Cole didn’t know if he was expected to say anything as the scene straight out of a horror movie stared right back at him. The hulking brutes of revenants kept their piercing red eyes on him, watching if he would make any sort of move.

He was trapped, short of some sort of lucky break, he wasn’t exactly sure he would be able to go up against the odds in front of him. An instance dungeon this might be, but it’s not something that’s supposed to be cleared solo.

But solo or not this was the problem right in front of him, and Cole doubted he would be able to just turn around and run for his life in the other direction. So far of everything he has seen so far, the only path he had available was forwards.

“I’m not sure what you mean by joining us? If that’s a sales or recruitment pitch, I’m afraid I’ll have to pass, as none of you look what you are is an advantage. So asking me with such a tone is nothing more than a threat.”

Cole said as he moved forwards, trying to act as nonchalant as he could in the face of such an enemy. The brain in the tank undulated before the voice he heard came forth again.

“You are different yet the same as the others that have stepped into our chambers. But it matters not to me what you think, the world below is my kingdom and I expect you to bow to my majesty, whether it is palatable to your eyes or not. Besides once you are one with me, with us, everything will become crystal clear to you.” 𝒃𝒆𝙣𝒐𝒗𝙚𝒍.𝒄𝒐𝒎

“Thanks but I’ll pass on your generous offer, it’s just not…. How did you say it again? Palatable.” Cole said with a finality to his tone, his eyes a fierce storm as he stared as what was definitely the boss of this dungeon instance.

“Then die!”

[Iron Rank Adrenaline Inhaler X3 Used! All stats + 180%]

With a roar Cole tore across the ground heading straight for the hideous looking brain in a pod, but there was no way the revenants standing guard would have let him cross that distance without making him pay for it.

Three of the revenant brutes leapt, crossing an 8 meter distance like it was a single step all aiming and heading for Cole. But it was a ruse, Cole wasn’t stupid. If this was a boss fight there was no way he could get close to the boss while its babysitters stood by and watched.

Cole twisted and pointed his gun at the falling form of one of the brutes and proceeded to empty the entire clip into it with extreme aggression. It was peppered full of holes before it hit the ground, shocking Cole about how easy it was to bring the brute down.

He rolled forwards, dodging the massive thud onto the fleshy ground that the remaining two revenants delivered at the spot he was occupying a few moments ago. He turned swiftly and instead of running away from their attacks, he ran straight towards them.

The Revenant brutes leveled their cannons in his direction and started firing, but Cole had better stats than his first fight with the Nijat aliens. And while it wasn’t yet at the stage to be considered superhuman, it was still a great deal stronger than when this event first started.

Besides, Cole was a dexterity based warrior, meaning he could use his body better than most, and along with that he could use tools better than most. Which was the deciding factor of the dexterity stat, dexterity players would always be better wielders of weapons and tools as a whole.

So Cole threw the Vibro blade, his accuracy boosted a bit by his perception and dexterity stat which was funny as accuracy was a stat of its own, yet dexterity and perception together could pretty much emulate if not surpass the accuracy stat to a certain degree.

The Dagger flew across the small distance to stab into the head of one of the revenants. His shots tapered off as Cole scaled his body, pulling his blade out as the eight foot tall giant was falling to the ground.

Then he jumped, grabbing the cannon of the second and using his full weight to drag him to the side, unbalancing him as his other hand stretched up and slid his Vibro blade into the revenant’s neck, then slashed forwards, ripping out his throat in a splash of blood and oil and sparks from his bio-mechanics.

Cole landed on the ground and turned, just in time to receive a punch in the face, but it wasn’t from what he had expected as none of the other Revenants had moved. Instead the cables and tubes all across the room had gathered itself to form a massive fist that smashed into Cole’s body and blasted his across the room and straight into a couple of monitors.

Cole gasped out in pain, taking damage not just from the impact of the punch but from the impact with the computer and the wall subsequently behind it. But he didn’t have any time to catch his breath as a massive whip with arcs of electricity fell from the sky, heading straight for his body.

Cole rolled out of the way as the whip smashed down with a loud bang. He scrambled to his feet, idly surprised that he was able to keep his grip on both his dagger and gun. Immediately he got up, he came face to face with a brute trying to smash his head in.

But Cole reacted before the foot even reach down, slicing upwards to remove the ankle of the revenant, before stabbing his dagger into its guts and at the same time rising up to fire two shots point blank into the face of another revenants, his gun having recharged a bit.

[Gravity] Cole used gravity to deflect a blast from a canon to the side, barely dodging as the shot almost grazed him. [Wild Charge] his form blurred forwards, the dagger stuck in the guts of the other footless revenant roughly jerk outwards, creating a massive hole that spilled out intestines and wires.

He smashed into the body of the revenant that had just shot at him, and proceeded to stab into its body, more times than he could cunt, idly noticing that the revenant had what seemed to be cups on its chest, identifying it as a female or perhaps former female.

He slid his dagger into its temple before jumping to the side as the massive fist of wires and pipes smashed the body away. Cole called forth the full power of his [Gravity] skill, idly noticing the drain on his energy as leaned backwards, while the second whip attack from the pod was pushed upwards, missing him by millimeters.

Cole was seeing most of the attacks before they landed, and that was saying something as he barely had enough time to react to them. But In the end it was what was keeping him alive. There was an explosion behind him, a conflagration of green flames swallowing three of the revenants as by this point Cole had lost count of how many of them were there.

But he didn’t stop his momentum running towards the tube with the ugly massive brain. Cole was running short of time as the boost from the adrenaline inhaler would soon be running out. At first he didn’t think he had a chance but he had survived most of the attacks by the skin of his teeth.

But there were now two brutes standing between him and the tube, not to mention that said tube now had multiple wire and pipe tentacles, they had even taken on a multitude of shapes as fist, daggers and even masses and a foot. But what was even worse was the red glow coming from the massive cannon on top of it.

“You know what? I think it would be in our best interest if you just let me go ehh? I mean look at all the trouble we have both been going through in order to kill each other. Just let me out and you can go ahead and keep luring people here and turning them to Zombie cyborgs, I promise I’ll keep it a secret.”

Cole said as he pulled out another adrenaline inhaler and took it, along with a healing injection that eased the tightness in his chest as he felt a few of his ribs pop back into place.

If not for the adrenaline inhaler he would never have been able to fight as that first strike from the zombie cyborg brain had cracked a few of his ribs in the process. Now though he was just trying to make small talk that would buy him a little bit more time to figure out and come up with a plan.

Surprisingly the brain had let him talk and even let him heal up, it was strange, but Cole didn’t dare to hope that it was considering his proposition… it couldn’t be that stupid right?

“I have your word that you will not mention a thing of what you have seen here to anyone…. I need to keep my people safe.” Cole blinked in shock, but he was not ready to let his guard down.

“Yeah scout’s honor, not a single word of your err….. Operation would be leaked out.” The brain went silent as if it was contemplating quite a few things, before finally speaking.

“Very well then…. You may leave.”