The echoes of Amon's demise faded, leaving behind a silence so profound it felt like a physical presence, a weight pressing down on us, a reminder of the power we now wielded, the responsibility we had assumed.
I turned towards Ram, a grin spreading across my face, my gaze drawn to her flushed cheeks, the vibrant pink hue that spread down her neck, disappearing beneath the collar of her sweater.
"Well, well, well," I drawled, my voice laced with a teasing amusement. "Looks like someone's feelings are being revealed! Such amazing events should be celebrated! I'm glad I could earn your love!"
Ram's eyes widened, her usual sharp wit momentarily deserting her. "I… I didn't mean it!" she sputtered, her voice a squeak, her hands clenching into fists. "I mean… I might have meant it… but not like that! You… you…"
Her words dissolved into a torrent of incoherent babbling, a musical chorus of stutters and half-formed sentences that made my grin widen.
She was adorable when she was flustered.
"Rogue! Scoundrel! Womanizer!" she finally managed to spit out, her voice rising in pitch, her cheeks now a shade of crimson that rivaled the pinkness of her hair. "You think you can just… waltz in here, disrupt our lives, take us on a grand adventure, destroy a god, and then… expect us to fall head over heels for you? You're delusional!"
Rem, her usual serenity replaced by a mischievous twinkle in her blue eyes, stepped forward, her hand resting on Ram's shoulder, her voice a gentle tease. "Your tsundere is showing, sister," she said, her lips curving into a playful smirk.
"I am not a tsundere!" Ram retorted, her voice shrill with indignation.
I stared at them, my brow furrowed, my confusion growing. "Tsundere?" I echoed, the word vaguely familiar, a distant memory from my Earth Bet days.
Wait! How does she know that word?! Is that really Rem?
"It's… a character archetype," Rem explained, her gaze meeting mine, a hint of warmth in her blue eyes. "From those… anime we watched back in that corporate dystopia world. Remember?"
A wave of revulsion, a visceral memory of the hypersexualized, corporate-controlled abominations that had polluted our minds in Night City, washed over me.
They were low quality, trashy hentai at best!
"Those things?" I shuddered. "They were barely even anime. More like… digital propaganda disguised as entertainment. Full of violence, sex, and… ugh, I don't even want to think about it."
"They were… educational," Rem tried to explain with slight confusion, then a mischievous glint in her eyes then appeared as she looked me up and down. "In a certain sense."
I nodded, my panic and disgust fading, replaced by a wave of relief. At least Rem was still Rem. Her core personality, her values, her sense of morality, remained unchanged, despite the horrors we'd witnessed, the powers we'd wielded, the worlds we'd reshaped.
I refused to acknowledge the last part.
I did not have an excited reaction to Rem's gaze.
Shut up.
She hadn't been replaced by a modern doppelganger.
I am not struggling to refrain from tearing her clothes off and take her here.
I'm really not.
I continually chanted that Morgiana is here and that her innocence must be maintained internally.
I Ignored the hungry look that the adorable blue haired Oni was giving me.
"So, that's where you learned that word," I mused, my gaze shifting back to the shattered remains of Amon's throne, the silence of the chamber now broken only by the soft drip of water from the cavern ceiling.
Rem just smiled, her silence speaking volumes.
She's going to pay for this when we get somewhere private- after that date she wanted.
"Right," I said, shaking my head, a smile tugging at my lips. "Well, let's not dwell on the horrors of corporate-controlled anime. We've got a world to explore."
I took a step forward, eager to leave the dungeon that we had dominated with my badass potions.
It was a simple, casual movement, a motion I'd performed countless times without a second thought.
But this time, the very fabric of reality seemed to groan in protest.
The stone floor beneath my foot didn't just crack; it exploded. A crater, several feet wide and deep, erupted beneath me, a shockwave rippling outward, pulverizing the surrounding stone into dust.
