Chapter 3: The Immortal Boy

Arthur's hand had already begun to move to his belt before his conscious mind had even processed the decision.

The academically-trained part of Arthur's brain was already arguing that the unknown threat level was high, that he was in an unfamiliar environment, that he was operating under diminished Cadence capacity.

Every single logical indicator told him to stay hidden.

Yet he knew what the right thing to do was.

Before he could take a step forward, before he could even reach out and connect to Attunement, a small figure leapt out from the overturned wagon.

Arthur froze.

The figure was a child. A boy, likely no older than nine, wearing simple grey robes that looked more suitable for a monastery than for a battlefield. The boy's face was smudged with dirt but his demeanor was utterly calm for someone of his age. His dark hair was sticking up in odd directions. The boy's small hands were delicate-looking and looked like they belonged to someone who hadn't yet learned basic reading, not to someone fighting creatures that looked like they could kill platoons.

Then Arthur sensed it.

The child was surrounded by an aura of energy that caused Arthur's Cadence to resonate unpleasantly. It wasn't any of the seven Harmonics. Arthur had studied the Harmonic signature of each Harmonic for fifteen years and knew each one by its characteristic frequency pattern.

Whatever energy signature was flowing through the boy was something entirely different. The energy flowed around the boy in a pattern that reminded Arthur of Vitae's life-force resonance, but the energy was more dense, more fluid and liquid-like in its movement.

And under that unfamiliar energy signature, Arthur's Cadence detected something that made his mind recoil against the very idea.

The boy was radiating weaponized Dissonance.

That was impossible.

Dissonance wasn't energy. It was the cost, the consequences, the eventual damage you incurred when you forced your Cadence to synchronize with Harmonic frequencies it wasn't naturally attuned to.

You couldn't use Dissonance. You couldn't channel it. It was the accumulated damage of Dissonance that would either need to be discharged or it would tear your Cadence apart from the inside.

Attempting to weaponize Dissonance would be like attempting to use structural cracks in a building as load-bearing supports.

And yet the child was doing that exact thing.

Arthur slowly extended his Attunement to try to understand what he was detecting. The boy's internal energy system was producing what Arthur's Cadence interpreted as Dissonance at an extreme rate, however instead of building up and damaging the child, the energy was cycling through the boy's body in a controlled loop. Being refined, compressed, and then weaponized.

The boy moved.

One moment he was standing beside the overturned wagon.

The next, he was in front of the closest spirit beast, small fist raised.

The creature growled and snarled at him with jaws that could snap a man in half.

The child's fist connected with the spirit beast's skull.

The sound was wrong. Not the impact of flesh on bone, but something deeper. A resonance that Arthur felt in his Cadence, like someone had struck a massive bell.

The spirit beast, easily three times the boy's height and probably fifty times his weight, flew backward through the air. It crashed into a nearby tree twenty feet away hard enough to crack the trunk.

The tree groaned and tilted.

Arthur was shocked. The physics of that impact did not make sense. The amount of force required to move that much mass that far and deliver it through such a small point of contact should have broken every bone in the child's arm. The child's hand should have been pulp.

But the child simply turned to face the second spirit beast, expression unaltered, fist unscathed.

The merchant on the ground was yelling something in his unintelligible language. Probably praying. The man had better survival instincts than Arthur had first thought; he was crawling away from the fight as quickly as his large body could manage.

The second spirit beast was circling the boy with caution. It had learned from its companion's experience. The creature was determining whether the boy represented a threat now, yellow eyes focused intently on the small figure with wariness. Dissonance energy was crackling along the creature's fur, muscles tensed with unnatural power.

Arthur focused his Attunement on the creature's energy signature.

The pattern of the energy signature was clearer now that he was actively examining it.

The creature was producing Dissonance through an internal process and then using it to amplify its physical abilities, including strength, speed, and durability.

In Arthur's world, accumulating Dissonance would kill any living being in mere minutes.

Here, somehow, the beast was sustaining it indefinitely.

The rules were different here. Different fundamentally in ways that eliminated all of the premises upon which Arthur had based his entire career.

The spirit beast lunged. Fast. Much faster than its bulk indicated was possible.

The boy didn't retreat.

Instead, the boy stepped forward to meet the charge, one hand in a defensive position that should have been suicidal against the massive claws of the creature.

Contact. Another incorrect sound, the deep resonance in frequencies that Arthur's ears couldn't detect but his Cadence could feel.

The beast's claws raked against the boy's forearm as if they were scraping against stone.

The boy's other hand shot forward and struck the creature in the chest with a palm strike.

The creature fell backward again, this time flying end-over-end before crashing into the dirt road hard enough to create a cloud of dust.

Arthur was watching the fight with the detached fascination of someone observing a totally new phenomenon. The boy was fighting efficiently and economically. There was no unnecessary movement. Each strike was designed to produce maximum force with minimal exertion. The energy flowing through the child's body augmented his physical form, creating something harder and more durable than flesh and bone, something capable of both delivering and absorbing impacts that would normally be lethal.

It was a sophisticated method. Elegant, even. A completely different means of enhancing oneself than anything Resonance theory discussed.

The first spirit beast had regained consciousness after crashing into the tree. It stalked toward the boy from behind while its companion kept the boy engaged ahead of it. Cooperative pack behavior. These creatures were intelligent enough to coordinate.

The boy appeared to sense the creature approaching without turning. The boy turned and faced the creature, both fists forming in intricate motions that produced trails of that unusual energy in the air.

As the creature attacked, the boy didn't defend himself. Rather, he steered the creature's momentum past him and then struck the back of the creature's neck as it passed by.

The creature crashed to the ground, limbs entwined. Still alive, but it wouldn’t be getting up anytime soon.

