Chapter 37: War of Worlds

From the pod’s refuse, a body emerged and formed in front of us. Scales and bones condensed into plates that ran across the front of the four legged creature. It gawked with a reptile’s eyes, slitted but intelligent. The hulking torso of the creature flowed together like a deadly machine, its movements like music made with muscle and bone.

The beast reminded me of a tiger with no fur, bones placed over it instead. From its neck, a mane of jagged femurs expanded out, and the monster roared at us. The bottom jaw split in half, revealing a throat lined with sharpened teeth. The noble facade of the creature shattered as several other pods exploded, slopping onto the ground with wet slaps beside it.

Unnamed of Yawm – Panthera Variant | Level 250 – These are the newly spawned footsoldiers of Yawm. If they prove themselves, Yawm may name them, granting them their previous sentience. They may then rise through the ranks of his army, being granted great power by accomplishing great deeds.

Though unnamed, each of these troops hold considerable power. They may operate in packs and coordinate with each other. They claim a much higher level of finesse and skill with their movements. Their regenerative capacities are impressive as well along with their sheer tenacity. Combine this with their tendency to attack on sight, and they make for deadly foes.

This specific sample is a panthera variant. Many variants and forms can be found of the unnamed. Be ready for combat when you see one.

I rushed in, my heels tearing into the ground. I shouted, “Let’s go, Althea.”

A harpoon drilled past my head, piercing into the armored lion’s face. The bullet of bone impaled through it, but the creature stayed standing. The beast shook its head as I reached it. I growled out, augmentation overflowing in me like a flood. I fought without any restraints, my full might on display.

My armor grinned, the armor shivering in anticipation of its next meal. The bone lion bit forward, trying to eat me. I whipped a weighted hook against one of its bottom jaws. The blow snapped the bone of the creature and knocked me sideways. I dragged towards its side, out of the way of its incoming bite.

It clapped its teeth beside me, a shockwave ebbing from the clamp. Keeping focused, I charged forward with my right hand dragging below me. As the creature turned its head, my fist snapped up into the roof of its mouth. The teeth of the creature chipped and uprooted as my fist knocked its head upward. The dry, brittle ground cracked beneath my feet. I stayed silent with my next punch, turning on my feet.

My left hand slammed into the top of the armored lion’s head, cleaving it down like a guillotine. The skull crumbled under the might of my fist, but the monster’s life remained strong. It swiped with its bone covered paw. The claws scraped against my armor as I deflected the blow, but even the offset strike sent me dragging backward.

A green pouch smashed into the bone dragon’s face, acid melting its mauled skull. It howled out, stumbling sideways past me. I dashed forward and whipped another strike into its side. My fist punctured the bone like tearing through tissue paper. As I pulled my hand out, several black veins crawled out towards me. They met metal, and my armor sliced into those tendrils with my own dark wires.

Recoiling for safety, the monster stepped back. Two spears sliced its knees, causing the head of the monster to clap the pavement. I ramped up my augmentation runes as its slitted eyes widened at my looming frame. In my gaze, it laid broken, searching for safety. It found none. I stomped the top of its head into the ground, bone crunching underfoot. It jerked away, but I charged towards it.

Another stomp, and I smashed the thing’s face once more. Althea tore its back legs out, the creature staring at us with horror, but I gave no sympathy to the monster. Its brethren killed my kind, the beasts composed of melted humans. In us, it found its own monsters. In that way, it wanted mercy it wasn’t willing to give.

The monster’s bone plates cracked under my fists. With a quick series of bites, my helmet tore through dozens of pounds of the creature, the creature still alive with half its head missing. After a minute of my armor feasting, the unnamed monster perished in a pool of its own blood. The other pod’s remains formed into three different creatures when we finished off the bone lion.

One was a hulking, brown boar with dozens of tusks growing from its face. The front paws of the monster curled into bestial hands instead of hooves like its back feet. The same intelligent eyes looked at me like the bone lion’s. The other creature hulked out as an enormous yellow insect, like a praying mantis except with a flexible abdomen covered in jagged spikes and three eyes. Vibrant stripes of red interlaced its exoskeleton, and the limbs on its mouth ended with teeth, like stacks of moving enamel.

