MY SYSTEM LOADS 10 SECONDS LATE

Chapter 4 : Slaying a God with Ten Seconds of Foresight.

Chapter 4: Slaying a God with Ten Seconds of Foresight

*SPLAT.*

A fountain of thick, acidic green blood erupted from the Crypt Weaver's secondary left eye as Jaxen's cheap iron daggers buried themselves up to the hilt.

The Abyssal Boss let out a deafening, agonizing screech that shook the very foundations of the colosseum. It hadn't just been hurt; its charging momentum had been violently disrupted by an E-Rank hunter who had essentially placed a blade exactly where its weakest point was going to be.

"Did he just... blind it?!" one of the fleeing vanguard knights gasped, halting his retreat at the exit.

"Impossible!" Garret roared, clutching his poisoned leg. "He's an E-Rank! His strength stat shouldn't even be able to pierce its outer skin!"

They didn't understand. Jaxen didn't use raw strength. He had used the monster's own terrifying, Level 120 momentum against itself. It was like a speeding train slamming directly into a perfectly placed spike.

But the victory was short-lived.

The Crypt Weaver, maddened by the pain, thrashed violently. Its massive, bone-plated torso swung horizontally like a wrecking ball. Jaxen, still suspended in the air, had no leverage. The creature's massive flank slammed into his ribs, shattering his torso and sending him flying across the room.

He crashed into a stone pillar, his spine snapping like a dry twig.

```

[ALERT: Fatal internal trauma detected.]

[Status: Dying.]

[ACTIVATING TALENT: 'Hindsight Bias'...]

```

*Whoosh!*

The vacuum of time yanked him back.

Jaxen blinked. He was in mid-air again, his daggers just plunging into the creature's eye. The blood erupted. The monster began to screech.

But this time, Jaxen didn't wait for the counter-attack. The exact millisecond his daggers bit into the flesh, he released his grip on the hilts, using the monster's head as a springboard to push himself backward into a tight, frantic backflip.

*SWISH!*

The massive, bone-plated torso swung through the exact patch of empty air Jaxen had occupied a microsecond prior, smashing into the stone pillar behind him and shattering it into dust.

Jaxen hit the ground rolling, uninjured, his heart hammering violently against his ribs. He was weaponless now, but he had successfully blinded one side of the beast and survived its immediate retaliation.

"Lana!" Jaxen shouted, scrambling behind a fallen boulder. "The eye! The wound is an unarmored conduit directly to its mana core! Cast your highest-tier single-target spell right into the daggers!"

Lana, still reeling from the sheer absurdity of Jaxen's movements, broke out of her trance. Her eyes locked onto the two iron hilts protruding from the thrashing monster's eye socket. It was a perfect lightning rod for magic.

"By the laws of frost, freeze the blood of the wicked!" Lana roared, raising her staff as her B-Rank mana exploded outward. "Rank 4 Spell: **[Glacial Spike]**!"

A massive, six-foot spear of solid, magical ice condensed in the air above her. With a wave of her staff, it shot across the chamber, guided perfectly by the mana-conductive fluid Jaxen had smashed onto his daggers earlier.

*BOOM!*

The ice spear struck the daggers perfectly, driving them even deeper into the brain of the Crypt Weaver. The glacial magic instantly flash-froze the interior of the monster's skull. The creature's remaining seven eyes glazed over with white frost, and its massive, terrifying movements suddenly stiffened, turning sluggish.

```

[ALERT: Calamity Beast 'Crypt Weaver' has entered a 'Frozen/Critically Damaged' state.]

[Health: 12%]

```

"It's working!" the remaining vanguard knights cheered, a desperate hope igniting in their chests. "We can kill an Abyssal Boss!"

"Don't celebrate yet!" Jaxen yelled, his eyes tracking the monster's freezing body.

He knew how these systems worked. A Level 120 boss didn't just die quietly. At 10% health, every major dungeon boss triggered a "Desperation Phase"—a final, suicidal AOE attack meant to take its killers down with it.

The frost covering the Crypt Weaver suddenly began to crack. A deep, ominous crimson glow began to radiate from the center of its frozen chest. The air in the colosseum grew heavy, suffocatingly hot.

"It's detonating its mana core," Lana whispered, her face turning pale as she felt the unstable magical forces gathering. "A boss self-destruction... we can't outrun the blast radius. We're dead anyway."

The knights screamed, turning to run, but the exit door suddenly slammed shut, sealed by the dungeon's lockdown protocol.

Jaxen stood in the center of the crumbling chamber, looking at the glowing, ticking time bomb of a monster. He didn't run. He didn't panic.

Instead, he closed his eyes and breathed out a slow, controlled sigh.

"Ten seconds," Jaxen whispered to himself, a cold, sharp glint returning to his eyes. "I just need to find the one timeline where we don't blow up."

He sprinted directly toward the glowing, detonating nightmare.