Kristoffer Pauly

Loopshard - Chapter One-Hundred-and-Nineteen

Added 2025-11-11 13:00:20 +0000 UTC

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And with this, Loopshard is now past 400k words written! And almost all of it written in the last 9 months. That's a definitely a record for me.

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Chapter One-Hundred-and-Nineteen

Mikhail and Sarah turned to look at them as they reached the treeline. Beyond the trees lay the vast clearing with the wall of scrap surrounding Alepheria’s large tower. Compared to Adam’s last visit, twice as many creepers roamed around at the top of the building’s exterior, and it was quite clear that it was caused by the Hardmode that Adam had triggered.

“What took you so long?” Mikhail asked.

Kate and Adam exchanged a glance.

The distance must’ve severed the charming spell’s effect.

“Sorry about that,” Kate told him.

“It’s fine,” he replied, not meeting her eyes.

Okay, not entirely severed…

Still better than nothing I suppose, but I’ve gotta keep an eye on them so they don’t become brainwashed again.

Kate reached out to pat Adam on the back, but he immediately shifted out of her reach.

Sarah and Mikhail both cast him strange looks.

“Sorry!” Kate apologised, before adding, “But look!”

Adam frowned but followed her pointing finger.

Okay, so it’s more than just doubling the Elites… he realised as he saw the mound of corpses shifting about aimlessly in front of the scrap wall.

It’s a discarded golem, though I imagine that the original one is still lying in wait in front of the tower’s gate.

We might have to kill both to get in.

But maybe they’ll each reward us a Relic Chest. That would be nice.

Adam squinted at the distant shape as it ambled about while Kate watched him closely.

“It’s called Alepheria’s Discarded Golem,” he said, pretending to activate his appraisal skill.

“How can you tell?” Sarah asked.

“It’s because he’s worshipping Messimer,” Kate said.

When the other two realised Adam had initially lied, they both looked kind of pissed.

“It’s alright,” Kate then said, coming to his defence. “Adam was just worried we’d be creeped out by the appraisal skill.”

At her words, both of them relaxed.

“We need to be able to trust each other,” Sarah said, looking Adam in the eyes.

“Especially now that there’s only four of us,” Mikhail added.

Adam nodded.

They really don’t remember anything about Kate’s brainwashing… That’s scary.

I wonder if they’d be upset if they knew.

“How do we fight it?” Mikhail asked as he looked towards the towering monstrosity of corpses.

“We should avoid it,” Kate said. “I don’t think I can parry its attacks. It might just crush my body if I try.”

“I can take it down,” Adam said.

They all looked at him in surprise.

“Just promise not to get freaked out,” he added with a grin.

“What other secrets are you hiding?” Sarah wondered.

“Is it the thing you used against the creeper?” Kate asked.

“Something like that,” he replied vaguely. “But, uh, if it doesn’t work, get ready to run.”

“We could also just stay here,” Sarah said, clearly not wanting to get close to the mini boss.

Kate and Mikhail shot her disapproving looks, but Adam nodded.

“That actually suits me better,” he said and ran out of the forest before Kate could stop him.

As he moved towards the discarded golem, he shifted all of the blood that stuck to his fur coat and moved it onto his needle and string, laying it on thick. Then he manipulated the string into the Push spell pattern and overlayed it onto the needle. He did this four times before adding a simple spiral on top of the stacked spells. Strangely, when he made the spell patterns with the string, they detached from the spool that was connected to the needle without actually compromising the thread. He could in theory place the spidersilk construct on himself or anyone else, so long as it wasn’t deformed too much, but it was quite an explosive result when it was powered by his blood, so he was careful about getting too close to it.

Adam had thought that he might have to solo the discarded golem ahead of time, depending on the group composition and such, so he and Beck had theorycrafted the best way to deal with it, and this was what they’d come up with. It used a ton of blood, but with what he’d collected from Jun, he would just barely have enough.

The idea was that the spiralling string on top of the rest would trigger first on impact, driving the needle deeper into the golem’s body, then the four Push spells would trigger, exploding like shotgun blasts and spreading the copious amount of blood Adam had laid onto them and the needle. It might not kill the golem outright if he missed the brain, but it would scatter Adam’s blood deep into many of the corpses that constituted its body, enabling him to move his Mana throughout them to their neighbours and slowly take over the whole mound. Though, that of course depended on how his Mana actually dispersed once his spells triggered. The blood itself would be spent, but he’d discovered that the Mana spread out into whatever it hit when triggered by the spidersilk spell, perhaps thanks to them being more stable than blood-drawn spell patterns. It meant that he could use his Push explosions to scatter his Mana with the blood they fired and spread his control into the targets, so long as they had blood and flesh. Therefore, this manner of attack had a lot of different ways it could succeed against the flesh golem.

Or that was the theory, at least. Since the biggest target he had to test against in the Player House was the Forlorn Captain, it was hard to really put it into practice. But Adam was confident that his and Beck’s planning hadn’t been all for naught.

