A Flash of Insight

The world reformed itself into a forested mountainside, with footing steep enough to throw off John’s balance if he didn’t work against it, but nothing that would give the young Nekos even a moment’s hesitation. The day shifted into night, and overhead a full moon sprang into the sky as if it had rocketed there from deep space.

“Waaah, so cool!” Miriam wailed out, her eyes flickering wildly as she struggled to decide what she should be looking at first. “But why did it turn to night time?”

“Because of the kind of enemies that are in this place,” John said, glancing off toward the horizon. There was nothing immediately around them, as was usual with his dungeons, but he knew that they were out there somewhere. “I know how much you all like to play around, and I think a couple of you might even hesitate to hurt something cute. For your first dungeon I didn’t want to leave any chances that any of you wouldn’t strike at the first opportunity.

“W-what does that mean?” Midoriya asked, eyes widening with concern.

“Papa, what are we gonna be fighting?” Moira asked, her voice filled with suspicion.

Just as John was opening his mouth, a sound echoed over the land. A long, piercing howl filled the air and was quickly joined by a half-dozen echoes. The sound was enjoyably pleasant and familiar to John’s ears, but it sent all four of the kittens into a frenzy. They crouched and turned in the general direction most of the noise was coming from, claws out and the hair on the back of their necks fully stood on its ends.

“Dogs,” John said, a pleasant smile on his face. “Hellhounds, to be more specific.”

All four kittens hissed in unison as the sounds of barking and scratching came ever closer, the brushes ahead of them beginning to rustle frantically. A waft of smoke and the sound of one final bark was their last warning as a Hellhound burst free of the underbrush, flames licking from its mouth and magma-like veins running along its blackened, cracked skin. It howled once, a signal of found prey, and then began bounding forward.

Despite the slight fear on some of their faces, the actual sight of their enemy seemed to transition all four Neko kittens from alert mode to fight mode. Moira, Midoriya, and Miriam all grouped together in a small cluster, with Magnus not far away but edging forward as the beast closed in.

"Hold your places until I give the word," John said, holding his arm up to still the eager Nekos. They all stayed, though Magnus danced eagerly on all four paws.

"But why, Papa?" Magnus whined.

"I'm going to check its strength," John explained. "You can fight it as soon as I'm sure you can handle it."

For all the good his Observe skill could do, John wanted to be absolutely sure. The kittens didn't have nearly as much spare health to gamble with as the adults did, and there was only one way to check damage values.

As the four-legged foe bounded toward him, John found himself not focused, but rather almost… bored. Just as when he had **** his fear back and stepped forth off the cliffs surrounding Paix, as he strode toward the demonic hound, things almost seemed to slow to a crawl. The whole world appeared to pass in slow motion, while John remained unaffected. This time, though, the effect was far more pronounced.

The kittens were half-locked in shouts of fright or fury, each of them barely moving enough for John’s eyes to detect them at all. The Hellhound was hardly moving, almost frozen in place in mid-leap. John actually walked up to it and placed his arm directly into its mouth before the beast even seemed to realize he was moving. Somehow, the process of the bite passed both quickly and slowly; it was as if time sped back up, but with the same level of control over every instant of it. It was a difficult experience to describe, but one he was grateful for. It relieved John of the uncomfortable experience of watching those fangs pierce his flesh a millimeter at a time, while still giving him the control over its path through the air, and the ability to wrench its jaws open and toss it free the moment the damage notification appeared.

-3 HP!

“That’s not too bad,” John mumbled, looking quickly over the health of his children. They were low, but not low enough for even a surprise critical to pose an instant threat. Magnus was the only one at level 3 so far but the others still had wiggle room with their HP bars, and were (thankfully) far more cautious than he was anyway.

Moira: 27 / 27 HP
Magnus: 38 / 38 HP
Midoriya: 22 / 22 HP
Miriam: 19 / 19 HP

“Alright, you’re up, kids,” John called out, gesturing toward the Hellhound that was quickly clambering back to its feet. “If more than two show up at a time, I’m going to get involved – so don’t play with your food!”

