The pressure around me locking me in place vanished, and I collapsed on the floor, my body refused to respond to me, and my mind was in disarray. I couldn't concentrate on anything. My heart felt like it would explode from how fast it was beating inside my chest. I honestly thought I was having a heart attack and that I was going to die there and then.

"You managed to hold way more than I did when I started," I heard the woman's voice, whose name I still didn't know.

I barely registered what she had said to me. Answering was but a distant dream. All I could do was take very short breaths, and that was pushing it.

"If I were to guess, it's the number of times you've been under Jack's bloodlust," she continued. "But congratulations. You can hold three hours of it before your body enters in collapse."

That explained why I felt like I was having a heart attack, it was because I almost did have one, it seemed. It was so intense that before I knew it, I had passed out.

When I came to, I was lying on the bed of the shed with a blanket covering my body and a wet towel on my forehead. I looked around and saw some clothes on the chair that were too small for the woman, but would fit perfectly on me.

I honestly had forgotten I walked through the city naked, at least we walked through some desert alleys and avoided any streets with people. I just hope no one saw us, that would be embarrassing. Remembering that made me rush to put on the clothes as I felt my face heat up from the embarrassment.

The clothes were simple ones that I saw people wearing, just a piece of a brown looking fabric with very low quality. I could feel my fur sticking to the flaws on the fabric. I wondered how these animal people could withstand these clothes daily.

There was no one else inside the shed, and I thought about going out, but the moment I took a step towards the door, it opened, revealing a human figure covered in black overalls filled with glowing runes that seemed to blend in with the fabric.

"It seems Karol has failed in exterminating you," Jack said. At that same moment, I felt my breath and heart quickening and my muscles locking in place as the shed was filled with his bloodlust. "But it doesn't matter, I'll do it for her."

Jack's form blurred, and the next thing I heard was a loud metallic bang. The bloodlust diminished, and I was able to look at Jack's form, a few centimeters away from me, with his sword interlocked with another blade floating right in front of me.

"What do you think you're doing, Karol?" Jack asked, looking over his shoulder towards the door, where I could see the dog woman, Karol, with her hand extended toward us.

"Me?" She asked with a condescending voice, "Stopping you from killing a possible innocent bystander, of course."

Another sword materialized to his side and slashed at Jack, but he jumped to the other side while deflecting the blade. Karol used the opportunity to walk forward and stop between me and Jack.

Jack looked at Karol with a disgusted face, then narrowed his eyes.

"No," Karol said. "I've not been substituted by a mimic, if that's why you used [Appraisal] on me."

"The creature behind you can fool [Appraisal]," Jack retorted. "How could I know you weren't the same species as him?"

"Really?" Karol asked with an exacerbated voice.

"I guess I'll have to kill you both," Jack said after a pause. "Even if you're not a mimic, collaborating with one is treason against the EXCEED."

"Look-" Karol started to say, but the next moment she pulled a sword and defended herself from a clash of Jack's sword, the amount of force making her take a step backwards.

Dozens of swords, each one different from the other, manifested themselves across the room as Karol waved her hand. Several of them shot themselves towards Jack, who easily deflected and avoided.

"Tsk. Now I know why it's so hard to hit you," Karol said, waving her hands, and the swords around the room obeyed her. "You're watching where they'll hit, aren't you?"

I saw Jack look at her before looking at me for a few moments, then back at her.

"I see," he murmured. "A mimic with affinity for time. It doesn't matter. I don't answer to traitors."

He moved through the blades that flew in his direction and deflected the ones that he couldn't evade, and approached us with deadly precision. Karol jumped backwards, grabbing me by the collar and throwing me against the wall before a sword broke through it, and I fell into the street.

By the time I managed to look back at the shed, it exploded, sending splinters everywhere. Karol jumped out of the smoke that rose from it, already forming swords made out of fire, water, ice, metal, I even saw a few made out of light, around her and sending them towards the smoke.

This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.

I heard the clash of the swords, and the smoke was cleared forcefully by Jack's swings and evasion. He looked like water as he fluidly avoided each strike by a hair's breadth and countered the ones that seemed impossible to avoid.

"Hey, kid," Karol said without looking at me. "Do you have any skills or spells besides the one you used to free me? Something that can be thrown at a distance?"

"Y-yes," I answered.

"Good. I can't hold Jack off forever, he can see where I will strike and react before I do. Little goblinshit always cheated like this, even when we played games," she complained. "I need you to throw whatever you can at him."

"But won't the runes on his overall protect him from magic?" I asked.

"Don't worry about it. I just need you to distract him enough for me to score a few hits. He may look tough, but can't stand wounds on that precious skin of his." She said the last part in a mocking tone.