Only downside is that I have to get close…

Despite getting the 50% boost to his Invocation Range in Stage Two, his max range was still only about 22 metres. Since the golem’s width was half of his total range, he needed to be uncomfortably close to be able to spread his Mana-infused blood throughout its body.

I’ll use my boots if it looks like I can’t beat it.

As the distance between him and the discarded golem shrank to about 30 metres, it suddenly stopped its aimless wandering and shifted its focus to him.

Here we go!

Adam ran forward as fast as he could and then slid along the barren soil of the massive clearing, shifting the needle to his left hand in order to activate and fire his Blood Bolt Ring.

The projectile flew out, striking the side of the golem’s central body from which grew five large arms made up of corpses clinging to each other. The four large legs under its pinwheel body shifted slightly as the hit landed, but Adam knew it had barely done any damage.

He quickly reached out with his control sigil and shaped the blood he’d fired into a simple Push spell pattern.

Bang!

The spell immediately exploded between two of its arms, tearing open a wound about a metre wide.

Adam flung the needle forward with a big spike of Mana to the back of it, even as the pinwheel-like body shifted to prepare a strike.

The golem was too far away to reach him, though the power of its arms would be enough to make him stumble if one of them hit the ground, even at this distance.

But it was already too late to stop him.

As Adam’s needle struck, the spiral string triggered, driving the needle through the compromised flesh of the wound he’d caused with his blood bolt and burrowing it into the middle of its round body. Then four near-simultaneous blasts sounded from within, with tiny crystallised shards of blood shooting out of its body, piercing the corpses that were twisted and bent to form it.

Adam could feel it. The energised blood was embedded into a lot of the individual bodies. And while the blood itself was spent, he could manipulate the Mana if he was quick. So, he consolidated all of it into just three of the bodies nearest to the centre where the synaptic cables connected the ‘brain’ of the golem to its entire monstrous corpus. Then he activated his flesh magic, turning the bodies into hideous weapons of spiked flesh, claws, and coiled muscle.

Without any real finesse, he swung his improvised corpse weapons through the golem’s interior, relying entirely on his sense of the Mana rather than sight. Although it tried to fight back against Adam, it staggered and stumbled with every brain cable he severed. Then the weapons struck the actual brain, and though Adam couldn’t see it from the outside, he felt the moment that the golem died.

Unlike when he’d fought it last time, the golem just simply broke apart, coming undone as the corpses let go of each other. He quickly absorbed as much blood as he could from the dying golem, stashing it away on his string and fur coat where it was hard to notice.

As the disturbing Relic Chest appeared within the carnage, the rest of his group came running up to him.

“That was amazing!” Sarah exclaimed.

“I don’t really understand what you just did, but yeah, that was cool,” Kate commented.

“Me neither,” Mikhail added.

“He shot his Mana into the boss and did something that tore it apart from within,” Sarah said.

Adam was surprised that she had been able to sense all of that.

“My Spidersilk Needle is both a physical and a magical weapon,” he told them, using a fine coating of blood to move the string around in the air to make a simple push pattern. Then he flung it at the wall where it stuck like an actual spiderweb.

“If one of you could trigger that, then we should have a way to get through the wall,” he said. “Just don’t get too close when it goes off.”

“That’s so cool,” Sarah said. Whether it was thanks to Kate coming to his defence or not, she had quickly forgotten about him lying to them about his Patron.

“Since we didn’t do anything, the chest should be yours,” Kate said.

The other two nodded.

If she hadn’t been charming these two, I wonder if they would’ve actually agreed to that…

Adam pushed the thought from his mind though.

“Does anyone have a Choice Ring?” he asked. He hadn’t seen anyone wearing one, but it was possible they might be hiding such a Relic for themselves. “I have enough Luck to guarantee Uncommon rewards, and if I use my Lucky Stone, then we should see some Epic Relics show up.”

“What does it do, the Choice Ring?” Sarah asked.

“It lets you pick multiple rewards,” Mikhail said. “I got one from the last Stage, but I sold it…”

Damn.

“I don’t have one either,” Kate said.

“That’s a shame. But let’s just see what we get. We can rotate the rewards so we all get to pick, but unless anyone has more than 15 Luck, I should probably be the one to open all the Relic Chests,” Adam said.

Sarah and Mikhail seemed a bit reluctant about that until Kate nodded. “Good idea.”

Maybe I should try and get the Courtesan. This kind of power would make group Stages way easier… But man is it terrifying to be on the sidelines of.

“I have 6 Luck,” Sarah said.

“I have 0,” Mikhail followed.

“Me too!” Kate said with a grin.

The other two smiled at her cheerfulness.

Adam did his best not to frown.

It’s way too creepy how much power she still has over them…

I don’t think Sarah is attracted to Kate in the same way as Mikhail clearly is, but maybe just viewing her as a friend is enough…

I need to be careful that I don’t fall into that.

