Victor had always wondered what a man could do with a single minute left to live.

A real minute. Not the sluggish, crawling kind that ticked by when some poor soul was bleeding out on the battlefield, nor the fleeting kind that slipped through fingers when wrapped up in something warm, something good. No, he meant the kind that stretched wide open—a minute where a man could carve his name into the world before the end.

He figured he was about to find out.

Lightning snapped across his glaives, bluish-gold arcs crawling up his calves and lashing out in sharp, erratic bursts. His body was light. Too light. Numbness crept into his limbs, spreading under his skin like an old lover's touch. He couldn't feel the sand underfoot. Couldn't feel much of anything, really. but that was fine.

He didn't need to feel. He just needed to move.

Rolling his shoulders, he twirled his walking cane once and exhaled slowly. The black tide was three kilometres across the great blue, but when he took off from the black sand beach, it was like the world cracked open.

The moment he leaned forward, he was gone. The sand behind him exploded in a shower of scorched glass, and the air split with the scream of lightning. The shore blurred, melted into streaks of black and gray as he tore through the three-kilometer stretch at breakneck speed. His glaives barely skimmed the surface, crackling with power, leaving jagged arcs of lightning in his wake.

His cane continued spinning lazily in his grip as he skated forward, slicing through the wind, the tide, the space between moments.

… One minute until Kalakos fires that acid beam again.

He let his eyes drift shut for a moment.

But he didn't slow down.

Didn't hesitate.

He felt the black tide looming ahead, a solid mass of writhing legs and snapping mandibles. He felt the heat of sunlight reflecting off the glossy black shells of the giant crustaceans. The sheer number of them was suffocating, so the moment he felt he was close enough to feel their breaths on his face, his eyes snapped open.

And what followed was slaughter.

His body blurred—lightning on water, a ghost between seconds. His kicks sliced through carapaces like scalpels through silk. Each step was a death knell. Each slash of his cane split bodies apart, leaving arcs of electricity dancing in the air, severed limbs tumbling into the dark. He'd dashed right past Kalakos, and the Giant-Class crustaceans behind her didn't even have time to react before they were torn asunder.

One.

Two.

Ten.

A hundred.

The numbers didn't matter. They crumbled all the same.

A minute.

Men have built empires in a lifetime. Others have burned them down in a day. What could a man do with a single minute?

Hundreds more Giant-Classes fell in the span of seconds, their bodies split apart before they even realised they were dead. Then he kicked off a crumbling shell, launched himself skyward, and rode the momentum straight into open air a hundred metres above the sea.

And there she was.

Kalakos.

The Remipede God loomed below, a thousand-metre-long titan of gleaming chitin and ancient hunger.

Her abyssal eyes locked onto his. Water swirled in her gaping maw, turning and twisting into a spiraling vortex of destruction, and the ocean groaned. Waves split apart as the pressure built.

So her Swarmblood Art lets her swirl acid in her mouth before firing it out in a giant beam that annihilates just about everything, but she can also swirl other liquids in her mouth like water?

It's quite like Maria's Art, but several hundreds of times more devastating.

You're recording this and archiving the information, right?

[Correct. This is the first time a remipede has ever been observed using their Swarmblood Art. It would be a shame not to document it for future Hasharana.]

He smiled as he hovered midair, weightless.

He'd been a 'Flower Cape' of the Deepwater Legion for decades. He'd run across storms, cut through battlefields like a lightning strike, outraced death itself more times than he could count, but all of that? All the fights, the victories, the reckless, breathless speed?

Maybe it was just because his nerves were absolutely fried by his own lightning, but it all felt like it happened just minutes ago.

Kalakos fired.

Her giant water beam ripped toward him with impossible speed, a tidal wave of compressed ocean pressure that could level a fortress. He twisted. The world spun. He slipped past the blast, feeling it sear by close enough to taste the salt. The force of it split the clouds above him, tearing apart the air itself.

And he kept falling.

His glaives hit Kalakos's armoured back, and his momentum exploded. He skated along her segmented form, his glaives carving deep as his cane scraped across her shell. Lightning crackled in his wake, searing into her exoskeleton with every step.

Kalakos shrieked. The barnacle growths Rhizocapala had put along her spine burst open, and spines the size of ballista bolts launched toward him in rapid volleys.

How fun.

