Well, Vadeem certainly got his wish and then some. The entrance we came from slammed shut behind us by a massive stone door, and out of the walls came a massive stone creature that was even bigger than Vadeem’s titan form. Yet if it was just the hulking golem that took up at least half the floorspace being the problem, the situation would have still been manageable. Too bad he decided to bring some friends as well.
Little holes in the floors slowly slid open at the same time and out flooded a mass of those insectoid human things we encountered earlier. Worse yet, they seemed to pour out of those openings without end, and we were in actual danger of just being overwhelmed by sheer numbers given the confined space.
Even the exit on the opposite side of us closed on its own and was now sealed off. I felt the atmosphere in the room change as a faint glimmer of energy encased everything. Vadeem noticed the odd situation and immediately threw his hammer towards where the doorway used to be. The force of the attack was massive, but nothing seemed to be damaged. His weapon bounced off the wall and almost took off my head as it flew back from the recoil. Whatever new toys Origin had access to seemed to have fully trapped us in here.
I sighed. Well shit, that went from zero to a hundred fast.
The Regressor was unfazed and quickly gave out concise instructions, “Vadeem, hold off the Golem.”
Without reply, the big man transformed into his now familiar titan size and engaged the slightly larger foe. A powerful uppercut to the rock creature’s jaws sent tremors down the earth.
The Regressor took out his spear and like lightning, carved a path of destruction toward the exit, “Noel, thin out the insect numbers.”
“Ugh, these things are seriously gross!” Noel complained, “You owe me one for this, Boss man!”
“Just do it!” the Regressor shouted.
“Aye-aye!” the redhead answered before exploding into that disturbing black blaze. The flames expanded outwards a few meters around her, melting any creatures that got too close. Seeing her endlessly and easily mow down her foes was breathtaking. Even the ones that could somehow reach her without turning into goop failed to harm the woman in any way. Their attacks simply passed through her ethereal body.
“Yoona, stay near me and pick off any that get close,” he continued, never easing on the offense, “Walter, tell the twins to copy whatever Yoona’s doing.”
I did so and saw Yoona and the twins quickly rush towards the Regressor, letting loose shot after shot at the same time. Yoona’s volleys seemed to have a life of their own and were curving and darting around the battlefield, impaling multiple foes with each arrow loosed. It appears that while Yoona's abilities wasn't quite as flashy as the other party members, she could still hold her own. The twins were not doing too bad either, and their enhanced attributes allowed them to let loose dozens of arrows in seconds.
“What’s my job here?”
I narrowly avoided being stepped on by Vadeem and quickly crawled toward the Regressor’s side, swatting away a few clawing foes on the way. This battle was almost comically easy in my Xollon form, and the only problem was the sheer number of enemies. Was human wave tactics the only strategy that the Trash Matrix could employ? It must be getting desperate.
“Help me find a weakness in the barrier,” he said calmly, “If we don’t find the Faultline then we’re not getting out of here.”
Thank god we had the Regressor’s experience. I doubt anything the Origin Matrix threw at him would be new, and if there was anyone who knew the inside and out of the Trash AI’s own weapons, then it was the guy who survived all the Trials.
“You can tell if you infuse mana into- shit, never mind,” he muttered, “Switch spots with Yoona, you won’t be able to find it if you can’t use or detect magic at all.”
Man, that deflated my ego a bit, but there was nothing I could do. I swapped places like I was told and used my many feelers to pick off stragglers again. Was this going to be my role in the future? Just off the side lapping off the leftovers from the others? How was it possible for my stats to increase five times and I was somehow still the most useless one here?
I forced my disappointment down and reminded myself that I was dealing with literal freaks of nature. My growth was probably amazing by most standards, and the fact that I was able to even keep up with the rest of my party members should be a cause for celebration, especially considering how bad of a start I had. Plus, they had cool skills to accent their stats, while I just had a bunch of tentacles.
Yet logical reasoning hardly mattered when faced with the cold hard fact that I was still too weak. Now that I knew that I couldn’t always count on Noe, what with her missing fragments and unknown background, I had to improve further on my own, by any means necessary.
But for now, I had to content myself with my limited role in the current battle. I couldn’t improve if I’m not even alive to do so. And if that means all I’m doing now was poke small insects that don’t get vaporized by Noel or stomped into a paste by Vadeem, then so be it. I continued to poke and bash insects. At least these couldn't avoid me given the confined space we were in.
While I was keeping the foes at bay, the Regressor was darting all over the battlefield striking at various spots on the walls. Yoona was helping out, although I couldn’t tell how she was doing due to my strange constitution. All I saw was that she was concentrating for a while, and occasionally shooting an arrow at the wall. Whatever they were doing was certainly affecting the barrier, as each strike of a spear or arrow caused the blue light encasing the room to visibly dim.
This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.
I was doing so little that I even had the chance to spectate Vadeem’s epic duel against the Golem. It was like watching an old Kaiju film in real life as the two behemoths slugged it out. All semblance of form and technique was gone as each titan swung at the other. Each punch from Vadeem’s gauntleted hands would displace huge chunks of rock from the Golem, knocking it back a bit, but it would regenerate just as quickly.
Vadeem, on the other hand, seemed to be going with the punches and ignored any damage that he was taking. He was hellbent on destroying his opponent and ignored all else. I wasn't sure if he lost some of his usual battle instincts while in the form of a literal titan, but I was beginning to think that was the case. Those swings from the rock creature were slow, so he must have had the ability to dodge or at least parry them, yet he chose not to.
“Vadeem, Noel, Walter!” The Regressor shouted, “Get ready to run to the exit! I can deactivate the barrier, but not for long!”
