Die. Respawn. Repeat.

I act quickly. There are puddles of color rising all around us into oozing monsters — it's almost disorienting. They're the only sources of color all around me. There's a heavy, thickset ooze-creature a few steps ahead made of a deep, mauve sort of purple, the same purple that tints the wood of the Hestian trees; there are whip-thin creatures that are barely humanoid, with stringlike arms and legs made of all the different shades of fall. The forest detritus combines into a muddy brown, creating bloblike creatures on the ground that stretch themselves to move forward, leaving flickering trails of brown Firmament that fade into nothing.

And that's only a small fraction of the creatures that are starting to appear. Fighting all of them almost seems like a pointless task, one that will tire me out needlessly, but I remind myself that I need to fight. If beating one of them grants me credits...

"We should find out if Naru is still here," Ahkelios says. He's noticed the way my fists have clenched. "Don't touch them directly. You'll need a weapon."

I don't have one — I didn't bring the scythe with me this loop. I glance around and pluck a small branch off the ground, sending a burst of Firmament into it to reinforce it; it's a minor imbuement with no anchor or enhancement, but that doesn't matter. I only need it to last as long as I'm in the Hotspot.

"Just checking," I say. "What's going to happen to me if they touch me directly?"

Ahkelios shudders a bit. "They eat your color," he says. "It's not fun, trust me."

That's vague, but considering that I've seen what happens when I use Color Drain, I'm willing to take that at face value.

Short term plan: Go straight for the obelisk. Kill any of the color-oozes in my way. If Naru's still here, we deal with him; if not, we use the translation stone on the obelisk, and see if these oozes are worth killing. If I get enough credits for killing them...

"Ready?" I ask Ahkelios, and he nods.

I'm still not used to how fast that combination of skills makes me. Mental Acceleration makes it easy to handle, but it's still so much faster than I've ever been able to run. The ground flies beneath my feet, and in no time at all I'm in front of my first target.

Crystallized Strength.

The sharp pain of crystallization runs all the way up along my arm as I concentrate the Firmament there. This time, I don't bother with a Barrier — I have the stick I'm holding to take the brunt of the blow. I swing the stick as I dart past the thick purple ooze, injecting another spike of Firmament into it to make sure it doesn't shatter—

—the ooze takes damage. I can feel it; the Firmament within it gets jumbled up for a fraction of a second, and it flinches, its entire body shuddering.

And then the ooze grips the stick I'm using, its flesh clinging on like glue, and yanks it out of my hand.

I don't waste time. I let go of the stick before the ooze can cover my hand and grab a handful of dirt off the ground, haphazardly forcing Firmament into it before lobbing it as hard as I can. Crystallized Strength together with that brief reinforcement keeps the clump of dirt together as it rockets towards the ooze.

It thunks into the center of its chest, and the whole thing staggers back, leaving chunks of purple behind on the ground. Strings of purple lash out from its fingertips, arcing through the air towards me, and I twist out of the way of them just in time. They're sharper than they look, considering how they pierce straight through the trees behind me.

Mental Acceleration is working overtime. As large as this monster is, it's fast and flexible, and it doesn't bother following any of the laws of physics. It's freely able to change its shape, so it isn't limited the way most humanoid fighters are...

...Wait. I'm an idiot.

Color Drain.

I know exactly what color to drain from it, too, because the whole ooze is composed of just the one color. I feel it resist the effects of the skill — it's good at resisting it, too, and it forces Color Drain to consume far more Firmament than it would otherwise just to leech all of that purple out of it — but it does work.

The purple is dragged out, and unlike most of my other enemies, this time, the ooze simply collapses.

[ You have defeated a Forest Slime (Rank D)! +7 Strength. +3 Reflex. +3 Speed. +2 Firmament. ]

The confirmation that they give me credits is a joy. I grin fiercely.

I'm going to have to fight my way to the obelisk, but at least it's going to be fun.

Losing myself in combat is a pastime that never gets old.

Not that I do it all that often, of course. It's not every day that an apocalypse is visited on Earth. But there's a small part of me that revels in fighting like this, in having to battle it out for my life; there's a part of the experience that's almost meditative.

