A/N: After the rifts appeared, some humans were born with the ability to sense and manipulate the ether that came through them. They were called "deviants" from then on. Beyond granting superhuman abilities, ether allows supernatural influence over the world. This power was named "skill."
Skills are equations that can alter reality, producing all kinds of phenomena. They can be engraved in the brain to avoid rewriting or forgetting them, but this is limited to seven first-level equations (affecting only one variable) to prevent cerebral overload. Innate skills—rare, found in just 1% of deviants—are complex and powerful, often incomprehensible even to their owners.
Deviants imagine equations to create skills, an intuitive process that defies classical physics. Engraved skills take up brain slots, capped at seven for first-level ones, while innate skills don't count against the limit and are usually too intricate to copy, often defying logic even among deviants.
As for Borin, he has an innate skill that lets him multiply himself according to precise mathematical laws—yet on a scale that no normal equivalent skill could ever match.
—
Borin's hammer weighed three hundred kilos. His armor added another hundred and fifty. His broken ribs made every breath a burden.
He kept moving anyway.
Ether surged through his legs and up his spine.
His first engraved skill activated—Amplified Strength—and his muscles swelled beneath the armor. The cracks in his breastplate widened a little more.
The Boss watched him, still motionless at the center of the ruined clearing.
Borin spat one last time. Then he charged.
Doubles materialized mid-sprint. One. Two. Four. Six. They burst from his body, each wielding an identical hammer.
The Boss clenched its fist.
Ether spears erupted from every direction—from its palm, then from the air itself—a black rain that locked down the space.
The first double was impaled mid-leap and burst into ether smoke. The second twisted away from one spear only to take another from behind. The third hammered a spear in flight; steel met condensed ether with a gong-like clang, but the spear held and punched through its shoulder.
Borin didn't slow.
He zigzagged, fighter's instinct reading the paths. One spear grazed his helmet. Another shredded his left pauldron. A third aimed low—he leaped, rolled on landing, and kept running without missing a beat.
His three remaining doubles closed from different angles.
The Boss raised its other hand.
Three new spears. Three perfect lines. Three puffs of smoke.
Borin was alone again.
But he was in range.
His hammer swung upward, aimed at the Boss's sternum. Ether flooded his arms, doubling the speed.
The air screamed.
The Boss didn't move.
An ether blade flashed into existence in front of it—vertical, shield-wide.
Hammer met blade.
The impact froze Borin for an instant.
The Boss swept the blade sideways.
Borin's hammer was deflected; his balance tipped. He dropped backward, barely dodging a second blade that sliced the air where his neck had been.
He rolled and came up five meters away.
The Boss advanced, still hovering, feet barely skimming the torn ground.
"Getting fancy now, are we?" Borin muttered.
He summoned four doubles at once and spread them around the Boss.
The Boss stopped.
Its scarlet eyes swept the scene.
Then it raised both hands.
Ten ether blades burst into the air, forming a ring around it, points outward. Then they launched.
The doubles charged anyway.
The first blocked a blade with its hammer. The shock drove it back, but it held, pushing forward. The blade shuddered. The double—Borin's own voice—growled and swung. The blade shattered into black shards.
Two more spears punched through it at once.
The second double vaulted over low blades, hammer already descending. The Boss looked up. A blade shot straight up, meeting the hammer mid-swing. The impact erased the double.
The third and fourth attacked together, hammers in perfect sync, aiming to crush the Boss between them.
The Boss stepped back.
Just one step.
The hammers crossed empty air. In that space, two fresh blades appeared and speared the doubles before they could recover.
Borin was already there.
He'd used the doubles as bait. While they pressed the attack, he'd flanked, using rubble for cover.
He struck from the side.
The hammer slammed into the Boss's ribs. A sharp crack. The creature flew sideways, skidding eight meters.
Borin didn't celebrate. He summoned three more doubles and charged again.
The Boss halted its slide, heels carving furrows in the dirt. It pointed a hand at Borin.
Twenty blades fired at once.
