CHAPTER 69: SLAY THE STRANGER IV

***

"SO IT FINALLY CAME TO THIS!"

Lothar, who was fully expecting this, celebrated it.

"WILL THEY BEAT XENOS BEFORE THE INFECTION TAKES THEM?!"

That was the question of the century.

"OR WILL HE BE THE ROADBLOCK THAT RESULTS IN THEIR DEMISE?"

One that no one seemed bothered to answer.

"I mean, he’s strong and all, but he’s only a Luck Element."

"Yeah, I don’t see how he’d kill all five of them."

"I’m sure he has more tricks up his sleeve."

And that was the conclusion the crowd reached.

It was surprisingly well thought out.

...quite unlike Draven’s conclusion.

"HE’S GOING TO GET BEAT UP! JUST WATCH!"

But no one wanted to listen to that.

The Pluto Academy didn’t exactly like him.

Even his sister was now embarrassed to sit next to him.

If it were not for her father’s presence, she would’ve long since walked away.

’Please just end this already.’

That was Selvara’s loudest wish.

***

By the next reset, Xenos had stopped being cooperative.

At least in the end, in the beginning, he acted no differently than normal.

It was just that the ’time’ that it took for him to be infected shortened with each blink.

In their first run, the five tried to conjure a wall so thick he couldn’t hope to go through, which, in theory, was to allow them all to reach the end before he could take a single step towards it.

Yet, of course, Xenos easily tore through it.

’Time’ folded the same brutal scene.

Now that they were fully sane, attacking a crazed Xenos was...

Difficult.

Gaia couldn’t do it outright; Arc always stuttered, but the rest managed.

Still, they couldn’t do it... they couldn’t hold him down.

In their first-ever attempt, they tried to remain non-lethal.

Perhaps that was their pride speaking, but they truly believed that they could hold Xenos back while not using their full strength.

Unfortunately for them, "Reset" was the last thing they heard.

Slowly, the five learned to attack him at full force where he was vulnerable.

But still...

"Reset."

They had yet to win a single exchange.

Every attempt taught them more about him.

But knowledge only bought them ’time,’ not victory.

Xenos was the final piece of the puzzle, and they had yet to see him fully.

Slowly, however, they began to do just that.

His fighting style was simply unorthodox.

They hadn’t seen anything like it.

It was almost otherworldly.

His quick healing was as well.

Though that was likely caused by the infection.

Perhaps it had strengthened him a great deal as well.

Either way, the blank blade before them started to grow color.

They managed to slow him down enough to make a dent.

Enough that Xenos’s grin began to look like that of a child whose toy was breaking.

And yes, he was having fun; to those of them with pride, that was the worst part.

He wasn’t monstrous in the way a mindless thing was; he was monstrous in the way a man who adored puzzles was monstrous.

To put it simply... he loved the math of them.

The way they logically tried to counter him at every turn.

A logic that worked, as eventually, their strategies began to show results.

He fell with amusement, whips snagged at his cloak, ice bit at his boots, and spears nicked at his body.

Thought every time that happened, he got up, shook it off, and continued his "reset."

Their traps delayed him mere seconds—hard-earned seconds—but of course, it wasn’t enough, far, far from it.

His Luck and Calamity both danced around him, doing something cruel to them.

The two never once played in their favor, only in his.

And it always ended the same.

In the middle of a stall, in the last lungful of breath they could gather, Xenos would look at them, and his amusement would flip to calculation, and they’d gain a quiet, terrible clarity.

The Stranger who had laughed at the start, became an executioner at the end.

They learned to expect the change and line up to bear it.

Always, they sprinted forward only to throw themselves into him: Arc never left the center, Aspen was the vanguard, and Gaia and Ari were the flank, spears and whips, while Dei, their cannon, was left at the end, shooting a blast that always managed to slow Xenos the most.

Yet, it was never enough; his recovery time was too quick.

Whenever Xenos got close, he moved faster than any of them could read.

It was too obvious how much of a difference in fighting experience there was between them.

He was precise, his blows always landing, his steel, whenever he had it, always singing.

They staggered, they fell, yet they dragged themselves up and kept going because that was the only thing that they had left; perhaps Xenos could beat them at that as well, but they refused to sleep until the Hanged Tree directly announced their deaths.

All those tens of attempts had colored the blank blade completely.

It was white, gold, and crimson in equal measure.

And once they saw it, they felt ready for their best attempt yet.

"Reset."

After another blink, they woke to a smiling Xenos.

While he walked ahead, they slowed down and whispered amongst themselves.

"Alright, get this through your thick heads, we don’t have to beat him; we just need to keep him busy until we reach the end."

Arc’s fingers tightened on his staff.

"Delay and don’t die, is that understood?"

They all nodded, their minds going over the plan.

It was a desperate map of traps, staged retreats, feigned weakness, and baiting Xenos into controlled spaces where arrows, ice, and spikes could slow him.

They’d aim for the kill, but knowing they were too weak to kill him, they’d only hope to tire him, bleed him out of focus, rehearsing lines and signals all for that end.

"Alright, let’s begin."

...

Arc, Aspen, Gaia, Dei, and Ari...

All five were on the ground...

Barely alive, on their knees...

Looking up at one figure.

Of course, it was Xenos.

He stood before them, breathing easy, not as blood-streaked as before this ’time.’

Above the tattoo they once brushed over, in his left eye, they saw something of a wheel.

And behind Xenos... water hung thick, floating around him like serpents hissing at their prey.

Arc pushed himself up on a broken arm and looked at him with hollow despair. Aspen tasted dust and cursed the ground. Gaia could not feel her legs. Dei’s hand slipped from a broken staff. Ari clutched what strength she had left.

They had one real, small thing left:

A single question shaped more by wonder than hate...

They said it together, ragged and small:

"...how?"

Xenos smiled at them.

"Break."

That was the final piece.

The puzzle was complete.

His serpents went forth.

Blink.