Chronos in DC

I temporarily stopped at a hotel on the 88 motorway between New York and Gotham. Lying in bed in my one-room apartment, I looked at the interface and thought about what to do next, pondering a rather interesting thing called "Body Control". It looked like a kind of blue sphere, and the description said that this item was capable of changing the age of the "Player's" physical body for a more comfortable game. It seemed like a small thing, but I didn't understand why the system decided to give me such a gift. Could it be related to the fact that it takes my wishes into consideration and can thus influence the rewards I receive after quests? I had only mentioned it once, but never really thought about it seriously. Well, I'll use it later. Opening the characteristics window, I decided to focus mainly on Dexterity, Constitution, and Endurance.

After distributing my points, my table looked like this:

HP: 700/700

OD: 700/700

Strength: 64

Dexterity: 162

Luck: 1 -???

Intuition: 61

Willpower: 45

Wisdom: 30

Build: 70

Endurance: 70

Charisma: 52

Intelligence: 50

Mana: 0 (Blocked)

Resilience: 80

+20 to physique, +30 to endurance, +10 to strength, and exactly 100 to dexterity.

If 80 points of Strength and Speed is the limit for a human, then does that mean my 162 Dexterity is supersonic...? I have no idea. Anyway, I'll have time to check it out later.

So, next on the list are skills. I only have 9 skill points, and now it's very important to choose skills that can help me get through Dungeon. There are two ways to unlock skills: learn them through special "Books" purchased from merchants, other players, and at auction, or simply spend skill points. The first method appealed to me when I first remembered about auctions. After all, with virtually unlimited money and resources, I could buy almost anything I wanted for free! If a skill is easy to understand and learn, it won't cost anything at all.

After spending a whole bunch of hours reviewing and evaluating various skills, I chose the ones I thought were most necessary:

Tireless — Level 2

Your Stamina recovery speed increases threefold!

Death Mark — Level 1.

Cost: 5 AP. Cooldown: 60 seconds.

Duration: 30 seconds.

You throw a spirit dagger at the target, covering it with special runes. The spirit dagger itself does not deal damage, but your subsequent attacks on the marked target increase the damage dealt to it by 100%!

Dance of Death — Passive. Level 1

With each enemy kill, your stamina is restored by 15%, allowing you to continue your rampage.

Blood Marathon — Aura. AD requirements — 0. Requirements for activation/maintenance — "Bleeding" effect.

"An eye for an eye, blood for blood..." — when you lose some of your health, you decide to make up for it with the blood of your enemies. The Health Steal coefficient is 20% of the total damage dealt to the target.

Simply put, if I deal a Critical Strike for 1000 points, I restore 200 HP.

As for the skills from the Dexterity and Assassin branches, these are quite powerful skills that will undoubtedly come in handy in most Dungeon situations. Firstly, Dungeons are quite harsh places, and going there solo is extremely dangerous, so to compensate for my inability to heal quickly and restore stamina in battle, I decided to take Death Dance and Bloody Marathon. Both of these skills were ideal for clearing a path from a crowd of ordinary enemies to the boss himself. Death Mark and Tireless will increase my chances of defeating the boss. What is the main disadvantage of my build? Well, the most obvious disadvantages lie in prolonged battles against fairly strong enemies.

I also picked up a rather cheesy time-based skill. And it was very expensive. A whopping four points! I think the reason it was so expensive is that it has two states, which I'll explain.

At the very beginning, when I was offered to choose a one-time bonus skill, I couldn't understand what "False Time Erasure" was until I thought about it myself. And to be honest, everything was clear in the skill description if you thought about it carefully.

