"You… destroy them, kill them, carve them up," I said. "I'm well aware of your actions over the years. You are free to kill me, but both you and I know that it won't do shit. Don't waste your time on threatening me. I'm not afraid of you. I cannot die."

"I could drag you into my domain, have the highway take you apart loop by loop until your skills become reduced to zero," she threatened.

"You could," I said. "But then you'd miss out on an epic battle with me. You don't want me to be reduced. You want me to get stronger, for my branches to bloom. Why is that? Could it be that you've no real challenge, that the people who come here are too easy for you to break? Are you… bored?"

The Magnetic Lynx considered my question for a long moment, her multiple headlamp eyes dimming as if she were accessing some deep memory bank. When she spoke again, her voice carried a note of something almost like… Sadness?

"You are somewhat correct. The last true challenge to my strength was..." She paused, metal plates shifting as she tilted her head. "A large team of Sentinel-hunter delvers who came in 1984… sent by Gurrwulf who wanted to build a ticket booth here to leech mana from me and June. They fought well before I dismantled them."

"June?"

"My love," she answered.

"What's your name?" I asked.

"Magdaline," she replied. "Or Mags…"

Behind me, I heard the sharp intake of breath from both groups. They were still frozen in place, weapons trained in various directions.

Then one of the wolves—Bark-n-Bite, I think—made a critical error in judgment. Her hands shaking, she slowly moved her machine gun, the red targeting dot appearing on Mag's metallic forehead.

Mag's multiple headlight eyes swiveled to focus on the biker wolf, lighting up her figure and casting a low shadow behind her.

The Magnetic Lynx raised one clawed hand almost casually, a magnet within her palm humming ominously.

Every weapon possessed by the bikers–crossbow, pistols, knives, machine guns suddenly flew from their owners' hands as if yanked by invisible cables.

The metal objects collided with each other in a sphere of grinding, shrieking sound, compacting, heating up and warping as tremendous magnetic forces crushed them together.

In seconds, what had been a large number of different weapons became a perfect sphere of twisted red-hot metal. It flared directly above me like a lava ball as the Lynx compressed the metal further with her power.

"No," Captain Adler uttered in horror, staring at the melted metal orb hovering in front of the Lynx's palm.

"You're interrupting my conversation." The Lynx flicked her wrist. "Perish."

The sphere shot forward like a railgun round, moving so fast it created a sonic boom that would have sent me flying if the Lynx wasn't holding onto me. It punched through Bark-n-Bite's motorcycle engine, emerging from the other side trailing sparks and engine oil, cutting a brilliant line across the landscape as it kept going, setting the field alight.

The bike exploded.

The detonation lit up the night roadside like a miniature sun, the blast wave hurling all five bikers through the air like rag dolls. Metal shrapnel scythed through the darkness, and I watched in horror as jagged pieces of motorcycle found their marks. Adler took a fragment through her shoulder, spinning her around before she hit the ground hard. Donutz went down with deep gashes across her legs, while TurboFluff and Tequila were both sliced with various bits of shrapnel.

Bark-n-Bite was thrown the farthest, landing in a crumpled heap nearly thirty feet away, blood streaming from multiple wounds.

The entire attack had taken maybe three seconds.

Magdaline's attention then shifted to Kristi, who had been frozen in shock during the entire display. The raptor girl's amber eyes met the Lynx's multiple headlamps for just an instant before survival instincts kicked in.

The anti-grav engine of her Strand Glider powered down with a descending whine as Kristi pulled the emergency landing lever. The sleek vehicle dropped to the field in front of us with a heavy thud, its landing struts extending just in time to prevent a crash.

Kristi jumped out of the glider and dropped to her knees, her head bowed low in the universal pradavarian gesture of submission. Her feathers lay flat against her neck and shoulders, and she kept her claws pressed firmly to the ground.

"I meant no disrespect, s-sacred Guardian of the Highway," she uttered, her voice trembling. "I came only to retrieve my... friend. Please! I don't desire to harm you! Spare us!"

