in question looking ever so slightly awkward as I do so, proving he’s not just some artificial intelligence or something.

He doesn’t say anything though, and I just keep studying him.

His last words the before I died again along with the fact that I’m here once more prove that I have eight more lives. But what happens after that is still a mystery.

Will I die for good? Or will I be kicked out of the trial?

If I had to guess, I’ll probably die for good. Considering the fact that it wouldn’t be much of a trial if I could get out without any consequences for losing.

Especially if this is a trial to test me to see if I qualify as the Quantum Reaper.

Wouldn’t really be much of a purpose for it if it just spit me back out after failing to qualify.

So I’ll just treat this as me having eight more attempts at this before I die.

I continue studying the Architect’s body for any signs of weaknesses, but throughout the process of his initializing the universe, I don’t find anything of note. Which leads me to move onto the next phase of the trial. During which I immediately fly right up to the man and begin studying him here as he kills off all of the corrupted creatures.

Once more making him look a little awkward. Which I don’t really blame him for considering that he has some random lady floating next to him studying him like a hawk as he fights, but whatever.

He deserves to feel awkward after killing me twice.

I keep studying and studying, watching every last attack he makes. All the way down to the small quantum bolts I once in a while see him use, and even the occasional attack he uses to redirect other attacks. Where he pretty much connects two realities to send an attack heading for him somewhere else.

Kind of like a portal in a way.

He doesn’t seem to be able to teleport like me, though. Which is good.

All of his powers seem limited to altering and breaking reality around him to suit his needs. Even his healing relies on that.

Whereas my powers are linked directly to myself instead. Along with direct combat.

Some time passes until he kills off the Corruptor once more and I find myself faced with him for the third time after he gives his whole ‘passed the second trial’ spiel.

This time around I teleport straight up to him while forcing a bunch of energy into my scythe and swinging it right at him, shattering one of his panels and sending him flying to crash down to the ground. Startling him more than a little bit with my actions.

He quickly recovers, though, reverting the damage and turning a more serious look towards me than the other two attempts.

Like he’s starting to take me more seriously this time around.

Good.

I will win this time.