THE CRIMSON BITCH : LEVEL 13

DAY 233 : A-DAY, SECONDWEEK, HORUS, YEAR 1

CENTRAL 20 : CENTRAL DISTRICT 2 : HUNTER

Today started innocently enough.

Walking with Darreck on our way to the Tournament Finals I basically shamed him into bringing me to.

I mean we’re all here. But we definitely wouldn’t be if I didn’t bitch about it so hard.

Over the last few weeks, Piss has made that perfectly clear.

We just made our way through the distinctly uncrowded, distinctly bipolar tunnel decorated with roiling flames of all colors on the left and what seems to be quarterly reports on the right.

They’re impressive I guess? Probably? I don’t have a great handle on Heaven’s economy, but trillions of USD over two months seems profitable enough on the surface.

It’s in thinking through this that the instant he starts to appear, I’m already holding my breath. Initially, it’s just out of reflex. What is a surprise teleportation right in front of you if not a jump scare?

But then I see who it is. Unlike the other times I’ve been similarly startled since I got my breathing powers, this one is… The one.

Right here, right now. Right in front of me.

Heart basically pounding, I alternately slow and pause time, trying to target the new arrival at every step until the system finally decides that he’s ‘here’ enough for it to go through.

[ HERO TARGETED: ONESHOT - BFS ]

Over the slow course of an instant, I forget where I am.

I don’t remember what I was doing, where I was going, who I was with…

It does eventually come back to me in the frozen time… The Button!

Out of nowhere, it shoots to the front of my mind. That’s right, it would’ve recharged by now… I should use it now. Every bit of XP counts, after all.

Maybe I should wait until I’m a little higher before… I…

But the arrival… The Spawnpoint… The goddamned fucking everything! I could never hope for a better chance.

Well, there’s more of a crowd than I’d hoped for… But if they want to get in the way, I can just go straight through them. Any of them. I hope they don’t…

But I won’t stop. I can’t. Not even for them. Not even after all the times I made my baggage into their problem…

I always realized after-the-fact how all my unresolved issues colored my actions. Made me surly. Unfriendly…

I don’t wanna bring that energy into the family any more. And it’s fine if I have to make myself do that. Force myself to… Behave. But you know what’s better than ‘fine’?

Burning with rage that I forgot was ever even remotely close to this intense, I reorganize my callouts into a formation I haven’t thought of in almost half a year. But I obsessed over it so much back then.

I love Darreck.

And he loves me. I know that. Same way I know he only wants the best for me. And didn’t he say how important it was to get closure?

So what if I can get that closure? Right here, right now? Surely, that’s more important for the house as a whole than some tournament. Those happen every year.

But he abhors violence. I know that too. Even more than the other thing.

But this… The odds of Oneshot showing up right here? Right now? Right in front of me? Heaven’s a big place. A chance this good doesn’t just come around twice in a lifetime. Or lack thereof.

I… I wasn’t gonna… Not until… Feels like betrayal…

In the space between moments, it feels like all my doubt is coming through a bad radio frequency…

FUCK IT!!!

[ S.T.A.T.S — STRENGTH: MAGICAL=16 - PHYSICAL=32 — TENACITY: DEFENSE=16 - SPEED=33 — APTITUDE: MANA=23 - STAMINA=26 — TILT: CONTROL=32 - LUCK=17 ]

Still not sure what I want to do with that last Strength point. Right now, Physical would help the most.

But depending on how my Attunement eventually goes, I know I’ll regret it if I decide to mainline Magic.

Either way…

[ WEAPON EQUIPPED: BRIGHT WHITE BRIGHTSWORD OF WHITING BRIGHTNESS ]

[ SECONDARY WEAPON EQUIPPED: BLADE OF LONGINUS ]

I slooowly suck in air…

As soon as it appears, Oneshot’s right elbow is highlighted in red. Perfect.

I throw the sword like I’ve practiced for months on Darreck’s dummy, activate the XP box, get 256 XP, and lie to myself that I’m fine with a life of debt after that.

