The fragile adaptation of his body to gravity was immediately swallowed by the rising tide of fatigue and mental backlash. Seven objects remained to be memorized. The situation looked hopeless.
Then, suddenly—an inner stretching sensation.
As if a thin film tore deep within his perception. Under excess, under absolute pressure, something had given way… only to expand.
His reflexes.
By forcing himself beyond his limits to anticipate the projectiles, his senses crossed a threshold.
0.15s → 0.14s.
Then, in a sudden leap → 0.13s.
Finally → 0.12s.
He gained 0.03 seconds of respite. A margin of 0.12s reformed—fragile, but real.
A sideways pivot, a tilt of the head. His dodges, though still labored, lost that razor-edge tension of imminent failure. He could think again while moving.
The objects appeared one after another. He no longer needed desperate maneuvers to memorize them. His mind, sharpened by crisis, now captured information at the periphery of his lethal focus.
But the fight was far from over.
If his body adapted in jolts, pain and fatigue grew linearly—relentless. He was literally dragging his own weight, every movement demanding a tearing act of will. The resistance was physical, but above all mental. Every second was a battle to stay conscious.
Then, a new heat ignited in his aching limbs. A sudden surge in his muscles.
30 km/h → 31 km/h.
His top speed had increased.
At the end of the session, breathless, vision blurred with sweat and blood, Remedy answered the quiz mechanically. Before the system could even display its congratulations, his trembling hand had already selected the next level.
He could feel his evolution, like a fever under his skin. It wasn't over. He could go further. He needed training even more ferocious to forge this nascent enlightenment into something tangible. Pain and fatigue pounded at the door of his consciousness.
He had no choice.
He flung the door wide open.
[NEXT LEVEL: EXTREME]
[Extreme difficulty selected.]
[Gravity: 2.5G. Projectile speed: 100 km/h (27.8 m/s).]
[Perturbation: Dense fog + Disruptive sound waves.]
[Quest: 10 holographic objects. Memorize them. Final quiz.]
[Session begins in 3… 2… 1…]
This time, the parameters were mathematically cruel.
Time before impact: 0.36s.
Reflexes: 0.12s. Time left to dodge: 0.24s.
But under 2.5G, even with his improved speed, his movement time was 0.16s.
A margin of 0.08s. Playable—without error.
But once pain and backlash were factored in, real movement time became 0.18s.
0.24s − 0.18s = 0.06s.
An infinitesimal margin. A breath-thin thread.
As soon as the countdown ended, he pushed.
He forced his already fractured mind beyond any reasonable limit. It was like ripping a door off its hinges.
0.12s → 0.10s.
He reclaimed the missing 0.02s. The margin returned to 0.08s—just enough not to be late on the very first shot.
The first projectile came.
He twisted into an unnatural posture, barely avoiding the blue streak. The next forced him to lean dangerously close into the path of a third. His dodges were jerky, chaotic, permanently on the verge of collapse.
31 km/h → 32 km/h.
His body was burning its own potential just to survive.
Then… the backlash struck again.
Like a stone thrown upward crashing back down, all the violence he had inflicted upon himself returned a hundredfold. Blood burst from his nose, flowed from his ears, stained the corners of his eyes. His senses shut down one by one in a dull ringing hum.
His fractured mind could process only two things now:
DETECT. MOVE.
32 km/h → 33 km/h.
An evolution born of pure agony.
The objects appeared—blurred phantoms in the fog of his mind. But through superhuman effort, his margin widened slightly to 0.09s. Just enough to, by pushing himself once more to the brink, steal fragments of consciousness for the quest.
His body answered in a final, desperate spasm of adaptation.
33 km/h → 35 km/h.
Movement time: 0.144s.
Recovered margin: 0.096s.
Dodging became possible again—still difficult, but viable.
But Remedy himself was nothing more than a wavering shell.
His glassy eyes, his mechanical movements—everything screamed that he was seconds away from collapse. Only an iron will, forged in pain, kept him conscious.
He finished the session with dodges that were fairly clean—almost good—an unsettling contrast with the ruined state of their executor.
Struggling to remain upright, he rasped out the final object locations.
[All locations successfully identified. Session result: Excellent.]
But before darkness claimed him… one final thought surfaced from the fog.
The drink.
With a clumsy gesture, he selected the Assimilation Drink. The vial appeared in his hand. He tried to drink—but his muscles refused to obey. His throat was paralyzed. He stood on the edge of total collapse.
Then, with one last internal roar, he forced his arm to lift, his mouth to open.
Glug…
One sip. Burning. Sweet.
Glug… A second. Life returning in waves.
Glug… The last.
The task complete, the will sustaining him—stretched like an over-tight thread—snapped cleanly.
He collapsed heavily onto the cold floor, unconscious.
But deep within him, the drink began its work. The evolution, interrupted by the body's failure, resumed—consolidating into flesh the gains torn from pain.
Top speed: 35 km/h → …
Reflexes: 0.10s → …
---
[DING! CONGRATULATIONS TO THE HOST. CONCEPT ESSENCE SUCCESSFULLY ACQUIRED.]
[DO YOU WISH TO CREATE THE CONCEPT: "VIRUS"?]
The luminous message hovered in the air above Remedy's inert body, awaiting an answer that would not come.
---
Meanwhile, at the entrance of the Sullen Guild's secondary branch, a step halted.
The ice clone had arrived.
A hesitation—almost human—made her pause as her empty gaze scanned the entrance. Then she slipped inside, melting into the crowd of guild members with unsettling fluidity. She moved silently, unerringly toward the training facilities.
Within the crowd, the manager turned her head, intuition pricking at her skin. Her eyes swept over the spot where the hooded silhouette had passed.
— Is it just my imagination… or did I just feel a presence… familiar? — she murmured, a faint chill crawling up her neck.
The clone, indifferent to everything but her target, searched methodically: mental training rooms, physical halls. Nothing. No trace of the energy she sought.
She exited the complex and positioned herself motionless in the shadow of a nearby alley.
She waited.
She watched.
The emergency exit. The main entrance.
Her target would come out eventually.
---
Chapter 23 — End