Now that she’s poisoned, I don’t waste the chance. I don’t think. I move.

  The whistle sits cold and hard between my teeth. I charge straight into the teeth of the wind, right where Sasha least expects it. I blow. The shriek rips through the air, and her currents die all at once.

  She sees me too late. I’m already swinging. She slashes, the air splitting beside my face. I duck, spin, and drive my shoulder through the fading gust. My world tilts, then my blade meets her plasma sword.

  BAM!

  Pain detonates in my palms as our weapons lock. I grit my teeth, muscles screaming, trying to keep her glowing blade from carving through my face. I can’t feel its heat, but I know what it can do.

  I dig my feet into the ground and shove. For a heartbeat, she gives way, and I kick forward, following through with another swing. This one is sharper, faster. Sasha’s eyes flash in disbelief.

  She blocks, but I’m already a step ahead. I can feel it—the lag in her wrist, the faint delay in her reflexes. The poison is starting to work. Her movements are clean but slower, her senses blunted.

  Still, her strength is monstrous. Every clash feels like slamming into an iron wall. My arms tremble, joints on fire.

  How do I beat someone like this?

  How do I adapt?

  I don’t know.

  We break apart, breathing hard. My hands ache so much I can barely keep my grip.

  “Poison and cheap trinkets,” Sasha snarls, her words sharp and breathless. “Is this your idea of a fair fight?”

  “Well…” I fake a grin, voice thin as splintered wood. “As imperfect scum, we might as well get desperate, don’t you think?”

  Nico laughs, a rough, broken sound. “And when was this ever a fair fight?” he calls. “You’re a Nexus Being with wind as your main weapon. Astrid and I can barely bend Ether, and we’re the unfair ones? How pathetic can you get?”

  The jab lands. Sasha’s temper flares. She lunges at him. Her sword, now thrumming with Ether, comes down in a brilliant arc. Nico twists, parries with his poison-soaked blade, and drives his sword forward with everything he has.

  The strike lands. His blade punches through her chest, missing her heart by inches.

  Sasha gasps, eyes wide. Her sword slips from her grasp and clatters against the stone. For a fleeting second, she looks at Nico, surprise flickering across her face.

  Then she looks at me.

  [The Darkest Night is looking at you with a wide smile.]

  Through Sasha’s eyes, I glimpse something ancient, something that shouldn’t exist. My skin turns cold. My pulse spikes. The whispers of Agony rise into a maddening chorus, thrumming against my skull like a thousand knives.

  That’s when I understand why Sasha was different this time. She had already entered the Spire before we arrived. In this loop, the Darkest Night had already marked her. It had strengthened her. Warped her into someone who can fight me in this loop.

  [The Darkest Night invites you to the Dragon Monarch’s Spire.]

  Her pupils shrink. The color drains from her face, followed by the light in her eyes. Then nothing.

  She’s dead.

  Nico collapses next. His sword drops, his knees buckle, and I rush to him as the presence of the Darkest Night fades and the whispers fall quiet. He’s trembling—convulsing—white foam spilling from his lips.

  He’s poisoned.

  Panic surges through me. My mind goes blank. His severed arm is a bloody mess, the stump already turning black. Veins crawl up from his gauntlet like dark vines. I stare at him, my hands shaking so hard I can barely breathe.

  For a moment, I thought I wanted him dead. But seeing him like this… no. That would make me no better than what they want me to be.

  “I don’t want you to die,” I whisper as I try pressing his chest. I have no idea how to stop the poison. But I can keep his heart from stopping.

  “Tessia…” Her name escapes my lips like a plea. Like a lost thought, I remember what she had done for me in the cave. How she healed me.

  “Tessia, please,” I beg, voice breaking. I might cry. “If you’re out there, help me. He’s dying.”

  Silence.

  “Please,” I say again, shaking his shoulders. “I can feel you. Help us. Please.”

  “I can’t touch him.”

  Her voice echoes faintly in my head. I look up. My trembling breaths reduce.

  “Then possess me,” I say without hesitation. “I know you can do that.”

  For a moment, her expression softens, a faint warmth breaking through the static of fear. Then she nods.

  A breath later, she merges with me.

