Chapter 65 - Frig this Tower and its Buttons

The second boss was, like the first, just a big variant of the five mobs we were farming. The giant octopus went down in a single strike, not 4 seconds into the fight.

We moved on to Beach 3-1 in blissful silence, unimaginably happy not to receive torrents of achievements or other pop-ups. This time, it was little blue slimes who shot out cute water bullets. 4-1 had periwinkle-encrusted rocks that Slimey particularly enjoyed eating. 5-1 had ambling seaweed that dissolved way too quickly. 6-1 had miniature water elementals that looked like whirlpools, but ultimately were eaten by Slimey's unending hunger. 7-1 had by far the tastiest enemies.

“Make way, Slimey,” I commanded, stomping forward in my mismatched gear. I wore winter boots, a bright pair of plasticky pants, a tuxedo top and leather gloves with a tophat that was far too tall on my head. Still, I couldn’t argue with the results. I had, apparently, accrued a Combat Power of 4334, which was pretty darn high, I had to say. Well, OK, I wasn’t sure what it actually meant, but I was faster, stronger and far more handsome than I had been in my original Tower. I was pretty sure that last thought only started surfacing when I had equipped the tophat, but it wasn’t harmful, so I let it slide.

I approached the giant clams with a large sledgehammer. I wasn’t sure what a sledge was, but the hammer was the only weapon I had found that could crack the thick purple shells that jumped towards me. I sidestepped the first one and pivoted, swinging my sledgehammer around, smashing it directly into the hinge where the clam’s shell connected to itself. Slimey kept the other four at bay while I slid a knife from my belt into the rubbery membrane that tried keeping both shell pieces together. I carved a jagged line down and around its shell until it snapped open with a POP!

Inside the clam was a foot-long siphon of pure chewy deliciousness. I sawed at it with my knife, then ripped off a piece and crammed it into my mouth. I moaned in pleasure as I stuffed myself with clam meat. Once I had consumed my meal, the clam at my feet dead, Slimey threw me another clam and I repeated the process. If only I could order some melted garlic butter…

I farmed clams for well over three hours. I had seven days in the Cat Tower, so I didn’t want to spend my entire time stuffing my face, but I spent enough time to fill the void in my stomach and stock up on the chewy parts of the clams, placing them in Slimey’s storage space. I even invited Garnush to try some. He eagerly phased into existence, ate an entire foot of clam meat, then returned to his wispy Admin state. He was four hours into his role and he still hadn’t finished claiming, clicking and categorising pop-ups. By the Tower, I was glad that he was enthusiastic about his new job.

Beach 10-1’s mobs got me excited. What I initially thought were light blue eels slithered out of the ocean only to start beating tiny white feathered wings. Wings! I had to have them. But, more importantly, I salivated at the thought of what Beach 10’s boss would look like. A gigantic sea serpent? The only question was whether I should bother farming the small ones or skip straight to the biggy.

Well, may as well train. I gripped the long hilt of the far longer, thin, curved sword that the Tower called a “nodachi.” Racing towards the oncoming sea serpents, I ran until the first of the five wriggly sky worms was within reach of my three-foot blade. I planted my feet and--

“Ouch!” I winced, curling in on my right side. Unexpectedly, the serpent blurred forwards, burying its fangs in my ribs in a literal flash. I flailed about, trying to dislodge it by bashing the hilt of my sword into its face. Pain coursed through my dumb-ass body as I hammered its fangs deeper into my side. Then, another flash of pain. And a third… And finally a fifth. The beach spun dangerously, then, for some reason, tilted from horizontal to vertical. I had just enough time to activate my Slime King’s necklace, letting Slimey dissolve away the pain before darkness crept into my vision.

Vicious winged lampreys filled my nightmares, but I refused to let them win. The fact that the monsters were too fast for me both pissed me off and reinforced my need to best them. Garnush dutifully raised me from the dead and I set off, once again, to fight the winged beasties.

This time, I tilted the odds in my favour. “Slimey, leave me a single opponent.” The massive slime happily burbled down the beach. All five winged serpents flashed, carving their way into dark green goo and ending their lives.

“Almost, buddy. Try again, but don’t approach so quickly.”

“Brrrrlrlrlrlrlr.”

He obediently trundled to the next five mobs, cramming it in reverse and matching their pace once they were about to collide. Gently, Slimey slowed until he was snacking on four serpents, then he sped off, leaving me a single enemy.

“Alright, you fuck.” I gripped my nodachi firmly with two hands, placing the blade between the two of us just as we met. When it flashed forwards, the serpent split itself open on my blade. Its momentum, however, was so great that it still slammed into me, fangs first, piercing my armour and my skin, drawing a not-insubstantial amount of blood and causing me to yell out in pain. I grabbed both halves of the blue monster, its scales surprisingly cold and sharp, and swung them at Slimey, who happily ate both pieces.

