Die. Respawn. Repeat. 2: A LitRPG Adventure by Silver Linings

Author:Silver Linings [Linings, Silver]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Aethon Books
Published: 2025-03-12T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 40

SLIPPING AWAY

To say that Whisper is angry is an understatement. I can see the color of her anger turning her Firmament a dark, stained crimson. It’s so strong it’s impacting the nature of her skills, even without having to use something like Hueshift; I can feel her anger like it’s heat against my skin, and I shift back out of Phaseslip to avoid it.

“I forgot how arrogant you Trialgoers can get,” she sneers at me.

I cock my head. “Aren’t you a Trialgoer too?”

The sound she makes is unintelligible, either because she isn’t saying anything in particular or because it’s too warped for the Interface to make sense of it. She has enough self-restraint, thankfully, to not immediately fire a beam of Firmament at me—out here in the slums of Isthanok, an attack like that would cause devastating casualties.

It occurs to me, perhaps a little late, that provoking her in the midst of a civilian-populated area is probably not the best of ideas.

But it’s also the only thing giving me an advantage. For all of Whisper’s faults, she seems hesitant to damage her beloved city. Her perfectionism seems to extend even to this more run-down part of Isthanok. I can see the way her eyes dart between the buildings next to me and behind me, as if trying to figure out if she can launch an attack without destroying a part of her city.

The answer, apparently, is that she cannot. And that tells me quite a bit about her capabilities all on its own.

“Why are you even letting the Integrators do this?” I ask. “Hestia isn’t growing. It’s held more than three hundred Trials without any Trialgoer succeeding. Your entire planet is just going through the motions. What’s the point?”

“Isthanok isn’t perfect yet,” Whisper says coldly. “If the time comes, I will free Hestia myself. But not before I fix everything.”

“That’s a better answer than I expected,” I say. “It’s still a bad answer, though.”

It takes me a second, but I realize why Whisper isn’t doing anything. The Firmament around and behind her is slightly distorted, the distortion just barely visible because it doesn’t follow the same gradient of density the rest of the Firmament in the area carries; I remember abruptly the frog-like creature that tried to assassinate me in one of the past loops.

If I’m not missing any of them, there are three of them gathered behind her, each of them aiming a Firmament weapon at me and ready to fire. I keep myself tensed—they’re Firmament-based attacks, so it’s not something I can just Phaseslip through. A Warpstep will get me out of the way if they’re too fast to dodge conventionally.

But I’m realizing I don’t like what I’m doing here.

I’m reacting. Whisper is making the first moves—right now, she has the advantage. She knows I’m a Trialgoer, and she knows enough to go after Miktik, even if she apparently doesn’t know what I look like or who I am. She should have sent a message back to

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