How can you "erase time"? How can you erase something that happened and still remember it? How can things that happened in a non-existent time exist at all? So what's the answer? I don't have one yet. To do that, you'd have to be at least a god-level being. Well... or at least understand the concept. Changing, distorting, and erasing events that have already happened is beyond my power. But erasing my enemies' very concept of time and predicting it is well within my power. Here's an example of how it works:

From the author: King Crimson/Todd Howard — IT'S. JUST.WORKS.©

For example, an enemy shoots at me with a gun, and at that very moment I begin to "Erase Time." At this point, I already know what will happen in the next few seconds because "False Erasure" is My Time. Meanwhile, my enemy sees, feels, and knows nothing. I know what will happen in the next few seconds because "False Erasure" is my time. Meanwhile, my enemy sees, feels, and, most importantly, thinks that his bullets are hitting me, and I fall to the ground a dead corpse. Some more time passes, and my "corpse" disappears, and I clean my dagger of his blood behind his back, because while he was shooting, he received a blade in his back and a wound incompatible with life.

Still unclear? Okay, here's another very simple example.

Someone starts counting from 1 to 10.

"1, 2, 3, 4 [5, 6, 7, 8]... 9... 10?! W-what happened after the number four?! — At this point, the person will continue counting, but he will not remember that I hit him in the face at the moment when he continued counting from 5 to 8 seconds.

What does this achieve? Hmmm... let me think:

1) It prevents me from dying from an enemy attack.

2) It makes him completely predictable.

3) It makes him completely open to attack because he is unable to comprehend what happened.

That's why calling this ability "Erase" is a mistake. They will continue to perform actions during this time interval, see what they are supposed to see, but I will know about them in advance and do what I want during that time.

Studied: False Time Erasure Level: ??? Can be improved!

You create a distortion in time and deprive your opponents of the ability to perceive the very concept of "Time." During this distortion, all of your opponents' actions will be predictable. Everyone affected by this will only see you based on their current perception of you, and your actual existence and actions at that moment in time will not be revealed until you stop the ability.

OD consumption: 50 units per second. Cooldown: 20 seconds. Supported.

How did I test it? Well, to be honest, I used the living room cleaner, who decided to clean the room at just the right moment. Visually, this ability did not manifest itself in any way, which made it even more deadly. As soon as I put the cleaning fee in her pocket and returned time to its normal flow, she felt confused and looked at me hopefully, expecting her tip. It was funny to see the look on her face when I told her she had already received her tip.

"Really? That's strange, I forgot about that. I'm sorry.

"No, I should be thanking you for helping me with this little experiment," I replied mentally with a slight smile on my lips.

The only terrible downside is the price. Although even One Second is enough time to turn the tide of battle. Although, again, it depends on the situation. In a short and fast battle, I'm just a living monster in the flesh. In situations where the enemy stubbornly refuses to die, I'm extremely vulnerable. As it turns out, Agility isn't my main attribute, but Endurance. True, I found a way to solve this problem in a fairly simple way, but more on that later.

I could have spent my remaining skill point on learning Time Slow, but unfortunately, I wasn't entirely sure it would be useful. Stopping time already did all the work for me. I had no way to use all these skills because they were so expensive in terms of stamina. I decided to save the remaining skill point for a rainy day. Who knows, maybe I'll find a use for it in Dungeons?

We've sorted out the characteristics and skills. What about equipment? The local grocery store on the highway had a good selection. The "Observation" skill helped me identify features of certain foods that I hadn't noticed before. For example, an energy bar could restore 50 stamina and double its regeneration! The effects could even stack. However, there was a downside. The warnings mentioned negative consequences in the form of long-lasting and unpleasant effects, ranging from headaches and nausea to loss of consciousness. I even had the idea of becoming a chef and starting to cook food with my special effects, but I quickly dismissed the thought.

"Too lazy...! — and it's quite difficult to justify this point of view. Maybe I'll learn to cook in the future, but not now.

As for my arsenal, of all the weapons I had, I seriously decided to go with the grenade. I significantly increased its ammunition with my favourite "budding" technique from other layers of reality. Firearms are quite effective weapons, but for some reason I was convinced that they would be of little use in Dungeons due to the difference in the enemies' defence levels and attack power. Such weapons are effective against humans, but the creatures I will encounter there will most certainly not be human. I just hope that all my preparations will be enough to get me through it. My first Dungeon.