Wincing at my non-mortal wound, I repeated the same process, this time trying to swivel my waist to the side as the serpent was sliced in two. I received a single wound for my efforts instead of two. Progress, but barely.

The third, fourth, fifth and sixth tries went about as well. I kept trying, kept grinding. Eventually, my wounds accumulated enough that I had to, errrr, send the corpse signal to Garnush, who nonchalantly phased into the material world, resurrected me, then went back to playing with his buttons.

On what was probably the thirty-seventh try, I finally managed it. I braced myself, waiting for the serpent. Then, once it drew close enough that I knew it would activate its super speed, I lunged forwards and to the side, striking out with a large sweep of my blade. It wasn’t a perfect strike, but it resulted in the death of my enemy without receiving a wound in return. Victory in hand, I practised and practised until I could kill two serpents, one after the other. I dashed left, letting the first serpent throw itself onto my blade, then used the momentum of my swing to swat the second monster out of the air, ducking its onrushing body.

Satisfied, I opened my Soul Tinker menu, examining my options.

Winged Sea Serpent : 61%

Winged Sea Serpent attributes :

1. ?????????????

2. ?????????????

3. ?????????????

4. ?????????????

Wincing at the pain I knew was coming, I let Slimey go to town on the flying sea serpents while I tested out merging my body with the winged serpent’s powers. I started off slowly, adding a percentage at a time to different body parts. First step: teeth. Each point made my canines longer and sharper, to the point that they were seconds from piercing my bottom lip.

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“Nope! No vampire teeth for me,” I muttered.

Any piece of skin on my body that I tried modifying grew light blue scales. Not the worst idea, but I cancelled the modification for now and tested other places. My limbs grew flexible, but rubbery. My spine segmented, resulting in an embarrassing faceplant. I reverted to normal, then modified my legs. A slight tingling sensation filled them. I bounded forwards, blurring for half of a foot before continuing with my sprint and tripping over my own feet. It wasn’t teleportation, per se, but my perception was far from enough to keep track of the extra burst of speed.

I eagerly increased the winged serpent’s soul power in my legs from 10% to 40%. They felt tense, like coiled springs. I lunged forwards and instantly ate a cubic foot of sand. I blinked, confused.

I stood up again, but my legs felt… normal once more. I looked around, noticing two furrows in the sand, dug from where I had been standing to five feet away, where I had landed. Had I just… teleported? After a moment’s consideration, I concluded that I had, again, used the serpent’s dash ability to physically move through the world. Otherwise, I wouldn’t have scraped my way over to my final resting place.

Ten minutes later, I had mastered the ability and was zooming around the battlefield, killing flying serpents like a god. Just kidding. I wished. I was still rocketing straight into the ground. I was absolutely shit at controlling the ability and hadn’t even been able to see the world around me move before I crashed over and over again. Frustrated, I put more of the serpent’s soul power into my legs.

“Garnush?”

“Yes, Boss?”

“You ready to get me up?”

“If you’re into that sort of thing, Boss.”

“Do. You. Have. The. Mana.”

“Just enough for one, Boss.”

Cheeky bastard had been getting lippier as we ascended. Maybe he had been growing more intelligent as a result of being an administrator? Or was my Combat Power affecting my summons in more ways than I thought? It was hard to tell.

“Just enough for one,” I mumbled. What could realistically go wrong? I looked down at my legs. They looked pretty normal, other than the fact that they had 60% of a winged serpent’s soul power packed into the muscles. I tried imagining every scenario possible, but hoped that death wasn’t one of them. It would suck to have to farm more serpents than needed. But more power in my legs meant more time dashing, which should, in theory, let me see more of my surroundings. More perception meant a better chance at controlling the power.

I crouched, widened my eyes as much as I could, then sprang. Probably the worst pain I had ever felt slammed into my legs on liftoff, causing me to let out a blood curdling scream as I sailed over the sand. Hey, I could see myself moving! Progress! Though, I’d need to figure out a way to not hurt my legs so much. They were on fire. They hurt so much that I couldn’t move them, so when the sand rose to meet me, I made another Théo-shaped crater in the sand instead of sticking my first graceful landing. Eager for my legs to stop hurting so badly, I willed myself to turn around and sit up. It was far harder than it should have been. The world spun and my thoughts seemed fuzzy from the pain. I fell back twice before successfully pushing my face out of the sand and turning my torso. I sagged into the wet sand, limiting my view more and more of my surroundings. Strangely, the crater I was in was almost my entire height and getting deeper.

Then, I looked down. Darkness crowded my vision. Sand started falling upwards. Bile rose in my throat. The sand was muddy with blood. My blood. And the crater wasn’t that deep. The screaming pain in my legs didn’t stop because I had left my legs behind me when I dashed. Three small stumps stared glumly up at me as I gawked at the carnage.

