178 Counter Attack

178 Counter Attack

178 Counter Attack

The sky above was pixelated… vivid blues streaked with sharp angles, like broken glass pretending to be clouds. The grass beneath me was too green, the kind of green you only ever saw in early game zones, and the wind was silent despite the motion in the trees.

Joan’s memories were made of fragments. Old code, decaying assets, stitched together into something barely coherent. A dream of a game that used to be real, or in this case, had been real… the world of Lost Legends Online!

I sat cross-legged over a glowing rainbow-colored summoning circle, the kind usually reserved for world boss events or ridiculously overpriced cash-shop rituals. And standing before me and pressing his warm palm to my forehead was the old man. No name. No health bar. Just him.

He looked younger in this space. Not youthful, but less heavy, as though memory had trimmed the weight from his shoulders.

“You seem to have adapted to that world rather well, didn’t you?” he asked, his voice a ripple through the breeze.

I opened one eye. “What do you mean?”

He gestured lazily to my outfit, which I had only just realized wasn’t the gear I wore before entering. Somehow, I was dressed in my old favorite skin from the game… The Lofty Jade Proposition.

Long, emerald robes flowed around me, trimmed in gold and stitched with looping designs that shimmered like calligraphy mid-spell. The sleeves billowed dramatically with the slightest movement, and the high collar made me feel at once noble and like I was cosplaying too hard at a xianxia convention.

The old man tilted his head. “That choice of clothing. Even in this memory space, your self-image clings to the style of the other world…”

I looked down at myself, tugging at a sleeve. “Do… do most people there dress like this?”

“It depends,” he replied, sitting beside me as if we were old monks on a quiet summit. “The Greater Universe is vast. But you’ll find most civilizations… especially the ones under the Suppression Mandates… are stuck in feudal systems. Progress halted. Resources hoarded. The common folk stay poor while cultivators hoard the stars.”

“Sounds familiar,” I muttered.

He scoffed, “It should. The rulers of this Layer… these so-called Supreme Beings… are power-hungry tyrants. They cling to authority, terrified of collapse, terrified of any mortal becoming more than a tool.”

I frowned. “Layer?”

He nodded slowly. “Ever heard of the Layered Worlds?”

I blinked, struggling to recall. “I think I saw that term once or twice. Old lore tabs. Some inaccessible zones are labeled ‘Pending Layer Integration’… Thought it was unfinished content.”

The old man chuckled darkly. “Everything in that game was unfinished. I knew I didn’t have enough resources or time to complete it, so of course, it would be unfinished. The truth about this world is, the Known Universe… the one you live in… is just one Layer. One reality. Among many. Separated by the Void. Not space. Not time. But pure nonbeing. The Void devours all connection. That's why no one has ever traveled from one true Layer to another. Not really.”

I exhaled slowly, trying to keep up. “So what… You're saying there's more out there than even the Greater Universe?”

He placed two fingers on my forehead again. I flinched.

“Hold still.”

The world stuttered for a moment… like the graphics buffer dropped a frame. My thoughts swam. Knowledge poured into my mind from skills I could barely digest, some I had an idea of, and dozens more that I was unsure about. I felt like a USB stick being force-fed a library.

“The Memory Transference Technique isn’t a cure-all,” he muttered, his hand still pressed to me. “You’ll forget pieces. You’ll butcher forms. You’ll misuse energy. This is just a scaffold.”

I grunted, temples pulsing. “That’s… fair…”

“Just because you’ve learned a few tricks,” he said, voice low now, “doesn’t mean you can contend with a god…”

He hesitated.

I opened one eye. “Even if I what?”

He looked away.

Even here, in this artificial dream-memory, there was a heaviness in the air.

"You didn’t tell her, did you?"

His words weren’t accusatory. They were flat. Factual. Like he was reading the state of the world aloud, with no emotion attached.

I didn’t answer right away. There wasn’t much point. The old man already knew the truth.

Still, he spoke again. “That you sparked your Divine Soul? That after this one fight, it will be either your death… or infinite suffering?”