Having gathered my thoughts, I decided not to linger at the inn any longer. Due to my paranoia, I didn't want to stay in any one place for more than a day. Before leaving the hotel room, I took the blue orb from my inventory, inside which a light blue flame seemed to burn.

 Do you want to use "Body Control"? The process cannot be reversed.

Yes/No?

I want to look like an adult, but at the same time I still behave like a child.

"What can I do?" I shrugged and answered my own question. "At some point, I realised that this world was my playground, and the opinions of heroes and villains became almost meaningless to me. Victory is what defines a person. If you become stronger than your enemy, if you survive, if you deceive everyone and remain undecieved yourself, then you have won, and victory brings rewards. These rewards can be both moral and material. After all, it doesn't matter if you enjoy what you do.

I clicked "Agree" and selected the age of twenty-one. As soon as I did, my body felt like it was being torn apart from the inside by excruciating pain. Damn it, couldn't they have warned me...?!

"Argh... ah... ah..." I'm sitting on my knees on the floor, trying to catch my breath. My heart is pounding wildly, as if it's about to jump out of my chest. My clothes are fine because this ability also affected them. The mirror reflected an adult version of myself, who smiled slightly at the result of this strange change.

"Well, it's time to get to work.

How did the Dungeon system work? To enter it, you needed a special key that would open a special door in space. Since this was my first Dungeon, the system provided it to me for free. The key could only be used once, after which it would immediately disappear. Once I was inside, my task would be quite simple — kill the Dungeon Boss. Dungeon also provided an "Exit" option, but after that, any attempt to clear the dungeon would automatically be counted as a failure. The next key would have to be obtained through an auction. Keys are randomly generated after killing the final boss and, with some probability, can drop in quantities of several pieces. It is almost impossible to know in advance what awaits the player in the Dungeon. The only clue could be related to the appearance of the key. My key had a stone structure and a complex chain at the end, resembling a... maze? Holding this key behind the hotel building, I activated it with a mental command, and a grey stone door appeared right in front of me. As soon as I inserted the key into the keyhole, the door opened and the key instantly disappeared. It was terribly dark inside, and a black and purple singularity swirled in the middle. Sighing heavily and pulling out my dagger, I took the fateful step into this frightening unknown.

My consciousness clouded for just a couple of seconds, and then I found myself in a strange corridor: the grey floor and walls of the cave were too smooth, clean and even. The corridor was lit only by the dim light of torches, and there was complete silence, in which I could clearly hear my own heartbeat. There was a dead end behind me. There was no one else around, and that bothered me more than if I had been met by some guard of this place upon arrival. I decided that before going forward, it would be better to get some information from the system.

The Labyrinth of the Last Minotaur.

Location Level: 30+

Threat: Medium.

Event "Dungeon" activated!

Main Task: Kill the Minotaur "Tar-Dora"!

[+500,000 experience, "Compass of Desire"]

Secondary Tasks:

Kill more than three hundred Shadow Wolves. Reward: [+1 to Stealth skill level, Passive ability: Silent Step],

Find out why the entire Minotaur race was almost wiped out. [Reward: ???]

It all seems short and straightforward. I had only taken a few dozen steps down the corridor when the first enemies appeared ahead of me. The shadow wolves mentioned in the quest had a very unusual appearance: thick black fur, impressive claws, and fangs protruding from their mouths. A real dentist's nightmare. Their bloody irises with vertical pupils exuded bloodlust and hatred.

"Rrraagh!" A warning growl came from deep within the corridor, and the red dots of his friends' eyes lit up one by one. After all, wolves only hunt in packs.

With a slight mental effort, I drew my translucent spiritual dagger, Talos. I ran it across my wrist, causing a slight bleeding. My body began to emit a red mist.

