Chương 98: 97: Knight's Tour

Clock was going to die here if he couldn't find a way to untie her existence from gravity. And he had no idea how to untie a law. Clock straightened. The Gloom within him - that stubborn, impossible thing that had been with him since he was made - pulsed through his chest like a second heart. He raised his hands. Warpfluff watched him. Her iridescent silhouette shimmered. Her cobalt ram horns caught the distant starlight. Her smile belonged to someone who had already won.

"Hei... how do you intend to fight me?" she asked softly.

"You can't even reach me." The field surrounding her expanded. Gravity obeyed her whim, bending reality toward whatever outcome she desired. Space compressed, stretched and folded into invisible currents of impossible weight. One hundred metres. Then more. Clock felt the pressure immediately. Even standing still became resistance. He drifted backwards. Warpfluff giggled, spinning lazily through the vacuum with her arms spread.

"I love space," she sighed happily.

"I think I'll enjoy it for a little while before you die." Clock remained silent. Clockwork couldn't rewind her evolution. Her personal timeline had become too deeply anchored to reality itself. Queen's Slide couldn't carry him through her field without tearing him apart. Telekinesis couldn't restrain her. Freezing time meant nothing if gravity simply ignored it. Every path to victory required getting close. Her entire existence had become a punishment for trying. His violet eyes blazed.

"Knight's Tour." An immense chessboard erupted into existence. Its sixty-four squares weren't solid. They were outlined in iridescent violet light, stretching through the vacuum until the glowing grid divided space itself. Both of them stood upon it. Warpfluff frowned and stepped toward the edge. The moment her foot crossed a line...... reality folded. She reappeared on the nearest legal square. Her eyes darted across the glowing floor.

"What... is this?" Clock lowered his hands. The board hummed beneath them.

"Neither of us leaves until the game expires."

"How long?"

"One minute."

"So I only have to wait." Clock said nothing. His body moved. One moment he occupied a square. The next, he stood on another in the peculiar L-shaped pattern unique to a knight. Reality accepted the destination and discarded the journey. Warpfluff's senses searched for movement. Found nothing. KRAAAAAACK. His fist was already against her face. Her head snapped sideways.

"I..." The strike had landed...... before it had been thrown. Clock wasn't merely ignoring distance anymore. Every attack skipped the expected order of events. The effect arrived before its cause because knights never travelled continuously. Reality simply reordered the sequence, accepting the impossible as perfectly legal. Warpfluff's breath caught. She couldn't sense him, couldn't predict him, couldn't even perceive the instant he chose to move. Her gravity manipulated paths. Knight's tour erased them.

Clock shifted. CRAAACK. His elbow buried itself in her ribs. She hadn't witnessed the attack, only its aftermath.

"What are..." THOOM. A kick folded her over. She reached for gravity. Nothing answered. Spatial distortion. Silence. The board ignored them all. Clock landed on another glowing square and didn't attack again. He simply stood there, watching. One second passed. His stance never changed, his eyes fixed on her as though waiting for something. Warpfluff frowned. The pause felt deliberate.

"The board recognises only chess." KRAACK. His fist crashed into her jaw. Clock reappeared on another square and fell still again. The silence returned, lasting exactly as long as before.

"No magic." THOOM.

"You move." He landed several squares away. Again, he waited. The same pause. The same patient stare.

"You capture." His fist drove into her stomach.

"And you endure." Clock settled onto another violet square, waiting.... Warpfluff stumbled backwards, genuine panic creeping across her face as she stared at the iridescent board beneath her feet. She had entered a world whose rules outranked her own. Her hand drifted to her aching ribs. Blood. Actual blood. Inside the board, gravity couldn't reach her. Every supernatural law she had woven around herself had been rejected the instant Knight's Tour began. If Clock killed her here...... she would stay dead.

Fear found her. Clock didn't rush. He waited again, perfectly still, like a chess player waiting for the opposing side to complete its move. Warpfluff frowned.

"... Move." Clock said nothing. He simply watched. Realisation slowly settled over her.

"Hei..." Her gaze wandered across the glowing squares.

"You aren't waiting because you want to." Another glance. Another thought.

"... You're waiting because it's my turn." Clock's expression never changed. She looked down at the board. Knight. Then back at him.

"... Knight." Her gaze dropped to her own feet. Pawn. A tiny smile tugged at her lips.

