I'm not gonna lie. This is quite the precarious situation. I'm exhausted. Missing an arm.
On the bright side, Edward's very capable. But against two dragons, five giants, and a bunch of assassins with who knows what kind of poisons? Yeah, that's an uphill battle.
"What do you say about running, Edward?"
He glanced back for just a second, wary eyes flicking to the slowly advancing enemies.
"I fear that is not an option, John. You cannot simply leave the corpse of your next rune lying about."
"I never told you I'm gonna use the Chompworm for a rune."
He gave a faint smile. "You did not need to. I make it my business to know such things. You will need that rune, John. Trust me."
I'm gonna need that explanation later.
"So what's the plan?"
"They are after you," he said, blade gleaming as he drew it. "You will recover—and not die. I shall deal with them."
Easier said than done. This is the most effort they've ever put into an assassination by far. How the hell did they even plan for this?
Before I could finish the thought, Edward blurred. One instant he was beside me, the next he was already among the assassins. His sword flashed—two heads rolled before their bodies even hit the ground. A giant swung down with a club, but Edward turned immaterial, the weapon phasing straight through him. He countered with a clean, brutal slice, but another giant blocked it.
Meanwhile, the two dragons and three other giants came barreling for me. Still weak, I ducked behind the Chompworm's corpse.
Dragonfire roared—but the worm didn't burn. The second dragon came from the opposite side, throat swelling with flame. I warped away, but the giants caught up fast, circling me.
I swung at the one in front, my remaining arm slamming into its face. It stumbled—but I was too weak. It recovered and swung its burning sword. I jumped back, but caught a frost club to the spine and went flying through the trees.
Before I could recover, dragonfire came from above. I warped again, barely avoiding it, though my foot still got singed.
The dragon to my left lowered its head, throat swelling with fire. Another giant came from the right, frost club raised high. I was trapped.
My Aim Rune gave me a second of perfect focus. The dragon was the bigger threat. I activated my Portal Rune—
A fist shot from the ground, smashing into the dragon's jaw and blasting its fire harmlessly into the air.
The frost club came down on my head, cracking my skull. I reeled. Then, through the haze, I saw an assassin lunging, dagger aimed for the wound—
A claymore intercepted it.
"Good show, John," Edward said as he landed beside me. "Still breathing. I am impressed."
Damn. Does he think he's cool or something? Because he is.
"Wow, if I didn't know any better, I'd think you were flirting with me."
"I have a wife and children, John."
"I didn't hear a no."
He gave me that knightly half-smile. "You have not changed."
He lifted his sword overhead, taking a flawless stance. "Run. I dealt with the other two giants and most of the Travelers."
'Travelers?' Another question for later. His armor was cracked, blood dripping down his cheek.
"You sure? You look like you're about to fall over. I've recovered a bit. How about we take care of this together? They're after me anyway."
He hesitated. "Very well. But no matter what happens, you must not die."
"Alright, knightly orders understood."
Three giants, two dragons, and a bunch of assassins left. Doable.
We stood side by side. I broke the standoff, warping straight into a dragon's flank. Its tail swung at me. Wrong move. I leapt onto its back and clung to its scales.
Edward dashed up invisible platforms, his blade blazing like a comet.
I hammered my fist into the dragon's spine. It screamed, thrashing, rolling. I bit down on its hide just to stay on—my teeth sinking into dragon flesh as I kept punching between its vertebrae.
A giant dove down, aiming for me. I dodged, and the blow crushed the dragon instead, finally killing it.
"Oops. Friendly fire's on." I taunted. The air froze around us as the frost giant roared.
On the other side, the second dragon came crashing down like a meteor, one wing severed, but still alive. Edward landed near me, sword in hand.
"Four remain," he said.
The world around us was turning to fire and ice.
Edward moved first. He skated along the frost, closing the distance with terrifying grace. The dragon unleashed a stream of fire, but he cut through it like silk, his voice ringing out in a low, solemn chant:
"By ash and oath, by wound and flame,
Let false fire know its shame.
Smite the Unclean Flame!"
One perfect slash. The dragon's fire went out—and so did its life. It fell, split cleanly in two.
Edward staggered, panting.
"Watch out!" The last giant was trying to end Edward. I shouted, sprinting forward—but two giants blocked me.
The last one charged Edward. He turned intangible again, the sword phasing through him. Close call.