"Curious," Mags said, her headlamp eyes lighting up the raptor. "You… survived the highway. Yet you are afraid of me? Hrmm. You are weak, broken, and incomplete… A divided shell, a soul cleaved in half."

With that, she turned her full attention back to me, as if the entire violent display had been nothing more than swatting an annoying fly.

"Kristi survived the highway?" I asked.

"Yes," Mags replied. "This critter is one of the few who were able to get away from the time loop. Also, I killed her. She was in your pack. Hrmmm…"

The alien memories I'd been experiencing suddenly made terrible sense.

The black and white tiles, the blood, cradling a girl in my arms—they weren't fantasies or dreams. They were echoes of something that had happened, or would happen, or was happening in some twisted loop of causality.

"What happened to my pack?" I asked, though part of me already knew the answer would snap something inside me.

"I killed them all," Mags said with clinical detachment. "I already told you. I spared you then too, because you didn't show outright hostility, hoping that you would eventually come seek me out at my domain. And so you did. Yet you aren't any stronger. This is disappointing. Do not return here unless you wish to fight me and to enter this dungeon."

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

A sky-blue, unmoving eye staring at nothing. Black and white curly hair stained in her blood. Violet raptor scales sliced up by flying nails, emerald feathers splayed across tiles. Me looking up at the Magnetix Lynx, the monster who took everything, everyone from me. A gargantuan staple and paperclip spider collecting the dead bodies of my friends she left behind in her wake.

Magdaline let go of me.

"Or what?" I growled, clawing back to reality out of what seemed to be my awful, previous life.

"Or I will kill everyone you care about," she said. "Again, as I have before. You smell like the town of Ferguson. Old and new. One emptied out by Superstore debt-hunters and where everyone still lives. If I can't take you down, I will take apart anyone who smells like you. Perhaps this will motivate you to bloom faster."

I was certain of it now. Magdaline did kill everyone I cared about and she would do so again, unless I... What did the Butcher of Delvers want from me? How was I supposed to bloom?!

"The fuck is wrong with you?" I demanded. "Why the hell are you like this?! Why do you want to fight me so bad?! If you're such a powerhouse and can go outside of your fucking domain, why not go fight the big guys, challenge the Prad corps that built walls around other dungeons?"

"I have no interest in aiding other dungeons. I can hunt down prey who manage to escape or attempt to bind our domain but I cannot forsake June," Magdaline shook her head. "I cannot abandon my love. She barely remembers me as it is. She is bound, chained to our domain, cursed."

"What… What does this have to do with me getting stronger?" I breathed out.

"You smell like you've made it to the end of time and slain the Leviathan of the Wormwood Star," Magdaline said. "If you get strong enough to beat me, then you can make it to the end of this Highway and shear the loop that binds June to this road, freeing her from a nightmare of her own making."

I opened and closed my mouth.

"I don't remember slaying any Leviathans," I said.

"Hrm," she hummed sharply. "Disappointing. Perhaps more motivation is in order."

She pointed her hand at Kristi, an iron nail crawling out of her innards into her humming, shimmering palm.

I stepped in front of the palm, shielding Kristi.

"Don't," I growled.

"So you do care about this pitiful, halved creature," the Lynx said, lowering her hand. "Get stronger or she dies."

"Why me?" I asked. "Why not find someone stronger? Someone who actually knows what they're doing? Hell why not do it yourself? Aren't you fucking unstoppable? What is even your level?"

"Strength alone cannot navigate the endless road. The strongest delvers who have attempted to best the highway become lost, their minds shattered by experiencing endless variations of their own deaths. But you... I've seen your tree. You stopped me, once, long ago, showed me that you cannot truly die, cannot break." Mags raised a clawed finger, pointing at her rust-pitted chest. "My level is irrelevant. I am classified as a Dungeon Sentinel, bound to the outermost edge and the wild lands beyond it. I cannot reach this dungeon's heart due to what I am, must obey my purpose. You might be able to do what I cannot."

"And if I refuse?"