He laughed, dipping low, his body moving like a phantom. He dodged without slowing, weaving between the storm of spines—flipping over some, cutting straight through others with a blur of electrified kicks—but he found he wasn't really paying attention to the fight itself. His mind was racing, interweaving movement with memory.

Kalakos screamed his name, her voice a thunderous roar that split the heavens. He didn't catch her exact words, but he felt she was probably demanding he face her head-on, like some brutish thing that only knew how to charge and crash.

He only laughed harder.

She didn't get it.

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This was him fighting head-on. Speed wasn't avoidance. Speed was a blade. Speed was power. And right now, he was moving so fast it felt like the world had slowed to a crawl.

It'd been far too long since he'd let himself loose like this.

Still, even in the middle of tearing up a god's spine, he found the time to glance back.

The giant horseshoe crab island sat on the distant horizon, its colossal forest barely visible past the storm of salt and blood mist he was kicking up.

[... Are you afraid of dying?]

He didn't answer immediately. Not because he was thinking about the question—thinking about it would've been a waste of time—but because he just didn't feel like giving it the dignity of a response.

Camila, his Archive, took his silence in stride.

[Are you worried Marisol Vellamira will be scared?] A pause. [Scared of being the only Hasharana affiliated with the Imperators on that island?]

That made him smile.

Just a little.

Scared?

The lass?

It was almost funny. The lass scared of being alone? That girl had spent most of her life running headfirst into death traps just for the hell of it. She wasn't scared of much—except maybe stopping.

Hey, Camila.

[What is it?]

Do you know why you were made?

Camilia hesitated, then answered smoothly, [It is beyond my design parameters to understand the circumstances of my creation.]

He clicked his tongue. You really say it like that, huh?

[Would you prefer something more poetic? 'The mystery of my existence is shrouded in the mists of time'?]

That's worse.

[Fine, fine. Why was I created, old man?]

He gave the little water strider on his shoulder a soft smile.

You Archives—the whole Altered Swarmsteel System setup—were made to give people like me an edge. Made it so we could skip all that First Class Mutation Selection nonsense and just jump straight into the class that suited us best. You also help us access all that juicy interconnected knowledge you Archives have been gathering across the continent.

[Yes, yes, I know very well what I am capable of—]

But you weren't created for that purpose.

That's not why we made you.

He twisted mid-air, avoiding a massive bone spike as it erupted from Kalakos's back. His glaive sliced a deep trench along her spine, adding another wound in the ever-growing ruin of her body.

The real reason, he continued, goes way back. Before the Worm God was a god. Back when he was just the Worm Mage.

[Back when he was just another hero,] Camila mused. [But still just a boy.]

He grinned. And between Year Sixty and Year Seventy, during the Age of Heroes, he met a ton of incredibly powerful folks. The Thousand Tongue of the Long March, the Empress of the Attini Empire, the Death God of the Sharaji Desert, the First Harbour Imperatrix of the Deepwater Legion Front, the Righteous Doctor of the Blackeye Orphanage… Do you know what they all had in common?

[They liked long walks on the beach and meaningful conversations?]

Hah.

Nah.

They were all lonely.

That made Camila pause.

Victor didn't stop moving, of course. He continued darting along the length of Kalakos's body, cutting through the gaps in her armour like a knife through silk.

They could go months without talking to a single soul, he thought. All that time, just fighting, killing, eating bugs. That's how they got so strong. They were alone for so damn long that they had nothing to do but get stronger.

That's why, after all of us banded together to fight off the Swarm God in Year Seventy, we created the Archives.

Camila was quiet for another moment.

Then, softly, [Not to give people power.]

Not to give lonely people even more power, he agreed. Not to hand them some fancy specialised class right out of the gate. Not to feed them information and let them access maps and bug information. No. You were created so you could give them… you.

So you could talk to us.

So you could make sure we aren't just beasts wandering the dark, killing everything in our way.

Sure, you're not a replacement for real conversation—for real human connection—but you're a voice in the silence.

And that is 'companionship': the first and foremost mission of the Archives.

[...]

You think I'm worried about the lass being alone? He scoffed, his gaze flicking back to the island for a moment. She won't be alone. Never. Not as long there's still an Archive yapping in her ear, she won't. There ain't anything for me to worry about.

[... And what about you?]

He chuckled, shaking his head.

I'm an ass, Camila. Been an ass my whole life. Haven't had a lot of real friends.