John wasn’t sure how much his last warning was heeded – by the time that the words had left his mouth, the kittens were bounding forward. For a moment, they were sprinting forward at what appeared to be full speed, then as Magnus came within arm’s reach of the Hellhound, things began to slow down again.

”I don’t understand why this is happening. Is it because I’m focusing?” John mused, standing still as he watched the fight unfold before him in slow motion. He could see everything perfectly – every detail of Magnus’ fist as it met the Hellhound’s shoulder, the slight pain on the face of the hound, the way it continued on through the ****… especially the surprise on Magnus’ face as the weight and momentum of the Hellhound carried it through for its teeth to graze his shoulder.

Party Member: -2 HP!

”No, I think it has to be more than that,” John pondered, finding no difficulty in concentrating on his thoughts while still catching the way that Magnus howled, the sound slow and yet somehow not distorted, only lengthened. ”I can think about a problem or have a very intense conversation and this never seems to happen. It’s only when there’s danger – or at least something that frightens me.”

John recalled the way that the same dilation of time had happened back when he leapt from the cliffside. Judging by how he’d been able to catch himself at the bottom of the fall, he wasn’t actually in serious danger, but his mind still had the feeling of falling. Further, there had been times he had been caught off guard and taken some minor damage – usually by some slip with his weapon while training, or when he missed a creature in a Barrier and was taken from behind before he noticed their approach.

Midoriya and Moira were on top of the Hellhound before it had bounced twice, their claws piercing into its sides. The beast howled and spun to its feet on the next bound, snapping at the air and forcing the two Nekos back, both of them hissing all the way.

”I could ask Tricia. But this doesn’t feel like an ability, and I’ve gotten no pop-ups yet. Is this just… what getting stronger in the Abyss feels like when you’re not always pushed to your limits?” John hadn’t had many experiences with things below his level. Between his constant need to push himself for training purposes, the Reincarnation mechanic, and the enemies that had come to him rather than giving him time to build up… well, if John wasn’t being pressed for his life, he probably wasn’t fighting. And, of course, he had grown in strength quite a bit over the last year...

Miriam was still watching more than fighting, but as the Hellhound moved toward Moira and Midoriya, she stepped forward, looking almost adorable as she tried to be intimidating, as she bared her claws in a pose that showed off just how little she had used them before. The Hellhound was still cowed, if only a bit, by the sight of three Nekos in front of it in such a tight cluster.

John hadn’t exactly been training the full year, but he had managed a hell of a lot of growth despite that. After the grief that consumed him for so long, John had eventually moved past his need for **** and solitude and forged a drive to train fueled by his fears of losing someone else he cared about. That intense training was probably the only reason he’d handled himself half as well as he had during the ill-advised trek to the west coast. His maximum level was now seventy, and though he was scarcely half of that, the difference between his stats a year ago and now was vast.

While the Hellhound was backing away, Magnus rejoined his brother and sisters, and the four of them began to approach the hesitant beast with hate in their eyes. Their claws glistened as brightly in the moonlight as the Hellhound’s fangs, and with every bit the same instinctual disdain.

As John considered the gaps in his own strength over time, his mind turned toward a much broader gap – the one that stood between himself and Lord Brighton, and then beyond that between Lord Brighton and Adantia. While he’d watched them duel casually, they had seemed like beings on a different plane of existence. Watching them take things seriously, watching Lord Brighton call upon whatever remnant of the Rose that remained within him, that had been something else entirely. They weaved spells more quickly than John could flick his fingers, moved across a battlefield faster than John could take a single step – and every blow they exchanged echoed with such **** that it shook barriers John had no hopes of being able to pierce himself.

As the four Neko kittens surrounded the Hellhound, the bushes behind the retreating beast began to rustle. The kittens realized what was about to happen, but only in time to let out the beginnings of a hiss as two more Hellhounds burst out of the foliage in mid-leap, fangs bared and howls on their canine lips.