The remnants of Amon's throne, already shattered by the initial blast of chi my breakthroughs had caused, disintegrated, their fragments vanishing into the growing chasm.
The tremors spread, a cacophony of destruction that raced through the tower, the walls groaning, the ceiling crumbling, the entire structure shuddering as if struck by a cataclysmic earthquake.
Below us, the abandoned cityscape, already a wasteland of broken buildings and crumbling towers, moved past us as we hurtled towards the bottom of the now destroyed tower.
"Oops," I muttered, staring at the wreckage, a wave of surprise, then a grudging amusement, washing over me.
My senses, amplified by my enhanced body and my chi, reached out.
The spirit sense I had gained at the Zhifu level came in handy.
I probed the boundaries of the dungeon, mapping its structure, analyzing its flow of energy.
Then, I realized something.
Time was different here.
Distorted.
Compressed.
"Time moves faster inside the dungeon," I announced, my voice echoing through the shattered remains of the tower, my words laced with a newfound understanding. "For every hour we spend here, only a few seconds pass in the outside world."
"What?" Ram exclaimed, her brow furrowing, her pink eyes wide with disbelief. "How is that even possible?"
"It's a pocket dimension," I explained, my mind racing, piecing together fragments of knowledge from ancient texts, from forgotten lore, from the echoes of countless worlds I'd traversed. "A space outside of the normal flow of time, a realm where the rules of reality are flexible."
"We know what a pocket dimension is, Tereda, we used the skillshard programmer too, Remember?" Ram exclaimed with mock irritation, her usual calm sass returning.
"I don't understand," Morgiana said, her voice flat, her red eyes scanning the wreckage with a stoic curiosity. "How can time be… slow or fast? Isn't it always the same?"
She took a step forward, her gaze fixed on the crumbling staircase that led down into the depths of the dungeon. The stone beneath her foot imploded, a crater mirroring the one I'd created appearing, the force of the impact sending tremors through the already unstable dungeon floor.
Rem reacted instantly, her movements shattering the dungeon floor entirely and launching her towards the trial floors we had skipped. Rem realized physical movements were not a good idea right now, she lifted her hand for extra control. Her telekinesis surged, a wave of invisible force catching Morgiana mid-fall, gently depositing her back on solid ground.
"Careful, Morgiana," she chided, her voice laced with a gentle concern. "We're still getting used to our enhanced strength." Ignoring the fact that she had shattered the entire floor above her.
Ram, a smug grin spreading across her face, sauntered towards the edge of the chasm, her pink eyes sparkling with mischief. She peered down at the swirling dust and debris below, then glanced back at us, her expression a mix of playful challenge and undeniable pride.
"See this amazing action right here?" she said, tapping a perfectly manicured fingernail against her chin. "What do you think? Some of us are naturally gifted."
She took a step forward, her foot landing gracefully on the edge of the shattered floor. The stone beneath her foot remained intact, her balance perfect, her control absolute.
"Come on, slowpokes," she called back, her voice playful as she looked over her shoulder with a smirk. "We've got some training to do. Let's see what we can really do with all this power."
"How are you doing that?" I called out, my voice echoing through the shattered remains of the tower, a mix of genuine curiosity and a hint of frustration. "How are you controlling your strength?"
I took a step forward, eager to demonstrate my own progress, to show that I too could master this newfound power. But the moment my foot touched the ground, the remaining portion of the floor beneath me imploded, a cascade of dust and debris swirling around me as I plummeted towards the level below.
I landed with a bone-jarring thud, my enhanced durability absorbing the impact, but the force of my landing sent the loose gravel beneath my feet collapsing inwards, burying me up to my neck in a shower of pebbles and dust.
"Oops," I muttered, spitting out a mouthful of grit, my grin faltering as I realized the extent of my… over-enthusiasm.
Ram, her pink hair shimmering in the sunlight that streamed through the shattered ceiling, peered down at me, her smirk widening, her eyes sparkling with a mischievous amusement.
