Die. Respawn. Repeat.

My mind is still whirling, but I don't have the time to dissect exactly what it is I'm looking at—not when it's full of corrupted Temporal Firmament and powerful enough to completely erase any person it kills. Best as I can tell, it's a literal manifestation of the Tear, a collection of all the fear and anger that created it in the first place coalescing into a creature intent on killing.

No surprise that it targeted Naru first, considering he's responsible for all of Carusath.

More to the point, if this is one of the ways the Trial's so-called monsters are created...

I think back to all the times Temporal Link and its variants have allowed me to connect with a monster. To the glimpses I catch of past moments every time I do. I haven't tried doing that for a long while, and part of me now dreads what I might find when I do—these Tears are collections of tragedy, misfortune, and poor circumstance. It's no wonder every memory I've seen has ended badly.

Now's not the time to linger on those thoughts, though. Now's the time to figure out what to do and how to fight this. I feel the Knight's presence pulse within my core, a silent and subtle assurance of support. It pulls my Firmament into an amplified version of Quicken Mind that guides my thoughts on the rails of its experiences.

Assess. What are my immediate concerns?

Naru's safe for now. I can't tell what he's doing back there, but I can't afford to care—Premonition doesn't so much as tingle in his direction, and that'll have to be good enough for now.

Guard is standing by, his systems on full alert. I can hear the quiet hum of his engines as he analyzes the situation, but for the most part, he's waiting for my direction. Good.

The mother and her child, on the other hand...

They're a part of it, technically. Specters of Firmament that were created for the express purpose of fulfilling a role. And yet they're more than that—or the mother is, at the very least. The change we Anchored into her makes her independent enough to understand and strong enough to fight, and she's fighting with everything she has.

Protecting her son.

"You will not take us," she says through gritted teeth. "This... must... end."

No more suffering. I can hear the song of that determination in her Firmament. She clutches her son close, holding him like he's all she has left. Their Firmament wavers like a candle in the wind, small flecks flaking off and tearing away.

But then Ahkelios is there, flitting between them, reinforcing their Firmament. He catches those stray wisps by drawing on Firmament Control, binding it back with them, keeping them whole.

"Any time now, Ethan!" Ahkelios yells. "We can't keep this up forever!"

"I know!"

There's one last important factor here—one final thing to take into consideration.

The monster isn't complete yet.

It's powerful. It's almost too powerful—the amount of Firmament it controls is far beyond the supposed difficulty of the Tear. That doesn't mean it's too powerful for me, but it's strong enough that it's dangerous. I can't afford to make mistakes.

I flex my claws briefly, feeling a flare of pain lance down my arm. Even with the upgrade from my newly-indestructible bones, that thing burned. It ate halfway into my palm before I managed to muster enough Firmament to stop it, and that was with Amplification Gauntlet boosting it.

Even now, the effort the Knight and I expended just on that defense spreads through us like an ache, a warning that we won't be able to defend against those hits indefinitely. Two or three more at most before our Firmament is exhausted and we're forced to spit again, by my estimation.

The good news is that they're not something it can fire off at will either. It looks just as exhausted by the strength of its own attack. It sways slightly, slowly, ponderously forcing itself back into an upright position, the chaotic turmoil of its Firmament briefly settling as it recovers.

That's the only reason it hasn't followed up yet. It's taking time to recharge, to draw on every scrap of Firmament it can from the Tear.

It's why it's trying so hard to reclaim the two stubborn beings of Firmament that refuse to rejoin it. It needs them to be complete. To become whole.

I can't let that happen. Allowing this monster with the ability to erase people from the loop to coalesce right next to a populated city would be nothing less than catastrophic.

More importantly, though? That tells me what its weakness is.

"Guard," I say. "Can you make sure the perimeter is safe? I don't want any stray shots getting into Carusath."

"Of course." Guard nods at me, Firmament flickering in his core. I can see his concern, but he's already moving into place. "Be careful, Ethan."

"I will."

Amplification Gauntlet. Crystallized Strength.

The problem with this monster is that it's enormous, and without it being fully formed yet, it's not obvious where to hit it. The more I try to figure that out, the more confusing it is—I see glimpses of tails and tendrils half-present in the Firmament around it, a cloud of possibility still trying to decide what it's supposed to be.

But if I know that it needs to make itself whole, then I have a target.

I launch myself up. For the first time since we've fully aligned ourselves, I call on Firmament Control and push the skill through the Knight Inspiration. The character of the skill changes—where it would normally let me control Firmament at a distance, it now becomes a part of my armor.