  I gasp. My body stiffens as my consciousness is pulled aside, fading into the back of my own mind while a new presence takes control.

  ***

  When I wake up, I’m lying on the floor. The faint blue glow from the lamp cuts through the dark and hits my eyes, making my head throb like it’s being split open. The pain doesn’t stop there, though.

  Stolen story; please report.

  My entire body feels like it’s on fire now that the adrenaline has worn off. Nico said dormant humans have regenerative properties. I guess if I were fully human, this would hurt a lot worse.

  “You should eat something,” Tessia says softly. “That will boost your enzymes. You’ll heal faster.”

  Even in pain, I push myself up, teeth gritted, forcing my shaking legs to hold. There are bigger problems than pain right now. If Sasha’s dead, then that bastard Dan will be coming soon.

  I know because we’re in the same place as before. The same terrain. The same quiet before the storm. There are things in these loops I can’t change—events fixed in place by whatever governs them. Some outcomes I can bend, like who lives or dies in a fight. Others are untouchable, like Sasha finding us… or Dan appearing the moments after she’s gone.

  These are the rules.

  “I don’t have that kind of time,” I mutter. “How’s Nico?”

  “He’s alive,” Tessia answers.

  I follow her gaze to where Nico lies on the ground, still breathing, barely conscious. His arm has been reattached, though the flesh still looks raw. The poison’s color has faded to a dull gray, and for that, I’m grateful. If Tessia hadn’t taken over, he’d already be dead.

  I’ve died plenty of times now, but I can admit that without him, I would’ve regressed a lot more than this to just fight Sasha.

  ‘Leave the rest to me,’ I whisper in the back of my head.

  So I wait. The air grows heavier with every passing hour. When the footsteps finally come, they’re soft, deliberate, and slow. Too slow.

  I don’t bother raising my sword or channeling Ether through the ring. I don’t have the strength for another fight.

  “What do we have here?” That smooth, haunting voice slides through the silence, and I freeze.

  The blue light catches his face, Dan’s face. His eyes are still red, swollen from tears, and in his arms, he carries Sasha’s body like a child.

  “Dan…”

  “Hello, Astrid.” His tone is calm, eerily calm. “I see that you’re well. Are you the ones who did this?”

  “Yes.” My voice comes out steadier than I expect. “She was weak. We had to kill her.”

  For a long moment, he just stares at me. Silent. Calculating. His gaze is heavy. Like he’s weighing morality against the orders drilled into his skull. They were told to cull the herd, to remove the imperfect. But what happens when one of their own is slain?

  “How unfortunate.”

  He lowers Sasha’s body to the ground with unsettling gentleness, brushing her hair from her face as though she’s merely asleep. Then he stands—expression flat, eyes hollow. The calm before a massacre.

  When his gaze lands on Nico, something sharp flickers in his face.

  Fuck.

  “Because Sasha was a perfect being,” he says, his lips curling into a smug, broken smile. “I’ll kill him as payment for her death.”

  “I can’t let you do that, Dan,” I reply, stepping forward despite the tremor in my legs. “I need him if I’m to become a Monarch.”

  That gets a laugh out of him. Low, cold, deranged. “A Monarch? You?” His grin widens. “You’re frail, Astrid. Without that ring, or him, you’d already be rotting. A vessel for chaos, begging to be infected.”

  His words hit harder than the pain still burning through my ribs. He knows. He’s always known how to worm into the weak parts of the soul.

  But not this time. I inhale sharply. “If that’s the case,” I say, “then I want to know a few things before I stop you.”

  Dan tilts his head. This version of him isn’t as feral as before. Less blind rage, more predator curiosity.

  “You may ask,” he says simply.

  “What Ichor did Devon consume?” I ask, my voice low but steady. “I recently learned that all of us are linked to this place through those potions. I want to know what kind he took.”

  “S-class. Demon.” His answer comes fast, almost rehearsed.

  I narrow my eyes. That confirms my suspicion. Adam had already extracted Demon blood from a world that fell during the war against them.

  “The Ichor in all of us is supposed to make us special, you know,” Dan continues, his tone oddly proud. “The three of us were chosen from this batch. Men and women who serve gods are not meant to be weak, and so we shan’t be. When the time comes, each of us will have one wish granted by Him.”

