A glimpse of steam sauna later, I looked at roughly a 20x20 cm plate of… metallic bone. It was maybe a couple of millimeters thick, hard to tell. It wasn’t coarse but not exactly smooth either. It almost felt like rough plastic. I couldn’t casually scratch it with my sword, even if the same wasn’t true for the beasty, although I didn’t try all that hard. Didn’t want to risk ruining the piece. My rune pen trailed it just fine. My willingness to experiment ended there, so it joined the rest of my worldly possessions in the backpack and my journey continued onwards. Unlike before, I was prepared for sudden and violent escalation.
For one, I kept an energy ball worth fifty in the palm of my good arm as an emergency refill. Had to make sure future kills cost less energy, my reserves were high but they’d deplete quickly at this rate.
I examined the aftermath of the battle, trying to figure out a workable strategy. There weren’t any obvious weaknesses on the armored daggerclaw, my new name for the predatory prick, but there had been a very distinctive sizzle while it was impaled by my sword. Some error inherent to human consciousness caused me to misattribute the sound to the smoke, but in retrospect it might’ve had more to do with the sword.
The new source of my nightmares also had a strong preference for bracing and pouncing. Every area it had jumped from was damaged and stone chips littered all about. I hadn’t even seen it take a single normal step, except right at the start. Shitty footing for the bastard, maybe. I could work with that. It preferred diagonals, the roughly 180 centimeter wide hallway didn’t leave it much space to begin with and while the jumps made for some intimidating acrobatics, the beasty probably didn’t care about showmanship.
On my own front I’d have to be more proactive, couldn’t fight well passively. My whole post-Godstrike experience was adequately described by reactivity, another reason for my determination to go forwards on my own terms. My defensive technique had been on point and far more effective when backed up by telekinesis, but it would still be preferable to avoid relying on it overly much. Things were better on the offensive front and a triple-launch almost certainly veered into overkill. I’d try to halve my expenditure per kill by using only two shots, keeping the third blade in reserve.
I reflected a little, the System had essentially said it gave us a path to power and it clearly did not fuck around. Now wasn’t the right time, but at some point in the far future I would have to see what result dumping a full bar of mana into launches would give me. A good two-thirds of the triple-launched blade had been embedded in the stone ceiling and that was after it blew a hole clean through the armored daggerclaw. My imagination ran wild for a while. There were a million things to try. Fighting fueled creativity, it would seem.
Yeah, keep day dreaming in the murder hallways, Gabriel, why not?
Echoing footsteps followed me on the path forward, just as the ever present equidistant shadows did. Two of my swords were out and about and both floated a meter in front of me with the point forward. I kept one at bellybutton height and the other chest high. The arrangement disallowed any clear paths towards me. Hopefully that would dissuade a full-on assault.
Unfortunately, no plan survived contact with the enemy.
Bullshit. The shadows might obscure my vision but the same didn’t seem true for my nemeses. One spotted or sensed me somehow despite my sneaking, since I heard the telltale panicked scramble of a cat trying to run on a hard floor, followed by a long, rough scratch and then silence. I braced myself against the right side wall, ready to push off with my good arm in case the Errant rushed in but nothing happened. I crept along the wall after leaving my luggage behind. Then the problem revealed itself, a plus shaped four-way intersection and the armored assault cat had cleverly taken cover behind a corner.
However, the stars aligned and Mercury was in retrograde, so for once in my life I had what might actually be a good idea.
One careful step followed the other at a steady pace while I mouthed off to the bastard.
“Here kitty kitty, come out, come out.”
I repeated my taunt until the corner neared, and then I let a sword float ahead at chest height. The Errant displayed at least some commonality with a regular housecat, easily baited into reckless stupidity. A laser pointer would’ve been nice right about now. It performed the same violent kickoff as it had in the previous encounter. The feline came into view amidst the sound of smashed stone and scattered chips, one daggerpaw pushed away my bait, the other trailed aside and swiped where a wielder would’ve been - were I a fighter rather than a mage. The momentum of its leap carried it into the opposite hallway but not before I launched.
Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.
Finally, in control.
