Knives & Levels - Chapter 115

———

You have leveled up!

You have leveled up!

You have leveled up!

You have leveled up!

You have 12 Stat points to spend. You have gained 4 points of Dexterity and 4 points of Soul.

Thread Weaver (Intermediate) has gained a level!

Thread Weaver (Intermediate) has gained a level!

Phantom’s Gambit has gained a level!

Soul And Mind Fortitude (Advanced) has gained a level!

———

Colt stared at the notification, eyes wide as he diligently assigned his stat points. Six went into Endurance, and the last six he split between Dexterity and Soul.

He couldn't keep track of the number of phantoms they had killed out there, just knowing that the number was quite a lot. And the result was this: he was stronger now than he had ever been before. Confident that they had come out quite ahead from where they were, he was feeling quite good about himself. To think they had made such progress in such a short time… It made him enthusiastic.

The levels they gained would be a nice breathing room for them to hold on to, and would make quite a difference when they faced off against their enemies in the future.

He settled down near the fireplace. The fire had burned out. Julia had thrown a small barrier of water around them.

From what he could tell, many of her points had gone to intelligence, increasing her mana supply. Even after blowing a bunch of mana on the fight, she still had some in reserve.

He relaxed as the barrier sealed them off from the cold outside and provided an environment where they could rest.

It was the moment he needed. A second to take in breath and calm his body and soul. It felt good not having to fight against the feel of the cold himself for once. As Colt let himself settle in, his breathing slowed, and he focused on repairing the damage done to his soul, and once more, he was readying himself for the future combat they would face.

Outside of this peaceful sanctuary was the occasional roar that shook the Academy. Right now, he could picture the mess of the battlefield between the Yeti and the phantoms.

Thank god it wasn’t his problem, for now.

Colt inhaled and exhaled. His soul ebbing and flowing. Finding in him that sense of balance. The two Edicts inside circled one another. Weary. Though they didn't cooperate, he'd force them to work together. And they saw, for the first time maybe, that they didn't necessarily have to be dire enemies against one another.

Time will only tell how this will hold up in the future. But for now, it was a step towards progress, well-earned progress.

Now was the time to heal. As his soul entered a state of peace, he opened his eyes and checked on his allies.

They were doing the same as him—unwinding and taking a deep breath. You could only fight so hard in this environment without the sapping cold taking your whole self away. And these moments when they had to gather together and then withdraw within themselves to recuperate their strength were best spent in a very focused manner.

"What is that?" Julius said, going suddenly alert.

Colt grabbed his knife and stood up in a second. There was a knock at the door, and Sarah moved forward and yanked it open. Her fist balled and she prepared for a punch.

Then they saw it. A phantom stared at them through the watery barrier.

"I'll kill it," Sarah said, already on the mission, as Colt's jaw opened.

It wasn't just a phantom. It was the phantom. Distinct from the rest, and very much someone that he’d forgotten in the brief struggle outside. The level 40 'person' had somehow already tracked him down here.

"Wait," Colt said to Sarah, but she'd already stepped through the barrier, a fist flying into the misty shape of the incorporeal being.

It let out a cry and then scrambled back as Sarah's fingers went right through its torso, radiating outward but not doing much damage at all. If his knives weren't that effective, Sarah's fists were even less so against these foes. She swore and then moved forward again, but Colt was there in a blink, stepping between her and the phantom.

"Hold on," he said, looking over his shoulder. "This one isn't an enemy."

Sarah wrinkled her brow and frowned, "What the fuck do you mean, Colt? It's a phantom. We just killed a bunch of these guys."

"No, it's—believe me, it's not an enemy."

Colt shook his head and looked behind him, still standing between them. He didn’t trust that Sarah wouldn’t go for the kill. Not while all were still worked up from the fight.

"Are you all right?" Colt asked.

 “That fist hurt a little bit,” the phantom admitted, floating back up and looking past Colt's shoulder.

This was enough to make Sarah stop, her eyes opening slightly and putting a hand to her head. “Jesus. That thing can talk?”

"The name is Leo. Nice to meet you."

"Leo. Really? Is… Is this happening?" Sarah asked, her disbelief palpable, and reflected by the rest of the group in the room.

"It's a long story," Colt said. And then he looked at Julia. "Could you lower the barrier briefly, and we'll let him in?"

"If you say so, Colt," Julia said, and then with her agreement, the water barrier collapsed downward, letting in their phantom-y friend. The ghost floated in, looking at the room and then looking at the rest of them. Everyone's eyes were trained on it and flickered over to Colt, wondering what was happening. He didn't blame them. Without context for what they were dealing with, it was bound to be more than a little confusing.

