It was a starry night.
Both players stood beneath the first Checkpoint Tree. A giant, silver-barked monolith with roots that glowed faint blue, drinking the falling acid like light.
The shield shimmered around it. A perfect dome. Beyond the 20-meter radius, acid rain fell endlessly. Each drop hissed and bored through the soil like molten needles.
It was night, yet the canopy glowed faintly green. Shadows hung thick and distorted.
Albert Newton adjusted his jacket. His mind instantly calculated distances, timings and cover. There had to be a riddle to move from here. A thing hidden in the first step of the game. But before he could even begin to look, Piere Lal was already gone.
The man in the yellow zamarra blurred forward like a phantom. His shoes struck mud but left no splash. He was running between raindrops. Weaving through open space so thin it shouldn't have existed. Not a single drop touched him.
Albert's eyes widened. "Seems like a high ranker."
Back in the audience building, Harriet leaned toward the giant screen. "He's not even getting wet." he muttered, mouth full of snacks. "This guy's physics just retired."
Albert's system display flickered faintly before his eyes.
He couldn't waste seconds thinking. If he stayed under the dome, Piere would clear checkpoints before he'd even left the first one.
He yanked his coat over his head, teeth gritted, and dashed out.
Instantly, pain seared down his neck. The coat hissed and blackened. He ducked under a root for half a heartbeat, breathing smoke.
His hand moved by instinct. He drew Kuga. The curved dark steel sang as it left its sheath. The rain above met spinning death. He whirled it like a turbine, a black fan of cuts so fast the drops burst midair into harmless vapor.
Steam spiraled around him. His own hand's spinning motion threw the rain outward. Unexpectedly opening a narrow tunnel through the calamity.
He moved through it. Piere was already seventy meters ahead, moving with unnatural grace. The man didn't run, he flowed.
Albert's left hand dropped behind him, gripping Pallbearer, the plasma rifle out of his inventory. He knelt briefly on the slick mud, scanning.
The air distorted around Piere. His path zigzagging unpredictably between streaks of acid. Too erratic for a direct shot. But Pallbearer's life-drain worked within ten kilometers. He didn't need to hit flesh; the rifle was more curse than gun.
Still, a direct hit triggered a chain detonation and that meant leverage.
Albert's eyes flicked, calculating. The acid's fall rate. Piere's acceleration curve. The time it took for each raindrop to reach terminal velocity.
He exhaled once.
BANG!!!
The bullet tore through the rain like a comet. The air popped as sound barriers crushed.
Piere's instincts said something was coming. He spun aside, coat flaring and the bullet grazed his shoulder. For a moment he thought he dodged it perfectly until his foot hit a patch of uneven earth.
That single misstep sent him half a meter off balance and the rain found him.
The acid kissed his arm and back. Flesh hissed. Steam rose violently.
He stumbled but didn't scream. His face stayed cold. He tore a sleeve and wrapped it tight, eyes burning with focus.
Albert smiled faintly from behind the gun. "Speed won't matter as long I can make you move wrong."
He slung the rifle, spun Kuga again to clear the next wave of drops and pushed forward.
Above them, the rain thickened. The canopy trembled. The acid hissed louder.
Piere stopped running. The rain was eating through the earth around him, and even his boots had begun to smoke. He looked at Albert through the blur of steam.
The younger man was spinning his katana above his head like a silver fan, keeping the acid from touching him.
Piere exhaled slowly. "Can't use my powers here." he murmured to himself. "If I unleash it…. this whole place will turn graveyard."
He slipped his right hand into his pocket. When it came out, two poker cards rested between his fingers — one red, one black.
He tapped them twice quickly. The sound of the taps bloomed unnaturally. The cards began to grow.
First the size of plates, then shields, then doors. One settled beneath his feet, glowing faintly. The other hovered above his head, trembling under the rain. The droplets struck the card and burned tiny holes through it but it was enough.
Piere smiled faintly. "House of Two." he whispered. "Always been my favorite."
Albert narrowed his eyes with amusement. "So, you are a cripple too, huh?" His voice echoed faint through the acid storm. "But you'll run out of luck before me."