Borin and his doubles scattered. The blades chased, turning like guided missiles. One double went down. Then another. The third deflected two with its hammer before the rest overwhelmed it.
Borin threaded the storm.
Right. Left. Roll. Jump. One blade raked his back, tearing armor. Another aimed for his leg—he spun, losing only a strip of fabric.
Ten meters.
Five.
The Boss raised both hands, palms down.
Fifty blades materialized overhead, a black cloud with every point aimed at Borin.
He planted his hammer in the ground.
Ether erupted from him. His third engraved skill activated—Ethereal Hammer. A second weapon formed in his free hand, pure condensed energy, twice the size of the real one and pulsing golden.
The Boss closed its fists.
The fifty blades dropped.
Borin slammed the ethereal hammer into the ground.
A spherical shockwave exploded upward, forming a shimmering dome. The blades struck it and burst into black fragments.
But there were too many.
The dome cracked. One fracture. Two. Ten.
Three blades broke through.
One punched his left shoulder. Another buried itself in his right thigh. The third clipped his helmet, ripping away metal.
Borin growled low.
The ethereal hammer vanished.
He tore the spears free with sharp yanks. Blood flowed, but not heavily—his armor had taken the worst.
The Boss advanced again.
Borin lifted his real hammer. His left arm hung useless, but his right still gripped the weapon.
"I'm just getting started!"
He summoned six doubles at once.
They charged as one.
The Boss raised a wall of blades. The doubles crashed into it, hammers pounding relentlessly. Each blow shook the wall, but it held.
Borin circled wide.
The Boss turned to track him.
Borin leaped.
His hammer arced down toward the Boss's skull.
A blade flashed up and blocked.
Borin landed, rolled, rose. A double struck from the opposite side. The Boss conjured a blade without looking and speared it.
One by one, the doubles fell. Until only Borin remained.
He stood fifteen meters away, breathing hard.
"And here I thought I'd brag about making this look easy," he muttered.
He charged.
The Boss raised a hand.
A hundred blades appeared.
Borin triggered Amplified Strength. His body became a missile. He wove through the first wave.
One blade pierced his right side. He kept going. Another shredded his calf. He didn't slow.
Ten meters.
Fifty blades fell together.
Borin summoned four doubles instantly. They formed around him, a living shield. The blades tore through them, dissolving them, but bought him the split second he needed.
Five meters.
The Boss summoned a massive blade, wall-wide, between them.
Borin hit it head-on.
The impact drove him back, boots carving trenches. But he pushed. Muscles in his right arm bulged.
The blade cracked.
The Boss tilted its head.
Borin roared—"AAAAAAAH"—and struck again.
The blade shattered.
He burst through.
His hammer swung in a perfect arc toward the cracked ribs.
The Boss raised an arm to block.
Too slow.
The hammer connected.
The crack echoed across the clearing.
The Boss flew backward, smashing through debris and snapping a tree in half.
Borin landed hard, right knee hitting the ground. He leaned on his hammer, chest heaving.
The battlefield was a crater—furrows, rubble, ether scorch marks everywhere.
He looked up.
The Boss was rising.
Slowly. Chest caved in. Shattered ribs jutting from gray skin. Black blood pouring.
Its scarlet eyes flared brighter.
Black ether exploded outward, forming a visible aura. It wrapped the wounds. Borin watched the ribcage straighten, bones sliding back, skin sealing.
Ten seconds later, the Boss was whole.
It stepped toward him.
Then another step.
Borin smiled and spoke into his earpiece.
"Serin," he said calmly. "Give the order."
[Captain?]
"Tactical retreat. Link up with Clover."
"But you—"
"You'll only get in my way from here."
"Captain, you can't—"
"That's an order."
The Boss was ten meters away.
Borin stood straight.
The Boss stopped.
They stared.
Blood dripped between Borin's teeth.
"First time you healed in three seconds. Now it took ten. Know what that means?"
The Boss tilted its head.
"There's a point where you can't heal anymore."
Borin raised his hammer one-handed.
The Boss raised both hands.
"I'm dragging us both there… by force."