Nar skewered the guardian from side to side. He pushed with all his [Strength] and dragged the creature the three steps to the wall, where he pinned it.

The guardian spasmed and thrashed, and Nar covered his face with his arm. The guardian’s wild blades drew shallow stinging lines across his skin, but they barely touched his HP.

“Nar!”

He twisted to the side, and Viy’s spear slid into the guardian.

It spasmed once, and went still.

Nar let it fall down the wall, with both his sword and Viy’s spear still embedded into it.

He glanced at his HP.

151. New best!

Viy grabbed the shaft of her spear with both hands and placed one foot on the guardian. She grunted and ripped the weapon free.

“Nice one!” Nar said.

“Hmmm.”

She walked away without even a glance.

Nar sighed behind her.

Alright… Have it your way, then. Not like I almost died for you or anything.

Nar pulled his own sword free with more force than was needed and examined it.

The blade was as immaculate as when he had first received the sword. However, ever since he had merged the [Minor Bead of Hunger] AUC to it, it had gained a new sheen. The whole thing, even the soft material that made the grip, now lightly shone in a cascade of muted colors. The most predominant of them were various hues and shades of purple, but there were reds, greens, blues, grays and all the blends in between, in its new iridescent look.

Not for the first time, Nar wondered if his sword would always look like that. A forever reminder of the madness that had gone down in that large purple room.

Not that I regret using it, he thought, admiring the shifting colors across the deadly blade.

The sword now hit harder, blocked a little better, and its [Minor Hunger] upgrade was a small but significant boost to his tanking capabilities… All in all, it was a very welcome upgrade.

“Did anyone gain a level?” Kur asked.

Nar stored away the sword.

They were in a nondescript corridor, a smooth rectangle of about 12-feet wide by 16-feet tall.

The cubeplant, and the last of the purple arrows, had been left behind almost two weeks ago.

Compared to all that they had been through that day, the last two weeks had been, for a lack of a better word, almost boring.

“Not me,” Tuk said.

“Nothing,” Mul replied. “Again.”

Ever since leaving the cubeplant, they had been attacked every day without fail. Today’s attackers lay broken at their feet. Two guardians were by Gad’s feet, and the other one was beside him. However, like at the end of the tutorial, no one had made any levels since.

Nar bent down and shifted the guardian's limbs to have a better glimpse of its confusing interior of circuitry, pistons and all its other unknown parts. A light brown fluid leaked from its wounds, and on occasion, orange sparks snapped within the machine.

This was a new found temerity.

“Look there, Tuk. Do you see?” Cen said, drawing his attention.

Like him, she too kneeled by one of the dead guardians.

“Hard to miss it,” Tuk said, standing over her. “My rings used to hardly leave a scratch. I only ever dreamed of dealing damage like this.”

Nar approached them to look at their guardian. He saw what they were talking about straight away. It was a smooth line that had nearly split the guardian across its right side. It had to be the killing blow that had ended it.

Besides that slash, he counted six telltale thumb-sized dents that indicated the impacts from Cen’s non-[Aura] attacks. Before the cannibal battle, her staff’s built-in puffs of air had been mostly harmless. Cen herself had brought it up. However, now it was a different story.

“I almost broke through here,” Cen said, pointing to the deepest of the dents, two small cracks spreading from the impact center.

“It doesn’t make sense,” Mul said, shrugging. “And it never did.”

Nar looked back to the guardian he had fought. Viy’s help had been welcome, but it had only ended the fight faster. In truth, he hadn’t needed her help. He had finished a few guardians by himself by now. However, rather than feeling elated at his prowess, instead, his stomach only knotted further with growing anxiousness.

He wiped his forehead. “I don’t like this.”

“Is that [Instinct]?” Tuk asked.

Nar shook his head. “I just don’t like it. It’s too easy. Something’s bound to happen.”

“A surprise…” Tuk mused, rubbing his chin.

