Carmen’s [Hunter’s Mark] allowed her to see the scorpion, even in the dark. Well, ‘see’ was pushing it – she was aware of where it was. So was I, due to my [Time Loop]. I could have shot out more fireballs so we could see the beast, but the problem with that was it used mana and though I didn’t think it used a lot, I didn’t want to waste my mana reserves on pointless spells.

  Stuck in the [Time Loop] as it was, the scorpion was wholly undefended. We wouldn’t get more of a free hit at the thing. No friends to defend. No other creatures to be concerned with. No fear of the scorpion lobbing venom at us from its bulbous tale. The only thing we needed to make sure is that we didn’t stumble into the bubbling pools of acidic venom to the sides.

  Another burst of gunfire from Carmen to my left, though she was actually shooting each individual bullet. It was the same result. The bullets ricocheted off the scorpion with a ping that echoed through the tunnel, like they were nothing more than irritating mosquitoes, bouncing off a hide too thick.

  “It doesn’t work,” Carmen said.

  There was no doubt the arachnid was more powerful than her, according to the System ranks. Back on that hill, when Carmen and the others had killed all those bulls and stags and the others, they’d earned thousands of SE coins and Carmen, having killed the most, levelled up. She was a Common, Rank B now. The rest us still rank C’s. But possibly, the scorpion wasn’t even a Common beast. Conventional weapons didn’t work on it, even with the [Hunter’s Mark] active, but that last burst was Carmen trying [Aimed Shot], a single shot that did more damage. It still wasn’t enough. The only conclusion I could draw was that the scorpion was several ranks higher. Maybe a Rare.

  I was continuously channelling mana into the anchor point, so the scorpion was trapped in a never-ending [Time Loop], and I was having no trouble keeping the channelling up so far. It didn’t feel like an effort in the slightest. Not even a hint of an ache in my muscles, but how long that would last was up in the air.

  The Divine Artifact gave me advantages. I’d seen that multiple times. The resets. The control over time. What felt like a large mana pool, given what I had been able to do with it so far. But I still felt like I was only brushing the surface, like a dam holding back a large body of water but only allowing a trickle to flow through. I felt like I wasn’t pushing the advantage enough, and yet, I had no ideas of how to solve the problem at hand.

  “Do you still have SE coins to spend?” I asked Carmen. “Any other kind of attack you can get that might help here?”

  “Not right now. Maybe if I was a higher tier or rank.”

  “What do you reckon?”

  “Well, if you don’t have any ideas, maybe we should follow the others? How close do you need to be for the loop?”

  “I don’t know to be honest. I hadn’t really thought about it.” The question took me back to that first incident with the wolves. When I’d tagged Kian and how the tag had moved its start point. Back then the range had been no more than seven or eight metres from me. The loop I had on the scorpion right now was a good forty or so metres away and stretched about thirty. “Let’s test it. Let’s walk together slowly towards the others. You lead.”

  She did as I asked, turning her back on the scorpion and putting her rifle up so the flashlight provided some illumination of the tunnel ahead. I followed suit, aware of the anchor point at my back as I continued channelling mana into it. Then I had an idea.

  “Wait,” I said, putting my hand on Carmen’s arm and stopping her from walking further. I stretched the anchor near me, made it as large as I could as I continued to channel mana into it. As it expanded and filled, almost as wide as the tunnel itself, I felt the slightest tweak in my limbs. I wasn’t in any danger of collapsing like earlier, but it was a warning. I stopped expanding the anchor, but ensured to fill the entire clear ball with turquoise mana. It would be enough for a few minutes, and I felt like maybe I’d used half my capacity.

  “Let’s run.”

  “What? With that thing behind us.”

  “I’ve tied off the loop. We have a few minutes, and when the loop ends, it’s going to be confused. It’s going to expect us at the point where it last saw us.”

  This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

  “Do you even know how scorpions track? Can it see us or smell us?”

  “Does it matter? Let’s deal with that when it happens but let’s make use of the time I’ve bought us.”

  She didn’t argue and the both of us broke out into as fast of a run as we dared. The flashlight only stretched to a few metres ahead of us and we could be sure there weren’t any venom pools ahead, or another one of these scorpions. We hoped not. As we ran, our boots scuffing on the dirt below, we saw very little of the surroundings and whether there were more soldiers or pools or bones.

