Hope was clearly becoming exhausted as I dragged myself towards Neo Brasilia through the forest at night. “Acid Shot.” Another butterfly monster died. I was on full monster duty, since she could barely stand up straight.

We couldn’t have a talk to take our minds off things since I needed to constantly pay attention to my surroundings with my ears. That was the problem with only having one eye and dragging yourself across the ground.

I didn’t dare stop for fear, I might not wake up again or have the strength to keep going. I could rest when I was dead. The light source was slowly going down. I paused to take a break. “Holding up okay?” I asked Hope.

“Um, yes. Maybe we should rest,” Hope said.

“Then I will probably just die. The only thing keeping me going is spite and willpower. Do you see the city wall?” I asked.

“No, want me to go ahead and get help?” Hope asked. I was considering it. But there was a chance the Divine Empress had already taken Neo Brasilia. I had to keep my survival hidden until I could recover. I hadn’t given her much of a choice to come with me. I needed her help crossing the swamp in a reasonable amount of time and not drowning.

I considered the situation a bit more. We should be running into clearers. The fact that we hadn’t yet was concerning, but nothing I was going to worry too much about right now. “I need you to keep alert for monsters that I miss. I am counting on you Hope.”

“Um, yes, uh, sure, I mean yes sir, Champion Michael,” she said. I ignored her nervousness and dug my hand into the ground in front of me once more. I pulled myself a short distance forward. Out of all the methods of travel, this was officially the worst one. Single hand crawling. I was forced to strain my aching neck, so I didn’t get a face full of ground. The swamp had actually been far easier than this.

I couldn’t help but think about having a skateboard to lie down on and drag myself. It would be so much easier and quicker. “Acid Shot.” I killed another monster. This was painfully slow. What would take me an hour or so to jump run, was going to take me all night and the following day at this rate.

I was going to die of frustration before my injuries killed me. Everything hurt so much, that I had become used to the constant throbbing pains throughout my body. My left knee and leg sent the occasional burst of pain when it caught on something. That was a shock kind of pain. Sudden and intense.

Then there was my chest. It was a crushing kind of pain, making it hard to breathe and move. Like an elephant was using me as a cushion. My entire body throbbed in pain with my heartbeat. Like a silent scream by a dying ghost.

Last, but certainly not least, was my eye. It was a burning kind of pain. My skull felt like it wanted to split apart, and my brains burst out of my body. Or someone was trying to saw my face in half with a burning butter knife. It was distinctly unpleasant. I hacked up some more blood and spat it to the side as I continued to drag myself forward.

Congratulations Divine Empress, you were going on the list. I didn’t know how I was going to get her off said list, but she was going on it. It was a select list, carefully curated, for the people who were going to die no matter what.

“Acid Shot.” It was getting dark, which was annoying, but there was nothing to do but keep pushing forward. Or pulling myself forward as it was in this case. Each armlength I dragged myself forward was another hammer blow on the countless nails holding my resolve together. I became more determined the more I dragged myself.

This Divine Empress was going to die. That was not a question. The only question was how. I hadn’t worked out that part yet, but it was going to happen. What did all those cheesy motivational speakers like to say. I had only ever listened to a few, but it was always along the lines of visualization and actualization.

“Acid Shot.” I killed another butterfly. It was tempting to use Air Burst. But it wouldn’t take me that far. Once we got to the city, I would probably use it. As much as I wanted to sail through the sky like the Astrologer, I hadn’t worked that out yet.

I pulled myself forward some more. I was going to kill this Divine Empress. If that blast hadn’t done her in, then I had two ideas. The first idea was to push her into the void. Goodbye lady, have fun in that pit of darkness. The second idea was to lure her to that chunk of solid energy and have her somehow melt or her brain explode.

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

Both ideas were a stretch but trying to lure her into a tower would be like leaping into a lion’s den as a fluffy bunny. Instant death. The same with going to a higher-level zone. She could easily survive, and I would die.

“Acid Shot.” I killed another butterfly. Hope kept up pace next to me looking out in scared silence. I would need to have a real conversation with her once I was healed up instead of being in survival mode. I didn’t have the time or energy right now to comfort her. I needed a restoration otherwise I was going to die from my injuries.

Thank goodness, I had a large health insurance plan, just for this reason. I would have cried myself to death and just given up if I didn’t have the points in reserve for a restoration. I had no doubt it would be expensive, but I was guessing around 8 to 9 hundred thousand at most.