“Like that Sentry dangling over us?” Cen asked.

“Yeah. Something like that,” Nar said. “Plus, no levels. That’s what happened at the end of the tutorial. Before that… Thing on the bridge.”

“No levels. Now that makes me worried,” Mul muttered.

“That’s what you’re worried about? And not that the System has decided to take it easy on us all of sudden?” Tuk asked.

“It could be related,” Cen said. “Easy enemies to lower our guard, no levels, no gains, and then… Something big, like at the end of the tutorial.”

“Crystal, I hope not,” Tuk murmured.

“It could be anything,” Nar said. “I just don’t trust it. Why would it be so easy all of a sudden?”

“Kindness?” Tuk offered.

“Yeah, right,” Mul said, under his breath.

“I… What?” Nar said, stopping when he noticed Tuk’s intense stare.

Tuk grinned at him.

“You’ve changed,” he said. “I like it. You’ve opened up to us.”

Mul hmphed. “Was starting to think he was just an ass.”

“What? No! I…”

Tuk slapped his shoulder.

“Nah. He’s just one of those quiet, loner types. It looks intimidating, but I think it’s a sucky way to live, man. This is way better,” the ring tosser said.

“You’re going to scare him away like that,” Cen chided.

Nar stared at Cen in surprise. “You too?”

She blushed a deep dark gray.

“Sorry. I didn’t think you were an ass, but I am glad you’re opening up to us. You were a bit unapproachable.”

“Me? But I…”

“It’s coming,” Jul said.

The four of them looked in her direction.

Jul was standing with Kur, a few feet away from Gad and Viy. She stared straight down the corridor, in the direction of the yellow arrows.

Nar tilted his head and concentrated. From deep down the corridor, he caught the rushing, incoming static

“Get ready,” Kur said.

The buzzing grew towards them, and Nar thought he spotted its approach in the darkness.

“I hear it!” Tuk whispered.

“Why are you so happy about that?” Mul asked.

“I want to unlock [Hearing] too!”

“Focus!” Kur snapped at them.

Nar took a deep breath and spread his feet further apart. He half bent his knees, and tucked in his stomach so as to better receive the blow. The others tensed into similar positions, and Mul and Cen held hands.

The raging static grew to a roaring crescendo, and Nar held his breath.

A curtain of orange burst from the darkness and rushed at him, and Nar closed his eyes at the last moment.

The blow pushed him back two steps.

The air heated up to sweltering in a matter of seconds, and the temperature continued to increase. His nostrils burned, despite holding his breath, and he pressed his mouth shut harder.

Nar willed his UI visible and watched his HP soak up the damage.

A body slammed into him. Tall and wiry, and flailing, Tuk almost knocked them both down. For a couple of seconds, Nar grasped about in blind panic until he got both him and Tuk stable again.

He pulled the trugger to him in a tight embrace and readied for the next part.

As it had for the past few days, after each encounter with the weak guardians, the Pressure shifted, and bore down on top of them next. Today was no exception.

There was a momentary sense of vertigo, of loss of any sensory input and direction, and then, the Pressure roared down on them instead.

Nar’s teeth rattled under the weight, and his eardrums vibrated under the howling downpour. Soon, his whole body shook against Tuk’s.

He thought he heard the sound of screaming from far away, but his attention was already stretched thin between trying to keep them standing, and his burning lungs.

A few seconds later, he caved, and gulped a mouthful of fire. He tried to scream, but the Pressure silenced it in his throat.

His UI flickered violently, his HP bar melting away under the relentless assault.

Nar pressed his eyes harder, and closed his mouth again, fighting against the burning pain ravaging him from within.

In about half a minute, the weight changed a smidge. It wasn't much, but it was enough that he noticed it, and it gave him hope.

Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on the original website.

Almost!

Slowly the Pressure eased.

When the air felt only hot, he took another desperate breath. The worst of it was over.