"Hei..." The board wasn't choosing randomly. It had assigned them pieces. He could only move as a knight. She could only move as a pawn. She cautiously stepped forward. One square. Nothing happened. The board accepted the move. Clock vanished. An L-shaped leap. KRAACK! His fist grazed her cheek. She twisted aside just in time. He landed on another square and became still once more. Waiting. Her turn. If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

Warpfluff remained where she was, studying the board. Knight. L-shapes. Always L-shapes. Eight possibilities. Unless... Her gaze travelled farther. Corners. Edges. Occupied squares. The geometry unfolded inside her mind. A knight couldn't reach every square from every position. Some spaces naturally denied it. She stepped diagonally. Clock's eyes sharpened. Capture. The board accepted it. He moved. Another impossible leap. Her prediction was already waiting. She had vacated the destination before he arrived.

His strike missed by centimetres. Warpfluff smiled.

"... Hei." Another move. Another calculation. She stopped thinking like herself and started thinking like a pawn. Forward. Diagonal. Forward. Diagonal. Never backwards. With every turn she denied another avenue, occupying squares that left the knight awkward angles of attack. Clock adapted. She adapted faster. Neither spoke. The silence became the match.... Halfway across the glowing board, Warpfluff came to a halt. Recognition flashed across her face. The opposite end. The final rank. Chess.

A pawn that reached the end...... didn't remain a pawn. It became something greater. Understanding flooded her face.

"... Promotion." Her heartbeat quickened.

"I don't need to defeat you." She looked toward the final row.

"I only need to arrive." Clock's expression changed. Only slightly. But she saw it. Concern. She laughed.

"You taught me the rules." She stepped forward. One square closer to the opposite side of the board. Only a few moves remained. And suddenly...... the knight was the one being forced to give chase.... Warpfluff stepped onto the final rank. The iridescent board hummed. Every glowing line shivered. For a heartbeat...... nothing happened. Then the entire chessboard blazed. Violet light surged through her body, wrapping around her silhouette before collapsing inward. Something changed. Her place in the game.

The board acknowledged her. Promotion. Warpfluff stood perfectly still before a slow smile spread across her face.

"Hei..." She flexed her fingers, feeling movements that hadn't belonged to her a moment before.

"So this is what it means." Clock said nothing. He simply watched. A laugh escaped her. It grew louder as she swept a loose strand of hair behind her ear.

"You trapped me inside your own world. Forced me to play by your rules..." She spread her arms toward the endless board.

"... and I still won." Another leisurely step. The board accepted it.

"Hei... do you know what happens when this timer ends?" Her smile sharpened.

"I slaughter you." She pointed at him.

"I'll break every bone in your body, one at a time. I'll crush your lungs until you make those beautiful little choking sounds." She tilted her head.

"I'll peel the skin from your bones while you're still alive." Another step.

"You'll beg me to stop." Her grin widened.

"And all you'll remember... is that you created this board and still couldn't beat me." Clock lowered his gaze.

"... I see."

"Hei... what?" He sighed, tightening his grip around the neck of his guitar.

"I wanted to prove something to myself. That I could beat you on equal ground. No tricks." His eyes met hers again.

"But..." A faint stutter rippled through his body.

"... you just had to run your mouth." Warpfluff's brow knitted together.

"What..."

"Techniques weren't forbidden." He shifted his grip on the guitar.

"Only phenomena." Clock blurred in a perfectly straight line. Queen's Slide. The distance between them simply ceased to exist. Warpfluff's stomach tightened. Too late. SHHK. Cold steel buried itself to the hilt beneath her ribs. She looked down. A silver dagger protruded from her stomach. Clock stood close enough for her to feel his breath.

"No magical or conceptual abilities." He twisted the blade. Blood poured over her form.

"But techniques and weapons..." Another twist.

"... were always allowed."

"HEI!" Her fist detonated against his face. THOOOOM! Clock shot backwards in a flawless straight line before tumbling across another glowing lane. He came to a stop on one knee, wiped the blood from beneath his nose with the back of his hand, and slowly stood. Warpfluff tore the dagger free with a wet crack. The wound should have closed. It didn't. Her smile disappeared. Black veins spread from the puncture like roots beneath pale skin.