But that’s the least of what I’m willing to pay. As for the most…

The instant the sword makes contact without him teleporting through, and I spot the start of a red ‘5’ forming right above, I yell the only full word I plan to say for the next few years. “GO!!!”

[ COMMON ACTION: EQUIPMENT RESET ]

[ COMMON ACTION: IAI QUICKDRAW ]

[ UNCOMMON ACTION: COUNTER SHEATHE ]

[ POWER BLESSING: DASH ]

The spawncamper doesn’t seem to realize he already sprung my trap.

In fact, he’s ready for me with a condescending grin, holding out his little wrist-mounted blade thing like some sort of fucking Baseball guy.

Dashing in, I go for the counter on what can only barely be called an attack.

He just sort of holds his hand out for me to clang my own unsheathing blade against.

To his credit, he does try to evade the sword entirely and snake around my guard at the last second like he did last time.

But that was a lot of points in Speed and a whole different breathing paradigm ago.

So I land the counter easily enough.

Less easy is simultaneously using my other sword to reach around the almost perpendicular angle between Oneshot’s legs to nick a red spot on his inner thigh.

Even less easy is neglecting to just cash out now with a charged cut upwards.

Teleporting behind him, I slam the white sword home and crane my neck around in slowed time, until I can just barely make out the distinct impression of a red ‘19’ rising from his head.

Not bad. Not the numbers that the sword’s description implies. But this is a Maxlevel we’re talking about, so I guess he has some defenses or something.

And it takes me more subjective time than I’m willing to admit, to calculate that I just dealt 5.33, repeating of course, times my personal best for Damage done to this shitbag. Besides that ‘5’ from his elbow, I mean.

But who’s counting that?

Not me.

And not any of my friends.

Negligible damage or no, this was never going to be anything but a battle of attrition. Right here, right now, I’m an unstoppable force.

And right here, right now, he’s no longer an immovable object.

So it’s up to me to keep that true long enough to move him. Not literally of course. Literally, I need him to stay precisely where the fuck he is.

Which he doesn’t seem to want to.

His legs jerk a bit. But, judging by his failure to do so, he can’t actually take a step. Which means it worked. But not for long…

Bringing around my Blade of Longinus, I wang him in the red target on his left flank.

In frozen time, I do everything short of literally smirk as I watch the red ‘8’ rise from that spot.

Not a ton of damage. But that weapon is only Rare.

Oh, now he’s worried… Shoulda teleported through that, huh?

I stop breathing and enjoy the look on his face.

Then I spend the next several subjective minutes bringing my Mythic white katana with the color powers, around to try to cut him in his stupid black shirt with an astronaut doing a superhero landing.

But I don’t hit the astronaut.

Instead, I use the fastest callout I could think of when I was planning for today. Not that I knew when ‘today’ would be. But, you know… “TCHU.”

[ RARE TOGGLE ON: EXTEND-O-SWORD ]

Which, I imagine, is why the next number that rises from him is a ripe, old ‘65’.

Hey, that’s almost pretty nice… But it’s only two digits. Let’s go for three.

Gleefully, I use all my practice over the last several months to resheathe both katanas.

Or at least I try.

It’s not that I fuck it up.

It’s just that midway through the final motion, I feel a twinge in my forehead.

[ YOU DIED — XP DEBT: 131,072 — RESPAWN DELAY: 8 HOURS ]

Jessica the Racist Human Stonekicker walked into Lorem Ipsum, the fabled Celestial City.

It looked like it would’ve been the most beautiful place she had ever seen only a week ago.

Unprompted, a butler walked up to a maid. “As you know, this time last week, there were ten billion of us.”

The maid nodded wisely. “And as YOU know, not even a hundred million are left.”

A new guy with a man-bun looked like his whole world just came crashing down. “One percent…”

The maid put a comforting hand on his shoulder.

If you find this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the infringement.

Man-bun-man jerked away. “DON’T TOUCH ME!!!”

Then he shrank back into himself. “Filthy oligarchs… Don’t touch me, one-percenter. You… But I’m a one-percenter too, aren’t I? We all are… That’s all that’s left… What’s the point… Of anything… Anymore…”

He just sat there, defeated and unresponsive.