But this thing… Colt shook his head, not knowing where to start. "I think it's from before this Academy went to hell. I think everyone here was a person. And this phantom isn’t an enemy. It’s retained some of its memories," he muttered, looking at the phantom for confirmation, who very much nodded their see-through head. "Right, everyone here was people, but not people from our planet."

"You mean they're not from Earth?" Julia said, tilting her head. "Then where are they from? Are they aliens?"

"Aliens," the phantom replied. "No, I had no idea what that is, we are from Earth, it’s just… There are many of those."

"Many Earths," Julia said, with a question hanging above her head, looking tired. "Well, maybe we all are in some kind of weird game after all. Maybe my first theory was right because what I see now is just ridiculous."

"What do you mean by many Earths?" Nate asked,

The phantom began to speak, and then, once more, Colt got that dreaded censorship message from the system.

———

This information is censored. Please join the rest of the Labyrinth to have access.

——— 

By the look of confusion on all of his allies' faces, he could see that they had shared and that brief and wonderful big middle finger that the system had given them. It felt the same way now as it did every time. Here, the phantom was dangling information in front of them, and then the system went and denied it, in a circumstance that very much could be life or death.

"Yeah," Colt said, drawing their attention to him as the ghost kept talking, its voice muted to their ears. "It has done that before. I'm not sure why, but it seems that the system doesn't want certain information that it can give us to leak. But the important thing is that this phantom wants us to beat the dungeon, so our goals are aligned, since it can escape too.”

Sarah folded her arms and didn't look very convinced. "Are you sure it's not just tricking us, leading us into some kind of awful death? The only other thing that could talk to us in a dungeon was Athena, and she did not seem to be very much on our side."

"And Nike," Colt said, reminding her of the other goddess who had been in that particular dungeon, and had helped. Even now, she still did as his icon, though it had been a while since he'd seen a message from her. He wondered exactly what her deal was, and if she could keep an eye on him, or he shook his head, focusing on the here and now. "It's given me some hints of our situation, but the important thing is that it can seem to understand what the Dean inside the Academy is ordering all of the other ghosts to do."

At this, the phantom bowed and then began to move. Floating around the room and taking a look at all of them, Nick shied away from it. Nate didn't let it leave his sight for a single second. Colt also noticed that the soldier had kept a hand on his hammer, not quite trusting this thing, which he didn't blame him for.

Colt still felt like he should have his knife in hand, and if he didn't know that he could instantly pause this monster in the middle of the air with a binding of both Movement and Momentum, he probably would have.

Still, given the circumstances, he felt confident enough to let the phantom flow unbothered. The room was rather small, and now with six people in it, it felt a little cramped.

Colt settled back on the floor, taking a deep breath as he tried to settle his soul again.

"I can see, or I can hear what the Dean is ordering," the ghost confirmed as it looked between all of them. "Right now, it's shouting out orders for the students and other phantoms to try to take down the Yeti. It thinks it’s finally launched a war brewing for a long time and is determined to put it down."

"Well, that seems good for us," Sarah said, though her tone suggested she didn’t quite believe the phantom.

Julia clapped. "Do you think they'll just take care of each other?"

"Maybe," Neri responded, looking at the phantom, who shrugged.

"They don't get along. The Academy prides itself on being the ruler of this place, even before all of this," the ghost indicated around them. "But the wildlife sees it another way. That's sort of the thing in these…" he trailed off, looking at Colt.

"Pocket worlds," Colt said, saying that he'd heard the phantom say that the system let slip earlier. And then saw in the looks and confusion of the people around him that they had heard him right. They still didn't know what a pocket world was, and he felt that if he had asked the phantom directly, that kind of information would fall under the censorship paradigm.

"Yes, that," the ghost said. "Each of them has its own sort of laws and wildlife. We came in and started taking over, pitting us against them. But in the universe, there are two forces," the ghost said this part, pausing to make sure they understood, "that have to work in conjunction with each other when connected to everything else… That connection is the…” The ghost looked at Colt again to supply a word.

"The labyrinth," Colt clarified, finding the word that the ghost was fishing for. However, he still did not have a complete picture of how it tied together.