We did so. Noel simply walked through the enemies, as nothing could physically stop her, while I followed behind her and made my way to the sealed doorway. Yoona and the twins soon joined us and picked off any insectoids trying to stop us.
The only one having trouble was Vadeem. The big man had started to retreat back towards us as well but his movements were hindered by the huge Golem.
“Vadeem, do you need help?” Jae-Hyun asked.
“Don’t bother,” he grunted, “Doubt you guys could stop this thing for long. I’ll rush for it when you bring down the barrier. Do it now!”
“Go!” the Regressor shouted as he stabbed his spear into a small segment of the wall. The air audibly popped as the barrier shattered, but almost as quickly the energy around us was starting to gather again.
Noel was the first to respond as she quickly flew through the opening, I followed next and saw the Regressor drag his sister back with him. Vadeem tried to follow, but the golem noticed the change in the room and grabbed onto the titan before he could shrink down to a manageable size. Well shit, if he went out of Titan form now he'd be squashed. He grunted with effort as he tried his best to dislodge himself from the rock creature but to no avail.
“Damn!” he grumbled, “Just go without me!”
The twins noticed his plight, and without hesitation they rushed back towards the man, doing their best to try to free Vadeem from the golem. Their pure disregard for their own safety said more about their relationship with him than anything else, but it was a useless gesture. Nothing they did could possibly help free the man.
“No!” he shouted as he tried once again to untangle himself from the Golem, “Get out of here you two! You can’t help!”
They didn’t react as they let loose arrow after useless arrow on the rock monstrosity. They looked like they would rather die than abandon Vadeem.
“Hurry up!” Jae-Hyun said, “Barrier will reengage in a few seconds!”
“He won’t make it brother!” Yoona shouted, “And the twins!”
He gritted his teeth but didn’t respond.
“We can’t leave them!” his sister continued.
“We might have to.”
A look of fierce determination flashed through the young girl's eyes, “No! I’m not leaving him. You might be willing to make sacrifices, brother, but I am not!”
And before he could say anything else, Yoona ran back into the room. The Regressor tried to stop her but the barrier reformed at that exact moment, cutting him off. The look on Jae-Hyun’s face at that moment was of a quiet insanity.
Vadeem noticed that his chance to exit was cut off, and with a shout of rage, he started to bash his foe with all his might, yet somehow also ensuring that nothing came close to harming Yoona or the twins.
“Don’t worry about us, brother,” Yoona said as she unleashed a barrage of arrows, “I know what to look out for to take the barrier down again. You three go on ahead, we’ll catch up.”
“Yoona…”
“I’ll be fine,” she answered, looking back briefly to give him an assuring smile, “Vadeem and the girls will keep us safe. You go and find that fire.”
He didn't look like he would leave any time soon. I don't think the idea of losing his sister for a second time sat well with him.
“Come on Jae-Hyun,” I said slowly, “We can’t stay here any longer. The faster we finish this Trial the better of a chance they’ll have as well.”
He gritted his teeth, but logic won out in the end and with a final look back, he turned around and ran away. Even Noel, now back to her normal self, didn’t make some funny remark about the situation.
“We’re not far off the ritual room,” Jae-Hyun said with eerie calm, “Follow me.”
He leaped away and didn’t wait for a response, his mood still abysmal. I joined Noel and we ran a few feet behind the Regressor, careful to keep up with his insane speed.
“You think they’ll be ok?” I whispered to the redhead.
“Eh, Vadeem’s with them, and that guy’s too stupid to die,” she replied with a shrug.
I sighed. I knew trying to get any serious answer out of her was a useless task, why had I even bothered?
She noticed my disappointment and clarified, “No, I’m serious.”
“That he’s too stupid to die?”
“That too,” she giggled, “But I mean the part about them being fine. I’ve known Vadeem for a long time, and that guy has survived worse situations than this back on Earth. Did you know we first met because I had a contract to get rid of him? It’s the only job I failed too!”
I hadn’t known that, but then again, I hadn’t had the chance to know any of my party member’s backgrounds. I should really remedy that once we’re out of here, even if their old lives were a little unique. I’m sure there’s something nice about Noel underneath that bloodthirsty, insane shell… probably.
We ran down more corridors, some smaller golems and other monsters tried to get in our way, but the Regressor barely broke a sweat before destroying those in this path. Noel and I didn’t even get the chance to fight and just did our best to not step on the bodies and rubble left behind. Let’s never get Jae-Hyun angry…
“What I mean is,” Noel continued as she lightly stepped over the corpse of some mutated flesh thing, “Vadeem’s got a soft spot for kids - not in a creepy way, of course - and he’s got super dad vibes when he sees one in danger. He’ll make sure those three are fine over his big, dumb dead body, and since he’s too stupid to die in the first place, everyone will be fine. See, perfect logic little bro.”
Can’t argue with that. She knew the other man better than I, so I can only hope that her assessment of him was correct.
Before long, the Regressor stopped us in front of an ornate entrance. We had just run through enemies nonstop for at least ten minutes, yet he didn’t look even slightly winded. In fact, he only looked more determined for what was ahead.
“That’s the door to the Ritual Room,” he said, pointing at the entrance, “Whatever’s or whoever’s responsible for sabotaging this place will be ready for us in there. We go fast. If we can avoid a fight, do so, if we can’t then we destroy them and relight that fire at all costs.”
“You got it boss,” I said. I still had a few hours before my transformation was forced to end, so I should be good to go.
Noel nodded in affirmation and transformed back into her inferno form. The Regressor nodded one last time, weapon at the ready, and we entered the Ritual Room.
Ding!
“First System Mission activated,” Noe’s voice - the robotic one I heard all the way back when this craziness started - said, “Please absorb Unit Noe’s Shard of Emotion to upgrade the Luck System 104.04 Delta. Good Luck, Host Walter.”