[ Ratha Guild - Residential Wing, Esper Quarters, Floor 5 ]
Rian Thern woke up drenched in sweat, his bare chest heaving as if he had run a marathon, every muscle taut.
His mind was a storm of fragmented images and lingering sensations, the most vivid memory clawing its way forward: a dark, green viscous tentacle, as thick as a trunk, lashing toward his neck with impossible speed.
Time itself seemed to stutter, each fraction of a second stretching unbearably long. He saw the fibers of the forest stretch and blur, the horizon tearing as the sky twisted violently.
With a sickening thunk of bone and the instant flash of sharp pain, the world had tilted, the horizon of forest and sky spinning violently, and Rian realized with crushing clarity that he had been decapitated.
For a heartbeat, his soul continued, suspended between terror and death. The world spun, trees and clouds whirling in nauseating arcs. He could feel his mind and senses peeling away, the desperate ache of life persisting just long enough to make him understand the full, absurd cruelty of it.
Then, finally, darkness took him.
The memory burned in his chest, leaving him hollow, raw, and shaking.
He pressed a hand to his forehead, trying to steady himself. Fumbling under his pillow, he grabbed his phone and looked at the date.
Again. He was here again.
Of course.
A familiar, cloying sense of despair threaded around his heart. He knew this, he expected this, but it crushed him every time.
Dragging himself from the bed, he staggered toward the bathroom. The blue tiles were cold beneath his feet, grounding him just enough to keep from collapsing entirely.
He let the shower run scalding hot, the water biting and stinging his skin, trying to drown the anguish threatening to spill from his throat. A heavy hopelessness was burrowed deep and unmoving in his chest.
He rested his head against the shower wall, the tile cool against his forehead.
He wanted to cry, but he couldn't; he had cried all the tears he had long ago.
This wasn't new.
And that was the problem.
This wasn't the first time he had woken here, gasping and trembling, staring into the void of repetition. And it wouldn't be the last.
While reaching for the soap, he called up his System profile; a shimmering, blue screen appeared mid-air before his vision.
His eyes flicked through the information as he began to wash himself before it settled on singular passage:
< Call of the Phoenix >
A god has granted you a Blessing.
Evolve or die.
Attempts: 44
Numb and drained, after rinsing, he stepped out of the shower, letting muscle memory guide him as he dried off and wrapped a towel around his waist.
The fogged mirror drew him in; condensation clung to the glass, and with a deliberate swipe of his finger, he traced the number through the mist:
44
He stepped back, his eyes locking on the tense reflection of the figure's lifeless violet eyes staring back at him. He looked at his features.
His face was younger again, filled out and smooth with a healthy amount of fat and muscle; it was no longer gaunt and haunting like it would be three years from now. His tan skin was supple and strong, knotted scars and burns no longer covering his chest and arms. His black hair, short and messy, no longer needed to be tied up. His limbs were all intact, his body was healthy.
It was his mind that was breaking. Broken.
Rian had regressed and traveled back in time, once again returning to the past. Returning one week before it began. One week before the first abnormal gate that would kick off the destruction of the world.
The end of humanity.
The death of all his friends.
He was now on his 44th life.
And all he wanted to do was to die.
He slammed his fist against the mirror.
✦ ♡ ✦
[ Ratha Guild - Combat Wing, Practice Chamber B5, Floor B1 ]
Arlen's hands hovered below the frozen shard he had been levitating, small flecks of ice dancing along his fingertips. The chamber was silent except for the occasional hiss of melting ice where the tiniest slip of his concentration allowed the magic to waver.
He clenched his jaw, forcing the shard into various shapes again and again. First a sphere, then a square, a tetrahedron, octahedron, Merkaba.
Snub cube. Torus knot. Klein bottle.
Arlen diligently crafted increasingly complex structures in quick succession. Each form was precise, measured to microseconds and microns, a rehearsal of perfection.
And yet, something still nagged at him. His precision had returned, but it had taken days.
Sera had taken something from him.
His skill, his proficiency, he wasn't sure what, but since their encounter, his mana had felt awkward, unruly. His ice no longer obeyed with the same fluid grace; his control was clumsy. He had spent the last few days drilling, recalibrating, pushing his power toward its previous state, and he still felt the ghost of her intrusion.
Arlen let out a sharp laugh. "Hah!"
How cheeky, he thought, willing to incapacitate an S-rank like this so close to a raid.
He remembered that guiding session with Sera from four days ago. Her discrepancy with her rank had intrigued him from the start. A fleeting curiosity had drawn him: the subtle deflection of her hand when he tried to help her up, the almost prophetic awareness she had of his intentions.
C-rank guides couldn't even perceive an invasion of their mana vessels. At best, they felt vague discomfort, a tension they couldn't explain. A-ranks barely noticed the edges of a vessel, and even S-ranks, though capable of sensing them, had limited precision; probing another's mana in its pure form was still an infant science in this world.