The mandible mouth made a mockery of a grin when I looked at it, an eerie drool leaking from its mouth. The last creature crawled out as a dozen legged crab with a mouth at the top of its shell. The arms fed towards the top of its head, made for shoving things into the abyss of teeth. All in all, the creatures made for a hellish scene, except for the boar. Its demeanor matched a demi human more than an outright monster.

I tried opening my status to allocate my points from my gained levels, but the beasts surrounded me. The boar charged first, roaring as it did. The crab scuttled behind it. The mantis opened its scythe arms, revealing hundreds of horns under them. One horn shot from under the mantises arms at a time, drilling out like fleshy cables. Their collapse used tactics, unlike their zombie counterparts. They weren’t the only ones with a strategy, however.

My runes revved into action while Oppression weighed down on them. Those monsters approached, but off in the distance, the ear shattering echo of Althea’s rifle blared. A lance of bone shot through the arms of the mantis, pinning it to the pod tree as it shrieked. The boar reached me, trying to gore me on its tusks.

I stomped forward, the energy in my runes reverberating with destructive force. Its head left a crack in the pavement under my feet as I weaved all my weight into my next blow. My right arm dragged behind me as I turned, my body struggling with all the untamed energy. I pushed more of my own tenacious life energy into the blow, further amplifying the already devastating punch.

As my blow landed, it unloaded kinetic force into the boar’s face like a cannon. The tusks shattered. The skull ruptured down the middle. Blood sprayed in all directions like I squished a watermelon full of blood. My armor grinned, a set of spiked teeth forming. It laughed, a haunting echo amidst the decay. The same bloodlust of before crawled in from every direction.

I stomped it out as I stomped the boar’s neck. Althea sent a bolt into one of the boar’s eyes and out the other, ending its life. Keeping my sanity intact, I ducked backward, dodging a clamping claw from the top mouthed crab. Several snippers crushed towards me, but I curved myself, dodging each of them. They dug into the pavement below me as the crab turned itself and dug its teeth into the boar’s corpse.

The cannibal drenched itself in the blood of its comrade, but as it did, I found a weakness. It carried many teeth in its gut, but the teeth shattered against the bones of its brethren. I leapt up towards it, landing inside the crab’s mouth. The jaws of the monster closed in, an open maw turning into a closed iron-maiden. The red slit of my armor lit its insides, blood all around me.

And it was the monster’s, not my own.

The teeth of the creature cracked and fractured against my armor. With a reformation, I turned my hands into dull mallets. I hammered into the insides of the crab, teeth piling at my feet. The monster’s mouth opened when I dug into its insides, the numerous arms above me poking at me in a desperate struggle to get me out.

Spears stopped those claws, tearing and exposing the white flesh of the crab’s muscle. I shouted in anger,

“Who’s eating who now?”

The crab’s lashings on my back doubled in effort at my taunting, but the damage sank in already. I turned its insides to outsides. I gripped and ripped everything and anything. The meat grinder of a mouth turned to a pulpy, bloody mass. After a minute of sloshing in it, I kicked out its side. As I crawled out, the monster stopped struggling, only its muscles twitching at random.

Blood dripped from me, but it soaked into my skin. I turned, finding the mantis already having reached Althea. She deflected a blow with her shield before lopping it apart with a few quick slices. I envied that ability of hers, but I also counted my own blessings. I survived jumping into a teeth crab. Turning back to said creature, I crawled back inside the thing. With my armor, I ate my way out, my helmet consuming the meat like a ravenous beast.

One of my arms stabbed out of the crab’s outer shell before another arm opened the hole further. Cracking the shell open, I fell out before standing up. I hit my chest, growling at the crab. I shook off the blood frenzy after, wiping some gunk off of me. I let out a sigh before shutting down Oppression. I turned to the others,

“Ah man, that was gross, but I prefer monsters to deformed people. They feel better to tear apart. By comparison.”

Althea glanced around at the bodies, “I don’t understand how they can sit in your aura. It’s just too painful.”

I rubbed some crab gunk off my armor, “It’s because they have a ton of damage resistance.”