[That tracks,] Camila said dryly.

He grinned. Yeah, yeah. But…

Thanks.

For being with me these past twenty-four years.

The Archive didn't respond at first.

Then—

[As an Archive of an Altered Swarmsteel System, my capability to empathise with my users extends only so far as to ensure perfect synchronisation in and out of battle. I cannot afford true 'companionship' as humans are able to do for each other. My voice can never be given physical form, and to establish sentimental connections with my users is fundamentally impossible given the nature of my design parameters.]

He snorted. Where's my last words of comfort? Where's my tragic farewell speech?

[I'm afraid not. I do not think you will be missed by many for too long.]

He shook his head, still grinning.

[But for what it is worth?]

[I had loads of fun with you, Victor Morina.]

Kalakos roared. A sound like the cracking of the earth, like the sea itself splitting open to swallow the world whole.

Victor simply grinned.

He shot backward, skating a few hundred metres across the open sea in a single breath. The water barely had time to notice his touch—his skates left only a ghost of white foam in his wake, a scar of lightning carved across the endless blue.

Then—screech.

He twisted, stopping so fast the sea itself bucked beneath him. Waves rippled outward in a perfect ring. He stood at the center, grinning, teeth bared, the wind screaming past his ears.

Kalakos thrashed in the distance.

"Face me head-on, Chariot!" she bellowed. Acid swirled in her mouth, and in no more than ten seconds, she was going to fire her beam straight at him.

He rolled his shoulders.

Old bones. Not as fast as he used to be. Definitely not as fast as when he'd fought Corpsetaker decades ago. It was a shame, really. He would've liked to run that one back.

But he sure as hell couldn't make himself look pathetic in front of his disciple, could he?

Camila cackled. [Oh, definitely not.]

So he exhaled. Flexed his fingers. Bent his knees. Lightning curled around his glaives, hunger snapping at his heels. He aligned his body, felt the tension coil in his legs, the perfect balance, the perfect momentum—and then he was gone.

The War Jump was the lass' signature.

How does it go again?

It goes…

Glide. Spin. Pause, raise arms. Twirl and caper. Sharp turn. Sharp pivot. Then jump—soar.

He hit the last step and launched himself into the sky.

All of his strength, all of his speed—everything he had—poured into one final, perfect kick. Shockwaves detonated through the air, splitting clouds apart, turning the sea into a giant crater. The wind roared, the sky screamed, and for one fleeting instant, Victor Morina felt it.

That old, familiar rush.

That high.

That speed.

And he laughed—wild and fierce and free—as lightning swallowed the sky behind him.

Marisol watched as the world split open on the horizon.

Lightning burst across the sky, a searing blue and gold inferno that swallowed everything. It was like a second sun burning in the storm, the afterimage of a life that'd lived too fast, too bright. A thunderclap roared three kilometers away—an explosion so massive that it sent wind tearing across the beach, ripping through tents, kicking up sand in blinding sheets.

The soldiers winced. Shied away. Hands lifted to shield their eyes.

Marisol didn't.

She didn't blink. Didn't move. Didn't breathe.

She sat there on her makeshift bed, eyes locked onto the sky as the light faded.

Because Kalakos was gone.

That massive Remipede God—that towering, slithering horror—was dead. Sinking, shattered, crumpling into the sea like a broken shell. The black tide had fractured. The endless swarm of crustaceans had frozen mid-charge, their momentum cut clean in half. A wave of hesitation rippled through the survivors that still dominated well over half of the horizon, but for the first time since the battle had begun nearly two months ago, it felt like the Swarm was stalling.

Victor had done it.

Single-handedly.

When they needed a miracle, and when the battlefield needed a spectacle, he was the one to deliver it—loud, grinning, and reckless.

…

But nobody spoke.

Nobody moved.

Every single person on the beach—all the soldiers, all the refugees, every man and woman who'd fought tooth and nail to get this far—simply stared out at the horizon, watching the Remipede God scream as she sank into the abyss.

There was no cheering.

No celebration.

And Marisol herself couldn't stop shaking.

Her arms. Her glaives. Her whole damn body.

She was shaking so hard she thought she might just fall apart.

[... Bioarcanic aura signals of the E-Rank Remipede God, Kalakos, have disappeared.]

[There is only one Insect God left in pursuit.]

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