The woman’s accent was thick, her cadence unfamiliar—yet I understood her perfectly.

Some sort of passive translation, I assumed. Likely a form of verbal transfiguration affecting my cognition, allowing me to grasp her native tongue without issue. The how wasn’t important. Only that it worked.

It saved me time—precious, dwindling time.

The building we were in was a pagoda: seven levels tall, layered like a wedding cake carved from lacquered wood and stone. She was, as cliché as it sounded, a princess. Her family had been wiped out—her clan razed, her city lost. As the chaos descended, she had been spirited away, returning home only to find it empty. Abandoned. The victors had spared nothing, and now, having caught wind that she still lived, they were coming. For her.

A sigh slipped from my lips as I dragged on my ever-burning smoke.

              “Why does this feel like a bad novel?” I muttered to myself.
              Knight in shining armor, check. Princess in distress, check. Ten thousand faceless enemies? Double check.
              Who the hell wrote this script?

I scanned the room with a fidgety rhythm in my chest. A slight tension. After scouring the entire pagoda, I’d managed to locate a small cache of dry goods—tucked into forgotten cellars and side rooms. Clearly, others had tried locking her away before. Tried fighting. Likely died. And she? Probably starved to death waiting.

This world hadn’t touched the technological age. Not even close. So her reverence for me—thinking I was some divine agent—wasn’t just fantasy. It was heartfelt. Earnest.

“One month?” she asked, voice gentle now that her fear had eased.

“Yes. One month,” I replied with a quiet nod. “It’ll be boring. You might feel like you’re losing your mind... but you’ll survive. I promise.”

And I meant it. Not just because it was the mission, not just for the reward—but because this world wasn’t so different from mine. And I’d never been the type to watch something wrong unfold while standing still. Even if it started for my gain... it didn’t have to end that way.

We descended the narrow stairs toward the basement. The hidden door was tucked away behind panels of aged wood and disguised stonework. Whoever had designed this place had meant for it to withstand a siege.

The vault door alone was a slab of solid granite—easily several tons. Heavy-duty. The kind of protection you only built when you expected hell to knock eventually. But if everyone died outside… who would be left to shut it?

I pulled the final levers into place with a groaning metallic clunk. As the door inched closed, she looked at me one last time.

I smiled. Soft. Encouraging.

She didn’t smile back—but gave me something better. A steely, determined look. Her hands were clenched. Her lips set.
              I could see it in her eyes—vengeance.
              Not just survival. She wanted retribution.

And I couldn’t blame her.

I didn’t know the politics of this world. Didn’t care.
Not yet.

But I would.

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Standing at the ground floor’s front door, I let the scent of rain fill my lungs. The world beyond the pagoda was drowned in water—an endless downpour washing over the earth like some celestial purge.
              Perfect. Just… perfect.

I looked down at the spearhead glinting in my palm, my finger looping through the ring affixed to its base. With a subtle tug, the chain slithered forth like a whisper of steel. As long as my finger held the loop, I could control the chain’s length at will.

I gave it a twirl. It hissed through the air with a sharp, high-pitched whistle—likely the enchantment of sharpness humming along its edge.

“Mmm… You and me… we gotta become friends now.”

The rain absorbed all other noise, except the distant crackle of thunder and occasional strobe of lightning across the heavens. Shadows flickered across the rooftops and alleys around the pagoda. They were out there. Ninja—dozens, maybe hundreds. Swarming. Silent. Waiting.

Try not to use the gun, I told myself.
              Try.

With no formal way of creating energy I had to be risky in how to receive it and the brewing storm was just that crazy thing.

I turned and climbed several flights of stairs, only to vault from a window and land lightly atop the sloped roof. Lightning crackled above. I hurled the spear tip into the sky, again and again, until fate intervened—a bolt struck the airborne weapon, channeling raw power down the chain and into my body.

The blast flung me backward, crashing me through the wooden shingles—but it worked. My runes were fully charged. This power would probably save my life just as it had done by acting as a resistant to specific damage types. That’s what I had banked on. A lightning bolt was an endless of times more powerful than some wall socket powered by who knows what beneath the city.

