Lira dodged attack twenty-five when she heard the footsteps in the corridor.

She recognized them before seeing them.

She didn’t look toward the door.

She dodged attack twenty-six.

"You’re here," she said.

Kai and Serah entered the center.

Kai saw Lira dodging the entity’s arm with the same rhythm she’d had in the secondary transmission.

"How’s it going?" Kai said.

"How do you think?" Lira dodged the twenty-seventh. "Do you know how long I’ve been here alone?"

"I know, I’m sorry—"

"No, you don’t know." She dodged the twenty-eighth. "Because if you knew, you wouldn’t have taken so long to get here. Do you know what it’s like to be here without magic dodging an entity that only knows how to smile for—" she dodged "—all that time?"

"It was my fault," Kai said.

"Yes."

"And Serah’s."

"I don’t feel guilty."

"You should." She dodged the thirtieth. "Are you going to do something or just watch?"

Kai was already moving.

---

He crossed the distance between the entrance and Lira in three steps and scooped her up — one arm under her knees, the other on her back — and carried her toward where Serah was at the edge of the chamber before the entity completed its next attack.

Lira processed what had just happened.

"Put me down."

Kai kept walking.

"We’re here."

"Put me down right now."

Kai set her down.

Lira stood up. She adjusted her leather jacket. She looked at Kai. She looked at Serah. She looked back at Kai.

"How dare you," she whispered.

Serah looked at her.

Lira’s cheeks had a color that wasn’t the red of active blood magic.

"Don’t you dare," Serah said.

Lira closed her mouth.

She puffed her cheeks slightly.

She turned to the wall.

Serah watched her for a moment.

---

[DraconicLegacy: LIRA TURNED TO THE WALL HAHAHAHAHA]

[Dr_Snow: Lira’s cheeks. her CHEEKS. Lira, eight-hundred-year-old SS vampire.]

[Drakeking: Kai carried her, put her down, she whispered her indignation and turned to the wall. the complete arc in twenty seconds.]

[Jack_Moore: "don’t you dare" from Serah says it all. she saw the cheeks. she filed it away. will continue later.]

[Brandon_Haddan: Lira turning to the wall like a kid caught doing something (╥_╥) it’s adorable]

[RagingMutant: ┗(°0°)┛ LIRA HAS FEELINGS ┗(°0°)┛ THE WALL KNOWS ┗(°0°)┛]

[Jesse_Williams: thirty dodges with zero magic and what defeats her is Kai carrying her. logical.]

---

Kai turned toward the entity.

The entity was looking at him.

Or pointing in his direction, which was the closest thing to looking that face could do — the permanent smile aimed at him, the goat horns motionless, the pointed ears without the kind of movement ears have when something is actively processing.

Still.

Kai looked back at it.

The pressure that had made Serah and Lira’s knees buckle reached him as information — he detected it, registered it, assessed it.

He did nothing with it.

The entity didn’t move.

Five seconds passed.

"This is strange," the entity said.

It wasn’t a tactical observation. It was genuine.

"Does the pressure my presence exerts not affect you?" The smile didn’t change because it couldn’t change, but the tone of voice had something different. "It should be impossible. Standing so still in front of me. And you’re acting like it’s nothing."

Kai looked at it.

"What pressure?"

The smile went from :D to :|

---

[DraconicLegacy: "WHAT PRESSURE?" — KAI]

[Dr_Snow: the entity changed expression. CHANGED EXPRESSION.]

[Drakeking: Kai didn’t feel the pressure. literally. or he felt it and didn’t care enough to register it as pressure.]

[Jack_Moore: @Drakeking both options are equally terrifying for the entity.]

[Brandon_Haddan: :| is the most human face that entity has had and it’s because Kai felt nothing]

[RagingMutant: ┗(°0°)┛ ┗(°0°)┛ KAI BROKE THE ADMIN ┗(°0°)┛ ┗(°0°)┛]

[Jesse_Williams: Lira and Serah almost knelt. Kai asks what pressure. the power gap between Kai and the logic of the universe is immense.]

---

The entity extended its hand toward its own panel — not the labyrinth one, a different one it materialized directly in front of itself.

Administrator panel.

"System," it said. "Search for the name and stats of Streamer Kai in the database."

The panel processed.

Kai watched it process — the progress bar.

This one took longer.

Five seconds.

Ten.

The entity looked at the panel.

Kai looked at the panel.

Serah and Lira, from the edge of the chamber, looked at the panel.

[Search: Kai Reno]

[Database: Active Streamers — not found]

[Database: Inactive Streamers — not found]

[Database: Deleted Streamers — not found]

[Database: Pending Candidates — not found]

[Database: Authorized Summons — not found]

[Database: Unauthorized Summons — partial record detected]

[Access to partial record: denied — insufficient authorization level]

[The system cannot provide stats for this user]

[The system cannot explain why this user exists in Aethon]

[The system recommends escalating the query to architecture level]

The entity read the result.

Reread it.

Read it a third time with the :| that had replaced the :D and was now the only expression available on that face.

"This isn’t possible."

It said it quietly.

"A partial record in unauthorized summons." It looked at Kai. "With access denied for my authorization level." A pause. "I am a level five administrator. There is nothing in this system I don’t have access to."