Althea raised an eyebrow, my explanation a bit thin. I spread out my arms, “Think of it like this. Oppression’s base value is very high. When reduced, it’s not that big a deal. It goes from like ten thousand to…five hundred damage a minute. Enemies like this-” I kicked the shell of the crab, “They don’t take much damage from it. It stops them from regenerating more than actually taking them out. It’s still useful, but nothing too crazy.”

Althea pursed her lips, “Cool…So armored enemies give you trouble? Compared to unarmored ones, that is.”

I didn’t know if that was the case yet, but I nodded anyway, “Probably.”

She raised her rifle, “That’s good. My abilities are great versus armored targets. I can fill in the gaps in your offense, so that’s, er, cool.”

I spread out my hands, “Yeah, we make a good team.” I turned and looked around, “Let’s handle our statuses and move on. We should follow the route Torix handed us.” I winced as I said, “Standing still is how Elijah almost got me before. We aren’t ready for him, not by a longshot.”

Kessiah sauntered up, “No, you’re not…I’ll keep you pups safe in the meantime.”

Althea smiled at Kessiah, “Thanks.”

Kessiah returned the smile, “No problem, hon.”

Even though it shouldn’t, I bristled at seeing how warm Kessiah was to her. It wasn’t like I wanted Althea to suffer or anything, but it felt unfair in a way. Still, I’d rather get the brunt of Kessiah’s attitude rather than Althea. Letting it go, I opened my status. I furrowed my brow, only having gained seven levels. My eyes widened in surprise at that.

Schema slowed leveling down to an arbitrary grind. Even with the experience split between two people, we fought overleveled enemies with doubled experience. Getting levels from the risky venture was a given. I mean, normal people fought monsters at their level or lower, according to Torix at least, so it might’ve taken months for even a single level-up.

Despite that, our blistering pace still seemed slow sometimes. I couldn’t even imagine what a normal person went through. I hovered my hand over strength, ready to put a bunch of points into the attribute. Before I did, I leaned back and ran a few calculations. Schema’s status let me put points into different attributes before finalization. After messing around with it for a while, I gained a few insights. Endurance gave me about twice as many total points as Strength.

That changed my priorities. I intended on putting my last level one hundred perk into strength or constitution. They both gave very useful bonuses after all. However, while they synergized with my fighting style, those attributes didn’t amplify from my trees at all. In particular, the Determinator line created a lopsided benefit to points in endurance.

Each point placed resulted in a cascade of bonuses, giving me more bang for my buck. Endurance boosted willpower which boosted intelligence which boosted luck then finally charisma. The other ‘chain’ of stats started with constitution that boosted strength which boosted dexterity then perception then ending at charisma again. This made constitution and endurance into these cardinal attributes that everyone should place a few points into at least.

Schema did that probably so that people were incentivised to never be too squishy. In my case, the Determinator trees bolstered my endurance chain by leaps and bounds. For that reason, I wanted to keep investing in endurance, piling the attribute up overtime. The health gained served a dual purpose as well, both tankiness and mana. My runic markings made mana into power. It came together well, syncing up like a puzzle.

So I peered down the endurance chain, finding intelligence peering back at me. Intelligence’s benefits came across less clearly than either strength or constitution, but Blood Magic tidied that problem up nicely. Intelligence gave me mana, meaning more health. My armor synergized with health to an absurd extent. The extra resistance, health regen, and total health took my combat effectiveness to another level.

Besides all of that, intelligence granted a lot of intangible benefits. I won’t lie either; I really wanted to feel and be smarter. Ever since I entered a school, I always felt a bit duller than most people. I made C’s all throughout school, and whether I admitted it or not, that hurt my self esteem. This attribute acted as a way of fixing that issue without me having to confront an uncomfortable reality.

It was a win win.

Scathing personal issues aside, those reasons ended up with me placing my spare points into intelligence. Again, I hesitated to finalize. I snapped my fingers, a eureka moment passing through me. If I kept investing into endurance, the cascading points would give me the intelligence perk overtime. There was no real rush to get the last level 100 perk, so I put my points into endurance and selected finalize.

No rush of mental clarity coursed over me, but endurance condensed my blood and joints. The magical constructs in my body thickened as well, the arcane bonds tightening like coils of steel. The lack of mental impact left me disappointed, but I persisted either way. I’d hold onto my reasoning and follow it through to the end, wherever that left me.