Bloody Marathon: Activated!"Let's try out our new abilities...!" With these words, I turn the tip of the dagger towards them, and the pack rushes forward. I use my ability to accelerate, increasing my speed and reaction time several times over. And off we go! The first one jumps at me, paying for it with half of his body, but more creatures rush in to replace him, followed by more and more... Like an endless wave, trying to get me, knock me down and tear me apart on this cold floor. Despite their considerable numbers, I significantly outpaced them, periodically moving back in dangerous situations, and when they cornered me at my starting point, I decided to finish them off by stopping time and moving behind them in a lightning-fast, chaotic line. Time returned to its usual course, and the wolves exploded into pieces of black sticky substance, which dissolved into black smoke. Of course, I could have done this from the start, but as I said earlier, I wanted to test my abilities, and as it turned out, my speed was significantly superior to that of a human and was somewhere on the level of a flying bullet.

Wolves killed: 78/300

After clearing the corridor, I was able to enter a spacious room with many identical corridors.

"Ugh, if this really is a maze, I'll definitely be going around in circles. I think I should use regular markers so I don't waste a bunch of time looking for the boss.

All the corridors were literally swarming with shadow wolves, and killing them was not much different from the previous pack. Although they were quite annoying, they posed no danger to me, but they did provide some good experience. I was able to level up twice on them. After a while, I stumbled upon a stone tablet with an inscription in a language unknown to me. My inner instinct told me that this was the local history of the Dungeon, and if I could understand what was written on it, I would be able to complete an additional quest.

To read the tablet, you need to know the language of the Underground World.

It's better to leave it for later. I'm sure there will be a way to learn it somewhere.

Tar-Dora's Diary

Entries found: [1 of 5] 

Here's another reason not to throw them away. Although I couldn't read it, my Observation skill allowed me to determine its significance. I need to keep an eye out and not miss any of them so that I can see and understand the whole story.

Meanwhile, my journey continued. During the next sweep, I didn't notice that the pack of dead wolves didn't really want to die in the usual way, but quickly merged into a homogeneous mass. This amused me slightly, and if the resulting amalgamation of wolves had not been so hostile and mindless, I would not have minded having such a pet on a leash.

"Come on, Chernysh, come here," I said, clapping my hands and beckoning him to me. I think this made him a little angry. Due to his size, there wasn't much room to manoeuvre in the small corridor, so this form didn't give him any significant advantage. However, his regeneration after that was simply absurd, which annoyed me a little. Each of my blows cut through parts of his body, but new ones immediately appeared in the affected areas. "Time stop."

I delivered a slashing blow to his neck, jumped on his nose and delivered a second blow to the back of his head, which completely severed his head from his neck. Even cutting off his head while time was stopped had no effect. A new one grew back in its place in a couple of seconds. I put a skill point into improving Death Mark. Now it has an additional property — it points to the enemies' weak spots. A red translucent throwing knife appears at the tips of my fingers, and with a precise throw, I hit the solar plexus. Red unknown runes covered the wolf, and in the area of his left eye, I noticed a purple dot, which, apparently, was his weak spot. He lunged his toothy maw towards me, and I, shifting slightly, made a direct lunge at his eye. My opponent froze for a couple of seconds, then exploded into black splashes/spread into a black blob and disappeared from this world for good.

Strangely enough, there was no one else here besides the wolves. I had long since completed the quest to exterminate them. I had been wandering the corridors for quite some time and had found almost all of the signs. Only one remained. I don't know if it was luck or chance, but I think I finally found the room with the final boss. The massive steel gates were invitingly ajar. It took me a lot of effort just to open them. Inside, sitting on his throne, was the Minotaur himself. Huge, almost three metres tall, with a mass of steel muscles and red skin. His only protection was a pair of trousers and a strange set of armour resembling steel chains. I noticed a huge axe among his weapons. While his bull-like face watched me closely, his fist raised to his chin, I decided to test him quickly.

