The aquatic creatures had a plan.
Not a rough plan where someone pointed at a place and said, "We attack from that side."
They had an actual, detailed plan.
I found that out when Kuu called everyone together and two of the larger creatures with trailing fins began drawing lines in the wet sand with their appendages.
I stood there for a moment.
I had not expected this at all.
"…You have been planning this for a while, haven't you?" I asked.
"For a very long time~kuu," Kuu said. Their voice had the weight of many years behind it. "We have tried to reach that idol so many times that I stopped counting. We know what we know about it, and we know it very well."
The sand diagram was much more detailed than I expected.
The island's interior was marked with several routes. The idol was at the highest point in the center. Different textures showed the dense parts of the forest, and looping lines showed the Moglo patrol routes.
One of the jellyfish creatures kept pointing at one of the loops and making a sound that clearly meant, "These ones are the worst."
The fish-like creatures with legs were helping too. One of them corrected another creature's patrol line, and the two argued for a while.
They had clearly had this argument before.
The larger trailing-fin creature—whom I had started calling Noa because they were twice the size of the others—swept an appendage across the eastern route.
Then they made a gesture I had learned meant that something was blocking the path.
"Idol detection range~kuu," Kuu explained. "Everything inside this line starts affecting us almost immediately. We have found only one route that avoids the worst of it, and even that route barely works."
I crouched down to study the diagram.
This was a well-made tactical report.
The people who had made it were small aquatic creatures who communicated with gestures, sounds, and a strange habit of ending their sentences with their own name.
They had still studied this island better than most imperial scouts studied anything.
"What happens when you go in?" I asked.
"It takes about four minutes to reach the first engagement from the forest edge. After that, the idol's field becomes strong enough to confuse us~kuu. If we move quickly, we can take down some of the outer patrols before the field becomes strong."
Kuu pointed at the inner part of the diagram.
"Then the variants appear. They are stronger, and they are already inside the idol's range, so the field protects them and makes them even more dangerous. We have never gone beyond that point."
I nodded and kept looking at the diagram.
The smile carved into the idol came back to me. I had only seen it for a moment, but I remembered it clearly.
It was wide, fixed, and pleased with itself.
The expression of something that had stayed in one place for a very long time and watched many enemies come to it already broken.
"The idol itself," I said. "Does it move?"
"Not at all~kuu! It stays at the top of the central rise and uses the wind magic and the other abilities from there. It never leaves that place."
So it was stationary and placed in the center of its own field. Anything capable of threatening it had to fight through the field first, which meant it was already weakened by the time it reached the idol.
That was the problem.
Not surviving the field.
Reaching the idol before the field destroyed everything I depended on.
"If the outer patrols were removed before the idol activated, you could reach the interior before the field became strong."
"Yes, exactly~kuu! But we have never found a way to remove them without alerting everyone else, and we do not have—"
Kuu made a gesture that meant silence.
I reached into my jacket and took out the blowdart.
I had made it on the third night at the estate, during the same session as the cloak. I had been bored, and the Faith Shop had offered a skill in the compressed-projectile category that I wanted to try.
The barrel was about as long as my forearm. It was made from southern hardwood, with a reinforced core made from materials in the estate laboratory.
The skill was called [Pressurized Exhale].
It was the most boring name I had ever seen for something that launched a projectile at crossbow speed while making no more noise than someone breathing out.
Kuu looked at the blowdart.
Then they looked at me.
Their enormous eyes showed that they were trying to understand how something so small could help.
"…That is very small~kuu."
"Yes."
"How will something that small deal with the variants?"
"The outer patrol comes first," I said. "I will keep my presence as small as possible and take them out quietly from a distance. Then I will move to higher ground and deal with the variants from there. Your group can handle everything else."
Kuu watched me for a moment.
"…That is not really a plan~kuu."
"Good."
"What?"
"The more complicated a plan is, the more ways it can fail," I said.
That was partly true.
The other part was that I had not completely solved the variant problem yet, and I did not want to explain a plan that depended on several assumptions about the idol's detection method.
"Your group takes the outer areas and moves inward quietly while I handle the higher targets. Then, when I give the signal, everyone attacks together."
Kuu's fin-like ears lowered. I was beginning to understand that this meant skepticism.
They turned toward the group and said something.
The group answered.
One of the fish-like creatures made a gesture that seemed to mean, "Finally. Someone is doing something."
