Zarek rotated his shoulder, making sure it was nice and limber. The snow fell from above, but the chill didn't stop his body from feeling like a revving furnace. That battle was a good warm-up. Now, he could do what he needed to do.
Taking a breath, he pressed down on the Hub again, and it began to spin wildly. The speed was even greater now than it had been before, but Zarek was ready.
Right as he pressed, he had already slapped down another [Unholy Beacon]. This time, it was on the exact location he wanted.
Who would have thought that a taunting Skill could be so useful? Well, it wasn't the taunting Skill itself. It was his Profession that gave him so much flexibility with it—that, and the bolstered senses of his Talent.
It could be said that for someone as flexible in thought as Zarek… it was like handing him Pandora's box.
He should have thought to do this earlier. But better late than never.
"Ha…"
Zarek suddenly exhaled a speedy breath, his arm extending back as he sent a line of Lurker's Godsfall a long distance away. He increased the tension to the point he felt like his arm might rip free of its socket. And then his gaze flashed.
His arm trembled, his jaw clenched. There was a focused light in his eyes that wouldn't be denied this time. He would get it right no matter what.
'There.'
Chi.
His arm shot out. Almost instantly, Zarek realized that he would still be a bit off. But luckily… his palm was coated in Lurker's Godsfall.
The Godsfall diverted the pace of his arm just the slightest bit, a line of the Godsfall snapping out to latch onto the section he wanted to reach while also pulling him forward.
Doom.
The dull sound of Zarek's palm landing reverberated. The Hub didn't shake—it was too sturdy—but somehow it felt that that was exactly what had happened, as though Zarek had accomplished something he was well and truly not meant to.
'Gotcha.'
Despite the success, Zarek didn't relax in the slightest. In fact, his hairs were standing on end. That was because he was about to do something insane, and he knew it.
And that was saying something.
Zarek was someone who had built his life based on insane actions. The idea that he would call even himself insane in this situation underlined just what kind of deep shit he was about to get himself into.
Zarek had been thinking a lot about what this Hub wanted out of him. And he felt that if he was correct… the answer was definitely to enter the portal. This wasn't a checkpoint—it was the entrance. An entrance hidden in plain sight.
What confirmed it for Zarek was the fact the wheel was simply spinning too fast. Even for a B Class Hub that had been failed quite a few times, it was too much. Almost like something didn't want you to succeed at all.
When Zarek had his attempt, he had been quite confident when he struck out with his palm, only to unexpectedly find himself missing. He hadn't had much time to think about it because of the explosion and the attacks that came soon after, but now that there was a bit of a lull, he was sure.
His gut tended to be right, and this time everything was pointing him toward this act of absolute madness.
This Hero Role… it was quite interesting. What was a Hero if not a crusader against evil? Zarek could think of very few ways better to exploit that understanding than battling it out against the core of everything…
The system itself.
It was an amusing thought, mostly because the system didn't seem to do much to him other than insult him. However, what happened after the Atom Link Godsfall Tear painted a different picture. It seemed as though the system was quite unhappy with what happened there, as though it had a particular distaste for the Hero Role—even in its Candidate form.
But then what happened in the Dream Godsfall Tear was even odder. The system's notes seemed to begin to glitch in his presence, twisting in ways he didn't quite understand. Sometimes it would say nothing at all, leaving a '—' where there would usually be something, or a blank. And then it would randomly commentate at other times.
The fact he had also ended up in an odd time loop due to the Dream Godsfall Tear also left him baffled. It was like whatever the Dream Godsfall Tear was trying to convey, it didn't want the system to know.
This left Zarek in an odd limbo-like state where he felt that he was on the edge of something shocking, and yet couldn't quite explain what it was because all he had was intuition while lacking solid evidence to back it up.
There was also one more thing that Zarek was hinging this wild theory on.
The Hubs were the creation of the system. This gamified nonsense wouldn't appear in nature naturally.
When he was on Earth, the map had pointed him to a location. It didn't seem to be pointing him toward the skies, trying to get him to come here to this planet. But now that he was here, rather than trying to point him back to Earth, it just continued pointing as though the location had always been here.
At first, Zarek thought that it was the system messing with things. Maybe it was trying to lead him to a false location. But what if that wasn't the case?
What if the truth was that the map would have pointed him toward any Hub that could get the job done? Any Hub that met the proper requirements and requisites to lead him where he needed to go…? Any Hub capable of forming the exact portal he needed?
From the very start, it didn't matter what planet he was on. So long as it had enough Hubs, one—or maybe even a few—of them would be bound to have the correct parameters.
All of this had already flashed in Zarek's mind. But when he saw the creature coming out of the Hub, he couldn't help but grin. To think that it would actually be this thing.
—
[Lurker of the Night]
Core Stats:
>[Strength: B]
>[Dexterity: B+]
>[Intelligence: B+]
>[Endurance: B+]
>[Charisma: B]
Talents:
>[Lurking Thread: B+]
[Abilities: Deployment] This chapter was originally posted on M^VLEMPYR.
[Sticky and fast, use it to trap your enemies or increase your agility]
—
'Well, hello there. A coincidence indeed.'
Was it a coincidence? Zarek didn't know. For some reason, he couldn't help but think of the first Gambling Hub he had come across in this life—or more accurately, the Named Turned that was currently calling it home—and a certain woman that shared the face he assumed to have been the Violet Enchantress'…
The wheels were moving in Zarek's mind as he wondered if these things were well and truly connected. The system, the Turned, the Hero Trial—these odd mysteries that seemed to be clicking together one after another…
What was happening?
Unfortunately, he didn't have the time to linger on it.
Zarek's thoughts moved fast, but the Lurker seemed even faster, closing the distance on him even swifter than it had on Earth. But this time, Zarek was already on a line, a thread pulling him back as the black, clawed arm of the Lurker lunged for his face.
The timing had to be perfect. The portal would still be open so long as the Lurker was pulling itself out. Which meant he couldn't allow the line to pull him too far back.
The issue with using [Angel Wing Flash] in this situation, though, was that it wasn't a true teleportation. The path between Zarek and the location he wanted to go had to be clear, otherwise he would just slam into the target at full bore.
Luckily, though… he had saved up two uses just for this moment. Zarek was always prepared, and he wouldn't allow his plan to have such a flaw at a critical moment. He would outmaneuver everyone if he needed to in order to get back on time… even if that meant outmaneuvering the system itself.
Just as the claw swiped down, missing Zarek's nose by barely a millimeter, Zarek's eyes flashed, activating [Angel Wing Flash] to rush to the side in an instant, and then used it again as he sidestepped the Lurker, launching himself into the portal right behind it.
The world fell to silence as the Lurker landed, its target suddenly gone. Its head snapped back as though it was in a panic. But if Zarek had seen this scene, he might have experienced the most shocking moment of his life.
Turned and creatures of the system weren't supposed to have emotions.
They were mutants, designed only to seek constant evolution—constant improvement—at the cost of every and anything around them.
So why in the hell did this Lurker look as though it had made the mistake of its life, an emotion so obvious that even its twisted features painted it so very clearly?
BANG!
A bolt of bloody red descended from above, shattering it to pieces.