With a little more health than before, I trekked onward into the deeper parts of the city. Althea tailed not far behind, staying outside Oppression’s effective range. The plants and other various fungal creatures shriveled, giving enemies less places to hide from us. While irrelevant at first, the deeper parts of this new terrain enveloped the surroundings, choking the life out of anything coming nearby.

The thick tundra of fungal vines, herbs, and weeds altered Springfield into an alien landscape. Yellow and tan capped mushrooms of varying heights collected into dense clusters on the dirt. Stalks of dark yellow crawled and twisted into clusters, creating shrubs above the mushroom laden, grassy ground. Roots from nearby pod trees grew between these patches, along with dead grass. Vines of black crawled up and out of these tall trees, latching and crawling across nearby buildings and power poles.

At this point, the density for forest of fungi made moving forward a slow trudge. We didn’t even make it a hundred feet forward before several zombies crawled out of cars, windows, or from out of the ground. The underground zombies carried roots growing out of them, like they were part of a tree’s root system. They probably were.

The human bodies molded halfway into the mass of flesh and wood, making me wince. More mental whiplash rattled through me as the corpse of a father and its children sprinted towards me. They fused half together, and I wanted to run. Not out of fear per say, but more because I disturbed their remains. It was like we were grave robbers, turning the bodies into resources for our gain.

Despite my misgivings, the dead didn’t know the difference. They ran at me, and I pulped their remains all the same. After taking out a few deformed families, even Kessiah dealt with some anxiety, her snappy phrases dampening as she fell into a strange silence. Althea tolerated our deformed surroundings the best of us all, actually. Our sniper stayed sharp, her mind accepting this reality without much difficulty.

Without anything to compare this too, Althea accepted the sights as her normal. Knowing how awful this was compared to its former glory, I promised to leave Althea with a different impression of Springfield. Taking me out of that head space, two children leaped towards me with their warped corpses howling. I grabbed them as a harpoon detonated one of their skulls, letting me breath for a second. I collected myself again before I crushed another one into the ground with a punch.

The black blood splattered in every direction as a nameless father dove onto my back. It pressed me down onto the ground, the man’s neck split open with teeth. I shot out a few spikes from my back, the father’s body skewering. I lifted it up and shoved myself sideways. The monster tumbled before crashing into a car. I dashed and slammed it into the vehicle’s door, glass crushing and falling from the bent steel.

My armor chomped forward, devouring the creature. The jagged teeth cleaved through the flesh, severing and absorbing the creature in seconds. It tried crawling away as my armor ate it, but with two quick stomps, I crushed its legs. It couldn’t escape as I tore it apart with my helmet’s teeth. Althea shouted from a block away,

“Uhm, what are you doing? It looks like you’re eating it…I don’t know if that’s sanitary.”

Despite myself, I actually laughed a little. My helmet did the work of eating, and it chewed up another hunk. When it finished, I turned to Althea, “This is how my armor absorbs stuff now. I mean, its not really my preferred method, but I can’t evolve my armor any other way. That’s something I can’t let happen, because we need every edge we can get. This has to be done.”

Althea winced, “Huh…Uhm, it’s gross.”

I flinched at her words, my helmet covering my face. I nodded at her, “I mean…I can’t say you’re wrong about that.”

After a few seconds of contemplation, Althea shot a harpoon through the core of one of Yawm’s pawns. As the zombie fell down, Althea shrugged, “It isn’t like my power’s any better, so we, er, have that in common at least.”

She gave me a weak smile, and I returned the gesture. I walked over towards the corpse before using my armor to get the ambient mana from it. With the corpses handled and the plants being destroyed, we trekked forward through the ruins of Springfield once more. I numbed at the destruction and desolation, the abnormal situation becoming a new average. For once, I appreciated the lessening of emotion as it left me less exhausted.

After a while of walking, we all stood at a crossroads between the town and its suburbia. The houses gave way to dilapidated shops and brick buildings as we moved forward. The raided stores emptied out from raiders, full of rotted meat and produce. Jugs of milk blew up in the freezers, more festering pits than freezers at this point. Cars crashed into telephone poles, light posts, and even brick walls.