They had no reason to be that confident.
"They can handle the regular Moglo~kuu," Kuu said.
"Good. One more thing before we start."
I opened my subspace storage and pulled out the vials I had prepared early that morning. I had not been able to sleep, and alchemy was a better use of that time than staring at the ceiling.
I lined up forty-three vials on a flat rock.
"Hold still. I want to show you something."
Kuu looked at the vials.
Then at me.
"…Show us something~kuu?"
"Cool tricks."
"…Cool tricks~kuu?"
"Just hold still."
I started working.
It took twenty minutes to finish all forty-three. It was not quick, but the results were worth it.
The creatures became more energetic after receiving [Strength Enhancement] and [Agility Enhancement]. [Ally Marker] was also included in the potion, which meant none of them should accidentally attack each other during the battle.
Kuu's vial was different. It contained the same basic enhancements, along with a communication layer that would allow us to speak during the battle.
Without communication, coordination was just several people hoping they were thinking the same thing.
I had too much riding on this to depend on hope.
Kuu drank the vial and stared at me with their enormous eyes. They looked slightly more focused than before, so I assumed the communication layer had finished settling.
"Ready~kuu," Kuu said quietly.
After a moment, they asked, "…Will this really work~kuu?"
It would probably work.
I was confident in the plan, but the idol was still an unknown. I had only survived it by staying outside the strongest part of its detection range.
Going inside was different.
The observation about the detection method was solid. The blowdart should work. The variants were the risky part, but the high ground gave me a good angle.
It would work.
"Yes," I said.
I made sure my voice sounded certain.
There was no reason for everyone to worry about the same thing.
The patrol routes matched the sand diagram.
I watched three full rotations before moving. There were forty-seven seconds between each pass, and I had a clear idea of how far apart the Moglo were.
The first patrol went down between one cycle and the next.
The sedative dart struck the back of a neck at full [Pressurized Exhale] speed. The Moglo fell into the undergrowth before they understood what had happened.
There was no sound apart from the forest.
The green light from the idol did not change.
The next two went down the same way.
Then the three on the eastern route.
The idol did not react, and the inner drum signals continued normally.
My guess had been correct.
The idol was tracking divine energy and intent rather than small physical projectiles. At my current level of suppression, I was not registering.
The two Moglo on the rocky path were more difficult because they could see each other.
I needed to take them out at the same time.
I calculated the angles and fired both darts in one breath. One target was seventy meters away, and the other was fifty meters away.
Both fell without a sound.
The outer patrol was clear.
I moved to the rocky outcrop on the northeast side. It was just outside the detection range and had a clear view of the inner clearing.
I activated [Hawkeye].
The forest became sharper. Details two hundred meters away looked as if they were only ten meters away.
The variants were there.
They were larger than the regular Moglo, with heavier masks and armor. Six of them were moving through the area.
I decided I could take down four before the idol noticed.
The first three shots went exactly as planned.
The darts hit their targets, and the bodies fell into the undergrowth without making an alert.
The fourth shot came late.
The input was correct.
The execution was correct.
The dart simply arrived late, and the variant had already moved.
I felt the idol's field reaching toward the pattern I had been using.
The fifth shot missed completely because the arrival point had shifted.
There it was.
The idol had noticed.
The feeling was not exactly annoyance. It was closer to realizing that something had been designed specifically to punish you for being good at a certain skill.
I stopped aiming carefully and started firing.
I loaded and fired again and again until the barrel became hot.
Precise targeting was no longer useful. I needed volume.
The darts entered the forest like rain. Some hit the variants. Some hit trees. Some hit regular Moglo and left them suddenly very unhappy.
The idol's field changed to counter the random attacks, but it could not completely follow them.
A random attack did not have a rhythm.
There was nothing to synchronize against.
Two more variants fell.
The last two started moving toward my position.
I gave the signal.
The creatures came out of the forest.
Noa came first because Noa was large and had apparently decided that being large meant going first.
The impact against the Moglo formation was loud enough for me to hear from the rocks. Three Moglo flew sideways, and the formation broke before it had time to understand what was happening.
Riku's group came in low and fast. Their movements were chaotic in the natural way of creatures whose movements did not follow a fixed rhythm.
The [Agility Enhancement] made them even more difficult to track.
The jellyfish creatures came down from above.