He aimed Pallbearer again at the ground near his feet. He squeezed the trigger once and a ripple of black energy burst out. The rain touching that area evaporated instantly, leaving a dry circular pit.
Piere frowned. "Tch…. predicting the rain now?"
Albert grinned. "No. Predicting your butt."
He fired again, this time at a random spot to Piere's left. The explosion forced the older man to shift sideways, stepping from one card to another to keep his balance. The upper card tilted, sizzling faster.
Albert shouted through the storm, "You're losing your roof, old man!"
Piere smirked back. "Oil your own machine."
Albert froze. His boots had sunk an inch into liquified mud. Acid and steam turned the ground beneath him soft and bubbling. Piere snapped his fingers.
The card under his feet rotated like a spinning disc, launching a spray of neutralized vapor directly at Albert.
Albert stumbled back, katana spinning faster to deflect the chemical mist. He barely kept the barrier up. Piere seized the moment as he flicked his wrist sending a miniaturized version of the card like a dart. It wasn't meant to harm; it was meant to confuse.
The card sliced through the air, glowing faint green in mid space. Albert's reflexes took over and he slashed it in half.
The instant the blade met the card, both halves erupted into ink-black smoke. The smoke curled upward, forming three identical silhouettes of Piere. All running.
Albert blinked, eyes darting left, right, backwards. "Illusions?"
He took a step forward, slicing one and fading it in air. The second swung behind him.
Albert swung backward, slicing through nothing. "Damn it—"
Then, a voice behind him.
"Third one's real, boy."
Albert spun. Kuga met a poker card midair, both vibrating from impact. Sparks hissed where acid dripped between them. The two men stared at each other through the rain, locked between calamity and time.
Albert smirked. "Thought you were a famous gambler, not a retired magician."
Piere laughed softly. "You think those are different trades?"
He twisted the card. It flashed. The one above his head suddenly split into fragments, each flying out and embedding into the mud. Forming a circular dome around them both. The rain bent over the barrier, sizzling away. For a moment, they were inside a dry world.
Piere looked up at the fading poker card roof. "This'll hold ten seconds. Make them count."
Albert pointed the rifle forward. "Then don't blink, sir."
They clashed steel against enchanted paper, smoke and sparks bursting as the acid rain hissed against their temporary shelter.
The rain fell heavier as time passed.
Albert's coat was already in tatters. Piere's cards were half-melted, edges curling into ash. Neither slowed.
Every step through that acidic mire felt like a wager. Albert swung Kuga in tight circles, carving the falling drops before they reached him.
Piere hurrily flicked cards after cards into the mud. All of them transforming into bursts of steam, small explosions that scattered acid away from his path.
"Did you even read the manual of this world? You are killing yourself, son." Piere shouted over the hiss.
Albert grinned. "If I wanted to commit suicide, I would climb to your ego and jump down to your IQ."
A beast or what remained of one crawled out. Its flesh melted smooth, bones glowing green. Both stopped for a breath, then moved simultaneously. Albert vaulted over its skull, slicing down through its spine. Piere flicked two cards forward that wrapped around the creature's neck like manacles, bursting it apart.
Lightning cracked through the sky, illuminating the dark outlines of massive trees ahead.
Checkpoint Two.
The air around it shimmered faintly, a dome of pure green light repelling every drop of acid. The tree's bark pulsed like a living heart, veins of emerald mana tracing upward.
Albert stumbled through the barrier first, chest heaving. Steam rolled off his shoulders where acid had burned through his sleeves. Piere staggered in right after, one leg bleeding but smiling as if he had won.
"Same time." Albert panted. "Guess we're even."
Piere dropped onto one knee, letting his cards dissolve into motes of light. "Even, sure. But only because I let you."
Albert scoffed. "You almost melted out there."
Piere looked up, eyes glinting through the glow. "So did you."
Both men stood under the tree, breath mixing with the hum of its protective field.
"Those who reach shall wager again. Tokens will be counted. Riddles shall be asked."
Albert and Piere exchanged a look.
The second checkpoint was safe but only for now.