More importantly, at least for me, the Firmament in front of us becomes something solid. Something real.

Something we can tear into.

My claws latch into the half-formed monster. It reacts, trying to throw me off, but before it can, I call up a second Amplified Gauntlet that transforms my other arm. Both sets of claws dig into its not-quite-flesh, and I feel the threads of Firmament Control digging itself into its body. Enhanced like this, I don't have particularly great control of any Firmament I'm not in contact with.

Once I am in contact with it, though? That's a different story.

I pull.

I combine the force of my will with that of the Knight, and although the monster does everything it can to resist, it's not enough. Not when the skill is Inspired like this and enhanced by the sheer force we're pouring into it. We can't reshape the entire thing at will, but we can take full control over a massive chunk of it—

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—the monster roars again in resistance, trying to throw us off, asserting everything it can of itself against us—

—but it's no use, and we

rip

it

out.

Temporal Link activates. It's a subconscious activation more than it is an intentional one—either that, or it's the Knight reaching out through me and using the skill in my stead. A tether snaps into place between my core and the chunk of Firmament we just tore free, and a vision slams into me, overtaking my senses.

"I just need to see my son." An older man stands at the guardpost. He clutches tightly at his staff, and though he doesn't say it, I can see how weary he is. I can feel it, too. I can feel the ways his knees creak with age and overuse, can taste the curve of his thoughts.

He's been hiking for miles to get here. His stomach is emptier than it should be. There are a dozen unspoken ailments, a dozen fears and hopes.

His words are kind, though. His voice is gentle. He doesn't push. He's seen too many people get turned away from the guardpost already. He hopes that his approach will make all the difference. He hopes that waiting for the next shift will bring him a new guard more sympathetic to his cause.

To his credit, the draconian guard does seem to be. "Was he transported here before the Trial, sir?" he asks. "Do you have his name?"

"Hykari Solva," the older man states. The guard nods at him, retreats into the back to find some papers—there's some quiet shuffling, the sound of a drawer being opened, and then a loud thunk of metal. The man's heart sinks; he knows what this means, knows what the results will be before the guard even returns.

"I'm sorry, sir," the draconian says when he emerges. There is, notably, a partial dent in his helmet and a hint of frustration in his eyes. "I can't find any of his records. Maybe come back tomorrow?"

"I will try again tomorrow," the older man says.

But he knows he will not. He has tried for long enough, and he has seen the fate of others who wait. Better to try to sneak past and make it in himself, as futile as it might be.

He almost makes it, too. Just a step away, hope rising in his heart.

And then he ends.

It's bleeding. The monster roars in pain and swipes at me, more to force me away than anything else; a light hop back takes me out of range. It staggers to its feet, weaker but not yet dead. A waterfall of liquid Firmament—more than should be possible—pours from the new, jagged wound that leads from its shoulder down to its stomach.

I'm not entirely sure what I just witnessed. A memory? Or a past event, more accurately. One of many that must have come together to form this Tear. The emotion of it all still clings to me like a cobweb, and I struggle to shake it off.

It's not the first time I've connected with an echo of the past like this. It's always been involuntary—glimpses of events I can neither control nor change. A part of me takes a moment to grieve. Another part of me wonders: if Temporal Link allows me to view the past, even in a limited way such as this...

The monster steals my attention again before I can complete the thought.

Wounded or not—weaker or not—it's no less deadly. I feel the sharp spike in Firmament that indicates it's attacking before I see it, and this time, it spins, trying to throw its death-scythe through the weakened barrier of the Tear and into Carusath.

Not just a single scythe, either. There's one blazingly powerful blade, and then a dozen or so lesser ones. I Warpstep in front of the biggest one and grab hold of it with Amplified Gauntlet, gritting my teeth at the pain and flinging it into the ground. Guard is in the background dealing with the others, blasting them away with Firmament or constructing a shield to stop them.

I see a brief flicker from him, a half-formed circuit of Firmament in the air before he lets out a low curse and stops, but I don't have time to spare to see what he's trying to do. I'll have to trust him to take care of the rest.

I charge at the monster again, launching myself into the other shoulder and tearing away another chunk of Firmament.

This time, I'm prepared for the activation of Temporal Link. I try to guide it—to search in a sea of past moments for something that might be able to help. Something I can use.

And it works. I snag on something familiar. I'm almost immediately aware, as the vision begins, that the person I'm witnessing isn't just a civilian trying to get into Carusath.