I had not known they could move vertically.
That was useful information.
Through the communication layer, Kuu said, "Riku says the buffs are very good~kuu! Riku wants to know what you put in the vials!"
"Tell Riku later," I said.
Then I dropped from the outcrop into the clearing.
The idol's field hit me as soon as I crossed the detection line.
Knowing it was coming did not make it less disorienting. The problem was not the field pushing against me.
The problem was that my own timing became unreliable.
Timing was part of every movement I had learned.
I stopped in the middle of the clearing and looked at the idol.
Its face was wide and carved from stone, with the same fixed smile. It looked pleased with itself, as if it had been watching enemies arrive broken for a very long time and saw no reason to change anything.
I used [Appraise].
[Disgust Idol]
That was all.
I stared at the window for a moment.
I had expected ability details or structural information.
Apparently, the idol had decided that its entire explanation was contained in those two words.
Fine.
I watched instead.
The Moglo inside the field moved in perfect synchronization with the idol's pulse. Every action happened on the beat. The variants moved with even greater precision.
Everything inside the field was being pulled toward the same rhythm.
Anything outside that rhythm was punished.
I could feel exactly what the punishment meant because I was experiencing it directly.
I tried [Holy Flash].
The idol's wind magic appeared in the space between the spell activating and reaching its target. The flash flew to the side.
I tried [Fire Lance].
The wind appeared again and pushed the lance away.
I tried [Gravity Field].
The spell began forming, then broke apart when the idol disrupted the casting interval.
I stood there with my teeth clenched and thought about it.
Every technique I used depended on timing.
Every spell had a casting interval.
Every physical movement was built on the rhythm Ashkart had forced into me through a million deaths.
That rhythm was the reason my movements were faster and cleaner than an opponent could follow.
The idol did not need to be faster.
It only needed to find the interval and be there before me.
It was specifically designed to do that to people whose strength came from timing.
The better I was at my usual fighting style, the worse this became.
Which meant I had to stop using what I was good at.
I removed the cloak first.
Then the Doppelganger Mask.
Then I released all the suppression I had been using since reaching the coast.
Everything came out at once.
My hair turned white.
My eyes turned gold.
The S+ divinity inside me expanded back to its normal state.
Kuu made a sound behind me through the communication layer that was not quite a word.
The aquatic creatures took a breath together.
The Moglo drums rose to their highest alert level yet.
The idol's pulse became a continuous light, and the green glow became almost blinding.
Good.
Now it was looking at me instead of trying to read my timing.
I released every charged spell I had built up since entering the island.
All of them went out at once.
There were too many spells for them to share one rhythm. They crossed the space between me and the idol in a dense wave.
The idol's wind magic stopped four and redirected three.
The rest went through.
The stone cracked.
The green light flickered.
The Moglo lost their synchronization for one moment.
The aquatic creatures pushed through the opening.
Then the idol's eyes opened.
Phase 2 began.
Phase 2 was everything from Phase 1, but much stronger.
The field expanded and became more powerful at the same time. The timing disruption became three times worse, and the wind changed from separate attacks to a continuous rotation.
Everything inside the field was now fighting against the idol's idea of when things should happen.
The aquatic creatures at the edge of the field stumbled.
Noa hit the edge and almost fell.
Riku made a sound that needed no translation.
Kuu called through the communication layer, "We are being pushed back~kuu! The field is too strong now~kuu!"
I agreed.
A wind attack struck me and pushed me sideways. My recovery movement happened too early, and I overcorrected.
The damage was not serious because my restricted parameters were still S+, but my position had been lost, and the pressure was beginning to build.
I used [Self: Restoration].
It activated half a beat early, before the damage finished calculating, so I had to use it again.
It worked.
I stood up and looked at the idol.
The problem was not only the timing disruption.
The problem was that I kept trying to work around it instead of going through it.
The idol punished precision.
Everything I did carefully could be countered.
So what if I stopped using precision?
I reached into my subspace and took out the battlesword.
It was large and heavy, and it had been made for my physical strength rather than a normal person's. Its balance was built for wide swings instead of precise attacks.
Wide swings were not very dependent on timing.
They were mostly a way to deliver force.
I pushed fire into the blade.
I did not shape it into a technique. I just made it hot and let the fire follow the metal.
The white tips of my hair became red, and my eyes shifted from gold to amber-red.
