Screaming his lungs out, Arcen sank the blade into the horse's neck. He wasn't Norm or Karla. It was mostly accidental. He swung it in a wide arc to cut anything that could be cut and found himself forearm-deep in the neck of the beast.
The horse screamed in Leyland's voice at a blood curdling volume. It tried to shake Arcen off but it only managed to toss him six feet into the air while his Mirage Blade continued to do even more damage. Luckily, he didn't fly off, His arm was lodged deep enough to anchor him to the beast.
Clear liquid spurt from the deep cut, pouring out like water. The horse stumbled as it ran, getting weaker as it lost more blood through the wound.
Realizing it couldn't shake Arcen off, it twisted around to bite. It had three rows of sharp teeth, each one about as long as a middle finger. Arcen barely missed the first bite.
Oh no, you fucker! you don't!
He swung himself around using his forearm to pivot. He managed to get one foot up on the horse's neck. It reacted to the twist of the blade on its neck by veering off to the right while howling in Leyland's voice.
Arcen used his free hand to pull himself up on to its back, trying to cling on as the horse crashed into a slate boulder on its frantic run. It broke something in the crash and Arcen got slammed between its body and a boulder, but he managed to bite through the pain, dragging his forearm through its flesh, trying to deepen the cut even further.
Die you stupid fuck!
The horse stumbled and limped, trying to run with a splintered fore leg. It had broken bones in the crash. Arcen dug his forearm even deeper. His arm was twisted inside the horse's jelly-like flesh at a weird angle but he didn't care about dislocating his elbow.
He'd been lucky so far. He had to get off this thing without getting bitten somehow.
His luck ran out when his forearm loosened from the wound. The horse was nearly spent, screaming in Leyland’s voice until it fizzled out.
All of a sudden, his hand came out. He fell off the horses' neck, his hand coming out with a wet pop. The horse stumbled and fell as well, twisting its head back to bite him once more on the way down.
Arcen leapt back, barely avoiding rows of teeth.
Where's the fucking blade!
He shook his hand at the ground, trying to see if the invisible blade had become invisible to him as well. Nothing happened, it wasn’t there anymore. He didn't have the Mirage Blade.
The horse was turning back around for another bite, and Arcen hopped three steps back into the darkness. He slipped on a rock and tumbled down a slope.
Bouncing on the way, he remembered the contract conditions. Mirage blade had something like seven minutes.
╭────────────────────╮
︶╯ CONTRACT ╰︶
????
MIRAGE BLADE
╰─────────╮╭────────╯
╰︶ACTIVATE ︶╯
It has a time limit! I have to remember that!
He used the blade arm to break momentum, coming to a halt at the foot of the slope.
He started hearing distant clatter, more footsteps just like before. They sounded all uniform, the same four knock clattering of hooves on the rock. It sounded like the patter of rain, and he knew this was trouble he couldn't handle with a single blade. He lay low in the dark, trying to find a way out. He was about twenty feet away from the dying horse.
I have to run back. Out of this chamber.
He'd lost his bearings. He couldn't see the dead queen to orient himself anymore. The only strategy now was picking a direction, and running until he hit the wall. He picked one to his right which he was feeling rather good about for no reason.
As he ran, he could hear the clattering hooves louder and louder. He was running towards the horses in that direction.
Every now and then, he saw a blue dot or two from the gaps in dead roots and over the slate rocks. He counted at least twenty in the direction he was running in. The other directions weren't any better. Somehow, the horses had populated this entire chamber.
He snuck under a small gap in the rock, as the clattering reached a fever pitch, waiting for them to pass. The sounds stopped instead, somewhere around two to three meters away from him.
They can see me in the dark!
“Hey, come out. I need help.”
A man's voice spoke in the dark.
“Help me please!”
A woman.
Then he heard something that made his blood run cold. A crying baby somewhere to his left. That made no sense at all.
These things were mimicking the dead.
But who the fuck brought a baby into this goddamn hell tower?
It had happened somehow, someone had gotten their baby eaten by horses in the four hundred fiftieth floor. The world was more bizarre than he ever thought it would be.
The silent horses scared him even more. He could only hear their slow steps on the wet rock as they inched towards them.
