Chapter 82
First BloodThe countdown had been ticking for over four minutes now. Neither had spoken. The knight stood in perfect stillness, longsword planted tip-down before him, helmeted head bowed over the crossguard as if in prayer. Talia had used the time to study the cathedral’s layout, memorizing every obstacle and piece of debris between them.
“Lady Talia,” Sir Garrett said suddenly, raising his head. “The time approaches. Your bearing speaks of a warrior’s discipline. I regret that honor demands only one of us leaves this holy ground.”
The countdown showed forty-seven seconds left.
Talia spoke quickly, sensing an opportunity to gain information. “Does your faith grant resurrection?”
He laughed, though not unkindly. “It would take a full Pentarchy of Priests channeling divine grace to bring about return from death. You seek our Faith paradigm, then?”
“Something like that.”
“A worthy choice. Faith sustains where mere strength fails.”
“What do you seek from my world?”
“Power to perfect my blade. To see my enemies’ weaknesses laid bare, and ensure I never know defeat.” He lifted his sword, testing its weight. “Would your power grant such insight?”
“Some of it. And with a Will as strong as yours, I’m sure you’d stretch it further.”
His helmet tilted. “You understand Will?”
Her surprise matched his. “You do too?”
“Will and Faith together are the pillars of true power.”
“Do you hear the System? The one that gave you this quest?” Talia asked.
“System?”
“The entity that brought us here. That assigned this combat trial.”
Recognition crossed his features. “Ah. You mean God.”
Talia’s breath caught. “Why do you call it God?”
“Because it is our God, as it always has been. Since the beginning of time.”
“That’s impossible. The System has existed for nine years at most. How old is your world?”
He shrugged, confused. “The Cardinals claim the world is eternal. Some madmen counting tree rings claim it can be no more than fifteen years old, but how can that be? I myself have seen twenty-three winters.”
Talia’s mind stuttered to a halt.
They were counting tree rings. The oldest trees having only fifteen rings despite claims of an eternal world. But the timeline made no sense. The System had only existed for nine years, assuming it arrived when superpowers first manifested. Unless time moved differently between realities.
And then there was Alexander’s world, where no powers existed at all. Based on what they’d learned, that had to be the true origin. The System even numbered it zero, with theirs as one. The beginning point from which everything else spawned.
But if their oldest trees showed only fifteen rings while the knight remembered twenty-three...
The implications crashed against her mind. Her stomach twisted. What if the System hadn’t conquered them and made itself their god? What if it had created them? Built an entire world, complete with people who possessed memories of lives that had never actually happened?
Were they even real?
The knight stood before her, solid and breathing, with hopes and faith and a desire to perfect his swordsmanship. But if his world was only fifteen years old and he believed he was twenty-three, what did that make him? A construct? A puppet? Something the System had dreamed into being?
She thought of the invasion, of the knights who had died fighting Grimnir and the Throne of Scales. Had they been real in any sense that mattered? Or just sophisticated props in the System’s game, given form and consciousness but no true history?
No, she decided. The confusion in Sir Garrett’s voice when she’d mentioned the System’s age had been genuine. Whatever he was, wherever he’d come from, his faith and his desire to perfect his blade were real to him. That had to count for something.
But it also meant the System might be far more than anyone had imagined. Perhaps not just a force that transformed worlds and handed out power, but one that might create them wholesale. Could it fabricate entire realities complete with false histories and populations who’d never question their origins?
There was no time to process the implications. No time to discuss what she’d learned. The knight was raising his sword, and regardless of the philosophical debate, that blade would kill her just as dead as any real one.
Both shifted into ready stances. Respect remained despite the revelation’s weight.
“May you find honor in death, Lady Talia.”
“May you find peace in it, Sir Garrett.”
The timer hit zero.
The barriers dissolved.
Stolen novel; please report.
Talia surged forward immediately. Her drone zipped high, dodging between the stone pillars that lined the nave.
Sir Garrett didn’t move from his altar. His blade swept twice, sending crescents of golden energy slicing toward the drone. It dodged both, clunky but effective at that height. The knight recognized the futility instantly.
He took a single step forward.
Slash. Step. Slash. Step.
Each movement birthed another blade wave. Talia rolled under one, sidestepped another, brought her katana up in a perfect arc to shatter a third. She’d crossed half the cathedral while he’d taken four steps.
Every prediction so far had been accurate. He was slightly faster than the knights from the invasion and more confident, but he used the same forms and attacked with the same patterns.
He shifted tactics, abandoning range for close combat.
They met with a clash that rang through the cathedral. Three exchanges, steel on steel. Before each strike, Talia read his stance, anticipating his next move. Their world had a specific style of swordplay, and if she had to guess, the man was executing it with textbook perfection.
Twenty-three winters. Still young and predictable.
As the fourth exchange began, Sir Garrett stepped back, raising his longsword high for a devastating overhead strike that would split stone and send a vertical wave of energy carving toward her. Exactly as she knew he would.
The drone dropped from above and magnetized to his blade.