Mental shielding was still largely theoretical. Most instinctive mental barriers - and their strength - depended on a combination of rank, luck, and genetics. Research moved slowly, constrained both by the scarcity of S-ranks and by their busy schedules.
Arlen was, in fact, unbeknownst to him, at the forefront of the field, driven by personal curiosity and a relentless obsession for mastery. Every Guide, every Esper he met was a potential test subject, and he had a naughty habit of sneakily probing everyone he met to gauge their vessels.
It was like when a child discovered a new toy; he couldn't help but explore every application of his newly discovered skill. Since he had discovered that internal mana manipulation was something he could practice and hone, a relentless pursuit of control and understanding had overtaken him.
Her hesitancy, and the almost telepathic way she seemed to anticipate his intentions, tugged at his insatiable curiosity. It had been enough to make him demand a guiding session, using his authority to strong-arm the bureaucratic channel at his disposal.
He remembered the moment of contact: her lips soft against his, gentle at first, then teasing and nipping. His tongue had met hers, exploring, probing - almost forgetting his goal entirely.
The pollution clear rate was poor; he could feel his body subtly lighten as the corrupted mana was drawn out of his core, but it was abysmal as expected. Even Rena could withdraw more with just a firm handshake.
But for some reason, Sera's purification felt addictive. Was this what all the Espers on her roster had been talking about?
Her mouth had been sweet.
Arlen had been a little surprised at himself. Pollution rate usually correlated linearly with pleasure and relief. It was more enjoyable to have a faster clearance (like dipping into a steaming hot spring on a winter day) but the slow and steady siphoning that Sera had achieved felt… delicious.
He indulged in the kisses, his tongue intertwining with hers, breaths mingling when their lips parted for breaks.
He had almost forgotten his intention to invade her vessel.
Well, almost.
Leaning in for another deep kiss, Arlen gripped her waist. The space around his hand glowed a hazy blue as he pushed mana tendrils into her body, his eyes watching for any reaction - a flinch, a shift, any sign she knew what he was doing.
But she had shown no reaction. Her eyes remained closed, long black eyelashes fluttering shut, her mouth still tracing his own.
He invaded her body with confident ease, weaving tendrils around her core, expecting it to yield and open under the pressure of his sudden, forward probing.
He had anticipated a quick victory, an easy conquest - but strike after strike, her barriers seemed endless.
Like flipping a book with infinite pages.
Why were her shields so unending?
And then she struck back.
He hadn't known exactly when her hand had pressed against his chest, distracted by the pleasurable French kissing and his own internal calculations. But without warning - while he had been leisurely tearing through her shields - with a sudden jolt, a chill had spread from his heart like ice water through his veins.
A strange sensation of dread had burned in his gut, climbing up his spine.
Arlen flinched and bit down instinctively, accidentally puncturing her lower lip - but she hadn't flinched at all.
When he had locked eyes with her, their mouths still pressed together, he had known:
Sera knew what he was doing.
And she was doing the same thing back.
Suddenly, her mana had surged like a kayak barreling down whitewater rapids, surging into his heart and wrapping around his core like a coiled snake. Before he had time to respond, she had pierced his mental barrier, the one he instinctively formed, and buried a tendril deep in his vessel, rifling through his mind.
Arlen had felt a surge of indignation and fear.
He hadn't known why it felt like she was invading his memories, but instinctively, he knew she had accessed something important.
He had hurriedly pushed his own tendrils deeper into her core, ripping through barriers faster and faster, like yanking tissues out of a box. It had been a battle to see who would find the other's weakness first.
And all the while, their mouths hadn't parted. A strange, foreign desire had formed in his abdomen. The push and pull, the cat-and-mouse game, a vulnerable and dirty struggle to expose the other.
It was thrilling.
Finally, with eager intensity, he had ripped through her remaining barriers and stepped into her mana vessel. Triumphant, he had expected a rich trove of secrets. But what he had seen wasn't what he expected.
Her vessel had been an endless, pervasive darkness; ceilings, walls, and floors indeterminable, as if one had laid blackout curtains over the entire space.
And floating, immovable, as if frozen, before him at chest height had been a vase: small, ornate, red, the size of his palm, gold floral designs etched on it. Overflowing water gently dripped over the lip, vanishing into the black void.
F-rank. Like a civilian. Too small.
Her vessel could not, should not, have been enough to guide like she did.
And then he felt it - a tendril of hers had reached into his mind, curled a steady hand around a piece of him - like she had found the right book at the library - and yanked something out.
His skin had prickled. Fear had surged.
He had grabbed her shoulders, roughly pushing her away, blue eyes wide, breath ragged.
She had stolen from him, and he hadn't known what.
She had simply licked the blood on her lip from his bite, tilting her head.
"Esper Cunning," she drawled, her braid falling over her shoulder, eyes gleaming red.
A predatorial grin spread across her face.
"We still have three minutes."