I let out a shallow breath. “No need to burden Joan with that knowledge.”

“She’s doing her best to buy you time,” he replied, not cruelly, just plainly. “Using her memory… her mental power… to resist Aixin, so that you can spend your time with me just a bit longer. Normally, a god should be able to expel just anyone who dared enter their domain… that is to say, their soul. But you…”

He leaned back and studied me like I was some rare creature caught in a bad simulation.

“You’re a special case. Divine Possession… exerted to this level? Even I’m baffled. Combined with the willingness of the recipient, that was Joan, then you had a real shot at this…”

“Is that a compliment?” I asked, trying to mask the fatigue creeping through me.

“No,” he said, blunt as a hammer. “I’m merely amazed you haven’t been eroded by the skill.”

I shut up after that. Because I knew what he meant.

Erosion didn’t always come with flashy side effects or dramatic changes. It was subtle. Slow. A tugging at the edges of your identity until you forgot which part of you was real and which part was borrowed power.

My hands rested on my knees, fingers twitching with residual golden light. I’d been fed the memories of a dozen holy techniques. Paladin stances, radiant invocations, blessings layered in metaphor and pain. But none of that was mine.

“What is your goal?” the old man asked. “Why fight so desperately… even if you know it’s futile?”

His words weren’t meant to wound. He simply wanted to know.

I thought about it. Not just for show, but really thought about it.

“At first,” I said, “I just wanted to die swinging.”

He blinked.

“I lit up my Divine Soul and cast Exalted Renewal so that Aixin wouldn’t get what she wanted. If my soul was extinguished, then she wouldn’t get anything. Not the Paladin Legacy. Not Earth’s coordinates. Not my memories.”

I clenched my fists. “But then… she showed up in front of me. Using Joan’s body.”

I forced a dry chuckle. “And that just pissed me off.”

The old man tilted his head. “So you wanted to save her?”

“Yeah.”

“Because she’s your lover?”

I laughed. Loud and bitter. “Not even close.”

His expression didn’t change, but I could tell he wasn’t surprised.

“To me… I might know Karen, the person. The one who used to sit behind Joan D’Arc, who used to joke about how all online games were a waste of time until she got addicted to LLO. But Joan? The character? The ‘Saintess of Final Light’?” I shook my head. “She’s not mine. I don’t know her.”

I let the silence breathe a little before continuing.

“If anything, I might just be doing this for Dave.”

At the name, something shifted. Not in the memory-world, but inside me.

“My Holy Spirit. The real owner of this body. The guy who loved your world, who poured everything into being a good Paladin. Maybe I’m just honoring his wish. Or maybe…”

I paused. Then said it aloud.

“Maybe I’m doing it for me.”

The old man’s gaze sharpened, but he said nothing.

I looked up at the fake sky, the broken texture of it, the fragments of clouds that never moved.

“The truth is… I didn’t earn this power,” I admitted. “I didn’t train for it. I didn’t fight my way through ten thousand battles to forge myself into a holy knight. I just… stumbled into it. Inherited it. Like a kid tripping into a suit of armor and suddenly being called a hero.”

The words came more easily now.

“In the end, this is all David_69’s power. My old MMO character that happens to be alive and as real as I was. The one who got stuck with me and suddenly started worshipping me. The one who grinded for weeks to max out his shield skills. Who wrote stupid macros and named his shield ‘KarenStopHittingMe’. That guy. Not me. I am just the hand that guided it from behind the scenes and nothing more.”

I swallowed. “I’m just… a meddling soul in the scale of the grander things out there.”

My voice dropped to a whisper.

“That must be why it was easy to let go.”

But I was lying. And I knew it.

“Hah… who am I kidding?” I exhaled. “It wasn’t easy at all.”

Power, after all, was addictive.

Still.

I was glad.

"I like your resolve," the old man said with a half-smile, thin cracks spidering across his cheeks like porcelain under pressure. "And who doesn’t want to see the underdog winning?"