Rolling her eyes, Jessica tripped over a pipe.

After eight subjective hours, I respawn the same instant, already holding my breath. Or rather, I never start breathing.

That’s how this starts. With Oneshot looking as worried as he should’ve been from the moment I threw a sword at his elbow. From then on, the rest was inevitable.

Back.

And forth.

And back.

And forth.

A few cycles in, I get a new prompt.

[ REDIRECT TO ALTERNATE SPAWNPOINT? ]

As always, there’s the ‘YES’, ‘NO’, and Sonic the Admin up in the corner.

As similarly always, I make the only choice I’d ever consider. NO.

It happens every time after that.

Every.

Fucking.

TIME.

It’s like those goddamned messages where you keep dying and it keeps asking if you want to lower the difficulty. Like… NO.

NEVER, in fact. But that’s not a prompt option. Maybe there’s an Achievement that unlocks that?

But, skippable or not, the denial, like the rest, becomes routine.

The first hit in each cycle is practically free.

Just enough feints and false-starts to where Oneshot doesn’t move in time to block the red spot, and my Blade of Longinus stabs into it.

Time after time, the necessary part proves to be the easiest. But only because the end of that part is the end of me being invincible.

Not that my lack of vincibility transfers to him or anything.

Although he does try stuff. Shields, alternate weapons, all sorts of shit.

He even brings out some kind of orb thing that kills me the instant I land the first hit.

But after a couple more deaths, he puts that away too.

At some point, I try extending my swords from the get-go for at least double the HP each time. But increasing the range past the point where his wrist-blade can reach, has the side-effect of actually making it harder to strike the red bit if it’s behind his knee or whatever this time.

I start to think that’s too risky to keep going.

But then he renders the whole thing moot by just taking out a gun decorated with pink pushpops or something.

Oneshot can already kill me at a distance with his stupid wrist-needle.

But this new thing has a homing feature. I can’t even dodge the pushpops. Or crystals. Or whatever these floaty pink things are that he’s firing at me.

They display a complete disrespect for any sort of physical anything as they come in all slow, taking their sweet time to turn and pivot and make a beeline straight for my abdomen.

I can hit them out of the air easy enough. But even the minimal movements of doing that, costs time I don’t have and can easily wind up getting me where I need to go just a fraction of a second too late.

And I can never, ever let that happen.

Which is why I relish taking the same several extra minutes I spend on every movement these days, to place my mythic katana precisely between his third and fourth ribs on the left, just below where I’m also stabbing the red dot. “Tchu.”

[ RARE TOGGLE ON: EXTEND-O-SWORD ]

The leverage from the mostly uninjured and unmoving organs pushes me up and away faster than he can reach by the time my Invincibility Window fully closes. But, as planned, it’s still slow enough to where I can Dash back to him in one GO.

Which, in turn, makes him bring up that stupid gun and fire his goddamned pink floaty homing bolts at me.

Which almost always kills me right away.

Until it sometimes doesn’t.

And then mostly.

Gradually, over the years, I realize I’ve been deflecting from the real problem. The fact that I can’t deflect.

But, by the time I realize that, I’ve already gotten pretty good at dodging them. It’d be a nice option to switch it up, but the ability to actually deflect projectiles for 1 damage at a time on this shithead wouldn’t be worth the time I’d lose getting a sword in their way.

So I don’t.

Instead, mid-dash, I duck and spin around the bolts that can’t quite circle around to hit me before I aim for the dot on Oneshot’s spine and fucking SCIZOR the dick.

Or at least I try. I still can’t seem to cut through.

In fact, I don’t do much beyond a catscratch on either side.

Whenever I get close enough, he switches back to just using his melee thing. As fast as that clunky-looking sci-fi gun can apparently acquire a target, stabbing me is just as apparently faster.

And when I’m coming in like that, all straight on and obvious, he does eventually kill me.

If I’m not allowed to resheathe, I can’t exactly counter. So I can’t get any real multipliers off.