He waited a few more seconds to be safe, and finally opened his eyes.

The corridor, and everything in it, was dyed in static orange.

Nar lowered Tuk to the floor.

“Thanks, man,” he said, panting. “Sorry about that. And the blood.”

Nar glanced at the dark streaks on his clothes and waved it off.

“Don’t worry about it,” he said. “And was that approachable enough?”

Tuk laughed, sending blood droplets flying from his mouth. “That’s the spirit, man! See, isn't it so much better?”

Nar shook his head, but he laughed too.

Blood dripped from his nose, eyes and ears, and mixed into the pouring sweat to make everything even more sticky and disgusting. His whole body thrummed and ached, and his HP had been shredded down to 78 out of 160.

Tuk must have felt just as bad as he did, if not worse. But even spitting blood with every word, the damn trugger still managed to laugh like an idiot and make him laugh as well.

Crystal… I got to keep this guy alive, Nar thought, smiling at the laughing ring tosser at his feet.

“Looks like everyone’s okay,” Kur said.

He smiled at Nar while wiping his ears.

“Just a bit of Pressure,” Tuk said, extending his arms wide. “Nothing we can't take!”

“Don’t know about [Hearing], but [Annoying Positivity] he has in piles,” Mul muttered.

Everyone’s voice sounded simultaneously right next to his ears, and as though Nar had his hands pressed against them. For his own voice, the effect was an even stronger, stranger sort of echo that reverberated inside his mind. It sounded like his own thoughts, except everyone else could hear it.

“A couple hours of this, now. It’s not so bad,” Gad said.

She moved her hand back and forth through the air, as if the orange color was a physical thing she could feel

Nar didn’t really mind it. It was hot, and a bit heavy and noisy, but it was nothing compared to the Pressure they had endured during their tutorial.

“Ouch! Fuck!” Mul shouted.

Well, there’s that, Nar thought, watching Mul swear under his breath while he rubbed his arm.

Around them, bright orange sparks materialized seemingly out of nowhere, and for no reason that they could explain. And if you were close enough…

“Yaouch! For fuck’s sake!” Mul shouted.

Tuk looked away, shaking.

Nar too, pressed his lips, to kill the laughter trying to escape him.

“It's so tiring walking in this stuff,” Viy said, following Gad’s hand with her eyes.

Nar mimicked Gad. They had no way to tell if the orange they were seeing was the actual Pressure, however, just like during the tutorial, Nar still felt nothing as he ran his fingers through the air.

“Jul?” Kur asked.

Nar dropped his hand and looked at the scout. She focused for a few seconds, her antennae pointing this and that way.

“Nothing,” she said.

“Alright, let’s get going then,” Kur said. “Before Mul gets zapped again.”

Laughing burst across the party, and they got underway again as the brawler muttered under his breath.

An hour or so later, Nar was awakened from his meandering thoughts by a wet, insistent sound.

“What are you doing?” Cen asked.

“Pressure tastes like little bits left at the bottom of the pile, near the end of the season,” Mul said.

Nar looked at the back of Mul’s head with impressed disgust. That was some creativity. He imagined his expression was much like Cen’s, as she stared at her brother tasting the air.

“Just stop it,” she said, with all the patience of an exhausted parent. “It’s annoying.”

“I was just curious. But I regretted it now,” Mul said, making more smacking noises. “Oooh! Maybe I should clear it up with a little something…”

“Mul! We already ate today!”

“That was hours ago!”

“Are you hungry?”

“No…”

“Then?”

“I don’t know. I just thought it would help take the mind off things, you know.”

Cen stared at him, aghast. “Mul! You can’t just eat because you’re-you’re bored! What is wrong with you?”

Mul looked down, dejected and Nar smothered his laughter behind his hand.

“Sorry.”

“Slurp some jell-o instead.”

He tutted. “Fine.”

Taking a deep, and shaky breath, Nar consulted his clock.