“Garnush,” I slurred. “Sixty percent is no bueno…” The world went topsy turvy, then disappeared completely.

With Garnush recovering mana, I took it easy for a while. Slimey acted as my bulwark and I kept my leg infusion to an acceptably low 38%. The main issue seemed to be elevation. My feet were pressed into the sand, and dug even further down upon activating my new dash ability. This, in turn, sank me deep enough into the sand that I ploughed through it instead of skimming above it. This, of course, caused drag and ended in my face in the sand.

Fed up with failing at dashing, I finally crossed the threshold to fight the winged serpent’s boss variant. It did not disappoint.

Dark blue-green scales burst from the ocean when it appeared. The sea serpent easily flew about, winding in on itself before stretching and soaring, then swooping back down in intricate spirals. After showing off its impressive moves, it swooped down and charged straight at me. I marvelled at its impressive whiskers, its mouth big enough to swallow me, filled with ginormous teeth. Before impact, I noted that it not only differed from its smaller brethren in size, but also in the fact that it didn’t have wings.

It opened its serpentine mouth, ready to swallow me whole. A roar shook the sand and made my teeth clack together as it approached. I tensed, knowing I’d get eaten if I dodged too quickly, but all of my instincts screamed at me to throw myself out of its path.

I levelled my nodachi, waiting for the collision. When it came within striking distance, it didn’t dash, contrary to my expectation. It sped up, but it was far from a blink or a blur. I side stepped, shifting my sword to the side to slice the beast down its side as it passed. Unfortunately, it simply twisted its head to follow me. Its bottom teeth sank into the sand beneath my feet, trying to scoop me up whole. Its top teeth almost grazed my head as they rushed by. The sun disappeared, blocked by the roof of the beast’s mouth. A forked tongue burst forth, reaching for me. I panicked.

I turned around, the thing’s weirdly dry tongue caressing my back as if trying to grab hold. Its jaw started closing, where it would inevitably eat me along with hundreds of pounds of sand. Then, my view of the outside shifted, and so did gravity. I saw the purest of blue instead of the yellow sand, like the stuff that rushed past me and into the serpent’s throat. I stabbed my sword the best I could into the roof of the serpent’s mouth, the sharp side of the blade pointing forwards, then dashed. I held on as rightly as I could to the nodachi, but it was no use. The world blurred. My sword carved a straight line through the top of the thing’s mouth. The sheer kinetic force of using the serpent’s mouth as a launch pad pried its jaw open, and I flew out, rocketing into the sky.

The nodachi was ripped from my hands as it impacted bone, possibly teeth. The jerk made me spin wildly in midair for a second before I tumbled gracelessly to the sand, which was thankfully only a few feet below me. The sea serpent’s body thrashed wildly, passing barely a foot above my prone body, its roar of pain cracking and popping my ears. Through the frantic flailing, I saw glimpses of Slimey rushing over the serpent’s body until…

“Brrrlglglrrrrrrrr…”

The roar turned to choking bubbles. I cringed as Slimey enveloped the thing’s head, infesting its nostrils and bleeding mouth, crawling into its ears and squeezing into the gaps around its eyes. For a full minute, the sea serpent thrashed and struggled, until it finally ran out of gusto.

Seeing the creature attempt to draw its last breaths, I quickly activated Soul Forge on my pants, prepping them to receive its soul power. Well, I tried, at least.

You are currently imbuing a shirt with Red Boss Slime’s (89%) kinetic dispersal property. Finish imbuement? Warning: you may not alter this item’s soul power after stopping the imbuement process.

“Fine, yes! Finish imbuing the shirt!”

Item obtained: Red Boss Slime’s Shirt of Anti-impact (89%).

Pants: 4% imbued - Quetz’s Broodling. Effect: minor self-targeted upwards telekinesis.

The moment I completed the red slime shirt, not much happened to it. It simply vanished from my Soul Forge window, freeing a slot for my pants. I frowned at the new imbuement’s description. Unlike the shirt’s succinct kinetic dispersal tag, the pants had an overcomplicated way of what was likely some sort of flotation or flying ability.

Willing the pants to activate didn’t do a whole heck of a lot. I felt lighter, somehow, but I definitely didn’t soar into the sky like the serpent did. 4% clearly wasn’t enough of the creature’s power.

With the fight over, I examined myself for injuries. Aside from a bit of bruising on one arm that cushioned my fall, I was in pretty good shape, surprisingly. I took a moment to stretch and to calm my racing heart. I hadn’t gotten eaten, but it was far closer than I would have liked. The boss’s corpse soon fizzled to purple smoke, revealing a 1-minute respawn timer, and opening up the exit to the next section of whatever the Tower had planned.

“Slimey, my dear,” I called out, ignoring the glowing white line in the sand that led to what was probably Beach 11-1. “I hope you liked the taste of snake, because you’ll be eating it for the rest of the day.”