Chapter 228: Above Half

Jin did not start another run.

He sat in the processing bay with the replay open and went through it properly, which took twenty-two minutes and was the most productive thing he did all day.

He mapped it. Six pylons. He timed the Tortoise’s pulses and matched them against the damage transfers and confirmed that every single mitigated hit had a pulse inside a half-second of it. He found the reroute after Flicker’s first anchor kill and worked out that the network had at least three viable configurations and probably more.

The replay made the failure easier to separate from the fear of it. Every time the fight had looked chaotic, the same forces had still moved through the same pieces: Raptor, floor, pylon, shell. The pattern had been there. Jin had simply read it too late.

He wrote a conclusion and labelled it as a theory rather than a fact, because he had learned that distinction in a corridor under Neris’s supervision and had not forgotten it.

THEORY: Raptor cannot take sustained damage while the anchor network is intact. Network must be broken or interrupted first.

EVIDENCE: 7 mitigated hits, all coincident with pulse. Anchor 1 destroyed → mitigation stopped for ~11s → resumed via reroute.

UNKNOWN: how many anchors must go. Whether interruption is enough or destruction is required.

Then he wrote the second half, which was the part that mattered.

PROBLEM: Glitch can identify the live anchor. Flicker has to reach it. The information has to get from him to her through me and I am the slow part.

REQUIRED: some way for her to see what he feels.

He had no idea whether the Event contained such a thing. He wrote down the function anyway, because he had learned that too — that knowing exactly what you needed made you fast when it appeared.

Before he did anything else he went and looked at both real beasts.

Glitch was asleep on the treatment mat with the leg extended and the board still saying stable. The hydration bag had been changed while Jin was in the arena and he had not noticed anybody doing it.

Flicker’s ward line was green on all four.

Jin ate something, drank a considerable amount of water, and sat on the floor for ten minutes doing nothing at all, which he resented and which he had learned was not optional.

A long run and I lost at the gate, and I know how the fight works now and I didn’t yesterday.

That’s worth eighty minutes. Barely.

He opened his notes and started building the next run around two requirements, in order.

Over fifty percent at Wave Ten.

And a way for her to see the ground.

He started the fourth run at half past two in the afternoon with a rule written at the top of the page, and this time the rule was about stamina.

Wave One went to Glitch almost entirely. He did not turn anything, he did not set anything up, he simply killed the jackals in the cheapest available way, and Flicker took two clean finishes from good positions and nothing else.

Fifty-one seconds. No damage. Neither avatar below ninety-six.

[Wave 2 cleared — Glitch 94% | Flicker 97%]

Wave Three offered him a boon and he read all three carefully.

[Kindling: increasing damage per consecutive kill without taking a hit]

[Steady Footing: reduced stamina cost when bracing or redirecting]

[Executioner: increased damage against displaced targets]

Kindling was the strongest damage option on the board and Jin did not even price it. He took Steady Footing, because Glitch’s stamina had been the failure point at Wave Ten in run three and bracing was where it went.

The second offer was worse.

[Tithe: shared stamina return on first marked kill each wave]

[Bulwark: reduced incoming damage while avatars remain within 8m]

[Follow-Through: increased damage when finishing a recently displaced target]

The transition timer dropped while he compared them.

Tithe was small and reliable and directly fed the Wave Ten condition. Bulwark protected the whole run, and nearly every serious cost so far had come when something forced the avatars apart. Follow-Through would make the boss easier and do nothing for the checkpoint.

He took Tithe with two seconds left.

He was aware, immediately, that he had chosen the achievement over the boss fight, and that if he cleared Wave Ten at fifty-five percent and then died at Wave Twenty to something Follow-Through would have solved, that decision was going to be in his notes forever.

Sixty tokens are certain. The boss is not.

The third offer gave him Bulwark and he took it without hesitating, which improved his mood considerably.

The waves ran cheaper and slower than any run he had done.

He refused fast clears constantly. Wave Six had an opening that would have ended it in forty seconds and required Glitch to take one uncontested charge, and Jin took the two-minute version instead and kept about ten points of stamina.

Wave Eight he cleared entirely on Flicker’s finishes, with Glitch doing nothing except standing in a doorway and being an obstacle.

The first marked kill of each remaining wave triggered Tithe and returned four points to both avatars. Four points was small by itself; across five waves, it mattered.

They killed the broodguard and the alpha at Wave Ten in nine minutes using the pattern that had worked twice before, and Jin held his breath through the last thirty seconds of it for reasons that had nothing to do with the fight.

[Wave 10 Checkpoint Cleared]

[Glitch — stamina 62%]

[Flicker — stamina 57%]

[Achievement complete: Enduring Pair]

[Wave 10 cleared with both avatars above 50% stamina]

[Tide Tokens acquired: 60]

[Current Tide Tokens: 125]

Jin put the phone down on his knee for a second and then picked it up again.

A hundred and twenty-five.

The standard repeat reward posted underneath and was small and did not include a first-clear cache, which he checked, because he had learned to check.

The route selection came up and Jin looked at Predator’s Tempo for about ten seconds.

The safer routes were right there. He was at sixty-two and fifty-seven with a functioning kit, which was better than any condition he had ever brought to the post-checkpoint stretch, and the safe road would let him reach Wave Twenty in the best shape he had ever managed.

And it pays nothing.

He ran the argument properly rather than by instinct.

I’ve done four route stages under Tempo. I know where it hurts — transitions, not fights. I can plan around a rule I’ve already met.

Twenty-five tokens is a fifth of everything I have.

And if I clear the gate on the safe road, I’ve spent two hours proving I can beat a boss under easier conditions than the one I’ve already lost to.

[Selected: Danger Route — Predator’s Tempo]

[Stage 1 active]

The post-checkpoint boon offer came two waves later and Jin read the middle option and stopped.

[Executioner: increased damage against displaced targets, no range condition]

[Shared Tremor: contacts and structural weak points detected by Glitch’s Tremor Sense may be perceived by Flicker while both avatars remain within linked range]

[Second Wind: one-time recovery, 25% stamina, both avatars, manually triggered]

He read Shared Tremor three times to make sure it said what he thought it said.

Perceived by Flicker. While both avatars remain within linked range.

It was the function he had written down ninety minutes earlier. The boon pool was randomized, and this was the first time it had appeared. It would expire with the run, teach Flicker nothing permanent, and do nothing for Jin himself.

And it’s a leash. She only sees the ground while she’s near him, and the anchors are spread across the arena.

He selected it anyway, immediately, because a leashed answer was still an answer.