"It's all about control, Tereda," she said, her voice a sing-song melody that grated on my nerves. "Focus. Precision. Balance. Things you seem to be lacking at the moment."
She didn't bother to pull me out of my self-made gravel pit trap. Instead, she settled gracefully onto a nearby ledge, her posture relaxed, her gaze fixed on me, a playful glint in her eyes.
"Let me tell you a little story," she began, her voice softening, taking on a wistful tone. "A story about two sisters, born into a world of power and prejudice, a world where strength was everything, and weakness was a sin punishable by death."
I listened, my initial frustration fading, replaced by a growing curiosity. This wasn't the usual teasing, the sarcastic barbs I'd come to expect from Ram. There was a vulnerability in her voice, a hint of pain that she rarely allowed to surface.
"Our village," she continued, her gaze drifting to the distant horizon, "the Oni clan, they valued strength above all else. And we… well, we were deemed… defective."
She paused, her fingers tracing a pattern on the dusty ledge, her expression and voice a mixture of sadness and a lingering anger.
"Rem, with her single Horn of Power, her magic wild and unpredictable. And me, with my single Horn of Control, my strength limited, my potential… unfulfilled."
"They wanted to sacrifice us," she said, her voice dropping to a whisper, the words a chilling echo of a past she rarely spoke of. "To offer us to the Oni God, a appeasement for our… weakness."
"But then…" she continued, her gaze snapping back to mine, a spark of defiance igniting in her eyes, "the power awakened. Not my own power, not yet, but the legacy of the Oni God, a torrent of strength and knowledge that flowed through my veins, that filled me with a power I could barely comprehend."
"They called me a prodigy," she said, a bitter laugh escaping her lips. "A chosen one. A vessel for the Oni God's might. They pardoned our sin, they celebrated our strength, but…"
Her voice hardened, her gaze turning cold.
"With our positions reversed," She scowled fiercely. "They never saw Rem," she whispered, her words laced with a fierce protectiveness. "They never acknowledged her power, her potential. They treated her like… like a shadow, a lesser being, unworthy of their attention, their respect."
She paused, her gaze flickering towards Rem, who was now helping Morgiana to her feet, her touch gentle, her voice soothing.
With a flick of her wrist, Ram manipulated the air around us, creating a barrier that muffled her words, preventing them from reaching Rem's ears.
"I hated them, Tereda," she confessed, her voice raw with a suppressed rage. "I hated the Oni clan, their arrogance, their cruelty, their blind worship of power. But…"
Her frown was evident.
"They were all we had. Our family. Our home."
She shook her head.
"Then the witch cult attacked," she continued, her voice regaining its usual strength, the barrier dissolving, her words now audible to all of us. "They slaughtered our people, burned our village, desecrated our sacred grounds. Rem and I… we were the only survivors."
She looked at me, her eyes filled with a pain that mirrored my own.
"I lost my horn that day, Tereda," she said, her voice barely a whisper. "An accident. A moment of weakness. A mistake that cost us everything."
She took a deep breath, her shoulders straightening, her gaze hardening.
"But now…" she said, her voice regaining its usual confidence, a mischievous glint returning to her eyes, "A moron with an addiction to making potions just walks into our life, falls in love with us at first sight, and then he has the audacity to fix all our problems. With both of my horns, my power and control is backed up by the Oni God and every former incarnation of the Oni God."
Her smirk widens, but her eyes soften as she turns to look me straight in my eyes. "That's because of you, Tereda, and I-"
She shook her head again and looked away. "I'll tell you that when I'm absolutely sure that I mean it."
She stood up from her sitting position and grabbed me by the slightly exposed collar of the armor she made for me.
"Ready to get some control back, Tereda?" Her smirk returned and then turned into a full grin.
She winked at me and then charged forward slightly faster than my new top speed- Without making a sound or disturbing the gravel beneath our feet.