I was definitely going to bump my health insurance up to around 5 million once I got my restoration. I had learned my lessons. New lesson, put wheels on my armor to roll myself over the ground. By the Almighty System, this hand dragging deserved a meta-point for how insanely annoying and aggravating it was.

“Acid Shot.” Another monster died. It was finally getting light again. I had been dragging myself all night, nearly non-stop. Hope still had not reported seeing the city, which was unfortunate. Why couldn’t she have been a buff body builder, instead of some twig looking hippie chick? Or Naran. He could have easily sorted all this out.

At least he was out of the city in a hunting camp when all this happened. Clarissa would sort him out. Hopefully she got away as well. If anyone could survive, it was her. She had corporate juice in her ice-cold veins and a mind that was more vicious than mine.

“Acid Shot.” Another monster dead. At least Hope was picking up the crystals. At least she wasn’t completely useless. I pulled myself forward some more. If I ever wanted to torture someone or make a point, just cripple everything but an arm and tell them they can live if they can drag themselves back for a restoration.

Most people would just lay down and die. Or wallow in their pain. It fueled my determination instead. I kept pulling myself forward.

“Um, Champion Michael, there are three people running towards us,” Hope said. I quickly slammed my right hand into the ground and levered myself up to a sitting position, using my hand to brace myself. Three people were running towards us.

They had spotted us, but veered away. They were ignoring the level 1 monsters after them and were dressed in the uniforms of the guards Sam had in Neo Brasilia. That was not good. I let out a long sigh. Nothing was ever easy.

I should have realized. The pain and the hand dragging had distracted me from realizing something important. There were monsters. Sam had a rotation strategy set up around Neo Brasilia like Purgatory had. We shouldn’t have run into monsters until they all reset after midnight.

“Should we call out to them?” Hope asked.

“They had fear in their eyes. Neo Brasilia has fallen to the Divine Empress.” That was bad. That was nuclear fallout in your pudding kind of bad. I would have to fight my way to a pillar through whatever forces she had deployed into the city. Of course the guards didn’t bother to stop and help, useless. Everyone was useless.

“Um, who is the Divine Empress?” Hope asked. If I wasn’t in so much pain, I would have laughed at the absurdity of the question.

“The absolute dictator to the West who did this to me and destroyed Purgatory. There is no chance of surrendering. For me, I would be grafted into her throne at best. You. Well, it isn’t pleasant,” I said and began to drag myself forward again.

“What? Um, what would she do?” Hope asked. I kept dragging myself forward. That was not a happy question. “Torture? Death?”

“You would be raped until you were pregnant, and then your baby would be cut from your womb and turned into a demonic extension to the Divine Empress in some convoluted method I am still trying to work out. Then you would be flesh crafted into a monster for her fighting pits, for her soldier’s amusement.”

“Oh,” Hope said. Yeah, ‘oh’ was right. The Divine Empress might smile and look like a kind grandmother, but her heart and soul were filled with some vile blackness. I didn’t have many lines, but one of them was making children suffer. They didn’t do anything and couldn’t do anything.

“Acid Shot,” I killed another monster as I kept dragging myself forward. One little bit at a time.

“If she took the city, um, I can’t really fight,” Hope said. She had a sword and could poke at things.

“I can handle the fighting. Anything below level 2, I can manage. Even a level 3 monster or combatant, I can sort out. Even in this sorry state,” I replied with confidence I didn’t really have. Any fight would have me be a sitting duck. I had no mobility.

It would make any fight a nightmare. With those guards running away, not even bothering to stop, there was going to be a fight. I had no doubt about that. I would need to think about how I would handle things. Probably an alpha strike. At least Air Burst was gestureless and silent. Otherwise, I would have been really screwed.

The trick would be getting in that critical attack and doing damage in the brief period I had energy. Once I was out, I would be truly dead. I couldn’t even run away. That was my go to move much of the time. I really needed a much higher Body stat so I could at least have a chance of escaping the Divine Empress next time. I couldn’t even begin to place her Body stat. It had to easily be over 50,000. That number alone made me want to cry. But I could only endure for now. Crying could come after when I had two eyes to cry with.

“Acid Shot.” I continued to drag myself forward. One little bit at a time.