Chapter 46: Full Speed Ahead

There was no anchor.

There was no sail.

Although his bony raft was absent of either, Pax voyaged with purpose, drifting along the current towards a known calamity in desperate defiance.

***

Peace looked to his left, gazing up at his new illusory crewmate.

’Well, that didn’t take too long.’

It had been only a few minutes since he’d been targeted, yet he was already within ’one render distance.’

’It didn’t even chuck a spear.’

That fact gave him some hope that Dita had escaped, having taken it with her.

Staring into its bulging, venose red eyes, Peace studied its empty hands from the corner of his eye.

’You certainly don’t have it.’

That wasn’t exactly conclusive, as the spear didn’t always appear with an apparition, but it was still a good sign.

Eventually, the specter disappeared, taking its ominous aura with it and allowing Peace to focus on the path ahead.

He had little chance of spotting the true Stalker. Not only was it cloaked once again, but the winding banks of the River of Blood obscured it from view. Since it always took a straight path toward its target, it was unlikely to appear in the blood at all. More likely, it would eventually emerge somewhere along the riverside wherever a bend crossed its path.

What he could see, however, was the sky.

’Getting lighter and lighter.’

Hints of blue had begun to appear way off in the distance.

That...

That was the sky of the Convergence Zone.

’At the rate I’m going... thirty minutes?’

Sadly, Peace wouldn’t even know exactly when he was safe, since, unlike in the game, he didn’t have an indicator to tell him when he had exited a zone.

Neither did he have an exact grasp of time.

So far, all of his and Dita’s calculations had been done using their internal clocks; they’d mainly used the Stalker’s position to estimate when it would reach them. That was why they’d mistimed it so terribly once it had gone invisible.

Peace didn’t even have the luxury of seeing where it was now, so he had to stay on guard. For all he knew, it could emerge from behind him the moment it caught up.

Another apparition appeared, this one on the riverbank, watching as he drifted past. It was quickly obscured by a wall of bones as the current washed him around a bend.

Before Peace knew it, another appeared. It chased after him from behind, running across the blood.

Worse, another apparition appeared sitting right next to him, dangling its skeletal feet off the side of the raft while staring down at him.

’Oh, that’s just unfair!’

It seemed he had triggered the ’weakness’ part of the ability.

’I didn’t even look away!’

And now... Peace realized just how quickly the ability could spiral out of control. After all, he could only keep eye contact with one of them.

Well...

There was one solution left to him.

Keeping his eyes locked on the running one, Peace wildly swung his fist through the face of the creepy skeleton next to him.

Shivering, Peace watched in his peripheral vision as it vanished.

Time continued to pass, and more apparitions appeared and disappeared.

Eventually, they became less creepy and more annoying.

Some of the positions they appeared in were almost comical.

Overall, though, they were still mostly creepy.

Still, triggering the second level of ’weakness’ created an unintended boon for Peace.

They always appeared in pairs, with one some distance away and the other right beside him.

And, despite their sheer quantity, none of them wielded a spear.

Finally...

Peace looked to his right, spotting a vague, shimmering silhouette against the red sky. Sometimes the apparitions revealed themselves cloaked to catch him off guard, but seeing as this one appeared alone...

"We meet again, bastard."

Peace shifted onto his knees, tracking the veiled figure as it descended the riverbank toward the water’s edge. For a few moments, it traveled nearly parallel to him, moving just a little faster than the bone mass carrying him, which he could now confirm counted as his own movement.

It was in its stalk phase, yet to initiate combat.

’Like hell it’s throwing the first punch!’

If it did, Peace would have little chance of creating any separation afterward.

Contorting himself, Peace reached into his backpack and pulled out an almost empty canteen. Downing whatever was left in it, he took aim and fired.

He chucked the container at the approaching Stalker, nailing it square in the head as the current carried him alongside it.

Peace flipped up his middle finger as its body seemed to materialize from thin air, its masking coming undone.

"Haha! Fuck you!"