Drop the translation stone. Swing. Dodge. Pick up a bunch of rocks off the ground, and imbue them with Firmament; toss them with enough force to make a bunch of holes in the slime you're fighting.

[ You have defeated a Forest Slime (Rank D)! +3 Strength credits. +3 Reflex credits. + 2 Firmament credits. ]

The credit rewards get lower the more of them I beat, but there's enough of them that that doesn't matter.

"Behind you!" Ahkelios calls. He darts away from me as a distraction, a bright source of light and Firmament, and I use the moment of distraction to enact another Color Drain.

[ You have defeated a Forest Slime (Rank D)! +4 Strength credits. +1 Durability credits. +2 Speed credits. + 2 Firmament credits. ]

A Barrier blocks off a blob of slime that gets lobbed at me — I notice it too late to dodge, so I react the only way I can. The liquid slime splashes onto the Firmament barrier and smears itself across it, then starts to eat into the Firmament.

Something about the sight creeps me out. I shudder slightly, and turn my attention to the slime that threw it at me.

It's a bright neon-green. I don't know where it got its color from — I've never seen this particular color in the Hestian forest. The monster itself is a spiderlike slime, with eight spindly legs emerging from a central, wobbly body; on top of its head is a horn it seems to be using to launch the slime balls at me. I dart towards it, and this time I don't bother grabbing a stick.

Barrier.

I shape the Barrier as it forms, using Firmament Manipulation and my natural ability to control my Firmament to guide it into the vague shape of a knife. I keep a protective film around my hand so none of that ooze gets on me, and I swipe it straight through its head, even as it tries to dodge.

[ You have defeated a Forest Slime (Rank D)! +1 Strength credits. +5 Reflex credits. +2 Speed credits. +2 Firmament credits. ]

It's nice that the number of Firmament credits I'm getting isn't going down. I'm making good progress, too — the obelisk is almost in sight, and most of the slimes aren't actively targeting me. I have to get within a few meters of them for them to even notice me, which makes avoiding them... not easy, exactly, but doable.

The problems mostly happen when I have to maneuver a lot to fight one of them and inevitably end up drawing more. Barrier is my friend in those cases, though. Barrier and Color Drain.

[ You have defeated a Forest Slime (Rank D)! +5 Durability credits. +2 Reflex credits. +2 Firmament credits. ]

[ You have defeated a Forest Slime (Rank D)! +2 Durability credits. +1 Reflex credit. +2 Firmament credits. ]

And then the obelisk is in sight. The translation stone is back under my arm, still emitting those waves of Firmament that make this Hotspot so much more dangerous — but I suppose that's the point. I wonder how Ahkelios ever found out that he needed the stone for this Hotspot in particular. Was it just luck? Had he just been carrying the stone around because it interested him?

I could see him doing that, somehow.

There's no sign of Naru. I'm almost surprised by how relieved that makes me feel, although I know I'm not exactly out of the woods — Naru might very well only appear after the Hotspot is activated by someone entering it. Given that I haven't sensed him so far and I've been fighting for a solid half-hour, though, I imagine it's unlikely that he'll show up.

Now to time myself carefully.

The Firmament pulses are coming in thirty seconds apart. I can dart in with plenty of time to spare, but I need to leave the translation stone there to start the translation process; I have to assume the stone will be undamaged by the Firmament waves emitted by the obelisk, unless the process takes less than thirty seconds.

...Or maybe I should test it first. Just in case.

I let the corner of the stone brush against one of the Firmament pulses from the obelisk. Thankfully, it seems entirely undamaged, and I breathe a sigh of relief, then steady myself and prepare to run.

Twenty-nine... thirty!

I activate both Triplestep and Firestep, leaving a trail of Firmament flame in my wake as I dash towards the obelisk. As I get closer, I can make out the runic inscriptions that must be the so-called 'ancient language'. I don't waste time trying to decipher it myself — instead, I touch the translation stone to one of the runes, pausing just long enough to make sure the Firmament circle has begun to fill out. Then I leave it there, still touching the obelisk, and dart back as fast as possible.

And now... to wait.

While fighting off more of these Forest Slimes, because they're back, and they're back in full force.

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