One of them made a mistake. He saw the faint blue glow appear to his left and saw four glass-like legs move across. He felt like a toddler hiding under their bed. Steeling himself, he swung his blade at its ankles. The bone was hard to cut through. He'd not hit it with enough force. The horse howled in the voice of a man and fell face first.
At least thirty more pairs of legs quickly appeared over the ledge that he was hiding under.
Fuck! I'm cornered!
He managed to slice one more leg, and a horse shoved its face into the dark crevice he was hiding in. The blue light showed him its gnashing teeth. He dodged a second too late.
It ripped a bite off his thigh.
Screaming and panicking, he did what he wanted to do all this time as more horse heads followed the one that bit him.
Ball Lightning! Now!
╭────────────────────╮
︶╯ CONTRACT ╰︶
????
BALL LIGHTNING
╰─────────╮╭────────╯
╰︶ACTIVATE ︶╯
He'd never used it before. His vision narrowed as soon as he activated it, his world turning into a fish-eye version of it with a white dot at the center. He placed the dot somewhere nearby and concentrated on it. The ball erupted in three rotations. One of the horses had been overlapping it, and it exploded like an apple dropped in a blender.
Powerful white bolts erupted from the ball, lighting the entire chamber each time one struck a horse.
The bolts erupted faster and faster as the ball rotated, striking several at once. Cracking sounds echoed through the chamber. Arcen swung at one of the horses nearest to him.
…and it did nothing.
Not again!
The Mirage Blade wasn't there. He activated it again.
╭────────────────────╮
︶╯ CONTRACT ╰︶
????
MIRAGE BLADE
╰─────────╮╭────────╯
╰︶ACTIVATE ︶╯
Relying on this blade could easily be the end of him. He wasn't used to its duration yet. By the time he swung back again, the horse had shriveled and turned into embers, completely fried by lightning. The surviving ones screamed, attracting even more horses in his direction.
I gotta get the fuck out!
He'd used the Ball Lightning wrong. He shouldn't have stayed here after using it. He slid from under the spot he was hiding, and he started running without looking back.
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Arcen made it into a different chamber in his frantic escape from the queen chamber. A couple horses followed him but he had a lead over them after frying several of them with Ball Lightning earlier.
The chamber he just walked into had something in common with chamber that had red strings on the floor. This one had similar strings arranged like a net. The strings were thinner and sparse.
Two Norghals followed him and they didn't make too far in before their hooves got tangled in the nets. One of them crashed to the floor, yelling for help in a woman's voice. The other horse turned back and ran.
No more fucking horses.
He wandered carefully further into the room as he stepped lightly on the nets. It wasn't easy to avoid them like it was in the chamber before. These were thin, swaying limply like hair. He had to shake his toes free more than a few times. The strings didn't look strong, but once wrapped, it was impossible to break them.
The Norghal screamed in the distance, getting even more tangled in the net as it frantically tried to escape.
The veins on the floor pulsated exactly like the Jartera Strings from the other chamber. it wasn't as noticeable because of the thinner strings, but he could feel them buzz against his skin where they wrapped around. The pulses came from his left and traversed to his right. He heard a low hum coming from somewhere behind him.
A heavy thud followed.
He held off on activating Mirage Blade. He'd made the mistake of wasting it before. He could always activate it when he could see what he wanted to cut with it.
The thuds were rolling away from him, toward the screaming Norghal.
“Hel-”
A wet whack silenced the horse, the faint blue light from its unicorn horn vanished. The ground shook upon impact, sending a gust of wind outward.
There is something big in here!
He loosened the veins wrapping around his feet. He'd been standing on them too long.
He imagined a giant spider, and that was all the motivation he needed to start running again. He kept Ball Lightning at the top of his mind. Whatever this thing was, it would be too large for his Mirage Blade. The thuds grew louder behind him the further he ran. He couldn't avoid all the veins in the dark.
Thud.
It'd made half the distance from the other corner of the chamber where the Norghal was.
Thud.
It wasn't too far behind.
Thud.
Arcen felt a massive wave of hot air on his lower legs.
Fuck! Ball Lighning again!
╭────────────────────╮
︶╯ CONTRACT ╰︶
????
BALL LIGHTNING
╰─────────╮╭────────╯
╰︶ACTIVATE ︶╯
He left it behind him as he ran and heard the cracks. The flashes helped him find his orientation in this room. Ball Lightning was very useful for this purpose.