His palm lingered on my forehead a moment longer, warm but weightless, as if trying to imprint something into me… Then he let go.

“The true nature of the Spell Slot System in LLO,” he began, his voice already beginning to fade with him, “is that it allows a person to wield Quintessence in the form of a Spell Slot.”

I blinked. “Quintessence? As in... Immortal Qi?”

He nodded. “Yes. But fragmented. Tamed. Bound into a system made to resemble a game so a being from Earth could comprehend it.”

His shoulders began to blur. His body was cracking, literal shards of him peeling off and dissolving into the false light of this mindscape.

“It is not permanent,” he said, “but you should be able to cast your Ultimate Skills six times in total.”

“Six?” I repeated.

“Six,” he confirmed. “Divine Possession allowed you to unlock the limiters that would have otherwise crushed your mind. That’s why we could only do six, or I would have forced you to carry more than six. But even then, you’re not a god. Not yet. Not truly.”

“I didn’t ask to be,” I muttered. “So, how are my odds now in this case?”

He gave no reaction. Just continued with quiet honesty.

“You cannot defeat Aixin. Not even in her current state. But you can save Joan, like you intended.”

I wanted to believe him. Maybe I even did. But before he completely vanished, I stepped forward, gripping the edge of his fading sleeve. “Wait,” I said. “Any idea how to break through this damn time loop cage they’ve got me in? And that weird curse that keeps turning me into stone… dragging me back to my worst memories?”

The old man paused. His sleeve shimmered and then crumbled away in my hand.

He folded his arms, thoughtful. “The former sounds like the Never-Ending Bonds of Regrets.”

I narrowed my eyes. “That’s a spell?”

“A curse. Usually used on oneself. But here, someone’s used a modified version to form a prison. Rarely seen outside of old Spirit Kings.”

“And the petrification?” I pressed.

His face turned grim.

“That sounds like Punishment of the Wicked Who Pretends to Be Good.”

I flinched. Just from the name.

“It’s a powerful curse,” he went on, “that doesn’t judge you by karma or action, but by perception… by how deeply the caster, and sometimes the world, sees your hypocrisy. Even if you believe yourself right, the curse reacts to the contradiction between what you claim to stand for… and what you are.”

I frowned, jaw tight.

I didn’t need to ask what he meant. I remembered the loops, the Summit Hall, the bodies, and the choices. Even if I had reasons, they were still bodies. They were still my choices.

“And how do I counter it?” I asked quietly.

He looked at me, his eyes softer now. Maybe the first time they truly carried something like sympathy.

He told me each method, cost, and path of risk. I listened to all of it and engraved it in my mind. There was no room for forgetting now.

And then…

His form gave way into dust and sparkling light. He didn’t vanish so much as disperse, as though his purpose had been fulfilled and the rest of him was no longer necessary.

Finally, I was alone.

“I’ve done what I can,” Joan whispered in my ear, her voice soft and close as a mirage of her arms wrapped gently around my chest from behind. "Now, it's your move..."

I didn’t turn. Instead, I just tapped her hand lightly.

“I got it handled,” I said, steadying my breath. “You’ll see Dave again.”

I blinked.

And when my eyes opened, I was back in the real world.

Back inside the suffocating heat of the Wandering Adjudicator armor, its layered divine plates clinging to my skin like molten memory. The world rushed in with violence. The sound of destruction, the scent of burning divine silk, and the pressure of fate trying to erase me.

Over a dozen Heavenly Punishments in the shape of golden swords were already halfway to crushing me. They came screaming with power like the fury of a god scorned, each one burning hotter than judgment, and more absolute.

They hit.

I exploded.

Flesh, bone, and soul scattered across the Summit Hall like I was nothing more than a joke line at the end of a tragedy. But inside my Spell Resonance, written in the golden script of divine thought, was one thing: “Divine Word: Raise.” So even if I was reduced to a pulpy ruin, even if the world no longer recognized my body as a human shape… I resurrected.