Immediately, the Skeletal Stalker’s head twisted, following Peace. A cold chill washed over him, almost making him freeze entirely.

Then it bounded after him with intense fervor, racing along the bank before cutting toward the river, gaining ground on him by the second.

’Shit... shit, shit!’

All Peace could do was awkwardly smile as he took out the dagger he had stowed away on day one of his dungeon adventure, along with Noble Path of a True King and a few Spirit Stones.

"Look, man! I’m sorry, I didn’t mean it!"

’Oh, I definitely did!’

Using the few seconds he had before it reached him, Peace swiveled on the mound as best he could, putting himself on the back end of it.

The moment he did...

It leapt.

Peace’s eyes widened as they followed the monster upward.

’Same old, same old!’

Just like the boss of a game, perhaps because it literally was, its moveset was repetitive and predictable.

As it reached the apex of its jump, Peace dove straight toward it.

He didn’t look up, but the blood swallowed him before the bony bastard could grab him.

Peace twisted and began to kick with the current, clutching the dagger and book to his chest, the Spirit Stones crammed between its pages.

Surfacing for a moment, Peace took a much-needed gasp as he searched for the Skeletal Stalker.

He found it beside the split bone mass, tearing shattered bones from its body.

’I knew that plan was a bust.’

Operation get the skeleton stuck in bones had failed. Unlike the Skeleton Warriors, the Stalker was simply far too strong to be contained.

Now...

Now it was just a race.

Diving back under, Peace kicked desperately.

The only other thing he could do was drop the knife and book.

Yet...

He still clung to ’Ghost Girl’s’ warning.

Even as his body screamed in pain, as his clothes and skin snagged on loose bones, he heeded those words.

Throwing his head above the surface once again, he looked up to see that the sky above him had begun changing. A lighter red stretched overhead now, and beneath the rush of blood he could faintly hear the distant roar of the Moonlit Falls.

But that light red sky soon became blotted out...

’...damn.’

It seemed Peace had lost the race...

Its limbs stretched wide, the Stalker was falling toward him.

Barely able to control his direction, let alone reduce his speed, there was no way to alter the skeleton’s trajectory.

Tilting his head up, all he could think to do was let out a fruitless scream:

"Help!"

Suddenly, the Skeletal Stalker was flung onto the bloody riverbank. Bones exploded from where it landed, and Peace caught sight of a spear driven through its body... its own spear.

A moment later, it disappeared.

The culprit...?

"You called?"

Fighting to stay above the bloody surface, Peace’s eyes found a woman. A woman in a pure, dainty white dress with pale skin and white hair. A pair of wings folded over her eyes from the back of her head.

Unlike her first appearance, she was no longer crying; in fact, the look on her face seemed smug, if anything.

’Is she expecting me to respond?!’

She looked upon Peace as if he wasn’t actively drowning in blood, regarding him with a warm smile as she walked along the bank, somehow matching his pace with ease.

"You did well to keep it safe."

Peace tried to claw his way to the side, but the current was simply too strong.

Apparently unconcerned by that, she began to talk while watching him struggle.

"Now, do clutch it tightly."

A moment later, she vanished without a trace.

’Huh? Seriously?’

The last thing Peace expected was for his call for help to be answered...

Let alone by ’Ghost Girl.’

’But why did her help only go so far?!’

She’d taken care of the Stalker, but if she’d done that much, why not go one step further and pull him out?! It was clear she had the means!

’I mean, come on!’

Peace tried and tried to fight the current, but minutes passed, and the most he could manage with his aching body was a few shallow breaths before being dragged back under.

He didn’t know how long he’d been struggling to stay afloat, even without the Stalker on his ass, but he’d definitely crossed into the Convergence Zone at some point. He was rapidly approaching the edge of Moonlit Falls, the gigantic waterfall that fed into the Purity Basin, where the blood would be purified into water.

’Ah...’

Surfacing for a moment, he saw the edge rapidly approaching. Peace took a long gasp, dropped the knife, then folded himself into a fetal position.

At last, the current swept him over.

Peace was sent into a free fall.