Name: Tar-Dor

Level: 40

Race: Minotaur

Professions: Berserker, Exceptional Warrior.

Titles: Last of His Kind, Forgotten Pawn of Great History.HP: 2000/2000

Strength: 250

Dexterity: 100

Intelligence: 68

Special Abilities: Until the Last Breath.

The information displayed was incomplete, but it was more than enough to understand that this boss was purely a power type and that I should finish him off quickly because the Berserker class is quite dangerous. The time for thinking and assessing the enemy was up, and the massive figure of the monster rose from its throne. At that moment, I ran at it at full speed and struck. My dagger crossed with its axe, and in the next second, I was thrown back like a feather by its usual force.

"Moo-Aaargh!" His terrifying roar echoed through the spacious room like a pulsating aura.

The enemy is in a berserk state!

This time, he attacks. The axe comes down very close to me, but even his miss shatters the floor and throws me slightly to the side with the shock wave. What monstrous strength...! I stop time and, while I have the chance, cast Death Mark, approach him and strike him with a dozen blows of all kinds. Time returns to its normal flow, and the minotaur's body is instantly covered with numerous cuts, from which blood gushes out. His stance is unsteady, and now he is down on one knee. Even with my weapon, I was only able to take away half of his HP! And judging by the hot steam literally oozing from his wounds and the way his aura threatened to splash blood, it didn't bode well. His main stat had jumped to 400, and it wasn't hard to guess that if I got hit by him even once, it would be the end of me. Every second counted, so it was time for my trump card.

The moment he moved towards me, I activated Time Erase. My perception of time changed. It slowed down several dozen times and showed the trajectory of his blow. All he could see was me standing in place, waiting for his attack. I shifted slightly to the side, threw the dagger at his forehead, took a dozen grenades neatly tied together from my inventory, pulled out all the pins with a slight movement, and threw them straight at him.

The whole thing took me two seconds. My fake blur disappeared and, before he could react, the minotaur caught the dagger in his forehead, and an impressive instant explosion hid him in a grey cloud. From this cloud, an axe flew at me at tremendous speed, which I barely managed to dodge. I almost lost my arm, but the wound was quite tolerable. When the smoke from the explosion cleared, I saw the minotaur standing there on his knees, frozen in his final throwing pose. Half of his body had been torn apart by the explosion, and there was a clear hole in his skull, with only the empty stare of his bloodshot eyes looking at me.

Level Up!

Level Up!

Level Up!

"Three levels for one minotaur? Can I have another one?!" He beckoned the dagger to him with his fingertips and caught it in mid-air with a reverse grip.

"So that's what 'to the last breath' meant... huh?

I felt a certain melancholy and even some... sympathy for this beast? Yes, he fought with everything he had. He was much stronger than me, and if I didn't have the ability to control time, I wouldn't have stood a chance. Or maybe I was just disappointed that it was all over so quickly? Perhaps that was the case. But who cares? This place wasn't a sports arena or an amusement park. It was a place where I had to win and survive at all costs.

In any case, before leaving this place, it's worth taking a good look around. Behind the throne, like in some fantasy RPG, lay a real trophy chest. Opening it, I found the standard pile of gold, a key, a book, and the stone tablet I was missing.

Royal Key — Can be used to enter the Dungeon.

Description: ???

That's what I expected when I saw the key there. And what's that book?

"Textbook of the Language of the Underworld" 

Would you like to study it?

"Of course I would!" No sooner had I said it than the book crumbled into pieces, and my intelligence and wisdom increased slightly. Now all that remained was to read all these tablets in a convenient format.

After a couple of hours of studying the tablets.

"Hmm... how interesting.