The best way he could piece it from the little hints he got from both the system and this ghost now was that every single dungeon they'd been in was one of these pocket worlds. And all of it was sort of connected together in a labyrinth. He got hung up on whether it was a tangible labyrinth, a place you could walk, or a metaphorical, spiritual labyrinth. Colt couldn’t tell. Considering he just walked through a portal and ended up here, he tended to think that maybe these pocket worlds were the labyrinth of themselves. Different alleys, much like the first dungeon they had been in, connected and went around in a pattern that looped in a grand, massive way.

Given how many dungeons existed, he could only imagine the scale and size of this so-called labyrinth.

Leo nodded. "Anyways, the two ‘bosses’ are fighting right now. I would expect it to escalate further, but then he paused. And whoever wins is gonna come for you guys, I think.”

"You think?" Julie asked, her eyebrows raised.

"Yes, I think," the phantom said. "I don't know for sure, but the Dean has mentioned to ignore the presence of humans in the Academy as a threat to be dealt with later, and given the way that monster out there seemed to follow you all down the slope, I imagine that once it's done with what it's done with, it will wanna eat you."

Nate dropped his hammer and leaned back in his chair, looking up. "I think we've just been presented with an opportunity that will let us get out of this thing alive," he said, drawing all the attention back his way.

"What do you mean?" Colt asked, still trying to catch his breath, feeling his frayed soul.

"I mean," Nate said, "the enemy of our enemy is our friend. Well, that isn't necessarily true, since both enemies are just as likely to tear us up and leave our corpses on the cold ground. What matters to us is that they will be preoccupied fighting each other right now. If this phantom is giving us good intel, they’ll go to total war with one another. Meaning that they will be extremely weak at the end of their fighting."

Colt saw it then. "You mean for us to go in and assassinate one of the bosses once the other has defeated it?"

Nate shrugged. "It might be impossible to target it once one is defeated. But, if we can, that would be ideal. I think overall, maybe, we should put ourselves in the position to jump into the fight once they’ve started fighting. I don't think we could take one of these bosses refreshed, as we are right now. But the opportunity now to clear two of these bosses and leave the Academy full of phantoms for us to hunt down and level and focus on finding the celestial seed is… An incredible plan. If it works.”

Colt thought through the implications of what Nate had just said. He saw the rest of his companions take in the information, too, and then he stood up with a sigh. He had been looking forward to a rest, needing to recover his soul.

“All right," Colt said, gazing past the phantom back towards the door that had closed behind it. "It seems like we won't get an opportunity like this again. If they're gonna fight to the death, then Nate is right. We need to get involved.”

In one fell swoop, they could at least target one or both of the bosses, eliminating two out of three of their requirements to complete this dungeon in a single fight. Even if they were weakened now, and it was a risk… This might be their best shot.

"It just, they're still so high level," Julia said. 

Colt was still the closest compared to all of them at level 83, but even he paled compared to the bosses. The Yeti had seemed particularly strong, and they had no information at all about the Dean. The two of them together in a battle was going to be a dangerous place.

But where there was danger, there was opportunity. And Colt saw no other way about it, with Nate’s suggestion. In his friend’s eyes, he saw that they agreed. "Are we really doing this thing?"

Nick nodded his head and said, "Aye, I'm in, if we're all in. If we do it safely, then I think we have a chance." A good chance? This would have been a godsend if it had worked out.

If it didn’t? They’d be cutting it close. It had been harder to level here than any of them thought.

Colt nodded his head as he looked at the Phantom. "Do you think you can continue to listen to what the Dean is saying, and then tell us when he joins the battlefield and things start to go bad?"

Leo looked between them all. "You guys are doing this, aren't you? You really are crazy. I don't think I've seen such resolve in your..." The ghost stopped itself and then shook its head. "In your type of people before. Then again, I guess desperate times call for desperate measures. I can be your ears in the ghostly conversation and give you the best fighting chance.”

Colt nodded. It would have to be enough. He didn't know that trusting this ghost was the best case scenario, but it hadn't exhibited the same behavior as the rest of them. And it knew as well as he did that if it betrayed them, it would face its true death sooner rather than later.

He would make sure to escape from the battle, if nothing else, then to pay back a debt of revenge.

With one look at his friends and a feeling of anticipation and maybe a bit of reluctance, wishing he had more time to heal, Colt made his decision.

"Let's find a place closer to the battlefield and rest however long we can," Colt said, hoping he could wring out just a couple more minutes of recovery time.

Julia nodded, and the barrier came down. As one, still exhausted, the group began to pack their things to move to another zone. Who knew how long they had before they were forced to wade into a battlefield with two bosses? Colt could only hope they’d make it through it. They needed a victory here.

Otherwise, this dungeon might just be impossible to survive.