The chamber was occupied by five gigantic creatures that defied everything he knew about life. They looked like leeches, bodies arching high towards the ceiling.
Fucking kill me! why did I come here!
Their bodies looked segmented, like totem poles made of flesh cubes. They were breathing from the 'foot', a giant kiwi-fruit like orb they were standing on while the 'head' on the other end probed the floor for anything tangled in the red veins.
Only one of them was awake.
He'd changed that already with his latest Ball Lightning. It struck three of them at the same time and they writhed where they stood, cylindrical heads turning towards the bright ball that burned chunks off their segmented bodies.
Arcen located the exits with the light bursts. He picked one that he felt was in the right direction. It was about three hundred meters away with half of a giant leech blocking his path.
It was solved very quickly as three lightning bolts struck it in quick succession, burning the leech and breaking it in half. Some of the others were already on fire, struggling on the floor.
He ran full speed ahead and paused at a fallen chunk of a leech.
Oh fuck no!
The burning flesh of the leech was made of thousands of smaller worms. They spilled all over the floor like maggots, as thick ropes and as long as a hand. As they spilled, they struggled over each other, eating smaller ones and getting bigger rapidly.
The lightning bolts diverted to targeting these small creatures, but it could never kill thousands of them at once.
Ball lightning was useless here and Mirage blade was just as bad. The worms moved too quickly for him to defend himself with a single blade. He ran towards the unoccupied regions of the floor. He stomped on the smaller worms before they could bite him.
He activated Mirage Blade just in case, swinging at ones growing larger than a cat or a dog. He could see their grinding cylindrical holes.
Those colossal five leeches had just been 'containers' for this worm plague.
He managed to get within fifty meters of the exit but the worms had spread rapidly by then. He saw a couple of them as thick as a thigh now. They were eating each other and growing quite fast.
He slapped a couple of smaller ones off his legs, using the Mirage Blade to scrape them off as he ran.
Fuck fuck fuck! Get me the fuck outta here!
There was no choice but to run through a stream of worms ahead of him. He used the blade like a broom to sweep the ground furiously as he ran.
Two big ones latched onto him. One was on his left butt cheek and another cut into his right inner thigh. He slashed one worm the size of a dog and he launched himself into the chamber veil as worms spilled over into the next chamber behind him. He ran with no clue about what awaited him in this new one.
The worms that spilled over scattered across the floor as he ran. He heard flowing water somewhere to his right.
╭────────────────────╮
︶╯SKILL╰︶
????
RADIATE
╰─────────╮╭────────╯
╰︶ACTIVATE︶╯
There was a small stream.
He jumped in without a second thought. The water was just about freezing. He couldn't even yell, it felt like his heart skipped several beats. His body seized like a dying engine.
The worms didn’t follow him into the cold water. He floated down the stream, rolled over an edge and splashed into a small pool of water face-first.
Oh dear god!
The worms clinging onto his flesh withered in the ice cold water. He felt their fangs clench hard like tongs pinching his nerves. Screaming in pain, He rolled over the floor, using the blade to cut them off.
He felt bits of his skin rip as he pulled some of the smaller ones. He scraped the one on his inner thigh. The one on his butt got sliced like a carrot. He struggled with its head for a while, but he had to reactivate Mirage Blade to pry it off.
╭────────────────────╮
︶╯CONTRACT╰︶
????
MIRAGE BLADE
╰─────────╮╭────────╯
╰︶ACTIVATE︶╯
Completely exhausted, he rolled over the shallow end of the water, trying to catch his breath.
Restore!
╭────────────────────╮
︶╯SKILL╰︶
????
RESTORE
╰─────────╮╭────────╯
╰︶ACTIVATE︶╯
He used it on the wounds. To his relief, it worked right away. First Rank was enough to mend wounds skin deep.
╭────────────────────╮
︶╯SKILL╰︶
????
RESTORE
╰─────────╮╭────────╯
╰︶ACTIVATE︶╯
╭────────────────────╮
︶╯SKILL╰︶
????
RESTORE
╰─────────╮╭────────╯
╰︶ACTIVATE︶╯
Two more went on his inner thigh.