Maybe another hour, he thought.

The orange didn’t simply disappear. The color faded away gradually, until suddenly, it wasn’t there anymore.

It was a much brighter and more vivid orange than any Nar had ever seen.

Staring at the way the color interacted with everything, from their skin, to their clothes, and even the walls and yellow arrows, had quickly become Nar’s new favorite pastime. The Pressure made the occasional painful jolt, it was more tiresome, heavy and clunky to walk in, and it made that annoying static noise that seemed to rattle inside his very brain, but at the end of it all, that color made it all worth it. He wished his dad could be there to see it.

One day he will, he told himself.

Ahead of him, Jul raised a hand.

The party closed in, and weapons were pulled from inventories.

“I hear something,” she whispered.

“Front or back?” Kur asked.

“Front.”

With a start, Nar stared behind him.

There was only empty, orange darkness.

When was the last time I checked behind me? he thought, in a new onset of sweat. Damn it.

Whatever was happening, it was working. He was getting distracted. Comfortable. Lost in the pretty orange, forgetting his life was on the line.

“Pressure?” Kur asked.

Jul shook her head. “It’s different. Steady. It goes tap, tap, tap…”

Kur could only offer her a confused look.

“Like dripping?” Nar asked, from the back.

“Yes! Like a dripping! Like a dripping… Like back in the…”

Her face slowly fell. Kur looked at Nar for an explanation.

“Like blood dripping. Like after the battle.”

Kur’s eyebrows shot up. “You mean, like someone’s hurt?”.

“Or dead?” Gad asked.

Nar shrugged.

“I mean… It could be something else,” he said.

Jul shook her head. “I don’t think so… It sounds the same as back then.”

Nar grimaced. When he had been left behind waiting for Gad, Mul and Tuk to come back for him and Viy, there had been nothing but death surrounding him. And a lot of stuff had been dripping and leaking. Even now, he could still remember the soft, rhythmic tap of blood dripping down a cannibal’s hand, right next to where he had sat.

“Anything on [Instinct]?” Kur asked Jul.

Again, she shook her head.

“Ok. Let’s just go check it out, then. In formation.”

Much more alert than before, Nar kept a proper watch over their backs, and a few minutes later, he too heard the sound.

“Definitely dripping,” he said to the party. “And more than one.”

“Could just be some harmless liquid,” Tuk said.

“You’re a harmless liquid,” Mul muttered.

“Lame.”

“People, come on,” Kur said. “Focus.”

They crept along the corridor.

Nar’s heart thumped in his chest with anticipation.

He checked behind his shoulder every few steps. His [Instinct] may be silent, but having a whole new sixth sense was still strange and unfamiliar to him. He didn’t fully trust it yet, despite it saving his life more times than he could count, and was not even quite sure he understood how it actually worked.

“I see them,” Jul said. “Bodies, I think. Maybe twenty of them.”

“[Instinct] still good?” Kur asked.

“Yes.”

“Gad.”

They followed after the tank, covered behind her shield and presence.

The last couple of feet stretched before them. The orange tinted arrows peeled layer after layer of darkness, until finally, Nar spotted the first foot. Then the leg attached to it. And finally, the body collapsed against the wall.

“Damn,” Mul whispered, when they stood in full view of the scene.

Nineteen corpses were strewn around the tunnel.

Blood dripped from the ceiling, onto the pool that soaked the floor in between the dead.

It was like a repeat of that purple room, after the battle. Except that now the severed limbs, heads and spilled guts were colored orange instead. Nar couldn’t decide which looked worse.

Gad guided them closer.

“They’re all bone weapons,” she said.

“So, they’re all cannibals?” Viy asked.

“They look the part,” Mul said. “What are they even wearing? Is that skin?”

Tuk breathed out slowly.

“I’m so tired of this stuff,” he said, looking up.

Nar patted his back.

