Chapter 80: Dammit

Jaxir checked the map again, then focused directly on the man below him in case the problem was with the halo rather than the target. Nothing changed except a faint name appearing over the man’s head, while every other piece of information remained hidden.

―

Rovan Thale

―

There was no Level, Class, Path or HP, and the map still refused to place a dot where he stood. Jaxir pursed his lips as he looked between Rovan and the empty space on the map, wondering whether a shroud could really hide someone this completely or if there was something else going on.

Rovan raised his spear and pointed it straight at him. "Defiler! You have broken the sacred balance of these lands and spilled the blood of the guardian that protected it!"

Jaxir’s face twisted as he tried to figure out what the hell the man was talking about. "You might want to narrow that down."

Rovan didn’t bother explaining.

Twinkle Mana gathered around the spear in a tight spiral, then exploded from its tip as a narrow lance of twisting light. Jaxir threw himself from the branch the moment he saw it coming, and the attack tore through the space he had occupied before punching clean through several trees behind him.

Jaxir fell through the canopy with his robes snapping around his body and glanced toward the holes the beam had left behind. Whatever Rovan’s hidden Level was, Jaxir didn’t need a status screen to know that taking one of those attacks with 50 HP would end the fight immediately.

"Fuck."

Rovan had already angled the spear downward by the time Jaxir looked back, and another knot of Twinkle Mana began winding around its head. Jaxir let himself keep falling instead of burning Double Jump too early, watching the man’s shoulders and waiting until the spear finally moved.

The second lance ripped downward.

Jaxir kicked against the air at the last possible moment, and Double Jump snapped him sideways far enough for the beam to miss beneath his feet. He caught another branch on the way past, swung himself around it and landed on a thicker one several meters away before raising the Staff of the Light.

A quick Cast shot from its tip.

Jaxir kept the mana low since he only wanted to test the man’s defenses, but the attack never reached him. The air around Rovan warped just before impact and twisted the Cast sharply to one side, sending it flying past his shoulder and into the forest.

Jaxir’s eyes narrowed. He had felt that before.

Twinkle Anchor worked by confusing mana and forcing attacks to divert at improper angles, and whatever surrounded Rovan operated on the same principle. The difference was that Jaxir’s imitation felt crude in comparison, while this field bent his Cast aside without Rovan even reacting.

That also gave Jaxir an answer for the map.

If Twinkle Mana could distort an incoming spell that cleanly, then it didn’t seem impossible for the same effect to interfere with whatever the map used to detect people. Jaxir had just started wondering how Rovan was maintaining something that complicated while putting all of his attention into attacking when another detail finally stood out.

The mana wasn’t coming from him.

Thin currents of Twinkle Mana moved beneath the bear’s black fur, spreading outward in waves every time Jaxir’s attention brushed over it. Rovan barely seemed involved in the defensive effect at all, keeping both hands committed to his spear while the bear handled everything around them.

’Oh.’

Jaxir fired two more Casts from different angles just to confirm it, and both curved away before they got close enough to touch the rider. The bear shifted under Rovan each time, its fur flashing with faint light while the warped field moved with it.

"So you’re the shield."

The bear growled.

Rovan answered by attacking again.

Jaxir jumped to another tree as a lance tore through the branch behind him, then had to move again before his feet fully settled because another followed almost immediately. Within a few exchanges, he stopped trying to counter entirely and focused on keeping enough distance that one mistake didn’t turn into an instant death.

That became harder the longer it continued.

Rovan’s attacks didn’t lose pressure when the bear moved, and the bear itself had no trouble keeping track of Jaxir through the forest. Every time Jaxir changed direction or tried to break sight between the trees, its head turned after him and Rovan’s spear followed a moment later.

Whatever this was, it didn’t feel like Gravity.

Rovan hadn’t mentioned the Minor God once, and there was no temple language, bounty talk or demand that Jaxir answer for defying divine authority. He kept yelling about the forest, balance, guardians and desecration while trying to put glowing holes through Jaxir’s chest.

That was when Jaxir’s gaze met the enraged gaze of the bear.

The animal stared back at him, nostrils flaring as it pulled in his scent, and something finally clicked into place. Jaxir remembered another black-furred bear, a dungeon, a furious King and the very long list of increasingly ridiculous consequences that had started after he killed it.

’Fuck me.’

He almost missed the next lance while the realization landed.

This bastard wasn’t here because of Gravity at all. He was here because Jaxir had killed the Twinkle Twinkle Bear King.

Jaxir pushed off another branch as the beam tore through the trunk beneath him, using Double Jump to carry himself farther through the canopy. "Since when does killing a dungeon boss come with fucking relatives?"

Rovan roared something about restoring what Jaxir had broken, which did absolutely nothing to make the situation better. If Jaxir had known how many problems would come with that damned dungeon, he might have at least taken a piss on the bear king’s corpse after he was done to make it worth it.

This game was too damn realistic.

Jaxir had been trying to put distance between himself and everyone chasing him from Glimmer, but Rovan was slowing him down enough that the people behind would eventually catch up. Running away from Rovan wouldn’t solve much either when the bear seemed able to follow his scent regardless of where Jaxir went.

The shroud was supposed to hide him from the kinds of systems and people Gravity could use to find him, but the bear didn’t seem to care in the slightest. It wasn’t reading his Name or Divine Standing, and it didn’t need a map when it could simply stick its nose in the air and follow him.

Jaxir’s expression tightened as the implications got worse.

He had been planning to lock himself inside a private room for three days while the Gravity Blessing rebuilt his body, but what happened if someone came after him with a beast like this? The Goddess of Light could hide every piece of information connected to him and it wouldn’t mean much if some Beast Tamer walked down the hallway and pointed at his door.

’If the shroud can be beaten this easily, I’m cooked.’

Another lance tore past him, close enough that the light washed over the side of his face before disappearing into the forest. Jaxir landed, pushed off again and glanced toward the map out of habit, already trying to decide whether he should fight Rovan properly or gamble on outrunning the bear.

Then several red dots appeared along the edge of his detection range.

Jaxir stared at them while more followed.

’Dammit. What do I do?’