Kuu called to me.
"What are you doing~kuu?"
"An experiment," I said. "Everyone, attack loudly. Now."
There was a short pause.
Then Kuu gave the order.
The aquatic creatures charged.
All forty-three moved at once, each in a different direction and with a different movement style. They had no single rhythm for the idol to read.
The Moglo formation could not handle it. There were too many attacks from too many angles, and the idol's field could not adjust to everything at once.
I ran toward the idol.
I did not use a proper technique.
I did not try to move gracefully.
Those were the things the idol was made to stop.
I used a large burning sword and the force of a heavy object moving at S+ speed.
The wind struck me and pushed me two steps sideways.
I adjusted while running, but the adjustment happened at the wrong time. I adjusted for that mistake, and the sword was already swinging by then.
The swing happened to be aimed correctly.
From behind me, Noa made a sound that meant something like, "Go!"
Riku sent another message through Kuu.
"Riku says this is the most fun they have ever had~kuu!"
I reached the base of the hill.
The wind attacked three times at close range.
The first pushed me forward.
The second came early and missed because I was already farther up the slope than expected.
The third missed because I was in the wrong place.
That was exactly where the sword needed to be.
I swung.
The idol's field pushed against the blade with real physical force. It was trying to turn its timing defense into a physical defense.
I pushed back.
The flame had no interval.
The sword's weight had no interval.
There was nothing for the timing disruption to attach itself to.
The blade cut through the idol.
A crack ran from the upper left of its face to the lower right. The green light flickered three times and then fell out of rhythm.
The carved smile split down the middle.
I pushed the sword through.
The stone crumbled.
The field collapsed all at once. The Moglo stumbled without the synchronization they had depended on, and several fell from the sudden loss of coordination.
The survivors fled into the forest.
Their drums became frantic, then silent.
[Phase 1 Progress: 1 Idol Destroyed — 1/4]
[+2,000 FP · Disgust Idol catalogued · Phase 1 Note: The Forsaken Isle has registered this destruction. Response activity is increasing.]
For a moment, the clearing was quiet.
I stood in the rubble with the battlesword still in my hand. The fire faded from the blade, my hair returned to white, and my eyes changed back to gold.
I was tired.
Actually tired.
That was somewhat encouraging. It meant the restriction was working and I had not simply walked through the fight.
Then all forty-three aquatic creatures made noise at once.
The sound was chaotic, loud, and happy enough that it did not need translation.
The fish-like creatures hugged each other. Riku celebrated with a large rock, which I decided not to investigate too closely. The jellyfish creatures wobbled happily, and Noa made a sound that seemed to be directed at the destroyed idol with great personal satisfaction.
Kuu stood quietly and looked at the rubble.
I walked over and stood beside them.
"We have been trying to do that for a very long time~kuu," Kuu said.
There was more weight in that sentence than the words themselves.
"I know," I said. "Your group is the reason it worked. You held the sides, so the field could not focus only on me. Without that, I would have run out of time before breaking through."
I looked at Kuu.
"This was yours too."
Kuu looked at me, then at Riku, who was being celebrated by four creatures at once, and then back at me.
Their enormous eyes showed several emotions at once.
"Your plan was still not really a plan~kuu," Kuu said.
"It worked."
"It worked~kuu."
Kuu's fin-like ears moved slightly.
Then the birds flew away.
Every bird on the island took off at once. They formed a dark flock above the trees for three seconds before scattering in every direction.
The ground moved next.
It was not violent. It was a deep vibration that came from somewhere below and travelled through the rock into my feet.
It continued for four seconds.
Then it stopped.
The aquatic creatures became quiet.
Kuu looked toward the sea. Their expression was different from before, and their voice was quieter.
"The Forsaken Isle~kuu."
"Yes," I said. "The idol was doing something active. Destroying it was registered."
I opened the Map UI.
The gold markers on the other islands were still active. The larger marker of the Forsaken Isle was farther south.
"We need to destroy the other idols before the Forsaken Isle finishes preparing its response."
Kuu turned to the group and called out.
It was a short command. I recognized it as the signal to move.
The celebration stopped.
The forty-three creatures turned toward the water.
Noa made one last sound toward the idol's rubble. It sounded personal, and I did not need a translation.
Then Noa turned toward the sea.
"This way~kuu," Kuu said.
We left.