  “You mean Ashmeal?”

  “Yes,” he replies without hesitation. “I mean Ashmeal. It’s his servants who picked us. Adam tried to sell you to them multiple times, but you’re too weak. So is Nico. The two of you are the same, imperfect but stubborn.”

  I smirk faintly. “And yet, we’ve killed one of the chosen ones.”

  “Luck is an important factor.”

  My head rings. His intrusion is sharp and invasive, like glass sliding beneath my skull, but I can’t show it. I let him roam freely through my memories. I let him see it all: the way I appeared, my last moments with Adam, the lonely walk through the mountains, and my first meeting with Nico.

  I even let him witness my battle against Horus. How I survived it. But beyond that point, I resist.

  That’s when he feels it. The edge of his control breaking against something unseen.

  “You know about my ability?”

  “Of course I do.”

  Dan frowns, confusion flickering through the red haze of his eyes. “How did you find out?”

  I tap the side of my head. “Head damage made me a little more sensitive than usual.”

  'I have adapted to you.'

  “Adapted, you say?” He suddenly bursts into laughter, sharp and unrestrained. “You have no idea how strong a Nexus Being is. This world is different, Astrid. I can feel the system itself. I am part of the Nexus, part of the greater universe.”

  His tone shifts from amusement to fury. “Can you adapt to that?”

  He roars the words, eyes burning with a fanatical gleam that chills me. It makes me wonder when exactly they began grooming him into this thing. This believer. Should Ashmeal be someone I should be worried about?

  “To me, you’re nothing but a fly I can swat away,” he snarls. “I won’t forget the past fifteen years, of course. But when you’re born anew, sacrifices must be made.”

  He lunges forward, his movement a blur. His right hook slams into my chest before I can react. The air bursts from my lungs, and my body lifts from the ground, crashing hard against a stone wall. The sound echoes. My ribs scream.

  Pain blooms like fire, and the world spins. I want to scream. My vision blurs. I can't fall unconscious; this fight might end today. It's ridiculous how things have changed so quickly. One moment I was ready to die, another I'm trying not to die.

  I think of Ivy in this moment. She's the only one I would like to see again. If she did not die from consuming the inchor, she's probably training hard and getting used to her new body. How much time has passed on Beta 3#?

  I've died a few times, so the concept of time has become confusing to me.

  I lift myself, my legs feel like tigs about to break. I stare at Dan, the obstacle I must break through to achieve true freedom.

  "Read my mind," I tell him. "See why I am resisting you."

  He grins, accepting my invitation. I open the floodgates. He sees the loops. I show him my first death and how I returned. My second death at the teeth of a wolf. My third and fourth deaths at the hands of Sasha. And my most recent death at his hands. I also take the pleasure to show him his own in the process.

  He cuts our connection instantly, but it’s too late. I’ve already infected him with Horus’s Agony.

  “You… you…” He staggers back, face pale as bone. “You can’t die…”

  “Exactly,” I say, stepping closer. “I’m immortal. In some dark, twisted way.”

  Each step I take makes him retreat further. There’s real fear in his eyes now. The same kind I’ve seen in myself before. The god act is gone; only a trembling boy remains. The Whispers of Agony must be sinking their claws in deep.

  He starts screaming as the voices grow louder. Without the [Silver Child] blessing, he can’t withstand the curse the way I can. His body locks up, shaking violently.

  “What… what have you done to me?” he gasps, collapsing to his knees. His eyes glisten with panic. “Please… make it stop…”

  “No.”

  I raise my trembling fist and slam it into his face. He hits the ground hard. Before he can speak again, I drive my foot into his gut with every ounce of strength I have left. He coughs up blood and bile, choking on his own breath.

  “You wouldn’t have shown me mercy,” I whisper. “So why should I show you any?”

  My rage takes over. I hit him again. And again. Each blow heavier, faster, until blood coats my hands, my face, the walls. He begs. He sobs. He swears it isn’t his fault. He wants to live.

  But I don’t stop. My fists fall like divine judgment until the walls are painted red with brain matter and the sound of life leaves his body.

  [You have slain the awakened human, Dan]

  The system’s voice is calm, almost cold.

  I stare at what’s left of him. I have no regrets.

  This is what I have to become.