I didn’t have time to admire the spray of smoky black blood while running forward and jumped past with a floating sword in tow, although it lagged behind and forced me to fire blindly. My run continued towards the first sword and ended in a sliding turn after stepping on and retrieving it via sheath skill. Holy shit. I’d gone from a dead stop to a full sprint almost instantaneously. A sword appeared, lined up a few centimeters off my eye for maximally accurate aiming. It neglected to chase me. I walked up to the corner, felt stealthy, and baited again. Nothing, Errant check - nothing..
I backed up and then took off at a sprint which culminated in a soccer slide. The maneuver ripped the knee off my jeans, but it also kept my hallway crossing low to the ground. The cat had kicked the bucket. Its right forearm had been ripped into two shredded halves and a sizzling sword was embedded up to the hilt in its spine - five out of five again. After collecting another piece of future armor, my stalking continued - with my full focus diverted towards actually paying fucking attention for once.
The next one was another hallway battle - with a fair start no less. It braced and I crouched against a wall. I took the initiative and moved first, diagonally forward. The monster leaped and twisted predictably towards the opposite side and was immediately impaled by my launched projectile as it landed. Fucker hadn’t expected that and fell down from the ceiling corner, which earned it another session of aggravated acupuncture. Still alive but clearly struggling, so I backed off and watched the sizzling of the swords kill it dead. They definitely damaged it from the inside. Approaching close enough allowed me to twist the blade a little with my control skill.
Upon reaching the next stairway, another T split, I’d lost track of my kill count but the backpack had gotten heavy. Had to spend some of my stash along the way, 90 crystal fueled my refills and my internal reserve had gone down to 22 regardless. Which promptly became 12 after another cantrip completed my junk food and jerky dinner once I reached my excuse for a campsite midway up the stairs.
The only thoughts disturbing my surprisingly successful attempt at apex predation were ones wondering if I’d make it out before running empty. While another fifty remained as backup, I didn’t want to wander around without a safety net.
A cigarette tempted me, but I’d survived this so I could go a little longer without. Fuck. That had been madness. My nerves were shot. The long, tense, silent walks combined with quick battles were not kind on the human mind. I had a gander at my stash, then my stats. My System progression did some catching up here thanks to fifteen new kills under my belt, going by the plates. I leveled all the way up to 16 and my stats reached respectable totals of 11, 51, 27, 42, 10 and 63. My jerky would last for another three days or so.
Despite my resolution not to be a little bitch, I was forced to admit the whole stoic determination thing wasn’t for me. The experience had been harrowing, despite only taking a single blocked hit. My left arm was swollen, black and blue from the worst bruise of my life. The whole thing hurt like hell and my fingers were stiff and hard to move. A few more blocks would leave me crippled.
It was hard to say for sure but the knowledge any mistakes would likely lead to death had pushed me somewhat beyond my limits and the metaphorical cracks were spreading now. It felt like I’d been hitting the gym for three days straight and my ordeal left me just as sore, which contributed to the stress. A System-ordained desk job sounded pretty good right about now but it would have to wait.
So would sleep, because even after reluctantly settling down for three hours of one-handed drawing practice, I still couldn’t catch any shut-eye on my second attempt at getting some proper rest. The good ol’ biological clock was on the fritz, it would seem. A painful walk up the stairs revealed the deadest of night, the starry sky above accented that fact and sent me straight back down the stairwell. It took another six boring hours of practice before I caught my first yawn. Sleep came easily after.
I woke up 10 mana later, still sore as fuck and incredibly hungry. As a consequence, my breakfast included more added jerky than it probably should have. My arm wasn’t doing much better although the swelling might’ve gone down a bit. Comfort didn’t matter anymore and the constant aching supported my decision to snooze awkwardly on the winding steps.
At least the bad thoughts weren’t circling my mind as acutely anymore. Apparently the appropriate coping period for witnessing the end of all was about two weeks, give or take a couple dozen life or death encounters and a breakdown or two. People did always go into nature to find themselves and so far I’d been on the mother of all hikes. The five or so nightmares that had broken my sleep last night didn’t count - at least the moon one had been more funny than scary. By now I leaned heavily towards mad over sad anyway.
To my dismay, the list of pointless shit to consider ran dry quickly. I stopped procrastinating, gathered my sore and sorry self, and then went up the stairs while wondering what fresh fucking hell I’d wander into this time.