Loopshard

“What part was I supposed to laugh at?” Adam asked, after Beck had finished his story.

“I thought it was funny,” he replied, despite the harrowing descriptions he’d provided.

Beck had told Adam how, in the previous timeline, he’d been up against a time-looper who called himself ‘Diviner’. The guy had been a menace, killing off many of Beck’s friends and acquaintances, though apparently he’d never used the Abyssal Tooth. Most troubling was the fact that he’d apparently possessed some kind of power to travel to other Players’ dimensions while they were inside Stages.

It was by this power that he’d come to Beck’s dimension, while he and his team were deep into Stage Thirteen. The Stage was called The Valley and required Players to hunt down some kind of dangerous monster, but at the time of the Diviner’s arrival they’d been following the tracks for a Secret Boss that Beck had discovered. Everyone except Beck had been slaughtered, but he’d managed to survive and lead the Diviner on a long goose chase full of traps, eventually getting him to fight the Secret Boss, only to swoop in and kill the time-looper the moment the boss had died. Beck had used some kind of Relic from the Tome Keeper to capture the Diviner just as he revived thanks to the Cheat Death, ferrying him off to the Absolute’s laboratorium, which sounded insane.

From there, Beck had continued to survive through the Stages thanks to the guidance of the Tome Keeper and his own ingenuity. It was highly likely a lot of it was played up for Adam’s benefit during the retelling, since Beck’s description put him in a very positive light even though he was objectively just bumbling through the challenges.

When Beck had reached the Singing City, the Absolute taught him how to obtain the Self-devouring Eye, and he’d passed on the message that he would meet Adam when he restarted in a new loop.

“Why did he need you to meet me?” Adam asked suspiciously. He trusted Beck, even though in this universe he was a stranger. It was hard to explain why, but the main reason was probably just that he hadn’t immediately reacted to Adam’s presence with hostility, like every other time-looper he’d encountered since Alexander Nova.

“He wanted me to explain something I didn’t fully understand,” Beck replied. “He wanted me to say that he had no idea that his quest would get you killed along with your friend. And that he does not wish to make an enemy of you and hopes you will pick him again in the future.”

“Bullshit,” Adam replied. “If he’s all-knowing, he should’ve known what I was going into.”