Chapter 63: First Floor

  Alex stumbled forward out of the prep chamber, blinking at the sheer openness ahead. The sky overhead was wrong . There was no ceiling, just a swirl of crimson mist and dead stars suspended in black.

  Below, a cracked and muddy wasteland stretched into eternity. The earth was dark brown, almost black. Dotting the expanse were shallow sloped mounds of raised earth , maybe thirty or forty feet high, each with stone slab poking out from atop it. There were hundreds of them. Maybe even thousands.

  He gave up on counting them rather quickly. The field simply spread outward beyond his vision, like it was an endless plane-scape. Well the system message did say Gravefield of ‘Endless’ echoes, he thought.

  “So we need to find a portal and… survive?” He did a lazy circle, looking for a threat and finding nothing.

  “I think the second part is the objective 100% of the time. Don’t die. Dying is 0/10, would not recommend.”

  “ No shit.” He squinted, straining his eyes to try to somehow see past the horizon. He failed miserably of course. “I don’t see any portal at all, so I guess I just need to get moving right?”

  He stepped onto the field, and the ground began to move. A pale hand, skeletal and twitching, burst from the dirt. Then another. Then a skull, followed shortly by a torso dragging itself out, clutching a rusted blade.

  “Uh,” Alex stopped.

  “Whelp, there goes your quiet stroll. Meat boy, say hello to the crunchy boys! ” Obby laughed.

  Once the skeletal being began to stand from the ground, Alex was already moving again. He didn’t hesitate anymore. Transitioning into a martial stance, he threw his fist into the ribcage of the creature. The impact broke a few bones and cracked others, but it wasn’t lethal. A rusted blade swipe made him duck before throwing another fist forward into the skeleton’s skull. More cracks formed from the effort, as well as earning him another counter attack from the rusty sword.

  It took only one more punch to the skull to finish off the skeleton. His fist crashed through the cracked bone, and the body collapsed once the skull was destroyed.

  “Skeletons huh? Well, they’re at least better than zombies, less messy.” He kicked at the sword the creature attacked him with. A thought of picking it up to use as a weapon flashed through his head, but he figured that his fists would probably be better than the rusty blade.

  “Um, Alex, you might want to get moving. ”

  “What do you— holy shit!” He immediately moved back into his fighting stance as he looked at his surroundings once more.

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  Four more skeletons had already pulled themselves from the dirt, and he could see another two working their way out as well. They all held rusted swords in their flesh-less hands. Even with no faces, Alex could see and feel a malice in their expressions as all four suddenly charged at him.

  A duck, back-dash, and a slide; he danced between attacks, avoiding tetanus by mere inches each time. Between the movements, he threw in some strikes of his own. His knuckles cracked skulls, forearms and more than one rib-cage. One skeleton fell from a knee strike that Alex threw into it’s face, exploding its skull.

  Another notification flashed.

  A third skeletal swordsman went down as he jumped over a low sword sweep and brought the heel of his boot down on the head of his attacker.

  Two rapid punches shattered the skull of a fourth.

  Alex didn’t know how long he had been fighting for. His breath was starting to come in heavy gasps, his knuckles burned. Still, all he saw was rusted metal and bone in every direction. Each time he brought down one, more kept coming. They were climbing from the ground even faster now.

  Twelve skeletons currently surrounded him.

  His bracelet flashed, and he pulled out a small vial filled with a green-tinted liquid. He wasted no time in popping the cork and downing the potion. New energy filled his tired body, it was like drinking instant-nap in a bottle.

  “Stamina potions, coming to a Kyle near you.” He smiled.

  A straight jab from his left prompted him to conjure up a [Shield] for a moment. The metal glanced off and away from his body, and he returned the attempted gift with a savage straight punch which broke its skull in half. Another notification flickered.

  “Alex, again, I recommend moving. ”

  “Where?” He yelled, a kick sending another skeleton sprawling.

  “There, go, ” Obby highlighted a newly opened path in the throng of enemies, and Alex nodded.

  He dashed forward, nearly stumbling on the many loose bones collected at his feet. More attacks rained down towards him as he ran. [Shield] spells flickered and died in rapid succession as he was forced to deflect the blows that he couldn’t dodge.

  Once he broke from the encirclement the skeletons had placed him in, Alex was able to see once more. The field of dirt still stretched on into the void, and he already noticed a tremble in the ground a few feet ahead of him, another skeleton climbing up. He kept running.

  Flat dirt transitioned into an incline as Alex began to make his way up one of the large mounds that dotted the landscape. He could at least gain some high ground in the fight and get an advantage that way. It wasn’t much, but it would have to do until he could think of something else.

  He reached the top of the mound and found himself standing in front of a large gravestone.

  “So that’s what those stone slabs on the tops of the mounds are.” He stepped forward, trying to read its surface. He couldn’t see anything as the face of the gravestone was covered in dirt. He tried to brush the dirt away with his hand, and the moment he touched the stone, the entire thing started to glow a faint azure hue. It was enchanted.

  Alex turned to look down the slope of the mound. Sure enough, there was a collection of twenty skeletal swordsman all scrambling at the base, held back by some kind of invisible barrier.

  “So the mounds all have gravestones that can be activated for temporary barriers.” He looked out at the field, just as before he saw hundreds upon hundreds of the mounds, each with their own stone slab. “Fuck.”

  “Well, you have thirty minutes. What’s the plan? ”

  “Recharge, and think. We get to the next mound to rest and think, and then the next. We think at each one until we come up with a plan.”

  “So your plan, is to come up with a plan? Did I ever tell you how brilliant and thoughtful you are?”

  “ No, you haven’t.”

  “ Hmm, must be a reason for that.”

  “ Childish.”

  “Adam would have a plan.”

  “ Hey!” Alex pulled out the rock from his bracelet and held it up to eye level. “That was fucking low. You’re going to bring up my brother in this?”

  “You’re right. I apologize. Shouldn’t have done that.”

  “Thank you.” He said, before tossing Obby into the air and vanishing him into his bracelet with a flick of his wrist.

  “Oh and Alex…”

  “ Yes, Obby?”

  “Twenty-eight minutes.”

  "Fuck!” He quickly sat down and began forming the braids of his [Three-Fold Condensing Spiral].

  He had cast quite a few [Shield]’s during that fight. He wasn’t close to empty, but he had a feeling that he was going to need every last bit of aether he could hold in the next coming fights. He got to cultivating.