"I'm not giving you a choice, liminal tree," Mags said, pointing a finger at trembling Kristi. "First, she dies. Then, I will walk into Ferguson, tear the metal from their obelisk wards and slaughter everyone there. Then, I will kill every human and pradavarian I can reach. Then I will find and kill you. Again and again. However many times it takes. I won't let you get to the end of time, won't allow you to slay the Leviathan again just to bring them all back with a wish."

"What are you talking about?!" I snarled. "What wish?! What Leviathan?! You're insane!"

"I am desperate," she corrected with a metal finger wag. "I am very tired. I endured her suffering for far too long. I have sensed her agony, her pain, her looping death through our bond. I tried everything to offset it all, tried to create children to feel something other than despair, tried so much over the endless millennia and failed. There is nothing I would not destroy to free June from the torment of the infinite time loop she is trapped in." She leaned closer to me, her headlamp eyes blinding me and whispered at my face with a grind of rusted metal on metal. "You will free me and my love from the chains of infinite suffering with your blade, Slayer... or else."

I stared at the Magnetic Lynx with wide eyes.

Slayer? What?!

"Hrm," she considered. "I think that you need System-enforced motivation, a permanent reminder so that you do not stray from this path."

She walked over to Kristi, leaned down and whispered something to the trembling raptor. I stared at them.

"A-Alec," Kristi mewled, looking up at me. "B-by the power of the Strand Estate as its Primaborn daughter, by the ward of Ferguson, I bind you to a Quest—you must attempt to reach the h-heart of H-highway Sixty Nine and shear the time loop therein!"

As if summoned by the raptor-girl's words, silver text suddenly materialized in my vision.

[QUEST NOTIFICATION: The Lynx's Gambit]

[Difficulty: Impossible.

Objective: Navigate Highway 69's temporal maze and reach the end.

Reward: Prevent the systematic murder of everyone you've ever met.

Failure Consequence: Watch Ferguson burn, then die repeatedly until you comply.

Time Limit: Until Sentinel Magdaline gets bored of waiting.]

[Note: Congratulations! You've somehow managed to get blackmailed by a Legendary Dungeon Sentinel. This is either impressive or incredibly stupid. Possibly both.]

[Accept Quest? Y/N]

"Are you fucking kidding me right now?" I muttered, staring at the snarky system message floating before my eyes.

"I'm… I'm ss-sorry," the raptor choked.

[Additional Note: The System is contractually obligated to inform you that this quest has a 0.00001% success rate for someone of your level. However, it's also contractually obligated to mention that refusing will result in your immediate and repeated death, followed by the deaths of everyone in a fifty-mile radius. Choose wisely! Or don't. It's all good.]

I stared at the notification with utter disbelief.

Magdaline's multiple eyes whirred as they focused on me. "Tree-soul, you are trying my patience. Accept now or the raptor dies."

[PHILOSOPHICAL QUESTION: If you accept an impossible quest to save people who may or may not care about you, are you being heroic or just enabling a psychotic dungeon Sentinel's unhealthy relationship?] The next System message flashed into existence.

"Oh, for the love of—" I mentally pressed 'Y'. "YES!"

[QUEST ACCEPTED: The Lynx's Gambit]

[Welcome to your inevitable doom!]

[BONUS OBJECTIVE UNLOCKED: Try not to go insane from experiencing infinite variations of your own death!]

[HIDDEN OBJECTIVE: ????? (The System isn't telling you this one. It's way too depressing.)]

"Excellent," Magdaline said, the red-hot nail in her palm crawling back into her innards.

"You know you could be a bit more cooperative, work with me to…" I began.

"Dungeon Sentinels don't exist to work with delvers," the Lynx shook her head, making her rust-metal hair rustle. "They exist to kill them. I cannot physically assist you, cannot cooperate with you and cannot follow your orders."

"Why?"

"This conversation strays too far outside of my parameters and tires me. Get stronger. Come back. Slay me. Reach the end of this dungeon and shear its heart. Don't attempt to avoid the Quest, because if you do, I will know and… enact what I have promised."

Having said that, Magdaline took another step back and vanished into the shimmering dungeon edge curtain.

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