"... No." The blade had once been saturated with Gloom. Years ago. Then left untouched. Allowed to mature. To ferment. Until every trace of supernatural energy ceased to exist. It had become completely physical. An ordinary poison. Except...... its nature remained. It still carried the instinct Gloom had bred into it. It wasn't dissolving her. It was terraforming her. Every heartbeat converted another piece of her body into something that no longer belonged to her. Her stomach tightened.

Even if Knight's Tour ended, gravity would remember this body. This infected body. It would rebuild the poison with her. She couldn't purge it. She needed another vessel. A fresh body. One untouched by the infection. Her fingers trembled before curling into fists. Rage swallowed fear. She lunged. CLANG! Clock caught the dagger on the neck of his guitar. Steel shrieked across polished wood. He pivoted. She flowed after him. Another slash. Another block. The board demanded turns. One strike. One answer. One movement.

One response. Again. Again. Again. Warpfluff wasn't a martial artist. She had never studied forms, katas, or discipline. She knew weight. Every shift of balance. Every misplaced foot. Every shoulder turning a fraction too early. She dismantled movement instinctively, flowing around attacks with the effortless economy of Jeet Kune Do and the circular evasions of Baguazhang despite never having trained a single day. Clock attacked. She yielded. He committed. She redirected.

The exchange accelerated until steel, wood, and fists blurred into a single continuous rhythm. The pauses shortened. The one-second waits between turns blurred until the board itself struggled to separate one move from the next. Turn. Counterturn. Turn. Counterturn. The rhythm accelerated until it no longer resembled chess. It resembled two masters playing every possible continuation at once. Steel screamed. The guitar caught the dagger. The dagger slipped away. Clock changed grips. Warpfluff changed angles.

Neither spoke. Neither blinked. The board flickered. Its minute was ending. Warpfluff dipped beneath the guitar. Clock corrected instantly. Almost. Almost. She felt the weight settle into his lead foot. She knew exactly where the recovery had to go. She stepped into the empty space before he could. The dagger flashed. SHHK. A crimson line opened across Clock's throat, severing his jugular. His breath caught. Blood scattered through the violet light in glittering crimson spheres. The chessboard shuddered.

One glowing square vanished. Then another. Fractures raced across the iridescent grid like cracks spreading through glass. Warpfluff didn't hesitate. She lunged before Clock could recover. His moment of hesitation had forfeited the turn. The guitar swept upward. She vaulted over it. The blade sheared through both of her feet, yet the momentum carried her onward. Before the severed limbs had even drifted away, the dagger was already pressed against Clock's throat.

Her free arm wrapped around his neck, locking him into a chokehold as she drove him backward. He caught her wrist, abandoning the guitar entirely. Every muscle in both their bodies strained. Neither yielded. Exactly one minute...... had passed. Knight's Tour ended. — Reality rushed back all at once. Gravity returned. Gloom returned. The universe remembered them. Clock vanished from the shattered board in an explosion of violet light, hurled beyond the familiar planets of the Solar System.

Warpfluff refused to let go. Her legs remained locked around his torso. Her arm tightened across his throat. She followed. Gravity and Gloom collided immediately. She tried to lift away the very concept of his strength, reducing him to someone incapable of resisting. Gloom answered by fixing that strength as an immutable law. The first gravitational wave erupted from her body. Space rippled. Asteroids folded inward like paper, collapsing into incandescent fragments before they could touch them.

The second pulse spread farther. Nearby moons lurched from their orbits. Their crusts fractured beneath tides thousands of metres high. Clock's body locked in place. Gravity no longer pulled downward. It pulled everywhere. His bones stretched in every direction. His organs compressed and elongated simultaneously. His spine twisted farther and farther sideways as telekinesis fought desperately to hold his body together.

Even his thoughts slowed, each neuron struggling beneath a force that wanted every particle of his existence to occupy a different destination. He slowed time. She stripped the effect away. BOOOOOOOOM. They tore into a moon. The impact never finished. Its crust collapsed before they even reached it. A continent-sized cavity imploded beneath Warpfluff's presence alone. Oceans of magma erupted through fractures racing around the entire world. Still...... she held him. Her rage grew. So did her gravity.

She no longer resembled a woman. She resembled a pulsar given human form. Each heartbeat became a gravitational pulse. Each pulse squeezed the moon until mountain ranges liquefied. Its magnetic field convulsed violently, hurling arcs of radiation across space. Gamma rays carved glowing scars through distant asteroid belts while torrents of charged particles flooded the surrounding vacuum. The moon spun faster. Then faster still. Its crust peeled away in incandescent ribbons. Its molten core stretched into orbit.