I swept a giant's leg out, slamming it down. It howled, tried to rise, but I was already on it. I kicked its jaw off like a football. It caught my leg midair, freezing it in place. The other giant took the opening, driving its sword forward. I caught the blade with my hand, boiling blood pouring down my arm.
I yanked it forward and smashed my forehead into its jaw. It stumbled. I stomped the first one's chest, shattering its ribs and heart. Dead.
I threw the club at it, attempting to distract it. It parried the flying weapon, but I took the opportunity to use my Portal Rune. Portals opened and closed in fractions of seconds, my fist coming through it. Left, right, up, down. My fist came through the ground, the trees, the rocks, bruising it all over.
A portal opened again. The giant tried to block with its sword, expecting a fist—wrong move. I didn't punch this time. I kicked straight on. No portal. Just impact.
It went down hard.
"Forgot about me, dumbass?"
It tried to rise, but I crushed its skull with one final punch.
When I looked back, Edward was sitting in the dirt, exhausted. I smiled at him. He smiled back.
Then an assassin rose from the ground behind him, poisoned blade drawn.
"Behind you!"
Edward phased through the strike—but another assassin waited, ready to strike the moment he came back to the material world.
Too far to help. No time to think.
I bent my right knee, brought my left fist to my chin, and activated every rune I had.
Space shattered.
In an instant, my Portal Rune's range increased a hundredfold from sixteen feet. A portal opened beside Edward. My fist shot through and blew the assassin apart.
I fell, gasping. Everything hurt.
J̸̝̱͋͗ò̷͇̐͊̾h̸̢͍͚̓͒͗͌͒͊n̵̛͔̯̮͙͋͗̕̚!̴̲̰̒̅
I heard a voice. Everything hurt. Why is it so cold? Is that Edward running here? I feel… tired. You can do this John. You've done this before. You can survive thi–
I felt a blade through my heart. An assassin.
"Hither to me—The Great Sunder!"
Its head suddenly separated from its body. Edward killed him. Great. At least he's safe. I think I'm gonna sleep now.
J̷o̶h̸n̴.̸ ̵S̷t̴a̴y̷ ̸w̶i̵t̸h̷ ̷m̸e̷.̶ ̷Y̵o̴u̵ ̵c̸a̸n̸'̸t̵ ̶d̷i̴e̶.̴
Is that Edward talking? What did he say?
"John, listen to me. You can't die. No matter what. You're our only hope." His voice was so weak. I can't hear him. Speak louder man.
"John. I'm going to inject you with new blood. This blood should help. It should contain antibodies already resistant to the poison within you."
"I'm AB negative. Is that blood compatible?" I managed to mumble. Half jokingly. I don't even know if they knew about blood types.
"Do not worry. There's no blood more compatible than this."
I felt a needle piercing me. New blood went in my body. I felt an unimaginable strength coursing through my body. I felt like I could destroy planets with a single strike. Fold dimensions with a will and snuff out stars. My wounds healed at an accelerated rate. The poison about to rot me from within destroyed. I gasped from the high.
I looked at Edward, now looking worse than me.
"What the hell did you just give me?"
He looked rough. Armor in tatters. Blood seeped through the cracks, dark and steady. His breathing came shallow and strained.
"You're in rough shape, Edward. Do you have more of that healing blood? Quick, inject it into yourself."
He gasped, face pale as chalk. "It will not work. Not for me. Not for anyone. Anyone but you, John."
He swayed where he stood, and I darted forward to catch him—but my hand passed straight through his body.
"Turn that off, Edward! I can't help you like this."
He shut his eyes, face tightening in effort. His form flickered, buzzed, glitched—then grew even paler. My hand still met empty air.
"I cannot," he said quietly. "It is too late. I have abused my powers beyond their limit."
"What? That can't be right. I've never heard of such a thing."
"I am an Anomaly, John. Just as you are. And Anomalies pay the price for their power… in due time."
I froze. The weight in his voice made my stomach twist. I didn't know what to say, so I asked the question burning in my mind.
"Why won't that blood you injected me with work for anyone else, Edward? Whose blood is that?"
He was silent for a moment, each breath sounding more labored than the last.
"…It is yours, John."
My mind spun. "What?"
"Your own blood," he said. His one good eye met mine. "Taken half a century from now."
He smiled weakly. "Yes… I am from the future. And I have come to save the world."
His words finally clicked all the pieces in my mind. The cryptic talk. The impossible knowledge. Him acting all friendly right from the start. He knew me. He knew me from the future.