”Maybe that’s just what it’s like getting stronger,” John had time to muse, before his feet were carrying him forward. He wasn’t worried for the safety of his children, and he hadn’t missed a beat in his strides. While the kittens had not noticed the motion in the treeline until fangs were flashing before their eyes, John had noticed the movement of the leaves in the distance… something that confused and amazed him further. If everything around him looked slower, how did he notice subtle movements of greenery? That should’ve been slowed as well, to the point that he could hardly see it move. True, the natural swaying of the foliage was also slowed and so it still stood out, but hardly enough to be noticed by the naked eye. There was something more, something magical going on.

”This is supernatural awareness.”

The thought wasn’t so much a revelation or an understanding as it was the absolute epitome of a nerdgasm. Even as John crossed the distance between himself and his children in what felt like an instant, even as he felt the muscles and tendons of his hands clenching around the throats of two angry Hellhounds, John felt a dancing glee jolt through him. He had often wondered what life and perception must be like for the speedsters and otherwise supernaturally quick heroes in games and movies. They could often react in a fraction of a second, yet they never went mad from waiting minutes or hours for an ordinary person to complete a single sentence.

”It’s like the magical equivalent of an adrenaline rush,” John realized, practically giddy with the thought. It wasn’t a perfect analogy – adrenaline flowed more strongly in the most dire of circumstances, which didn’t match his experiences. John’s perception of time seemed to ebb and flow as his desires to interfere with what was happening changed, rather than with how dangerous the situation seemed. Honestly, given how he had gone out of his way to check the damage numbers on these Hellhounds beforehand, John couldn’t remember ever feeling less threatened by dungeon enemies.

But it was the most accurate sensation he could compare it to, as he ****-slammed two fiery canines to the ground at the same time, and turned to face his children. The most jarring moment came as he began to speak. As John addressed his children, he could hear every word he spoke in real-time, as if offhandedly mentioned. But he could read the reactions on the kittens’ faces in a semblance of bullet time, seeing every twitch of a facial muscle, and feeling every coursing sinew of the Hellhounds that surged in his grasp as they finally realized they had been apprehended. Even his mind felt as if it were working at two different speeds, and yet instead of feeling disoriented, John felt overjoyed. His mind was filled with images of Quicksilver and the Flash, alongside a hundred other heroes from comics and manga he’d read, who could move and think faster than the average human could even perceive. He had always wondered what it must be like to be able to act that quickly, to think and feel at those speeds.

John hadn’t realized until now, until he was practically watching the kittens’ jaws drop a millimeter at a time, that he was beginning to understand that kind of speed.

“I told you not to play with your food,” John said, effortlessly pinning the low-level Dungeon creatures with one hand each. “I count three of them currently, which is when I said I’d get involved. Put one down fast, or I’ll finish this encounter myself when the next one approaches.”

It wasn’t a particularly fair ultimatum, given that to the Nekos, John had to assume the battle had only been a few seconds long at most. But they didn’t object; rather, they collapsed on their foe together without hesitation – even Miriam jumped at it. The Hellhound was thoroughly confused now, turning between John and the kittens, and in its confusion it hardly stood a chance.

Multiple damage notifications popped up as the Nekos dug their claws in, ending the Hellhound’s life in little more than an instant. By the time the kittens had re-composed themselves, the body was already fading away.

“Good work. Your first kill, and as a team too,” John said, smirking. “Now… let’s see how you handle two of them. Work quickly, I hear more coming!”

John released the Hellhounds together, easily avoiding their reactive bites in his direction and taking some distance from the area. The scrabbling Hellhounds were mirrored by the frantic regrouping of the Nekos, as the two Hellhounds began charging at them together.

John watched the battle unfold blow by blow, no longer bothered by the way time warped as he watched claws and fangs flashing. John didn’t need to fully understand this fascinating result of his new abilities, or contemplate how it didn’t drive him mad.

He knew that it kept his children safe as they tangled with the fiery canines.