The pain was duller this time.

Enigma… he must’ve enhanced my affinity or at least the way my body took in energy through my body. Most likely through my bones. Now scripted, enchanted, mediums of sorts.
Thank you.

I flexed my hand, watching the lightning sigils glow across my skin. All three were filled, but casting the third drained me too much. I pulsed energy outward and heard slight crackle sounds amongst the water droplets—nothing happened. The third rune faded.

No metal in sight. The pagoda was made of wood and stone. Stone was a no-go—too heavy, and I'd lose speed and dexterity. I needed metal. Their weapons, maybe.

“I’ll just borrow what they brought to kill me.” My mind buzzed with reaction time heightened, thoughts sparking quicker than usual. My body was faster now, more precise. The edge I needed.

I descended the stairs and stepped beneath the shelter of the overhanging floor above the entrance. Waving casually to the darkened horizon, I half-smiled. If I hadn’t actually eaten I’d probably be shitting myself right now.

A single shuriken answered me, slicing through the air toward my head—silent, deadly, near invisible until lightning illuminated the sky. I barely slipped past it, my body reacting before I could think. Then came the storm of hundreds of shuriken and throwing darts falling like the rain itself.

I slammed the door behind me. Metal thunked into the wood, embedding deep.
Bastards… That’s not what I meant.

Then again, who the hell waves at an army of ninjas and expects a duel?
That would be real dumb now, wouldn’t it?

Footsteps slapped against wet stone outside. I grabbed a board and jammed it across the inner door horns just as the windows shattered inward.

Glass and steel rained down. Before the last shard struck the floor, black-robed figures burst through the openings. No war cries. No dramatic lines.

They just attacked.

My body moved with unnatural speed. I dodged a vertical slash, driving the spear into the attacker’s throat. A second figure lunged from the side, daggers gleaming. I whipped the chain into her nose—crack—then plunged the blade into her chest.

It was brutal. But I wasn’t new to this.

The city I came from? It was a hellhole if you put yourself into a wrong place at the wrong time. You could get mugged ten times before breakfast if you walked along the wrong riverbank. Overcrowding bred crime, the drug trade ruled entire districts in its underbelly, and color-coded gang zones made walking the streets a game of Russian roulette with your chosen laundry. Of course those gangs knew each other, and it was more of a rival minor clan thing but it all added up if like me you were ever seen tossing information between the groups for a price or investigating a murder you knew they caused.

Another memory, another ghost. I shoved it aside.

I snapped back as a bo staff came screaming over the woman’s corpse—aimed without hesitation. The ninja wielding it didn’t even blink. I dropped low, reappearing beside his foot, and skewered his shoe to the floor with my spear.

The tip bit wood. I tore it free and slashed upward into his throat, then kicked him back with a grunt.

Brutal. Efficient. The Butterflies in my stomach mixed with the jittering in my legs made me want to tear my skin off but only after hurling. After the adrenaline faded I needed to prepare myself.

Proficiency in Chain Blade increased by .01%: Proficiency is now .02%
Proficiency in Chain Blade increased by .01%: Proficiency is now .03%

“Fuck, this is going to take a while.”

A pair of nun-chucks whizzed past my head—I caught one, whipped it back like a boomerang, and charged forward anyway.

Until I built real proficiency in this weapon, I couldn’t risk losing it. Not when drawing the gun might cost me the entire mission. Not yet.

Another attacker vaulted through the window, daggers ready. I feinted left, slashed right—blade to gut. They crumpled backward, tumbling back through the broken pane.

I paused only a moment, long enough to see dozens more silhouettes moving in the rain—dancing just beyond the warm glow of the pagoda’s lanterns.

“Fuck.”

Swish.

Shurikens flew through the windows like metal rain.

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“Twenty-eight an hour… alright… not bad.”

