novelraw Chapter 107: Time Remaining
Chapter 107: Time Remaining
After the steamy shower, two of them were already in bed. Nyla was in an especially good mood, giggling softly to herself and purring in satisfaction as she shifted beside him in bed to sleep.
The exhaustion washed over Damon without warning. The moment his back hit the soft cushion of the bed, his eyes grew restlessly tired, and the last thing he could remember before he fell asleep was Nyla’s head settling on his chest.
***
Damon was the first to wake up.
The room was quiet, the kind of quiet that only existed in places the world had mostly emptied out. Grey morning light came through the curtains, thin and even, and for a moment, he simply lay there adjusting to the fact that the surface beneath him was soft and still and not trying to flood or collapse or produce something that wanted to kill him.
Nyla was beside him, one arm across his chest, her breathing slow and even. She’d stolen most of the blanket at some point in the night without apparently waking up to do so. Her hair was no longer damp from the shower they had hours earlier.
He stayed still for a moment longer than necessary before carefully moving her arm and sitting up.
With all the things he had been through recently, he had levelled up quite a bit, and now it was time to check that progress.
His status window appeared with a single thought.
***
[Name: Damon]
[Level: 66]
[Race: Human]
[Class: Error-!]
[Attributes: System Breaker, Dark Evolution (Lord of Darkness), Dark Legion(Lord of Darkness)]
[Classes (3/∞): Lord of Darkness, Berserker, Blacksmith]
[Abilities: Black Ice Manipulation (Lord of Darkness), Domain of Darkness, Corrosion (Lord of Darkness), Shadow Manipulation (Lord of Darkness), Absolute Comprehension, Ravenous Bloodlust(Blood Berserker), Blood Berserker’s Fury(Blood Berserker), Furnace(Blacksmith), Relic Weaving(Blacksmith), Verdict, Inspect]
[Talents: Abyssal Sword Art I]
[Stats:
— Strength: 223 (with [Blade of Midnight] equipped)
— Dexterity: 158
— Vitality: 247
— Stamina: 163
— Mana: 192
— Luck: 1]
[Stat Points Available: 16]
***
A lot had changed since Damon had last checked his status screen.
He studied it carefully, working through each entry before his attention landed on the stat points. Sixteen available, more than he’d had at any one time before. Dexterity was the obvious choice, lagging behind everything else, and so he put all sixteen in without hesitation.
The effect was immediate and physical.
A single stat point was always noticeable, a subtle sharpening, like adjusting focus, but sixteen at once was something else entirely. It moved through him like a current, settling into his muscles and reflexes with a clarity that made the world around him feel fractionally slower and more readable than it had a moment before.
He flexed his hand once, then dismissed it and moved on.
The rift shard was next. He wanted to know what an A-Rank rift yielded before he—
He froze.
Something else had caught his eye. A notification sitting quietly at the edge of the screen, one he hadn’t looked at since leaving the citadel, because there had been no reason to.
That was until now.
[First Phase World Quest]
[Time Remaining: 16 Hours, 23 Minutes and 5 Seconds]
He blinked.
After capturing the citadel, they should have had over twenty days remaining. He’d been gone for a couple of days, maybe a week at the most, assuming the time inside the rift flew a little differently. But sixteen hours didn’t add up to a couple of days of lost time. Not even close.
Something was wrong. Damon didn’t have any leads to go on, but he had an eerie suspicion that it had something to do with their unusual rift.
His mind went straight to the citadel.
Ivy was capable, he knew that, but capable didn’t mean untouchable.
Other human groups out there must’ve known that the citadel existed by now. Someone could have moved against them while he was unreachable inside the rift. Or perhaps even an internal feud, loyalties that hadn’t fully settled, people who followed them because it was convenient, who would most certainly stop when it felt like it wasn’t.
Nothing was off the table. Not anymore. Not in a world that had already proven it would keep finding new ways to go wrong and test them.
He needed to get back. Now.
But before he could even get up from the bed—
"Morning," Nyla’s voice suddenly came from beside him as she shifted upright.
Damon dismissed his status screen and turned toward her, but before he could reply, her lips puckered, and she leaned forward to give him a quick peck on the lips.
Then, she pulled back, studying his face with a satisfied smile of someone who had achieved their goal before she leaned forward once more, giving him a longer kiss this time.
"We need to get going," Damon said as he pulled back.
Nyla rose a brow. "So suddenly?"
"The first world quest... It’s ending in 16 hours."
Her eyes widened slightly, then they went unfocused for a moment, clearly checking the status screen for herself, before she focused back on Damon.
"16 hours..." she murmured, while Damon was already moving.
Noticing he already getting ready to leave, she swung her long legs over the edge of the bed and moved toward him.
"What’s the rush? We’re already registered to the citadel..." She said softly as she moved beside him and wrapped her arms around his neck.
Damon paused.
She wasn’t wrong. If their connection to the citadel had been severed, they’d know by now. That wasn’t the concern.
It didn’t mean other things didn’t happen, things that he wanted to be aware of and ready for. He hated the idea of losing twenty days, and he needed to check on things himself to make sure they were all right.
"Hmmm, I guess it doesn’t matter," she suddenly said, before Damon could explain his reasoning. "I’ll get my hands on you no matter where you are."
She leaned in to a kiss once more, and this time, Damon’s hands found her waist.
It was only after she had had enough to satisfy herself, at least for now, that she pulled back and her arms dropped from his neck.
"Let’s go," she said merrily, and the two of them were already out the door.