“Whoever did this was angry,” Kur said.

He had leaned down to inspect two of the bodies, dropped on top of each other.

“Look! This guy has barely any face left!”

“Crystal…”, Cen whispered.

“Please don’t describe it,” Tuk begged.

“Must have been some pissed off Climbers,” Mul said.

“Why Climbers?” Gad asked.

“Who else?” the brawler shrugged.

“The blood is still dripping,” the tank said, looking up at the stained ceiling. “That’s telling.”

“Telling of what?” Mul asked.

“Also, they’re still warm,” Kur informed them.

Tuk retched.

“Crystal, why are you touching it?” Viy asked.

“It’s important to know.”

“Why?” Mul pressed, beating Viy to it.

“Because it means whatever happened, it was recent,” Gad said. “And we were the first ones to leave the cubeplant, remember?”

Nobody spoke for several seconds.

“There are probably a lot more Climbers out there,” Mul ventured.

“Oh, for sure. And we all know by now that these walls can move in every way possible,” Kur said. “But the possibility is there, that someone, or most likely something else, did this.”

“Please don’t say it like that,” Cen said. She was looking at Jul, who was quietly trembling.

“Sorry.”

Mul sighed. “Well, it was good while it lasted. Shit’s getting interesting again.”

“Can we go now?” Tuk asked.

“Is it worth searching them?” Gad asked instead.

Kur scanned the bodies.

“If we had space in our storage, I’d say to grab one of those daggers each. It could be handy. But as it stands, our food and gear are more important. And I doubt there’s anything else of worth in them.”

“Makes sense.”

“Let’s just go,” Kur decided, to Tuk and Jul’s great relief. “No point in staying here.”

They quickly left the bloody scene behind them.

Long minutes of silence later, Jul stopped them again.

“I-I hear it again!”

“Really?” Kur asked.

“What in the new pile is going on now?” Mul muttered.

They ran forward this time, propelled by both dread and curiosity, and a few minutes later, they stood before another scene of carnage.

“How many are there?” Viy asked.

The corridor was packed with dead bodies, and at the edge of his [Sight], Nar saw that they continued on into the darkness.

“There is more,” he said. “Beyond.”

Kur bent down and touched the neck of one of the cannibals.

“By the Crystal!” Kur said. “It’s warm too!”

“What is going on here?” Gad muttered to herself.

She was still standing at attention, holding her shield against the darkness. Viy stood behind her, with her spear at the ready. That reminded Nar of his own role, and he turned to face the way they had come from.

“This looks brutal,” Mul said, following a particularly nasty splatter up the wall and into the ceiling.

“More than the battle?” Cen asked.

“That was a mess,” Mul conceded. “But that guy there, I doubt he was still alive when he was gutted like that. And look at his arms. His face. His legs! Everything is shredded to bits! They could have just stabbed him and left it at that. There was no need to slice him up like that!”

“Oh, Crystal…” Tuk said, covering his mouth.

There was something morbidly irresistible about the bodies. Nar both wanted to gouge out his eyes to block the stream of images of flesh and blood, but at the same time, he couldn’t take his eyes off of it.

“We should go,” Gad said. “Who or whatever did this may still be around.”

“We don't know from which direction they came from. Or went,” Kur said. “But I agree.”

He patted Jul’s back. Once.

“Are you okay?”

She swallowed. “Yes.”

“I’m sorry. We need your senses at their max for this. Is that okay?”

“Yes.”

“Thank you. And as always, tell me when you reach half your stamina,” Kur said.

“Okay.”

She looked back at Nar, and he gave her a nod. She flashed him a brief smile and closed her eyes.

Nar took the sword with his left hand and cracked his right wrist, grimacing at the carnage around him.

Jul gasped.

“There’s so many…” she said, staring straight ahead.

“We’re going to get through them quickly, but carefully,” Kur said. “Nar, you save your stamina for now. Jul will cover us. But keep an eye behind us, just in case.”