The second spirit beast charged again but the boy was prepared.

The next few moments were a rapid series of exchanges that Arthur's intellectually-trained mind categorized with scientific precision. The child was employing a variety of attacking methods. He used palm strikes, knife-hand strikes and elbow strikes. Each strike was executed with the same resonant force and each strike was augmented by the Dissonance energy flowing through the child's slender frame.

Twenty seconds.

That was the length of time it took the nine-year-old boy to disable two large predators weighing as much as a bear.

The child stood amidst the fallen beasts, gasping for breath but otherwise undamaged. Dirt on his robes. Leaves in his hair. Expression still calm as if he had merely completed a routine training exercise rather than a fight for his life.

The merchant was babbling words that sounded like gratitude.

The boy turned to the merchant and Arthur observed a slight change in the boy's posture. Less aggressive. More... professional? The child nodded at the merchant once as if acknowledging the merchant's words and then started walking toward the overturned wagon, presumably to assist in righting it.

Arthur was so engrossed in analyzing what he had just seen that he nearly missed the third creature.

It emerged from the woods opposite the road. Large. Not bear-sized like its companions, but even larger, more similar to the draft animals that had run. Approximately ten feet tall at the shoulder. Its fur was darker, almost black. And the Dissonance energy streaming off its body was denser, more intense.

This was an older creature. Stronger.

The creature moved with purpose, closing on the boy with silent, predatory stealth.

The boy and the merchant were unaware of the creature.

The boy's back was to the creature.

The creature was positioned perfectly to deliver a killing blow.

Arthur reacted instinctively.

Expanding his Cadence further created a sudden stabbing sensation in Arthur's chest where the scarring from the previous night's disaster was evident. He ignored it. Reached for Ember Harmonic and felt the familiar warmth responding. The concentration here was tremendous, allowing Arthur to achieve Synchronization at an incredibly low standard.

Standard Sync. Reliable results. Journeyman-class capability.

Ember Lance was a fundamental technique. Students in the first year of the Academy learned it when they could consistently achieve Standard Synchronization for more than a couple of seconds.

You collected thermal energy, compressed it into a projectile form, heated the surrounding air to the point where it became plasma, and then released it with controlled force. Effective range was approximately forty feet. The impact generated by the Ember Lance was sufficient to punch through wooden shields or light armor.

Arthur shaped the Ember Lance in under three heartbeats, Dissonance spiking rapidly through his damaged Cadence at an alarming rate. The Ember Lance should have consumed approximately sixty Dissonance points. With his damaged capacity, it felt as if it would consume ninety. Arthur targeted the massive creature's central mass and fired.

The super-heated projectile screamed through the air, the plasma tail glowing white hot.

Dead center hit.

The Ember Lance had struck the creature's shoulder, burning through its fur and into the muscle beneath.

The creature barely winced.

It turned its massive head toward Arthur, yellow eyes locking onto him with malevolent intent. The burn mark on its shoulder was already beginning to heal, regenerating at a rate that shouldn't be physically possible. The Dissonance augmentation wasn't just increasing the strength and speed of these creatures. It was enabling them to regenerate.

The creature charged.

Arthur's mind was racing through calculations.

Distance: thirty feet.

Speed: faster than anything that size should move.

Time to impact: potentially a second.

Techniques available: limited due to his diminished Cadence capacity and growing Dissonance levels.

Dissonance: approximately 290 points.

Threshold: 600. Arthur had room to operate, but not much.

He chose another elementary technique - Torrent Shield at Standard Sync.

Arthur extended his Attunement to reach the flow-and-change frequency, and felt the response to his Attunement. Water wasn't abundant here, but the ambient concentration of Torrent Harmonic was sufficient that he could extract moisture from the air.

The barrier formed in front of him, a rotating wall of water that would deflect projectiles and absorb kinetic impacts. While the shield was reliable defense against human opponents, it was essentially worthless as defense against a charging spirit beast enhanced by weaponized Dissonance.

The creature tore through the water barrier as if it didn't exist. Water droplets exploded in all directions. The creature's massive claws, each claw longer than Arthur's hand, ripped toward his chest.

Bedrock Skin. Shallow Sync, emergency casting.

Arthur's skin hardened, becoming as dense as stone.

Bedrock Skin was intended to deflect blades and arrows, not claws fueled by supernatural strength.

The impact propelled Arthur backward, his feet sliding in the dirt.

The creature's claws ripped across Arthur's chest, tearing into his stone-hardened flesh, and ripping gashes in his robes.

Arthur felt searing pain instantly. The creature's momentum continued to carry it past him, and it immediately reversed direction, preparing to deliver a second strike.

Arthur's Dissonance had increased to 380 points. Three Standard Sync techniques in quick succession, even with the abundance of Harmonics present, was stressing Arthur's damaged Cadence severely.

The creature encircled Arthur deliberately. The creature had learned from its initial failed strike. This creature was assessing him similarly to how it likely assessed hundreds of prey animals.

Searching for weaknesses, awaiting the perfect opportunity.

Arthur's mind was racing through options.

Standard Synchronization techniques wouldn't be sufficient. These creatures were utilizing Dissonance-enhanced physical capabilities to exceed their natural limitations. The first two beasts had been younger, less advanced. This creature had been refining its powers for years, possibly even decades. Its hide was thicker. Its healing rate was faster. Its strength was greater.

Arthur needed to establish Deep Synchronization at minimum. Most likely Perfect Synchronization to ensure a guaranteed killing blow. However, establishing Deep Sync would increase his Dissonance levels to the point where it approached his current reduced threshold. As for Perfect Sync, it might cause him to exceed the threshold altogether.

But the alternative was dying in a foreign world because he was too conservative with his damaged Cadence.

Easy choice, really.