The fungal invasion smothered all of it, masking the signs of our old society. We’d never have seen it if not for Oppression’s radius. It culled and cleared all life, sterilizing the ground as if we salted it. When the aura passed over the cars, no enemies spilled out. The petal insects hobbled over open corpses, but they lacked any means of getting into enclosed spaces.

That gave me some hope that we may find some survivors. The zombies tended to shatter encapsulated areas, however. Whether that was intentional or not, I couldn’t say. That habit turned the hobbling petals bugs into a field of death. We found a few people turning while still alive, and it wasn’t pretty. Oppression made the painful demise into a merciful death for most of them. We couldn’t carry them with us either.

I tried saving a few of them, the horrid surgery more a form of torture than anything helpful. I continued the grim deed despite my lack of success, however. It was the only way to save Michael and Kelsey, so I did what I had to. After a dozen failures, I stopped tearing the living apart. Whether it was right or wrong didn’t matter to me at that point.

I couldn’t handle the screams of the mutants anymore.

By then, my mind muted. I didn’t think anymore. I put one leg in front of the other, and I reacted. I couldn’t handle any in depth thoughts at that time. Kessiah gave me a break, and Althea cracked jokes here or there. That eased our journey, but it taxed me all the same. In that droning existence, time passed. Minutes turned into hours. Hours turned into evenings.

The sun crossed overhead, daylight devolving to sunset. In the distance, we found a grocery store. The sound of chewing leaked out of it. Several of the spawns crowded around a few unconverted corpses and some rotting meat. They loved the putrefaction in the freezer isles, the food there spoiled beyond recognition. Everywhere else, the cans and other foods cleared out forever ago.

People left food in the refrigerators since it took people some time to finish the tutorial. The food all rotted by then. The zombies swarmed around those festering hellholes, their misshapened mouths sunken into the rotting mush. We took advantage of them feasting away. Althea and I skulked in, the rows of empty aisles standing taller than us both.

Some unlooted rows stuck out like the motor supplies section. Pacing by, I picked up two bottles of lighter fluid. I motioned towards Althea. She raised an eyebrow in confusion, but I walked forward anyway. As I got within Oppression’s range, I pointed at the zombies. I tossed a bottle of lighter fluid towards them, the bottle landing in the brown filled fridge the spawn’s indulged in.

The amber fluid leaked out, butane spilling everywhere. I tossed another bottle. I turned to Althea and whispered,

“Shoot it.”

Althea raised her rifle, landing a harpoon dead center of a bottle. The force alone detonated the bottle in a fiery flash. The explosion chained with the other bottle, setting all four spawns on fire. I moved forward at the same time as the detonation, putting the spawns within and Althea out of Oppression’s range. They died over the next five minutes from a few harpoons, my aura, and a few well placed punches. Schema even recognized my efforts.

Skill gained! Resourceful | Level 1 – You use whatever is at hand for whatever you need. +1% to damage from environmental objects or traps. +1% to creativity regarding quick planning.

How Schema enhanced my creativity, I couldn’t know. Despite that ambiguity, We walked out with a new skill and a few more levels under our belts. Getting out of the store no worse for wear, I shut off Oppression before walking up to Althea. I dragged my hands down my face, “How much more hunting should we do today?”

She glanced around, making sure no other zombies were present. Althea took a breath, “Torix gave us a lot of leeway for the plan, so we can just go until we’re exhausted. I’m already tired, so we can stop if you want.”

I gave my cheeks a few slaps, “No. I’m alright. Let’s keep going.”

Kessiah raised a brow at me, her hair a mess, “Between you two, you’re the one who looks tired.” Kessiah propped her weight onto a hip, “Even though I’m feeling it too, if I’m honest.”

I frowned, “I’m fine.”

I blinked, my shoulders wanting to slump. Kessiah scoffed, “You’re barely reacting anymore.”

I took a breath, “I’m just desensitized. I can’t react to everything all the time. Come on, we can keep on going.”

That’s how we spent the rest of the day and even a few hours into the night. Althea transmogrified her eyes, letting her see in the dark. That let us set traps or just brute force our way through our blinded enemies. They relied on sight mostly, so the darkness rendered them helpless. When all was said and done, I gained sixty one levels and Althea gained fourty two. It was a goldmine.