Kai didn’t respond.

"Who are you?"

"Kai Reno."

"That’s not... Fine."

"That’s not in any database."

"I know."

The entity looked at him with :| for three more seconds.

Then :| went back to :D.

"Well," it said. "Anyway."

Kai looked at it.

"It seems I must simply eliminate you." The tone was the same one it had used to congratulate Serah and Lira at the start — kind, practiced, completely disconnected from the meaning of what it was saying.

"I don’t know who brought you here or why. I don’t know what you are or how you function. But if you’re not in any authorized record, the answer is to eliminate the variable." A pause. "Prepare yourself."

Kai smiled.

It was the only thing he did before lunging.

---

It wasn’t gradual.

No prior stance.

Direct — his body going forward with Qi active from the first step, concentrated, every joint aligned from his feet to his shoulder the moment he covered the five meters between his position and the entity.

The entity raised its arm.

The same movement it had used against Lira — horizontal, at the neck.

Kai didn’t dodge.

He went under it.

The arm passed over his head as he reached the space inside the entity’s guard.

Right elbow to the entity’s side.

Qi concentrated at the point of contact.

The entity didn’t go flying backward.

It absorbed.

The impact landed and the entity shifted exactly thirty centimeters to the right, as if the strike had been calculated and the response had been calculated.

Kai landed and repositioned.

The entity turned toward him.

The :D back.

"Interesting," the entity said.

"What?" Kai said.

"That you don’t use magic."

"I don’t have any."

"I know. I detected it when you entered." The entity looked at him — or aimed the :D at him, which remained the same thing. "What I don’t understand is how that strike had the effect it did without magic."

"Training."

"It’s not enough to explain it."

"It’s all I have."

The entity processed this.

Then it launched its left arm — not horizontal, vertical descending, full weight from above.

Kai read it in the shoulder before it came out.

He threw himself forward — under the arm’s trajectory, into the same space as before, inside the guard.

This time the strike was the palm to the chest.

Resonant Impact — Qi transmitted inward instead of outward.

The entity stepped back one meter.

And on the surface of the suit, at the point where the palm had made contact, something appeared.

Not a fracture. A distortion — like when the material of something presenting itself as solid reveals there’s something else underneath when it receives enough energy at the right point.

Kai saw it.

The entity saw it too.

Both looked at the point.

"That," the entity said, with a tone different from all the previous ones, "should not be possible."

"Third time you’ve said that."

"Because it’s the third time you’ve done something that’s not in any parameter." The :D didn’t change. "What’s underneath that strike?"

Kai looked at it.

"Time."

"Time?"

"Twelve years of time."

---

[DraconicLegacy: ᕦ(ò_óˇ)ᕤ "TWELVE YEARS OF TIME" ᕦ(ò_óˇ)ᕤ]

[Dr_Snow: Resonant Impact created a distortion in the administrator’s surface. first time something leaves a mark.]

[Drakeking: "what’s underneath that strike?" "time" — Kai being Kai at the most epic moment possible.]

[Jack_Moore: Lira and Serah watching this from the edge. describe their faces.]

[Brandon_Haddan: Serah has a proud face and markings at maximum intensity. Lira is no longer turned to the wall.]

[RagingMutant: ┗(°0°)┛ ┗(°0°)┛ ┗(°0°)┛ TWELVE YEARS ┗(°0°)┛ ┗(°0°)┛ ┗(°0°)┛]

[Jesse_Williams: the A_D_M asked what’s underneath Kai’s strike and the answer was his entire life’s training. that’s it. that’s the character.]

---

The entity looked at the distortion on its own suit.

It looked at it for two seconds — which for something that processed at the speed of a system administrator was a considerable amount of time.

Then it raised its head toward Kai.

The :D didn’t change.

But something in its posture did — its weight distributed differently, its arms lowered slightly.

"Fine," it said. 𝓯𝙧𝙚𝒆𝙬𝙚𝒃𝙣𝙤𝒗𝓮𝓵.𝙘𝙤𝙢

And it attacked seriously for the first time since the event began.

---

[DraconicLegacy: ᕦ(ò_óˇ)ᕤ ᕦ(ò_óˇ)ᕤ IT ATTACKED SERIOUSLY ᕦ(ò_óˇ)ᕤ ᕦ(ò_óˇ)ᕤ]

[Dr_Snow: it had been in assessment mode the whole labyrinth. Kai was the first to make it switch to real combat mode.]

[Drakeking: Lira dodged thirty times and never got it out of assessment mode. Kai did it in two strikes.]

[Jack_Moore: @Drakeking because Kai left a mark. Lira couldn’t leave marks without magic.]

[Brandon_Haddan: ᕦ(ò_óˇ)ᕤ ᕦ(ò_óˇ)ᕤ ᕦ(ò_óˇ)ᕤ]

[RagingMutant: ┗(°0°)┛ ┗(°0°)┛ ┗(°0°)┛ ┗(°0°)┛]

[Jesse_Williams: ᕦ(ò_óˇ)ᕤ ᕦ(ò_óˇ)ᕤ ᕦ(ò_óˇ)ᕤ ᕦ(ò_óˇ)ᕤ]