"Your insane"
"I try"
"You'll die."
"Already did."
"Your crazy"
"I think we already established that fact didn't we?"
"...Lord give me strength."
Praying to one of the many Gods living in the heavens, I tilted my head.
Now that I think about it, what even was the place that the Gods resided in?
The Underworld? The Nether? Heaven? The Golden Palace? Olympus? The Pantheon?
Random things like that occupied a small corner of my mind as the woman in front of me finished their heartfelt prayer.
"...I don't think we officially introduced ourselves to each other."
Lightly bowing with their hands splayed out to the sides, the holes in their mask glowed orange as they stared at my face.
"Just a final reminder, you can back out any time, the burden of carrying a boss cell with you isn't a light one, even if it's power is halved."
"I wouldn't have traveled across the entire length of an island if I didn't feel sure of myself, and like I said earlier, a God of death told me I have to do this."
"...I'll make sure that you die fast."
"We'll see."
Taking in a deep breath, she continued to bow down, and turned her gaze away from my face, speaking softly. "I am the Timekeeper, watcher of the clock tower, and manager of time, who am I greeting?"
I took out a spear and shield and held them abreast.
"My name is Slade Bridge, Captain of my unit, and a man that died three times."
Silently staring at me, the Timekeeper's blade tipped downwards slightly "...Is that really your name?"
"What?" Tilting my head in confusion, I stared straight into the Timekeepers eye holes, if she wanted to fight, fight, why was she suddenly talking about my name?
"Well... It really isn't a problem but..." The Timekeeper shifted on the tips of their toes. "If you want to live on this island, you should probably change your name to a monicker."
"Why?"
"You don't know? Well you probably wouldn't know since it's such a weird concept but..." The Timekeeper let out a long tired sigh. "The malaise is able to infect people through their names."
"Wow, just wow."
A disease that raised the dead was something that I've become immunized to thanks to various zombie apocalypse movies.
A magic disease that could cause madness could be slightly understood thanks to various call of Cthulhu novels I read in my freetime.
A magic disease that not only infected people through bodily fluids, madness and now names? No wonder they sealed away this disease.
'What a nasty and annoying little bugger.'
Feeling a sympathy for these people, I belatedly understood why Guillian was so obsessed with corpses.
'He's probably infected.'
He was obsessed with the dead and with people's organs, most probably thanks to the malaise.
Feeling a slight pity for the crazy little lizard, the Timekeeper took a stance with one of their blades pointed towards me
"Anyways! For the time being, once you come back in the next timeline, please don't mention your name aloud to the infected and instead use your monicker if you ever come up with one."
"Yeah, I probably should do that."
"Now shall we?"
"We shall."
Falling silent after that brief exchange, I began to evaluate what my opponent would possibly do.
And I had no doubt that underneath that helmet of theirs, they were currently doing the same.
Flexing the fingers held around the spear shaft, the Timekeeper tightened her grip on the longsword resting over her shoulder.
There was no special signal that signified the beginning of the fight.
In fact, I wasn't sure who made the first move.
But I knew one thing.
'I should be the one to draw her first blood.'
Rushing forwards, the shield was kept to block my body while the spear as something to strike with after I blocked with the shield.
'The Left.'
Arm twitching, she raised the longsword over her shoulder and performed an overhead swing.
*BANG
A symphony of steel.
Sparks flying from the initial clash, my expression subtly changed.
'Bloody hell she's strong.'
Feeling the vibrations shake my left hand despite deflecting a majority of the force, I made a mental note to not make a frontal clash with this woman.
'Now it's my turn to draw first blood'
Stabbing forwards with a spear, the Timekeeper's peepers flashed orange as the shortsword in her right hand instantly deflected the spear.
'A dual handed approach huh? Reminds me of that red armored guy.'
Recalling a foe I had struggled against with only one blade, I felt the two armaments in my hands and fought against the Timekeeper in a flurry of clashes.
Longsword clashing against my shield, my spear was deflected by her shortsword.
It was a battle of who could best utilize the distance between us.
Covering the head of my body, I suddenly rushed forwards and unleashed a flurry of stabs.
But completely unfazed by the rush, the Timekeeper swiftly and calmly retreated, her longsword and shortsword locking the flurry of stabs.
Shoving my shield forwards, the woman pressed down with her strength advantage and slammed the pommel of her sword into the shield, something that I couldn't force to slide off, causing the full force of the blunt object to shake the shield.
Jumping backwards due to the honestly terrifying physical strength, I stared at both spear and shield that honestly looked both worse for wear.
Letting me retreat, the Timekeeper silently stared at me before opening her mouth
"Do you yield?"
"Hell no."
"Fine by me."
Despite what an outside spectator with no foreknowledge of the art of combat would think, this was nothing more than a probing action to test each others limits.
Seeing as most monsters here were able to use magical powers, it didn't seem to far fetched to think that the people surviving on this island didn't have magical powers of their own.
Timebreaking aside, I wondered what the Timekeeper would pull out of her pockets to show me.
And besides, I didn't even use my runes yet.
Discarding both spear and shield, the Timekeeper paused her actions in bewilderment.
"...Didn't you say that you won't yield?"
"Who said I was lying?"
Pulling out weapons from the ether, a pair of swords lay in my hands causing the timekeeper to shake her head in confusion.
"How...? No, this is probably why you are confident enough to seal away the boss cell."
"Oh you haven't seen the rest of what I can do lady."
Smiling softly, my orange eyes stared into the orange glowing slits on her helmet.
Then we clashed.
Pulling out weapons of her own from the ether, her hand flashed three times as shurikens bigger than my entire body swiftly flew by.
Hurriedly dodging the flying blades that flew by insanely fast, the Timekeeper rushed in during the gap I made while dodging.
'Not yet lady.'
Blasting mana through my legs, I performed the impressive act of a standing jump, dodging the longsword flashing through my position.
Dropping a chunk of wood in my place, the blade sunk deep into the wood.
"Hah!" Letting out a disbelieving bark, the Timekeeper moved to pull out her blade. "Did you really think this would stop me?"
"No, but it would by me some time." Chuckling slightly, the burning vine runes on my hands instantly lit up.
Sprouting several vines from the block of wood, they instantly moved to snake around her weapon and by extension, the arm holding the weapon.
Flinching in surprise, the Timekeeper instinctively moved to get rid of the numerous vines.
And as much as I wanted to say that she had to abandon her blade, she teleported away, sword in hand.
Yeah, teleported.
'Well, I was expecting a bit much, but this is more than a bit much.'
Flashing to the otherside of the clocktower, with a swift movement, a chain suddenly manifested at the base of the shortsword.
Grabbing the chain, she swung the shortsword towards me in a whip like manner.
Instantly blocking it with one of my swords, the Timekeeper yanked the chain causing a force to pull at the sword in my hand.
But instead of letting it go, I followed with the weapon
Perhaps expecting such a reaction, her longsword wielding arm moved to decapitate the air in front of her.
'Actually, if it continues like this, I'll be the one cut.'
Projecting where I would fall in the future, I didn't take this lying down.
Eyes flashing, mana flowed through the rest of the runes on my hands.
Swords heating up, flames covered both blades as I continued to fly through the air.
But that wasn't the least of it.
Using the inferno rune, giant wheels of flame formed in the air behind me as I pointed the tip of my flaming blade at her.
Swinging, the longsword formed out of steel met my blade covered in flames.
And following it up, a massive explosion formed from the flame wheels collided against the Timekeeper ignoring the fact that I was currently colliding against said Timekeeper.
+++
Tree that lost sleep editing out one fatal mistake my friend pointed out.