It's a Trialgoer. Not a Hestian Trialgoer, but someone that went through this specific Trial and lost.

Someone like Ahkelios.

"You need to let them in," a younger girl says. I can't pinpoint her exact age, but from the feeling I'm getting in the vision, she can't be more than twenty. I glimpse wings, the edge of a familiar face; it takes me a second to remember. It's been a while.

This is the harpy. The same harpy that raided the crow village back in my very first loops, only here, she's completely different. There's none of the sadism I witnessed in her Remnants, none of the cruelty, and certainly none of the desire for destruction. She's actually trying to help them.

"We already told you, ma'am, they can enter once Naru signs their papers," the guard on duty responds. He sounds bored.

"Except Naru's never going to sign their papers, because you haven't even submitted them." Her response is confident—she's been through this before. How many loops, now? She walks past the guard, sidestepping easily when he tries to stop her, then ducking under his next attempt at a grab, then hopping over his low sweep of a kick. She pulls open a drawer, retrieves a sheaf of papers, and flourishes them. "See? Never even submitted."

I wince. She's trying too hard to prove her point. I'm not sure what her greater goal is or if she has one, but I already know what's coming.

She looks surprised, somehow, when the spear tears through her chest.

The vision fades before I can grasp at more. Part of me is frustrated—a few moments more and I would have been able to figure out more about her Trial, about her loops, maybe something about where her Trial ended. But it's a proof of concept, if nothing else; Temporal Link might be even more valuable than I thought.

I wonder what Gheraa sacrificed to give it to me.

An angry roar draws my attention, but the monster is weaker than ever now. Its grasp on its Firmament is weak, and even its attempts to reintegrate the shades of the mother and her child are now easily defended against. It tries to fight still—fires off one last attack, a scattershot blow at everything and everyone around us—but I cut through the most powerful ones and Guard defends the city from the rest. The final few smash uselessly into the dirt.

And with the last of its energy spent, I can reach down and just... tear its head off. Unravel it with Firmament Control.

The final vision is smaller than all the others. There's not much left for me to find—too much ripped away, too much fading with the Tear. I watch it anyway.

"Ma, do you think we'll ever see da again?"

"Of course we will."

There's an aching hunger in them both. Not nearly enough food. There are fed and healthy guards nearby that make it a point to never look in their direction, make it a point not to care.

"Little one... we're going to run for it. Understand?"

"I thought we had to wait for the papers, ma."

"I thought we did too." She hugs her son close. "I'm going to hold you, okay? Don't look up, whatever you do."

"Okay, ma."

They run, desperate footsteps across the soil. The mother glances behind herself—it doesn't take long for one of the guards to take notice and give chase. There's an angry shout—

—a sudden crash—

—and, to my surprise, a crow that intercepts the spear meant for their hearts.

"Not these ones," Naru says. There's an odd note in his voice. A mixture of uncertainty and anger. I don't think he fully understands why he's doing this, why he's putting himself in the line of fire for people he considers trespassers.

But I do.

It's a start.

—

I know it's dead before I even see the body, thanks to the Interface. I dismiss the notification—I'll take a look at it later.

More importantly, the Tear is slowly fading away. The mother takes her child by the hand and slowly walks toward the border of Carusath. It might be symbolic, but I can feel the relief in the Firmament all around us.

"Thank you," she says, just before she steps over the border. "For ending the cycle."

The approval papers I gifted her flutter to the ground. She and her son both slowly begin to fade, and I can feel their Firmament... for lack of a better word, it's repairing the Tear. Pouring into the cracks of time and helping it heal.

It'll take time, but this Tear won't be a problem in the future. I lean down to pick up the papers and pocket them.

"Uh... Ethan?" Ahkelios's tone of voice tells me there's a problem. I grimace and turn around to find both Ahkelios and Guard hovering around a very unconscious, very lifeless-looking Naru.

"Oh, come on," I mutter. I rush to his side, momentarily worried that one of the stray blades struck him, but a closer inspection tells me that this is self-inflicted. The dissolving Firmament blade in his hands, the rough, jagged shape of a symbol cut into his core...

I sigh, letting the Knight dissolve away from my form.

The symbol is the same one that Interface uses to represent the Cliffside Crows in its map. It's a reminder to himself, I suppose. But Naru must have known that he isn't coming back from this kind of damage without assistance—he put himself in a coma.

Which means he's essentially trusting me to get him out.

"Idiot bird," I mutter, and get to work.