The moment I came back, I roared with breathless defiance, my stats surging from Exalted Renewal, the armor flaring with silver-gold radiance. I immediately recast Blessed Regeneration, feeling the holy light mend my viscera and knit what remained of my mana channels.

Then I quickly reapplied Divine Word: Life, because somehow, it had been dispelled when the Heavenly Punishments hit me, which shouldn’t have been possible. That was… troubling. Behind me, half the Summit Hall was just gone. It was vaporized by Aixin’s godlike technique. Stone, banners, even the few carcasses of people, were wiped clean from existence.

I turned my eyes forward.

There she was. Aixin.

Her body was just as mangled as mine had been moments ago, burned, shattered, and bleeding silver from cracked skin thanks to Reflect… but with a few slow breaths and a whisper of qi, she was whole again.

Of course, she was.

I reached inward. My Divine Sense, fused with the remnants of the old man’s techniques, bloomed outward. I saw the energies spiraling around us… faith, fury, and fear. I saw the way time twisted near Aixin’s staff, and the way the air crackled with causality bending to her whim.

“Just die already,” Aixin spat, her face twisted into a grimace, as if I were the problem here.

I scoffed. “So what? So that you can reset time and redo everything? You can twist the cage tighter, make it more inescapable?” I raised Silver Steel and let it gleam with holy wrath. “No. Not today. Today’s my show. And while I might not be able to kill you… I’ll make damn sure you feel pain.”

I cast Heavenly Punishment on my own blade.

One Spell Slot, gone.

Silver Steel shimmered with divine weight, each swing now judgment incarnate. I inhaled. Reached deeper. Recalled what the old man had taught me… what he had burned into my soul before he turned to dust.

I cast Holy Sword.

Another Spell Slot was gone.

The blade pulsed like a miniature sun, overflowing with celestial authority. My arms strained just to hold it.

Aixin sneered. “Try as you might, you will never kill me!”

“I said it already, didn’t I?” I planted the tip of my sword into the ground and looked her straight in the eye. “I’m not here to kill you.”

I lifted the blade again.

“I’m here to hurt you.”

I swung.

Radiant Arc carved through the air, sharp, blinding, and furious. Not a Spell Slot was expended, but enhanced by the previous two, it might have as well been an Ultimate Skill. My mana dipped hard, almost violently, as I forced the cast through.

Aixin raised her staff and slammed it into the floor.

Seven holy barriers formed around her in an instant, each one denser than the last, layers of sanctified shielding meant to stop gods and devils alike.

I didn’t hesitate.

I kept swinging.

More Radiant Arcs, one after the other, each smashing into her barrier. But they vanished on contact. There was neither explosion nor pushback. They just… dissolved.

Aixin laughed cruelly. “That was it? They were so... light.”

I rested my sword on my shoulder, letting it burn. “I haven’t started yet.”

"Then start already," she remarked. "I will have my way with you, just you wait."

"So clingy," I smirked. “Hey… ever heard of delayed damage?”

That wiped the smile off her face. I cast Judgment Severance, my ultimate dispel technique. A golden, cross-shaped rupture split the air between us. I felt the magic get devoured, her barriers flickered, then cracked, then vanished like glass hit by a hammer.

I charged, relying solely on physical speed.

No flying, no blinking… just one step after another with Silver Steel raised high.

I swung at her face.

She barely caught it with her staff, and our eyes locked.

“Don’t underestimate me, you worm!” she hissed.

Then the delayed damage was triggered.

Multiple Radiant Arcs, from all the swings I made earlier, reappeared around her, converging with divine vengeance. They tore across her body, each one ripping open bloody lines of light. Her body jolted under the impact, and her expression cracked.

“Hey, here’s the second volley!”

Another eruption of golden annihilation burst forth from the tip of my sword as I pushed forward, laughing now, laughing in her bloodied face. “In the end,” I shouted, grinning like a madman, “I might not get the last laugh…”

I raised my sword again.

“…but I’m laughing right now! Hahaha!”

Three spell slots left.