“Got it,” Nar said, and pulled back his senses to him.

The minutes passed, and still more and more corpses were revealed.

It’s like being back there, Nar thought, unable to keep his eyes off the gore. What could have done something like this?

He glanced at his sword.

It’s sharp enough, from what I remember.

The images of his own cannibal killings would be forever etched into his mind, and he would never forget the sensation of his blade easily parting through flesh and bone.

However, the way these cannibals had been cut seemed way beyond that.

I don’t think I could do it. It looks sharper, I think…

Body after body went by.

There had to be hundreds of them by now. If not more.

Wait! Is that…

He bent down near a trio of corpses to take a closer look.

What had drawn his attention was buried under the two other corpses. He swallowed and reached in, to pull out the dead hand of the arm that had drawn his attention.

“Ugh…”

More than warm, it was still sweaty.

“What are you doing?” Tuk asked, mortified.

Nar didn’t need to look at him to know what kind of face he was making.

“There’s something here,” Nar said.

He tugged on the hand and the bodies jiggled.

Tuk covered his mouth and looked away.

“What's wrong?” Kur asked.

“Come look.”

Kur dropped down next to him, and the whole party gathered around the two of them.

“Do you see these cuts?” Nar asked.

He pointed at a series of crisscrossing, fine lines of red that covered the cannibal’s forearm.

“I do. What about them?”

“A guardian did that,” Nar revealed.

“Shut up,” Mul said.

“How do you know?” Kur asked.

Nar lifted his own arm in front of his face.

“You don’t have a shield!” Gad said. “You get cut all the time. It’s why you keep your sleeves up!”

Nar stared at her. It was one thing for her to infer the cuts. She was a tank. Out of everyone in the party, she was the one who best understood what he went through. But to notice the sleeves too?

What else has she noticed? he wondered, trying to keep his face neutral.

“Not to doubt you, but are you sure?” Kur asked.

“I’ve been getting cut exactly like this for months now. I’m sure,” Nar said, looking away from Gad.

“So, the guardians are the ones killing the cannibals?” Cen asked.

“Cleaning up?” Mul suggested. “I mean, we all know they are Climbers who failed, the ones who go mad from the Pressure. Maybe the System cleans them up, once in a while.”

“The System opens the Doors when a cubeplant fails their quota,” Nar said. “The cannibals are the Crystal’s punishment. Why would the guardians clean them up?”

Mul shrugged. “Maybe there were too many?”

Nar let go of the arm, and it plopped uselessly on the floor.

He wasn’t convinced. The Climb was all about suffering, and the opening of the Doors was about punishment. Why would the Crystal remove something that was a crucial source of both? And why would it even care to do so? What did it matter to the Crystal, that hordes of cannibals roamed the darkness of the B-Nex?

No, that made no sense.

“This could explain why the guardians have been so weak,” Tuk said, suddenly. His voice was low and hoarse, and almost blended in with the constant static around them.

“Crystal! You’re right!” Gad said. “They’re meant for the cannibals! Not us!”

“Yeah.”

“We killed them so easily,” Cen said in a thoughtful tone. “But for these cannibals, they’re enough. Maybe we just got caught in the middle of it. The question is, how much longer will this last, and how, and if, it's affecting our path.”

“You mean it could be moving us around it?” Kur asked. “Taking a longer path around?”

“That, or it could be taking us right into it. We’d be the perfect tools for the job, as we saw in that battle for the cubeplant,” Cen said. “Cannibals have the numbers, but we have the System.”

“We would kill them all,” Mul said, his eyes set deep. “Easily. Vomit guy alone would be enough. His rings would kill them all before they even reached us, in a corridor like this.”

Nar considered the pile of bodies again. He would never forget just how easy it had been to cut them down by the dozen.

“But then,” Cen said, frowning. “If these guardians aren’t meant for us, where are the ones that are?”