╭────────────────────╮
︶╯SKILL╰︶
????
RESTORE
╰─────────╮╭────────╯
╰︶ACTIVATE︶╯
He used the third one on his butt cheek, but it didn’t stop the pain. That worm had cut through skin. With restore being used just on the skin, his butt cheek kept burning, but he could no longer feel the bleeding cut there.
Fuck this goddamn tower oh god.
He sipped some cold water to quench his thirst. He'd been way more thirsty than he thought. It was quite refreshing.
Once his body calmed down enough, he crawled off the pool and lay shivering on a patch of soft grass.
Arcen spent the next few hours trying to eat something. He tried eating grass, it was surprisingly good. It tasted faintly like lemon zest and mint blended together.
He found a dead worm downstream, and almost ate it. He could swallow it whole without tasting it.
He held off.
Swallowing something that bit him on the butt felt wrong in many ways.
Further down stream, he found a patch of weird cactus plants that had no spikes. It made no sense why a cactus would grow next to stream.
He imagined it would taste like an oversized cucumber. He wanted to activate Mirage Blade to slice one off. It was almost an instinct now. He reminded himself it wasn't a pocket knife.
He'd used his contracts like a maniac to get here.
I would be more than fucked If I ran out of Aura.
╭────────────────────╮
?╭─ GOLD ─╮?
╰ 0 ╯
╰─────────╮╭────────╯
╭────────────────────╮
?╭─ AURA ─╮?
╰ 3,302,705? ╯
╰─────────╮╭────────╯
Well, shit.
He kicked a smaller cactus to break it off, then twisted it off with his hands. It was fibrous, something between bamboo and cucumber with yellow flesh inside.
He crunched it for a taste test. It was a weird combination, there was some pumpkin, some avocado and way too much salt, and some pepper-like savory aftertaste in there.
Weird fucking salad. But at least I can eat it.
He took a couple more bites and decided that he liked the weird taste. The tickle at his throat returned after a long while. The first thing that he'd considered delicious since he ate some meat with Gareth.
Then he swallowed a forearm sized chunk off, breaking it to smaller pieces. It filled him up and he burped after drinking about a liter of ice cold water from the stream.
Would be really funny if it kills me.
He had no idea what he ate.
It could very well give him food poisoning. He was more resilient than others due to his mutation.
He'd tried to swallow half a bottle of sedative pills once. If that didn’t kill him, this weird cactus had no chance.
The chamber that he was in was more lush than the empty chamber and the queen chamber before it.
It was still not as bio-diverse as the floors he'd seen below, but he could see a few patches of luminous plants in the distance along this stream.
He couldn't tell if the water was flowing towards the stalk of the tower or away from it. He'd assumed it was the latter earlier, but it was based on nothing.
There were things on the ceiling of this chamber.
He could feel occasional gusts of wind on the top of his head, coming from the flapping of wings. He imagined bats, but twenty times larger. He was paranoid, but they hadn't bothered him yet. He would simply throw ball lightning at them if it ever came down to it.
He had to decide between going upstream or down stream. It felt like either end would lead him to the chamber wall. He could go to a barren chamber towards the rim, if he knew where the rim was.
Why did I think the rim would be safe?
Barren didn't mean it was devoid of all danger. Those Norghals still roamed there. Compared to that, this slightly lush chamber had been kind to him. There was water, there was food.
He wanted to stay in chambers similar to this one.
He headed downstream after mulling about it for a few minutes. Things became even more lush as he went along, the water from the stream branching out into the soil. He put one Radiate on what he thought was a rock.
╭────────────────────╮
︶╯ SKILL ╰︶
????
RADIATE
╰─────────╮╭────────╯
╰︶ACTIVATE ︶╯
There were letters carved into the surface.
Whoa? what is this now?
He couldn't read them. It looked like Chinese letters but with hard straight lines and dots. The carvings were wrapped around a broken bottom half of a pillar, covered with wet moss and overgrown ferns.
He used another Radiate to light up the whole area.
There were more ruins just like the broken pillar.
He heard a faint noise from his left, while he pondered about this.
It was barely audible over the sound of the flowing water, but it was repeated. Something was speaking.
“Nee nee nalo!”
What the hell is that?
Next chapter on Monday.
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