It made a night and day difference for both of us as we retraced our steps out the quarantine zone. We found our way out of the barricade with Torix’s map and Oppression’s cleared path. Kessiah tailed us the entire day, making sure no one or no thing could kill us before we fought back. She actually killed a few monsters, the remnant just ripping them limb from limb with ease.

Despite all of our slaughtering, we never found any sign of a fight having taken place. I hoped and expected some resistance from the humans here, but the monsters engulfed them. It left me embittered, but I kept my head up. I closed in on my next evolution, and I cultivated an enormous pool of endurance. It fed into willpower and intelligence, bolstering those attributes to respectable levels.

Althea rose her strength to absurd heights too. I learned that because Althea and I chatted away about our builds while we all walked. We passed the plains towards our current base doing that, and it rejuvenated me some. Shades cloaked us both, but our outlines gave us both sight of each other. At least enough to work off of.

Althea tapped her chin, “But will strength help my cannon? I really don’t think so.”

I raised a hand, “But you mentioned an ability that doubles your effective strength already, and you put most of your points today into strength. That makes the strength perk required at this point. Your melee attacks will be devastating, sure, but you’ll also be faster. You need to be strong to move fast.”

Althea grumbled, “I know, I know, but even if I move fast, that doesn’t mean I can handle it. Er, I’ve always had a ton of strength, and it usually outruns my dexterity. I usually reach a point where I can’t control my body anymore. It’s like…my mind is too slow to comprehend what I’m doing.”

I gawked at her, “Woah…That reminds me of a sticking point I had with constitution. Have you tried putting some points into it yet?”

Althea frowned, “Yeah. It’s definitely made me less frail, but the mass is really hard to work with. I’m easing into it, giving myself time to adjust as my damage resistance get higher.”

“Ah, that’s a great idea.”

Althea locked her hands behind herself, “So…What are you working on? Anything for getting some range attacks? They’re convenient, you know.”

I rubbed my temples, “Plans are in the works, let me tell yah. I’m going to use my dominion magic for it, but I want to have augmentation down before I do. I like mastering one thing before moving onto another.”

Althea murmured, “That makes sense…Give me one sec. I got to do something in my status.”

She clicked a screen in front of her before her muscles rippled over her body in a wave. She stared at her hands for a moment before smashing a hand into a nearby tree. The wood exploded outwards like she’d struck it with a grenade. The tree’s trunk bent away from her strike, long wedges split up and down the bark and wood. She turned on her feet, smacking the tree over. It tumbled with a momentous thud.

Althea hardly noticed the tree falling. She keeled over, grabbing her shin, “Ah…I think I broke something. Ooh, ouch.”

After having seen her so much, I had an idea when she was serious. I rolled my eyes, stretching out a hand, “You’re going to be fine.”

She frowned, “Dang. You could at least pretend you’re concerned.”

She grabbed my hand, jerking herself up and off the ground. Her pull lifted her a few feet above the ground, and she smiled, “Yeah…This was a good idea.”

I shrugged, “What can I say? I’m full of them. Speaking of which-“

I opened my own status screen and gave it a look over. It was a pleasant sight for sore eyes. The hard day paid off.

Level 221 | Attribute Menu

Strength [44.2] | Constitution [36.3] | Endurance [384] | Dexterity [32.8] | Willpower [187.8] | Intelligence [80.3] | Charisma [36.7] | Luck [40] | Perception [30.5]

Daniel Hillside, The Harbinger of Cataclysm | Character Screen

Health – 12,800/12,800| Health Regen – 2,169/min | Stamina – 7,825/7,825 | Stamina Regeneration – 89/sec | Damage Resistance – 97% | Mental Resistance – 97% | Physical Power – (+)542% | Damage Increase – 5% | Evolution: 14.96 Million/16.00 Million

Aura – Oppression | Current Damage: (8,000 + 25% of your health)/minute within a 150ft radius.

Wondering how much of a difference the health made, I walked out in front of Althea. I reached out an arm, “Hey, do mind shooting me through the arm? I want to test something.”

Althea raised her rifle to her chest, narrowing her eyes at me, “What? I don’t want to shoot you.”

I pointed at my arm, “I want to see if all my health has made a difference to the spears.”