The tablets were a kind of diary of a now deceased minotaur who, due to his rage and hatred, had gone mad. Originally, in some otherworldly realm, there were two warring continents. They were simply called the Underworld and the Outer World. The Underworld was full of all kinds of undead creatures, monsters and just plain strange beings, while the Outer World was simply the world of humans. A war broke out between them, during which the people of the Empire almost completely exterminated the minotaurs. The act of genocide was not welcomed anywhere, but people found justification in the fact that it was God's will that such creatures should not exist in this world. Who were they to contradict His word? Well, it seems that even in a fantasy world, the church can subjugate everything and everyone. Tar-Dor managed to escape his bitter fate and decided to hide in this place in order to gather enough strength in the future to avenge his kind. The most stupid and ridiculous thing about this whole situation was that after he managed to hide here, he couldn't get back out because that stupid cow accidentally killed the only succubus mage who could transport him to this place in a fit of PTSD. There were no teleporters here due to the simple fear that someone from the humans might find their way here, and the wolves were her familiars, who had been accidentally summoned at the moment of her death. Even after her death, the wolves did not recognise him as an enemy and carried out the will of the guardians of this place. Apparently, she... did not hold a grudge against him even at the moment of her death. 

By the way, I examined his chest, but not the corpse. That's not right.

The Minotaur's Horn — can be used as an ingredient in alchemy or to create items.

The Ring of Fury — "Pain is nothing, only Fury remains" — these words are neatly and beautifully engraved on a gold ring.

Passive ability: Each 20% loss of HP increases your Strength by 20%.

It seems like a cool ring, but it's not for me. Oh well, bad luck. I can't even lift the axe properly, let alone use it in battle. I think I'll sell it or give it to someone. It's useless anyway.

Quest completed!

Reward: 500,000 experience, "Compass of Desire".

Additional Quests Completed!

Reward: 1) +1 to the "Stealth" skill level, Passive ability: Silent Step 2) Berserker profession manual. 

The textbook was completely useless due to the specifics of the profession, but the compass and the fact that I got three more levels for clearing the Dungeon is not bad. I'm already at level 24!

The Compass of Desire allows its owner to point the way to what they desire most. The compass was enclosed in a black box and had a needle pointing in the direction of the desired location in an oblong protective glass.

"So, that's it. I'm getting into the habit of talking to myself.

There was nothing special to do: all I had to do was mentally wish to leave Danz, and I would be automatically transported from here. Now that I've levelled up quite a bit, maybe I should take a look at that very secretive mercenary company? Maybe I'll meet Defstruck or Deadshot. After all, I am impressed by people who, without superpowers, can bring those with superpowers to their knees. I wonder what drives these people? Money or sport? Although I have read DC comics, the motivation of these people has always remained a mystery to me.

"Nothing personal, it's just work"...

What a pretentious and overused phrase. I'm stepping into the lion's den again. Apparently, spending so much time in this universe is having a negative effect on me, since I'm trying to make enemies of these mercenaries. To be honest, I had no desire to ruin my relationship with them. Quite the opposite! I wanted to see them at work for myself. Perhaps I could even impress them and offer them my services in order to understand their motivation. I just had to keep my eyes open, because trusting people like that is not respecting yourself. I was too careless and overconfident with Batman. I won't let that happen again.

"My whole life is a game," I muttered into the void as I appeared behind a familiar hotel. Hmm, judging by the police squad that had appeared at the hotel, I'd better leave this place. Amanda Waller had become too openly attentive to me. Why was I so sure it was her? There's no one else, because Bats doesn't leave Gotham, and that's definitely not his style. Did she really think this pathetic squad would stop me? Although, she probably planned to use them as pawns to make me look bad and show the whole country that I was dangerous because I killed all these good police officers who were just doing their job. That would give her free rein to act much more openly.

"You play dirty, Waller. I'm impressed!" I applauded slowly and sarcastically, then entered stealth mode, reached full speed, caught up with the truck, and decided to become its extra passenger by landing on the roof.

***

patreon.com/posts/chronos-in-dc-in-134034864