But a hit is a hit. And the 69 extra Damage this time makes the next eight hours all the nicer. It's a cheap shot. And it doesn’t even work most of the time. But when it does, at least until the next instant, it’s such a wonderful release.

Jessica the Racist Human Stonekicker encountered a monk at the center of Lorem Ipsum, the Celestial City.

His crossed legs became tighter than anything. “Greetings, benefactor. How may this poor monk help you today?”

Tripping over a pipe, the Racist felt like she had a minor stroke before recovering.

“How may this penniless monk assist-”

Another pipe.

“This shitty fuckface of a monk cannot seem to grasp your purpose in being here.”

Another pipe.

“This disappointing detriment to society failing even as a monk wishes you nothing but the-”

Again.

“This syphilitic cumdumpster, unworthy even to be a monk nonetheless would like to request-”

And again.

“This embarrassing failed abortion of a monk would appreciate being able to finish a sentence-”

Lorem Ipsum had so many pipes sticking up everywhere.

That was when it emerged from behind the wall. A dragon.

It didn’t rise up. It wasn’t flying.

It merely STOOD, claws planted on the farthest towers of Eastwatch and Westwatch respectively.

A single, impossibly loud clacking sound CRACKED THE SKY.

Everyone stilled, except the dragon.

Inhaling a breath, it eyed Lorem Ipsum’s royal family before bathing them in flames for almost half a nanosecond before its head exploded in a mushroom cloud.

The atomic stone lived up to its name.

The Stonekicker heard more voices than ever, all at once.

“BINGBONG!!! YOU HAVE REACHED LEVEL-”

But before she could hear what level she reached and how many new cultivation stages she could allocate, the Racist tripped over a pipe.

The more I die, the more the corpses pile up.

They disappear after some number of minutes. But that means I have to look at that version of me for weeks at a time.

By now, I’ve gotten used to keeping a constant mental map of the area to make sure I don’t cut off my path to Oneshot with versions of my own body. And I can’t risk blowing them away with an Aura Burst either. The way it ‘enhances’ the physics hit by Force Damage Projectiles, one of my bodies could very well throw him across the plaza, Held Debuff or no.

Which is why I opt to do things the old fashioned way, cutting through an average of one of me at a time with my Brightblade to get to him. Because that’s what I’m calling it. Not the rest of it. The rest of it is stupid.

But dumb name or no, the Bright White Brightblade of Whiting Brightness does a great job of cutting right through all of me I need to get to him. In no small part because I’m wearing black.

And he’s somehow seeing past all the blinding 1’s rising from a new corpse every few seconds. It used to bother me as well. But thankfully, there’s a well-hidden opacity option for the glow on Damage numbers that I thought would give me an advantage.

It doesn’t seem to.

But I never let up. The longer I go the more committed I get to see this through to the end.

And it does get a bit better as I go. I gradually hit more and more often after the first. And the dreams after I do all that extra damage really are nicer. And gratifying. And addicting.

Conveniently, the frozen-time-dopamine or whatever, really makes me want to stretch my enhanced breathing to the limit to make the fastest I can go last as long as I can maintain that speed.

I’ve long-since optimized the only callouts I even have time for as I enjoy every subjective minute of it.

First, I spend a few minutes just enjoying this little slice of perfect, fresh yet conditioned air.

Next, I take even longer enjoying the feeling of drawing my katanas. When it’s for a fight, it really puts me on edge.

Oneshot tries to shoot them out of my hand a few times. Just as long as it takes him to realize they count towards my Invincibility Window.

None of his attempts even elicit a subconscious reaction at this point.

Neither do the people who throw shit at me from the side.

In fact, I quite like that. Not only does it not affect me at all, but then I get to see that guy get swarmed by the vast majority of the crowd who want me to win.

And I mean, they’re cheering. So that’s cool. A few tried attacking Oneshot too, but that ended once he killed enough of them to make the rest realize they’d rather watch the fight than give him their shit and die.

But, more and more these days, I tend to just get bored before my relaxing time ends.

Then I prematurely start looking forward to what’s about to happen.

Still, I don’t rush the breath. Boring as it is, it’s still a vast improvement over the eight hours before.