It all made sense now.
Time travel.
"Fifty years from now?"
"More or less. Time travel is not an exact science," he said, his tone faint but laced with wry humor.
"I'm still here in fifty years?"
He smiled weakly. "Aye. You are indeed still here in fifty years."
That hit me harder than anything else. Fifty years, and I still hadn't found home.
Edward jolted me out of my thoughts.
"John! Collect yourself. Not all is lost." His voice, though ragged, still carried command.
"I am changing things—here and now—to make certain the future we saw does not come to pass."
I forced my thoughts to focus. "What's in the future you're trying to change?"
"The world was destroyed, John. There was nothing left, save for you, myself, and a handful of other Anomalies. All that remained of the planet were scraps of what once was."
"H-how?"
"The world slowly died. We never discerned the cause. One day, there was a plague that destroyed wheat. The plague spread throughout the entire world. Famine followed. The death toll was staggering.
We had no choice but to plant other crops as we could not find the disease causing the wheat to die. We used corn, and other plants as alternatives, and that worked for a while. We thought that it was just unlucky that an incredible sickness targeted the wheat. That it was over.
Then the sickness spread—to corn, to carrots, to every crop we knew. Trees withered. The animals fell ill. And, in time, the plague reached mankind."
"People died in droves. Only some survived through healing and magic. We even rebuilt, creating new crops with the help of the other continents. Every species banded together to survive. For a moment, hope flickered. But the world was weakened beyond repair. Only we—Anomalies—remained untouched. And then, at our weakest…"
He paused, gasping for air. His body flickered, fading at the edges.
"They attacked."
"Who?"
"People from beyond. They appeared as though they had waited for that very moment—wielding powers akin to ours, but refined, perfected. We fought, but their numbers were too much. Too much for our remaining paltry members. One by one, we fell."
His eyes softened, sorrow deep within them. "You fought valiantly, John. You saved countless lives. Yet in the end… you, too, fell."
He drew in a shaking breath. "But I am here to change that."
He straightened slightly, mustering the last of his strength. "My powers allow me to exist between dimensions—superimposed upon multiple realities. It lets me become immaterial… and cut through space itself. The brilliant mind of Julius discovered that the same art might, in theory, cut through time."
"Julius? He's still alive then? What am I saying—of course he's still alive. Probably still researching, huh?"
Edward's lips curved into a faint smile. "Indeed. He was still alive. It was his genius that gave us this chance—to rewrite our fate."
I grinned despite myself. "Even at the end of the world, Julius still delivers."
"So what's the plan, then? How are you changing things?"
"I already have." His gaze drifted to the corpse of the Chompworm.
"You were never meant to take this creature's rune. By the time we learned of its spatial power, your body had already reached its limit. My plan was to guide you early—so you would claim its power now."
I frowned. "How does that help?"
"One: its strength will greatly enhance your control over space. I pray that fifty years from now, that difference will grant you the might to face those from beyond.
"And two…" He faltered, glitching further. "…Even should you fail, the Chompworm's power will grant you a storage unlike any other—a space vast enough to become a world of its own. A living refuge, should all else fall."
"That's… bold. And kind of bleak."
He gave a pained chuckle. "Aye. But better a bleak hope than none at all. These enemies are stronger than you can yet imagine. As you are now, it is not enough." He looked down at his sword. "I am not enough."
A tear rolled from his eye—but vanished before it touched the ground, dissolving into nothing. "If only I had been born sooner. If only I'd had more time to prepare. If only I'd been wiser." His fists clenched, tears flowing freely now.
"I am tired, John." His gaze turned skyward—to the trees, the birds, the sun. "You have a beautiful world here. Promise me you shall protect it."
He flickered again, form unraveling at the edges. His voice was fading into static.
"I promise." I clasped his ethereal hand. "How can I help you, Ed?"
He managed a small smile. "You called me Ed back then too. I detested it." His voice broke with a chuckle. "But… it is too late now. I have lingered between dimensions too long. They are pulling me apart."
He winced, eyes trembling. "The moment I stepped into the timestream… my fate was sealed."
He looked at me one last time.
"John… do not die. Beware the Travelers. The assassins. They will hunt you still—even at world's end."
He gasped one final time, voice shattering like glass.
"I did my part. It is time for you to do yours."
And those were the last words of Edward Forobix.
He faded from the world, leaving nothing behind.