Space itself twisted around her, bending light into spiralling rings as reality struggled to decide where she ended and gravity began. Entire celestial bodies shuddered. Smaller moons splintered. Asteroids burst apart. Even distant planets drifted from their orbits as tidal forces rippled across the Solar System. Through all of it... Warpfluff never loosened her grip. Clock gagged on his own blood. The dagger sank deeper with every heartbeat. His vision darkened. His existence had been locked into place.

She leaned close enough for her lips to brush his ear.

"There's no escape. You die here." Her voice was almost gentle.

"Enjoy these last moments." She chuckled.

"Because I promise you..." Her grip tightened.

"... I'm never letting go." Blood spilled from Clock's mouth. He laughed anyway.

"Then... they'll be..." His voice faltered. He coughed.

"... your last as well." He released her arm. Both palms slammed into her abdomen. Telekinesis froze her for the smallest fraction of a second. Long enough. Every fragment of Gloom remaining within him ignited at once. There was only light. A newborn star bloomed between them. The explosion eclipsed the Sun itself. She bore the weight of every gravitational field in the universe. The force unleashed exceeded even that, enough concentrated energy to erase multiverses released directly inside her body.

Warpfluff tore his head free at the exact instant the condensed Gloom detonated within her abdomen. The shockwave raced across the Solar System. Moons shattered. Planets trembled. The dying moon dissolved into incandescent dust. When the light finally faded...... there was nothing left. The Solar System drifted onward as though nothing had happened. Broken moons circled in widening rings of incandescent debris while molten fragments cooled into black stone.

The newborn star had already collapsed, leaving behind a slowly expanding shell of radiation that glided soundlessly through the void. Nothing moved. Nothing lived. — A solitary figure floated among the stars. Clock. His white hair drifted weightlessly around a face untouched by battle. Not a scratch marked his marble-like skin. His black coat hung motionless in the vacuum as cold violet eyes lingered on the place where he and Warpfluff had ceased to exist. He waited. Gravity remained silent.

The darkness yielded no iridescent silhouette, no familiar orange-and-blue eyes, no indication that Warpfluff intended to rebuild. The dagger had done exactly what Clock designed it to do. The poison spread across flesh, soul, identity, and every plane bound to them, rewriting all of them together. That was why neither of them could simply rewind it away. His regeneration restored only previous states that still existed. The poison had erased those states. There was nothing left to return to.

Warpfluff had suffered the same fate. When gravity reached into the void to remember her, it found only the poisoned version. The weakened version. The infection had become inseparable from the self that reality recognised as genuine. She could no longer sustain the impossible concentration needed to anchor herself to the gravity of the expanding universe. Instead, she gathered everything she had left into a single body. She had abandoned eternity...... for one final chance to kill him.

Clock understood the instant their powers returned. There would never be another opportunity. He committed everything. Every fragment of Gloom. Survival had stopped mattering. Only one outcome did. Neither of them could be allowed to leave alive. Several long minutes passed before he finally exhaled.

"She's gone." The words disappeared into the vacuum, unheard. His expression never changed. He had expected this. Just before Knight's Tour...... he had split himself again. His gaze drifted toward the distant Earth. Warpfluff had forced him to abandon certainty. Every previous battle had rewarded committing his strength to a single body. She proved that one catastrophic mistake could erase everything.

"When I fought the Eleven Abominations..." The memory surfaced with perfect clarity. Back then, he had divided himself unevenly. One body carried seventy percent of his Gloom while the other two survived on fifteen each. The weaker pair had died. The strongest had endured. He had learned from that mistake. Before entering Knight's Tour, he divided himself again. This time, the burden was shared equally. Three independent bodies. Three minds. Three lives. Each carried twenty-three percent of his remaining Gloom.

One had just been obliterated alongside Warpfluff. He closed his eyes. Another was still inside the Nest. Still fighting. This body was the final reserve. He made no attempt to return. His instincts refused. Warpfluff had taught him to trust probability instead of certainty. If the Clock inside the Nest died...... this one would become the only Clock left. If both perished...... everything ended here. His fingers curled once before falling still.

"One has to survive." There was no hope in the words. Only arithmetic. He slowly turned away from the ruined battlefield but didn't leave. His gaze remained fixed on the silent stars, watching until he was certain...... that nothing else remembered how to come back.