  It couldn’t have been more than a few hundred metres, when we emerged into one of those open areas again, with several exits. We followed Davies’ instructions, found the left tunnel quickly and continued on. I wasn’t able to feel my [Time Loop] anymore, but I was confident it would still be active even without me. It was a good few hundred metres behind, which made me think that was the extent to where I could channel but a closed thread like the one I’d created would remain active until the mana dissipated.

  There was another opening and another frantic search for the leftmost tunnel. We found it and ran along it but it wasn’t long before Carmen came to a stop, reaching out with a hand on my arm. I stopped too.

  “What is it?” I whispered.

  “Shh.”

  In the ambient light, I could see her cock her head slightly, listening out for something. I did the same. Was it another scorpion? I strained my ears, trying to listen out for a dislodged pebble or the metallic clang – like pots being banged together – that the scorpions legs made as it skittered across the ceiling. I heard none of that. Just si–. No, there. A faint sound further along the tunnel. Muffled footsteps across the dirt.

  Then the unmistakable sound of a whispered voice, that might as well have been a shout in the absolute silence.

  “Hurry.”

  “Who’s there?” Carmen did shout out, her voice reverberating around the rocks.

  “Carmen? Is that you?” an echo came back.

  “Yes. Who’s that? Kian?”

  “Yeah. I’ve got Kaelyn with me. Wait where you are.”

  I let out a sigh of relief. Honestly, I don’t know why. We weren’t out of the woods yet, but if there was anyone who could take out the scorpion at our backs, then it would be Kaelyn. I was so relieved when the both of them appeared in front of Carmen’s flashlight. Carmen did what I was too reserved to do. Hugged Kaelyn. Not just as our saviour, but it was good to see she was alive. The assassin had a bemused look on her face, as if she wasn’t used to affection. She pried Carmen’s arms from around her neck.

  “Please tell me you can kill the scorpion?” I said to Kaelyn.

  She smiled at me, with a wink. “Where is it?”

  “It should be coming soon. I think the trap is about to wear off.”

  She pulled her dagger from her waist. “Get behind me.” She looked me in the eye. “Any chance you can do what you did earlier?”

  “I think so, but I’ll need to rest if I do.”

  Carmen gasped.

  “Don’t worry. I won’t collapse this time.”

  “Do it,” Kaelyn said. “It’s the last one. Can you two give me some light?”

  I wanted to ask how she knew that, but let’s take of the problem first. As Carmen and Kian pointed their rifles towards the way we had just come, I set about creating the mana construct. It was easy, now that I had already done it once. I formed a circular tube roughly the length of the scorpion and the width of the tunnel, filling its edges with mana and creating the slowing effect at the other end where the creature would appear. As I thought, the effort was enough that it felt like I’d had a gym session, sweat coming out of my pores, flowing down my face, my limbs feeling a little like jelly. I could still push further but there was no need. The construct would do what it had to do.

  We didn’t have to wait long for the scorpion to appear, that awful metallic skittering getting louder in the distance. The flashlights didn’t reach far into the tunnel, the scorpion’s pincers coming into view a few metres away, moving in slow motion. It was travelling along the ground, but Kaelyn didn’t wait. She could see it enough to do what she needed, dashing towards it.

  In the [Time Slow], there was no need for her to expend effort on avoiding its pincers or its mouth. It hadn’t even registered she was there, as she made short work of it, working the underside of its belly, stabbing her knife into it between its armour., tearing at its segmented legs and arms, poking its eyes. She was fast enough that I was glad I didn’t need to face her but not so fast that we couldn’t see what she was doing. Honestly, it looked a practiced chef prepping ingredients for dinner. How would scorpion taste, I wondered.

  And just like that, it was over, Kaelyn walking back towards us. In the [Time Slow], the scorpion was only now beginning to register the first what was happening to it. Fifteen seconds of work by Kaelyn would feel like one hundred and fifty to it. I dismissed the [Time Slow] in any case, and the scorpion clattered to the floor like a tower of Jenga bricks, each segment that Kaelyn had neatly cut flying through the air and coming to a stop at our feet.

  “I’m glad you showed up,” Kaelyn said, as one of the pincers rolled towards her. She put a hand out to stop it.

  “The feeling’s mutual,” I said. “What happened?”

  Kaelyn gave a flick of her purple her as she looked at me. “Nothing good. But we survived.”

  I looked at Kian with a raised eyebrow.

  “She’s not lying, but we did find something interesting in their lair.”

  “Lair?”

  “Lair.”

  “Come,” Kaelyn said. “Better if you see for yourself.”