Chapter 71 Revision War I

The tally on Verdict’s flat dropped from two eighty down to two hundred and six while the gray hand hung in the air three meters away.

Damien moved before the number fell further, and Flicker put him inside the construct’s reach with the saber already coming up under its ribs.

The cut landed clean through gray cloth and the construct absorbed it without a stagger, while the tally kept sliding downward behind him.

’It is not blocking, it is not dodging, and it is still eating my ledger from across the room, shit, this thing does not fight, it edits.’

[Blood Ledger value reverted: 74]

[Debt held: 206 → 132]

Blank had gone under the workbench at the first exchange and stayed there, sounding a low continuous note that rose whenever the gray hand moved.

’It is calling the corrections before they land, yeah, and I have about a quarter second of warning if I can learn to hear it.’

Mina had the eastern cabinet’s brace bar down with three barriers seeded before Damien finished his second exchange, she did not run.

"Every record in this room is duplicated in my head and on two chips in my boot, so stop looking at the cabinet," she called.

"Then guard the timing instead, since I need to know exactly how long each of its reversions takes," Damien answered.

The construct raised its hand toward the workbench, and Mina’s rebuilt vise sat there in its factory state for the second time in one day.

Except the vise had been modified again that afternoon, out of spite, in eleven minutes, with a hand file.

’She rebuilt it after the panel left, yeah, of course she did, and now the thing has to spend a correction on eleven minutes of stubbornness.’

The reversion took one and a half seconds, which Mina counted out loud in a flat voice that never once shook.

"Hey, that vise cost it a second and a half, your ledger slightly less, with nothing older than a day touched," she said.

"Then it cannot reach the shelf, the funerals, or the crest, and its whole range is fresh work," Damien replied.

Verdict came around in a Sterling draw that opened the construct’s coat and found nothing under it except more coat.

The Proofreader answered by reverting his footing, which meant the floor scuff his boot had made two seconds earlier simply un-happened, and his weight went through it.

He hit the bench on his shoulder, rolled off it, and came up with the Eye of Reckoning still returning question marks in every band.

’It erased where I stood, damn, so anything already finished is ammunition for it, and only unfinished things stay safe.’

That thought arrived intact and useful, which was rare enough that Damien decided to trust it immediately.

He stopped attacking, let the construct hit him once across the forearm, the Blood Ledger recorded the damage.

The gray hand moved, the entry reverted, the wound on his arm closed itself back into unbroken skin as though the exchange had never occurred.

"Tch, it just un-injured you, which is officially the most upsetting thing I have witnessed all year," Mina said, snapping her second barrier into the aisle.

"The injury was the receipt, so it deleted the receipt and gave me the arm back," Damien answered, watching his own skin knit backward.

Every point he earned it took back, the wounds traded for them came off his body again, the ledger sat empty while the thing advanced with the speed of an inspection.

’Nothing accrues, Reckoning is off the table, and there is no way to end this with the kit I paid for, okay, so which of my skills deals in events that have not finished yet.’

That left exactly one answer, which had been sitting in his loadout since the practical exam.

Damien invoked Stay of Execution on the next exchange and let a full swing of the construct’s arm go through his ribs without blocking.

[Stay of Execution active]

[Deferred: 900 damage]

[Timer: 11 seconds]

The gray hand came up toward the Stay, hung there, and for the first time in the fight the Proofreader stopped moving entirely.

’It cannot find the event, yeah, that damage has not landed yet, so there is nothing in the record for it to put back.’

The construct tried anyway, the workshop’s lights failed for a quarter second while it attempted to revert a wound that had not yet been received.

"Its head just made a sound like a dropped ledger and I want to be very far away from here," Mina said, dropping the third barrier behind him.

"Get the residue case behind the barrier and start counting again, since I need its timing on something it cannot finish," Damien replied.

He held the Stay and fought on the front foot for the next ninety seconds, which was the strangest fight of his life.

Silver Rain scored four times against gray cloth that healed each hit, Flicker moved him twice with the second blink erased under his feet, then his coat opened and shut itself along one seam.

Only the Stay remained, ticking down where the construct could see it without touching it, nine hundred points of damage sitting in a queue that had not come due.

"Timer at four seconds and it has stopped trying anything else," Mina called from behind the barrier line.

"Then it is going to reach for the Stay again when the timer runs out, since that is the moment the event finally exists," Damien answered.

The timer hit zero, the deferred damage landed, then nine hundred points of held violence went through his ribs and left side together.

Damien dropped onto one knee tasting copper, while the Blood Ledger recorded that whole amount in a single line.

[Deferred damage applied: 900]

[Debt: 132 → 1,032]

[Warning: approaching cap]

The Proofreader’s hand came up immediately, since a thousand points of fresh ledger value was the largest edit available in the room.

It reverted the Stay’s completion, which meant the nine hundred damage un-landed, which meant the wound closed and the Debt vanished.

Then the timer in the corner of his vision restarted from eleven, ticking down toward a wound that was suddenly scheduled to happen all over again.

’It did not delete the skill, it put the whole event back to before it finished, so the damage is queued a second time.’

[Stay of Execution: restored to active]

[Deferred: 900 damage]

[Timer: 11 seconds]

Damien knelt on the workshop floor with his ribs whole and his ledger empty, then started laughing in a way that made Mina take one step back.

"That sound means you have found something, it has never once been a comforting sound," she said.

"It reverted a debt back into an unpaid state, which happens to be the only thing in this world I recognize on sight," Damien answered, getting his feet under himself.

A Stay pushed back into its unfinished state is not a healed wound at all, since the damage still exists and merely sits waiting with a fresh timer above it.

The construct took that event out of the record and performed the correction itself, which made the whole thing an action with a price on it, unsigned by anybody.

[Anomalous liability detected]

[Owner: unassigned]

’Unassigned, yeah, so for the next eleven seconds there are nine hundred points of damage standing in this room with nobody’s name written on them.’

’And I have spent four months learning exactly one trick, which is putting a name on a debt that does not have one.’

Mina saw his face change, then had her toolroll open before he asked, pulling out the copper claimant relay she built for a completely different purpose.

"Whatever you are about to do, give me the timing and I will hold the window open, though my records stay exactly where they are," she said.

"Eleven seconds, one strike, I need the thing standing exactly where it is when the timer ends," Damien replied.

She threw two tripwire charges past the construct’s shoulders, detonating them behind it, which did no damage whatsoever while moving it forty centimeters forward.

The Proofreader stopped in the aisle, exactly between the workbench and the cabinet, well inside Verdict’s reach, with nine seconds left on a debt that belonged to nobody.

Damien set his feet, took the saber into the Sterling draw position, and watched the timer he was about to hand to somebody else.