The transmigrators stepped back warily, watching Yin nervously as the last tattered webs of his skin fell to the ground. The ‘wandering wise man,’ as he’d so enigmatically styled himself, was doubled over and writhing. His flesh bubbled and warped, twisting and growing in loops until, finally, cogs began to rumble out from amidst his coiled muscles.

Death poked Connor. “And now, we run.”

“Wha-” Connor started, but before he could ask what the heck Death was on about she had grabbed him roughly by the nub of his arm and began racing towards the tower as fast as she could. The transmigrators gave a great shout and went to follow, Cheat Skills purring and hissing as they powered up, but before they could do anything the still bent over Yin began to laugh.

Once more they backed up, bodies taut, faces alert, blades pointing at the misshapen body. Their cold, dead eyes stared fishlike at the shifting pile of flesh and bone. The lead transmigrator barked a sharp, staccato laugh. “What’s so funny?”

The malformed man began to twitch, slowly, shambolically, standing up to his full height, luminescent mechanical orbs eyeing the youths hungrily.

“Oh, nothing much - only that you think you can actually stop those two kids from doing what they came here to do.”

Connor nearly paused to listen, but Death tugged on his sleeve, dragging him towards the tower doorway. It was locked, but a single [Rugby] slam from Connor was able to smash through its brittle frame. A large hall opened before them, a stairway at its end, curving up, up, up towards the sky, and lit only by the light of the blue fire trickling down from the Otome Game Villainess’ headquarters far, far above.

The lead youth spit, his saliva burning a hole into the ground, and then licked his lips hungrily. His tongue was just slightly longer than was appropriate for a mortal man, his eyes rolling crazily in his empty head. “Of course I can. It’s us who should be laughing, at the sight of a piece of free xp thinking it can stand against the main protagonists.”

Yin’s face split in a hideous grin, spitting sparks of fire, and then its body proceeded to grow again. The transmigrators froze in terror as the miasma of bubbling flesh and maniacal mechanics rose to two, then three, then four times their height, slamming a pair of heavy claws against the earth. Bits of lightning flickered from pole to pole across its biomechanical thorax, and deeper and more unsettling devices could be seen moving under the surface of its transparent skin.

“Free xp? Main protagonists? This isn’t a novel, boy - and the people here aren’t characters for you to consume… to consume, or to control… Welcome to the jungle.”

And then there was an almighty cataclysmic BANG as the being imploded, a wave of electricity levelling some fifty feet of space and sending the gathered youths flying.

“What the humperdink was that?” Connor cursed, rolling himself up off the floor. He spit blood, coughing, and glowered at another notification about receiving a boost to his [Bark] stat. Wasn’t the System supposed to make things easier for him? Why were his stat advances dependent upon pain?

“I told you,” Death hissed, as she dashed up the stairs, “there are far worse fates awaiting the Otome Game Villainess than us - he’s a bloody transmigrator hunter.”

“A what now?” Connor replied, as he raced after her. There was another explosion as they climbed up the stairs, and one of the transmigrators came smashing through a wall, stopping only when he ran into a pillar. The chilling sound of a chainsaw came from behind him, coupled with the furious screams of transmigrators and the echoing boom of Cheat Skills.

“Did you think the Death Council cares about transmigrators only because of the latter’s wickedness?” Death cursed. “They were just as worried about other cultivators using them for parts!”

The two reached a landing and continued upwards, the ground floor now lost to their view. Connor vaguely wanted to stay and help, but the clouds of qi pouring off Yin Zhi indicated it would be unnecessary, and anyways his duty was first and foremost to stop the Otome Game Villainess from summoning yet more transmigrators.

Down below a huge shape pushed in under the shattered wall, chunks of masonry falling unheeded about it. The machine rumbled, chains and wires clicking and clattering, steel eyes glowing ever brighter. It chuckled once, a hideous grating sound, snapping claws lifting the prone transmigrator into the air.

Another cultivator leapt onto Yin’s back, stabbing a dagger in between his neck and his shoulder blades, then activated some sort of [Killing Blow] technique.

The monstrous cultivator twitched, letting out a slow and viscous cackle. Then, before the transmigrator could react, it slammed itself backwards against the wall.

***

The witch staggered as the building shook a third time, dropping her athame with a clang. She swore violently, the formation fragmenting under the force of the shuddering earth. Evidently her useful pawns had proven inadequate in defeating the pair of travellers. Either that, or they’d been intercepted - her foremost tool, the prince, had said that another traveller was coming to investigate her.

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She gave forth a groan, stomping her foot once on the cold tile. To think, a distraction just as she was about to effect the first step in her plan. How typical. Well, if her stooges wouldn’t do their job, she supposed she’d just have to do it for them.

Picking up her athame, the witch loped to the door.