Twenty-eight came every hour for twelve hours straight. Sometimes more, sometimes less. It wasn’t clear whether they were testing him or simply pacing their assault—but they never came all at once. Burning the building down would’ve ensured the princess's death, and they couldn’t have that. So instead, they came like the rain, relentless and in waves.

If he could kill 333 each day, he’d reach ten thousand by the end of the month. Exhausting, but… possible. The numbers lined up. Was it the world itself that dictated such symmetry? Or did the clan send only what they believed was manageable, while the system simply aligned to reflect the pattern?

Sliding down the bloodstained wall, Jaeger examined himself. Dozens of cuts and bruises—some deep, some shallow. His breathing was ragged, and his limbs ached. It wasn’t just the physical toll. It was the endless repetition. The pressure of staying alert, of being sharp every second.

Even against inferior foes, combat grinds you down.

I pulled out a potion, popped the cap, and drank. Warmth and vitality surged through me, a false sense of invigoration that barely masked the deep-set fatigue.

According to what I'd been told—or rather deduced—I had twelve hours before they started again. A brief reprieve in an unending storm.

Jaeger rose and trudged down to the basement entrance, leaning his back against the solid, fortified door. It was colder here, quieter, when deeper in the belly of the building. A place meant to hold off the end of the world, and right now, that world was upstairs.

He slid down until he was seated on the floor, head tipped against the granite behind him, eyelids falling heavy.

“So much bloodshed, but now, I don’t have a choice. Die or continue. Why wasn’t this in the brochure.” I laughed, but it died to a chuckle just as quick. She was real, I had felt her hand. The stone was real beneath me. This was a place. I wish I had asked more about this particular portal. I wouldn’t have come. What scars or changes to myself killing so many would bring was unknown. Frightening. I wasn’t a killer. Yet I had to remind myself of why I was here, my excuse to continue what I needed to do in this particular place. I would kill countless to save my world. I didn’t fight for change, I fought for love. This would come at a cost, but it was worth the reward. It must be. I has to be.

On my shoulder, silent and unmoving, sat a small frog with its unblinking gaze fixed on the staircase above.

Watching.

Waiting.

Guarding.

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Another day passed. Another set of wounds earned their place across my back.

They were stronger this time—more precise, more coordinated. And yet, somehow, I survived. Barely. If not for the mildly inhuman boost to my dexterity and mental processing, this would've ended on day two. I had also noticed something as well, it was just a guess, but something was suppressing a portion of my mind. If it wasn’t for the enhanced aspect of my mind I may not even notice it. I felt robotic almost. Going through the motions. I knew what feeling numb was like, this was different.

Twenty-eight more days.

My chain blade proficiency now sat at 6.6%. It already felt like a natural extension of my body. Just earlier, I’d wrapped a man in the chain—sloppily, perhaps—but it was enough to slit his throat in a single, fluid motion.

My body was adapting, faster than I could think. The knowledge I was earning didn’t just live in my mind—it was becoming muscle memory. My limbs moved with techniques I hadn’t consciously trained. That was the truth of this ‘proficiency.’ A download directly into the nervous system.

Another day gone. Maybe I wasn’t even experiencing this, but what someone else had. Dumb thought but a wonderful idea to my psyche.

I had only one healing potion when I first arrived. The bracelet let me duplicate it once a day, which meant I always had one, but never more. The catch? It took up the entire space of the bracelet—so no storing extras. It was enough… until it wasn’t. Craft had said it would have diminishing returns and now it didn’t even scab my wounds over.

The fights grew bloodier. Their blades found me easier now. Stronger enemies. Faster. Smarter. Either the world was scaling with me… or every batch they sent was a rank above the last.

The potion couldn’t fully heal me anymore. It took sleep to finish what the magic couldn’t. The bruises faded. The cuts vanished. But the scars? Those stayed. I was healing here faster then I should be able, but it was only ever just enough.

Thank the gods for the twelve-hour break. I slept through most of it, barely stirring even when the wind howled through the cracks in the pagoda walls. I did make sure to go knock on the door, scream at the top of my lungs to be heard through the wall, to let the princess know I was here. I was fighting for her. I existed.