Jack answered it by throwing his sword directly at me, only blocked by an ice sword that materialized in front of me. Jack's sword vanished and reappeared in his hand just before he deflected a fire sword.

I pulled [Magical Programming Language], cast a fireball spell, and threw it at him, but Jack just shrugged it off as it rolled over his clothes, the runes glowed in his clothes from the attack. I needed something with more of a punch than just plain fire.

I made a water bullet spell with high-pressurized water and shot it towards him, but he had seen it and easily evaded it by a centimeter. I changed the spell and created a continuous fire mode, but even that was evaded or deflected by Jack.

He kept trying to throw his sword at me, to behead me, but Karol kept deflecting it. I heard a scream, and only now did I look around us and see the entire street was filled with debris from buildings that had damages from physical cuts, fire, and ice crystals covering parts of them. I didn't know how long it would take the guards to come, but it wouldn't take long.

"If your strategy is waiting for the guards, you're out of luck," Jack said after he noticed me looking around. "I told them I was going to deal with a potentially dangerous creature and to not come near here."

I heard Karol tsk. I didn't know what she had planned, but it seemed like we needed a new one.

I kept trying to hit him with the water bullets, but he kept avoiding them like he was was able to see them before I even had cast them– I facepalmed. Due to the bloodlust and subsequent fight I had totally forgot about Jack's skill.

He was able to see me casting the spell and adjust to avoid me before I even had cast them. I needed a way to confuse his skill. I thought about reaching it with [Time Manipulation], but I felt how strong his skill was. If I were to guess, the further away he is trying to look into, the weaker his skill gets, but now that he is looking a second or so into the future? There was no way I could disrupt that–Or was there?

"Karol," I half-shouted. She looked like she wanted to ask me how I knew her name, but looked back at Jack. He had spoken her name a few times during this, so it makes sense I would've heard it.

"What?" She half-shouted back.

"I have the beginning of a plan. I need you to not lose your cool with it, though."

"Do what you want, I'm busy."

I couldn't see her face with me being behind her, but could hear how concentrated she was as she controlled dozen upon dozens of swords to attack Jack. It was impressive, it looked like they were following perfect paths and everything combined made it seem like they were locked in a dance with Jack, both elegantly moving around, trying to kill each other.

I took a deep breath and triggered [Genetic Dysphoria], feeling my body shift in place as a pair of wings sprouted from my back, tearing through the cheap fabric of the clothes she had given me. I saw Karol doing a double-take when she noticed me, something Jack took as an opportunity, and threw his sword at me.

Karol barely had time to deflect it, causing the sword to hit me in my shoulder, sinking to the hilt. I screamed in pain. Before I could take it off, the sword vanished from my shoulder and reappeared in Jack's hand. I thought about healing it, but that would take too long.

Instead, I cast the same water bullet spell and shot it at him. This time, he looked surprised when the bullet hit him, causing him to miss his mark, and a fire sword sliced through his overalls, cutting his arm off.

Immediately, I saw him jumping away from where he was, backing away. Karol stopped her assault, but kept her swords floating nearby. Jack looked where his right arm was supposed to be, then back at us with rage in his eyes, but instead of reengaging, he jumped to the top of the wall and ran away.

Karol dismissed her swords. "See? If he ever starts taking damage, he just runs away."

"Now," she turned towards me and observed me from head to tail. "Would you mind explaining?"

"This is my true form," I answered. "Jack was using his skill to look a second into the future, but my true form exist partially outside of time, he couldn't look into a spell that didn't exist until I ha cast it."

"That explains the green blood, then." She looked at the blood flowing out of my wound and into the ground. Whenever it fell into something, it started to age rapidly, like time was flowing through the object.

I was going to respond, but then my legs gave out and I fell to the ground. There was a lot of blood coming out of me. Karol rushed towards me and touched the area around the wound, getting a small part of blood on her hand. She immediately pulled it back and looked at it.

The fur that had touched my blood became white and fell out. She looked at me with worry, but then remembered something.

"You told me if you die, the loop resets, right?" She asked. I just nodded.

The blood loss was starting to take a toll on me. I wasn't going to resist much.

"On your next loop, come back for me and say these exact words to me 'The Dragon King loves his cookies'," when I looked confused at her she quickly explained. "It's a code we have for this exact types of scenarios."

I nodded. Instead of letting me die of blood loss, I reached over to the temporal strand and manually triggered the loop. I wasn't going to just let myself die to trigger the loop again if I could help it.

Everything reverted, and I was back into the inn's room, but this time I had an actual plan instead of going in blindly.

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know < report chapter > so we can fix it as soon as possible.