Knives & Levels - Chapter 112

Sitting in front of the frozen time crystal, Colt fell into the churning Edicts around him. This thing had the capability to change him. Of course it did. It was a relic laden with some of the most fundamental principles of the universe. Within that, he knew there were two Edicts he had personal power over:  Momentum and Movement, both of which swirled around in the crystal amongst other ancient and tremendous edicts.

The rest didn’t matter, however. Only those two.

Colt closed his eyes. Letting the dark tower top he sat in fade away into nothingness as he slid into the confines of his very soul.

Within that, he focused on feeling the churning Edicts inside of himself. 

Momentum was a shapely, ever-changing mass of white. Movement was a jet black energy that sped to and fro. They were still divided by the golden light of Cut, and this golden division within him made it impossible for him to wield both at once. It kept them separated and from fighting one another, but at the same time, it limited their ability in a fight. He couldn't use them in conjunction because the two of them were opposing forces and had been divided in his very soul.

To undo that and to finally wield them as they were meant to be—two sides of the same coin—a change needed to be made.

The way they were now, if he let that division go, the Movement would win and likely destroy him as a consequence. It had a higher strength, since it was a Lesser Edict. He also understood it far better than his newest Edict.

But in front of him, radiating both Edicts, was an opportunity. Right now, he was witnessing the higher realms his Edict could be, and in sitting, he heard the whispers of the universe itself.

In the blackness of meditation, his memories began to take over. Turning over the memories of how he’d wielded the Edict so far. From shifting the mass and what he was using for power, to altering his velocity in unexpected directions. Even arresting momentum, which had been an extension of his Movement but fell more squarely in this Edict than the other. He understood how to use it a bit, but looking at this—looking at Momentum frozen in a single speck of time—it was a condensation of what this Edict represented.

Colt focused, putting his mental state into that of the Edict. He discarded the swirling of Movement around the crystal and braced. Last time he advanced movement, it had almost killed him. Now he was stronger, but he didn't expect it to be any easier to advance yet another ancient Edict.

His mind sank away to a black void, and then in that void was the crystal in front of him. An overwhelming feeling of that person trapped, their Momentum forever sealed—a potential of what could be, but would never be fully expressed as it had been taken from the world and thrown into one singular moment that couldn’t change, echoed in his mind.

Focus.

Time slowed in his head. Not in the same way that Movement sped his perception of it, but in a way that all the particles around him stopped moving. Things stopped their Momentum, and with that freeze came the end of everything, leaving the world stagnant and empty.

All it took to change this, was a little thread of Momentum. A ball rolling down a hill…

The blackness vanished; and he found himself staring up a jagged dark mountain. At the top, though his eyes barely saw it, a tiny stone slipped, and fell.

Everything else around him was still as the stone went toppling downward, hitting a bigger stone. This stone began to fall, hitting a bigger stone, and another, continuing a cycle as the momentum transfered forward. Soon, as he was no longer watching a small little stone but rather a cascade of shifting and changing momentum, a boulder was rolling down the mountain towards him—bigger than a house. Rock cracked and flew as it bounced and crashed against the ground, heading at him in a rapid descent of death that threatened to crush him with a single blow.

Its momentum was unstoppable. It was a force to be reckoned with, like a hurricane that would smash him. His life would be over in a single, infinitesimal instant. This was the power of Momentum. It screamed: this one small action built over time and continued again and again built up into something so much more than it started with. A single stone tumbling down became an unstoppable boulder of death.

Colt's mind screamed for him to move, telling him to get out of the way. He felt at his skills, knowing that if the worst were to happen, maybe he could use Phantom's Gambit, but no—that was gone too. Before him was a crashing boulder toppling down the hill at high speed, intent on destroying him and turning him into a smear against the mountain which it fell down. Its Momentum was unstoppable. Its Momentum was that of a god bringing its full weight upon him.

"Shit," Colt thought, thoughts flashing back to the way it felt to crash through a world on an asteroid.

This was a different thing entirely. He felt the weight of the Edict thicken in the air as the boulder neared crashed down, trying to make him understand, trying to crush him before its might. It was undeniable. It could not be controlled. It said Momentum was a thing built of small actions that amounted to more than any of its parts, and it would not be stopped.

Colt looked down at his feet, refusing to move, refusing to run. Except he took a step forward towards that boulder, and then another, and then he began to sprint towards it, his hands outward as he ran straight towards his death. The boulder tumbled quicker down the mountain, cracking against the ground, thudding against the earth. Each jolt as it hit felt as if the entire mountain were shaking, bringing down more stone in an avalanche of rock and death as it ruined the environment around it.

Yet Colt ran towards the momentum, ran towards the boulder. And at the moment of impact, he threw his entirety of force at it.

For a second, he felt like his arms were going to snap and bend back, that the boulder was bound to crash into his face and shatter him into thousands of pieces.

His muscles screamed, he concentrated on the same feeling the boulder gave off. Momentum. If it could be an unstoppable force, then so too could he—he was undeniable, a strength that could not be overran. One small step at a time, he’d built an unrelenting force. And he would win.

Even against death itself.

Time stopped as his hands strained, two forces of might against one another. And then, it stopped. Momentum met in the middle, and what was left was the weight of a boulder on his shoulders. Colt’s arms and chest screamed in pain as he held on for dear life. It felt like a whole house was crushing down on him, since he’d dared to stop it.

He struggled for a moment, eyes wide as his hands struggled to not give out. His will starting to fade.

Give up! The Edict screamed.

No. Never.

Digging deep within himself, he took a step forward. The boulder shifted. His bare spite had let him surpass his limitation, but it came with a pain unlike that which he had ever felt. Yet the boulder moved up. There was only one direction to go, until this all ended. Back to the mountain top.