‘Proficiency at 9.98%.’

“Almost ten…”

I let the blade fly, the chain singing through the air as it caught a man clean across the face. The weapon whipped back into my hand, now smoother and more effortless. A robed woman flitted in the distance, cracking a whip laced with metal beads. Every strike was thunder. Every lash, lightning. My back and legs stung from her handiwork. That damned whip was turning into a serious problem.

They were evolving.

Gone were the random mobs. Now they came in squads with formations, combining tactics and synergy. They were learning.

But so was I.

I slammed the chain loop across another man’s jaw, a crack echoing through the chamber before I opened his throat in one clean sweep.

The woman snarled, spinning her whip—ready to strike. I met it with my chain, throwing it diagonally so it intercepted and coiled around the whip mid-flight. She tugged back instinctively, unaware I’d already set the trap.

With a flick of my wrist, I extended the chain, sending a loop dancing into the air—only to reel it back fast, closing the bind. In an instant, both she and the dying man she'd tried to defend were entangled. Another yank and the whip flew from her grasp. I rushed in, blade flashing.

She fell.

‘You have gained .01% proficiency in chain blades; your proficiency is now 10.00%.’

“Finally… fuck.”

Three days. Exactly 1,000 kills. And I was only ten percent in.

“Ten times that many… ten thousand…” I groaned. “Might as well kill me now.”

I collapsed right where I stood, not caring about safety or decorum. I downed a potion and blacked out.

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I piled up all the swords, knives, spear tips, axe heads—anything metal the ninja had left behind—right in the middle of the section just inside the front door of the first floor. Their weapons were thin pieces of metal or simply made of wood or other materials, so it took a while to accumulate all the right bits and bobbles.

Pressing my hands against the pile, the metal slowly flowed like a river over my fingers and up my wrists. It was miraculous to witness—something I didn’t think I’d ever get tired of seeing. Soon, my skin gave off a metallic luster and shine. My weight increased slightly, but it was worth it.

A ninja popped through the window and slashed at my throat. He froze—stunned that I didn’t even flinch. A quiet, genuine “Huh?” escaped him. In all this time, the first word I’d heard one of them say.

“Could’ve at least said hello you fuck wit,” Lifting my chin to reveal the faintest of nicks on my neck. I leapt forward, cracking some of the wooden floor beneath my foot. The man stared at me like he was looking at a demon before his eyes rolled back, blood draining from his neck. He hadn’t moved a muscle.

That surprised me—he really thought he could win a pissing contest like that?

I exhaled and vaulted through the window to my right, catching another ninja mid-air and slamming him to the ground, driving the blade into his neck.

Then another. And another. And another.

‘You have gained .01% proficiency in chain blades; your proficiency is now 20.00%.’

Six days. Not even a week, and I had already killed 2,000 people. An astronomical number. How could any group train so many damned people? Fuck.

Bitterness churned in my gut. The amount of blood that had covered me on the first day had sent me reeling—made me puke the second I had a break. Five days later, I was just trying to keep my thoughts in check. My body hesitated less and less.

If this was what war felt like, I wanted no part in it.

There was no joy in it. No thrill. Just weight. I forced smiles, made jokes, anything to dull the growing darkness inside. I told myself I did it to save others, for myself, for the survivors at the fountain. I told myself they weren’t real, or that they were and we were simply on two different sides.

I told myself whatever I had to—even if only my hands were shaking and not my heart.

Three taps on the giant stone slab of the basement fort entrance. Moments later, the same rhythm echoed back.

She’s still alive… alright.

I’d done that the last few days, both to check she was okay, and to let her know I wasn’t dead. It was something—anything—to keep her mind intact.

Woosh. Woosh. Woosh.

Arrows pierced through the windows and struck someone lying on the floor.

When a few ninja came in to confirm the kill, they were horrified to find it was the body of one of their own—dressed as me.

Whizz.

Three more dropped beside the body before they had time to react. I hopped down from above the entrance door, wiped off the spearhead, and retracted the chain to its smallest form.