She raised her brow, but her eyes stayed narrowed, “You can look at your stat sheet and see the difference. What do you need me for?”

I rolled a hand, “You ignore my damage resistance, and that gives me a really good idea of what’s going on in reality, not on a statsheet.”

She grimaced, “You know, you don’t owe me or anything. I don’t want payback for the spars.”

I waved off her comment, “What? No, this is a favor for me, not payback for you.”

She grimaced before turning her rifle to me. She gave me a nod before unloading a shell into my forearm. The shell lodged halfway into my limb, but it got stuck as if it shot through glue. I raised my hand, smiling at it, “Hah! It actually worked.”

Althea’s jaw dropped before she looked at her cannon, “How did you do that? It should’ve gone right through you. Is…Is this thing broken?”

I shook my head, “It’s my health.”

Kessiah gawked at me, “You’re crazy.”

I pulled the spear out, “So normally I might be mad at you, but Kessiah…You could be right this time.”

I watched my forearm regrow. All the leveling perks added up, and the shell’s momentum lacked enough inertia to sling me back anymore. Being heavy and dense planted me to the ground. I gave Althea a smile, “Thanks. That was all I needed to know.”

Althea sighed, “Dang…I’m going to need a bigger gun.”

I jogged forward towards our base, “Maybe try to get the harpoons to shoot out with greater force?”

Althea furrowed her brow as we walked up to the patch of hills disguising our current base. As we did, I stayed hopeful. Despite the enormity of our enemies, Althea and I carried unique advantages. Althea’s piercing and raw strength gave her the ability to hurt anyone no matter how much health they had. On the other hand, my health gave me genuine durability. Unlike most people, I could manage a few mistakes without dying.

The endurance bolstered my mana and my willpower as well. After a few more iterations of the sigils, I’d amass a behemothic strength of my own. Hopefully. That didn’t even factor in more evolutions. Our quick rise left me in a better mood after what a slog it devolved into. I walked up to the base before Kessiah flashed across a hill to me.

She gouged out a chunk of dirt as she stopped herself. Placing a hand on my chest, she hunched forward,

“Someone’s in there besides Torix. It’s strong. Be ready.”

Althea and I set ourselves up for a fight as we headed back into the hill base. As we entered, Torix’s voice came into focus,

“I take it we’ll reap the benefits of your trading as well?”

An electronic voice strong as metal replied, “Yes. Indeed you will. Schema and the Force of Iron will be pleased with your cooperation. May we both prosper.”

We reached the bottom of the earthen stairs, roots hanging from the roof. Stepping into the hill home, I gawked at a faceless, robotic humanoid. Its enormous frame cast a shadow over us, and it gazed down like a reaper. Smooth, futuristic, and intimidating, the figure kept a lightly armored skin suit over its body up to the shoulders and arms. There, the scale of its equipment changed.

A giant platform bolted onto the torso of the person, making a flat line of black armor at its head and shoulders. This giant, smooth machinery supported the giant with flaring lights and tubes all over it. They pumped a glowing blue mana, and at the edges of this block, two giant, over-sized arms hung from the sides of it. The arms extended down to the dirt, the automaton’s massive knuckles pressing against the ground.

Black cables hung from the back of that platform. Tubes ran through the colossal, hydraulic arms and torso. Several moving bolts locked in at strategic points, giving the arms and shoulders excellent range of motion. On the pitch black plate covering its head, six silver bolts created a hexagonal pattern. The entire living suit sheened a glossy, bright blue. The metal carried a dull gray material tracing its joints.

It stood twice as tall as Torix, dwarfing everyone in the room as a titan. Even from a glance, I could tell it was an absolute entity. It wasn’t something any of us could fight. Its presence alone demanded compliance. It had that as Kessiah gave it a bow. Our remnant spoke with reverence, “It’s good to see you.”

The giant lifted a palm as large as I was, the room filled by its form. It spoke with the same piercing, robotic voice, “At ease, Kessiah. You’ve done nothing wrong…Yet.”

Kessiah winced, but she kept her face low. The faceless armor looked at me, and I shrank underneath its gaze. It turned a hand to me.

“I am the Overseer sent by Schema. It is good to meet you…Harbinger.”