Another step, another step. Gradually, step by step, despite the impossibility of the feat before him, the boulder rolled back uphill, its Momentum reversing. 

Little by little, Colt pushed the boulder up. Hours stretched into days as sweat ran down his brow and down the entirety of his back, dripping behind him, leaving a trail of mud, blood, and stone as he pushed the boulder back up the hill. He grew to be one with the pain and the boulder. Knowing that even as hard as it was, one more step at a time brought him to his goal.

He was an unrelenting force. And if he applied himself, he’d see this finished.

And, at the end of what felt like weeks… he’d reached the top… him and the boulder. No longer able to move at all. Colt let out a harsh, racking laugh as the boulder stood there, perfect still. Frozen in time around him was nothing but a rocky crag that faded away to black.

When he opened his eyes, he was drenched in the same sweat that he'd been in his vision. There was blood running down his nose, but yet that notification he'd been looking for appeared.

———

Your understanding of the Edict Momentum has evolved. Momentum (Minor) has become Momentum (Lesser)

———

Colt let out a harsh laughter as he felt the difference. Circling on either side of the division within his soul were Movement and Momentum. Now, Momentum was no longer the underdog. Its mighty energy surged and pressed against Cut in the opposite direction, contesting movement pound for pound. Both were ancient edicts. Both of them now were balanced.

His sense of the surrounding tower once more faded away, as he dove back into his soul. Getting Momentum up to speed had been only part one of the task… The next step was equally as dangerous. He wasn’t even sure if it was wise, just that it had to be done.

As Colt examined his soul, and felt the twisting of the two forces deep within him and the way that Cut separated them.

He held his breath as he gazed at the blazing gold line that split the two Edicts.

Then, with his command of Cut, that division split.

It was war. In a second his soul erupted into a battlefield of white and black as the two Edicts surged and rampaged against one another—grappling, biting, and tearing as they brought a deep pain into Colt as both went for the kill.

It didn’t matter they were brother Edicts—no—this was kill or be killed. They threatened to overwhelm one another, and Colt thought he might end up dead… But a theory kept him going along, suffering through the pain as they tore his soul apart in a quest to destroy.

Thirty minutes passed.

The battlefield calmed; leaving searing pain and destruction behind, but the two Edicts ceased their battle. Retreating from one another and licking their wounds. They’d come to an understanding. Neither could conquer the other, since they didn’t have an advantage. Constrained as they were, and limited to Colt’s soul, they couldn’t simply flee either.

They had to coexist.

Colt watched his soul from above; Cut’s reassuring noble presence near him as they gazed down on the two monstrous Edicts.

This was fine. His soul had finally reached a state of natural harmony.

Satisfied, Colt pulled away from his soul and meditation—the senses around him returned… Along with the feeling of blood trailing down his face. Colt put a finger to it, the sticky stream running from his eyes and nose. His whole body felt like someone had strapped him to a plank and beat him with a hammer… Inside was even worse, like his soul was shredded.

Dearly he wished to return to New Nashville and soak in the hot healing sauna that woman made. That wasn’t an option here. No.

Colt gazed at the frozen crystal in front of him, as it slowly turned. He was still trapped in a dungeon filled with bosses and monsters on a timeline that promised to end his life in mere days if he didn’t get strong enough.

But that was a big step.

With the way that the two edicts within him swirled against each other—no longer fighting even if they detested each other—Colt knew that a change had been made. 

And then he heard it: that annoying, god-awful banging began to appear down below the tower on the stairs, somewhere running up and down the steps. That laughter increased in intensity, hurting his brain to hear after the strain of his training. It was like nails scratching against a chalkboard.

“I’m done with this.” Colt said, anger roiling through him.

He stood up, almost tumbling over from a sudden weakness, but pushed past it. The time had ran out for whatever was playing games with him. Colt dashed out of the room with a burst of Movement.

He saw it then, like he had caught it a couple of times: that pale, ghostly face, its wide grin staring up at him as it was paused with one foot hovering above the next step. Before it could vanish, Colt did the unthinkable. He used Momentum while in the throes of Movement, arresting its speed completely. His lesser edict now able to grab it and stop it, and then to add more to it, he threw in the weight of Movement too, stealing any capability of the creature to move. Neither its body, soul, nor mind could move from its position as he wrapped it in a chain of layered Edicts.

With the two of them no longer divided, he didn’t have to swap between them. He could use them in conjunction, though they did not like it. Colt felt a conflicting tension there, but his Thread Weaving skill combated the natural dissonance between the two Edicts, forcing them into cooperation.

The result was a bind that was stronger then anything he’d been capable of before.

The ghostly figure was frozen below. Just as frozen in time as the Time Crystal above. Colt took his time, his breath ragged as he navigated the stairs—keeping a hand pointed out to the monster to hold it in place as he layered his Edicts thick around it. 

Soon he was staring face to face with the ghastly figure, the muscles—if they were muscles—and its face unable to move at all, freezing that white visage into a terrifying grin.

Colt leaned in. This thing had eyes, unlike the professors and students. Not simple dark sockets, but eyes. Aside from the odd smile and semi-transparent skin, it would be a perfect human. He didn’t feel any kind of killing intent rolling off it; and in those eyes, though it couldn’t move, Colt saw an intelligence.

Level 40?

Colt's inspect gave that much, though it didn't have more details than that. Whatever this thing was, it had quite a Hide Status Skill. But the level made sense for how he just utterly dominated it; there was no ability whatsoever for it to fight back against his Edicts.

Colt loosened his Edicts restraining it. Its face moved and the smile turned to fear.

It’s afraid of me?

“Let me go!” the thing wailed; its voice cut through the air with an odd distance.

It can talk?

Colt’s jaw dropped as he looked at the monster…. Or… was this thing a monster at all? Just what had he captured?