***

The ancient stairway crumbled, the shaking of the building causing its mouldering supports to give out from underneath it. Piles of stone tumbled down to the earth, bonking the stunned transmigrator on the head and bouncing ineffectively off Yin. The latter reached up with one impossibly jointed arm, pulled the unresisting Isekai Protagonist off his back, then slammed him visciously on the floor.

Up above Connor cursed as his pathway forwards vanished, but didn’t stop his mad dash, awkwardly using his [Pole Vault] skill to bridge the gap. He only barely made it, landing with a thump on the other side. Death floated innocently after him.

Connor was, by his own estimate, more than halfway up the tortuous tower, though it was getting harder and harder to see where he was going, or how far he had yet to go. He froze.

“Is it just me, or is the fog disappearing?”

“It's not just you. If nothing else, it looks like the witch won't be summoning more transmigrators anytime soon.”

Once more they were on a landing, but this time their path forwards was veiled in shadow. A bare sliver of moonlight fell through the barred windows, and only the contours of the stairway ahead were discernable in the gloom. Connor's procession now was more cautious, his footsteps proceeding slowly while he used his [Geocaching] skill to scan for signs of Qi in the darkness. It was a delay that was necessary, but one he regretted, the building continued to shake underneath him as Yin battled the four remaining transmigrators.

They had him encircled, by elemental powers as much as by bodies, and one of them burst into flames. The twisted wise man did not seem to find this threatening, at least not if his spark spitting grin was anything to go by, idly swinging the two defeated transmigrators as he paved back and forth, watching, ever watching.

“Come, surely you can't think it a bother to coat yourself in fire? The very thought is absurd - no, you can't say you're posing a threat until you can fight while detonating your Qi, as the Ming Cult does.”

The transmigrator, determined to show his superiority, used a second Cheat Skill, rising with a whoosh of [Levitation] some ten feet off the floor. His fellows used similarly impressive skills - one turned his flesh to stone; another began to stretch elastically, sproinging up till he rivalled Yin Zhi in height; and the last one turned invisible with nary a sound.

“I don't think we need to go as far as that,” the flaming man said. “Not if our only goal is to kill the likes of you.”

“Indeed - there's no reason to go above and beyond for a goal you'll fail in any event.”

“Perhaps,” sneered the Isekai Protagonist. “But you know what they say - the villain is always full of braggadocio right before he falls.”

The wise man’s grin continued to grow, splitting his head until it revealed a mass of cogs and pistons underneath. His left arm mutated, claws vanishing into its flesh as a cannon emerged in its place.

“Well then - let's see if I'm a villain after all.”

***

Up and up, farther and farther, ignoring the shaking of the building and the screams of the transmigrators, our protagonists went. The stairs were now totally dark, the last shreds of moonlight having fled beyond a bank of clouds. The pair had slowed yet further: Connor had detected a faint but distinct blur of Qi with his [Geocaching] skill, which was moving down the stairs towards them, and had thought it prudent to take extra caution in their approach.

At last, they saw their target - the witch. She was dressed identically to when last they'd seen her, but her Resting Witch Face was curled in a wicked sneer, and in her hands she carried an equally wicked blade.

The witch eyed the pair in disgust. To think, her specially summoned troops had found themselves confounded by a man without arms, and one whose skin wiggled in a vaguely gelatinous fashion. He was squatting, prepared for a charge, but the idea of being taken down by him was so ludicrous that at the very thought of it she couldn't help but laugh.

“Come quietly, and this can all end peacefully,” the man said, from his position halfway to the floor. The witch gave another laugh, making sure to keep her cackle suitably witchy.

“Peace? Peace? Life is only struggle, and the victor is the one who best knows how to fight.”

The man sighed. “So be it.”

And with that, the man charged - to the side. The witch froze for but a moment, confused as to what he was planning, but she had more than one foe to worry about.

“Wooga booga!” Cried the girl in the black leather, striking a comically overwrought fighting pose. “I am a deadly threat.”

Inane comment aside, the woman was clearly the deadlier of the pair - who would be afraid of someone without limbs? - and the witch reacted accordingly, pointing her athame at the woman and beginning to channel her energy down its length.

And then the armless man got her in a [Rugby] tackle.

Connor's Stats

Name: Connor Crinkle (formerly known as uPhone 12 model MX0169)

Age: 22

Race: Ghost of a Demon

Occupation: Exorcist

Physiological Stats:

[Leaves] 0 [Fruit] 0

[Xylem] 1 [Phloem] 1 (0)

[Bark] 3 (2) [Heartwood] 3 (2)

[Roots] 5

Physical Stats:

[Geocaching] 0 [Lacrosse] 1

[Pole Vaulting] 1 [Rugby] 0

Other sports to be unlocked later

Master of the Leifu Exorcistic Arts:

[Master of Exorcism] 1

[Master of the Storm] 0

[Yang Eyes] 0