So it’s just a happy accident that I let that build for a bit too. I start to visualize and fantasize about following through with the plan I just waited eight hours to execute. You could say, it really puts me on edge.

Then I spend a few minutes positioning both katanas just so. The unpredictability of the red dot means I have to figure it out again each time.

And finally, I put a lot of pepper on the only full word I’ve said for…I don’t know how long. “GO!!!”

Then, the fun really starts.

But no matter how the rest goes, it always ends too soon.

Leaving me both unsatisfied and with nothing to do but to make the plan for next time before going back to sleep amid Sonic the Admin’s ever-tapping foot.

A woman ran up to Jessica the Racist Human Stonekicker. “I-”

But the instant she started talking, the world froze and a different voice yelled much louder in the Racist’s ear. “QUEST ACCEPTED!!! FIND MY SON-”

But Jessica interrupted the voice for once, the world unfreezing as it cut the old lady short as well. “Yeah, I already did that. Here’s his coin or whatever.”

The Stonekicker unceremoniously tossed over a medallion that said ‘WORLD’S BEST SON’.

She then immediately plugged her ears.

It didn’t help: “QUEST COMPLETED!!! FIND MY SON’S SPECIAL COIN SO I CAN DIE IN PIECE!!!”

“Oh. Wait a sec-”

The woman caught the coin, pressed down the center, and exploded to bits before the voice finished speaking.

“BINGBONG!!! YOU HAVE REACHED LEVEL 42069!!! THROUGH GREAT STRIFE AND LONG STRUGGLE, YOU HAVE GROWN STRONGER!!! AS A STONE KICKER, YOU GAIN 100 POINTS TO DISTRIBUTE TO ATTRIBUTES INSTEAD OF THE USUAL 1!!! YOU ALSO GET 100% ADVANCEMENT TO THE CULTIVATION STAGE OF YOUR CHOICE!!! FUCK BITCHES!!! GET MONEY!!! CHEW BUBBLEGUM!!!”

Disturbed yet entirely satisfied staying at that level for the foreseeable future, the Human tripped over a pipe.

I wake up.

I yell.

My sword reaches his taint or whatever’s red this time.

The Debuff is refreshed.

Damage done.

However many years I’ve been doing this in, I stop taking so many risks with the Mythic blade.

It’s all I can do not to simply let it drop.

Whatever’s happening to me during respawn, it isn’t ‘rest’. Nor is it in any way exhausting. My entire physical state just sort of pauses where it died.

Still, all these years later, I’ve been fighting constantly for most of a day.

And I am, in more ways than I ever thought possible, TIRED.

Nevertheless, I hit him again.

Therefore, he kills me again.

And eight hours later, I’m invincible until I strike ‘first’.

Rinse and repeat forever.

Me, an unstoppable force.

Him, an immovable object.

Except, bit by bit, the object gets a little closer to moving.

And the force is never stopped.

My subconscious, however, does seem to run out of material.

Jessica the Racist Human Stonekicker was walking down the street.

A guy or something called over to her. “C’mere, I wanna show you something!”

Shrugging, the Racist walked over to him and attentively waited for whatever this was.

“Well… It’s just that… Whaddya think about…”

But he was just stalling. There were no surprises. No traps. No reveals of any kind.

He had nothing to show her, and his expression grew more and more constipated as she waited for him to get on the ball.

But he never did.

Sighing, the Stonekicker turned and walked away.

But then she tripped over a pipe.

At the start, I hold my breath.

At the end, I fall asleep.

Each death, I remember.

On the next inhale, I forget.

I only know what’s in front of me.

Slowly, steadily, I stop forgetting so much. Or maybe I simply stop remembering that there was anything to forget.

Either way, the longer I go, the more my vision tunnels.

There are no bystanders.

I have no friends.

I have a target.

It’s been all I’ve known for as long as I can remember.

And then suddenly, with no warning…

[ UNIQUE VENGEANCE ATTAINED: RIGHT X-GLOVE ]

It’s gone…

I don’t go anywhere.

I don’t do anything.

I don’t even inspect my prize.

I just collapse.