Adam cleared his throat. “Well then, here goes nothing.”

He pulled the Lucky Stone out of his backpack and flipped it into the air.

< < Lucky Stone Activated > >

< The rarity of options in the next reward has been raised by one level >

Then he pushed open the fleshy chest, his hands indenting its squishy chewing-gum-like surface.

Come on! he prayed internally.

The holograms appeared.

Blue, blue, blue, orange.

< < Relics Available > >

< Mana Shield Ring (Rare) — Consumes 75% of wearer’s Mana to deflect an attack. 10-minute cooldown >

< Chimaera Helmet (Rare) — Increases Movement Speed by 25% and imbues wearer with Bestial Agility | Reduces Health by 30% >

< Mana Hoarder’s Torso (Rare) — Increases Mana by 10 and restores 5 Mana with every kill | Increase Defence by 25% | Drains 5 Mana every minute and prevents passive Mana regeneration >

< Alepheria’s Mandate (Legendary) — Evolves all Summons | Allows for all Summons to be commanded >

Yes!

“Woah!” Kate exclaimed.

Adam quickly reached out and grabbed the Legendary.

The holograms all disappeared as his right hand was replaced with the white-nailed obsidian-black Relic.

The trigger sigils on his right hand were overlaid on top of the new black limb, but it immediately turned out to cause a crazy feedback loop as the Legendary Relic’s hidden effect triggered and showed him the truth of the sigils.

Adam gasped and dropped to his knees as knowledge flooded his mind. It was incomprehensible and lodged like a shard of ice directly into his brain.

Symbols flashed across his vision, and a pulse of pain radiating out from his brain made his whole body shudder.

“Adam!” Kate exclaimed, coming to his side.

No! Don’t touch me!

But he couldn’t stop her. His mind was locked into overlapping visions, ensnaring his tongue and locking up his muscles.

Every pulse of pain flashed more symbols into his vision.

It reminded him of what he’d seen when he’d touched the tungsten scroll in Alepheria’s secret lab, but this time he didn’t have the Tome Keeper’s unique gift to help him sort through the flood of knowledge.

A warm hand touched the side of Adam’s head, banishing the pain radiating out from his brain and locking it away.

The warmth spread, moving through his veins, even as the blood of his Patron screamed and put up a fight against it.

He wanted to lean into that warmth, but instead his consciousness was wrapped around by a dense core of the Flayed Lady’s blood, protecting it from the invading influence.

Adam immediately lost his sense of self and time as his consciousness was fully enclosed.

***

A scream broke Adam from his spell.

He was at the bottom of the library floor.

Nearby lay two dead chimaera that had clearly perished to his magic, since their bodies were twisted and exsanguinated. He lay up against one of the bookshelves and the remnants of the shield summoned by the Blood Mage Choker was collapsing in front of him, having clearly absorbed some kind of attack.

Not far away from him was a smear of red and a barely-recognisable shape of a person that’d been pressed into the floor.

“Kate?” he rasped.

Pale-blue handprints appeared on the wooden floor of the landing between him and the flattened body. Small ones at first, like the prints of a baby ghost, then bigger ones the size of Adam’s torso.

His mind was only partially active and his body refused to move even as the Tower Crawler’s hands came towards him.

Move!! he screamed internally.

His muscles wouldn’t listen, but he could feel how Mana filled his veins.

With a concerted effort, he spread the Mana from his blood and into his flesh. Then with a big pull he lifted his entire body off the floor like a puppet with all but one of its strings severed.

Just as he floated away from where he’d awoken, a giant handprint crushed the shelves and books, indenting the floor with a loud crunch of wood.

Adam continued up, flying past the eye that hovered in the middle of the library chamber. Its large golden-white iris filled with black rings tracked his flight from within a transparent jail of teeth set into the mouth of a tear-drop-shaped body that was almost imperceptible.

As he flew up and away from the boss of Alepheria’s Tower, he looked down and saw Kate’s flattened body, but none of the other members of his group were there.

What the fuck happened!?

He continued to climb until an objective notification hit him.

< < Optional Stage Objective > >

< Complete the Ritual >

Adam basically threw his limb body through the metal door to the ritual chamber, using his flesh magic to land himself on the floor within.

It took him a long time to fully recover his ability to control his body, and in all that time he feared that the Tower Crawler would find him and push its creepy ghostly arms into the chamber to crush him.

“What’s my Health?” he rasped to his cube which had silently observed everything like an uncaring judge.

[Your Health is at 100% or 170 points.]

“Have I taken damage from something other than my own magic in this Stage?”

[No.]

Adam sighed in relief. Not all was lost at least.

“What objectives have I completed?”

< < Optional Objectives Completed > >

< Defeated the Cell Warden >

< Destroyed the Laboratorium >

That’s crazy. I don’t remember doing any of that!

“Did I find the Blue Shard weapon?”

[Yes.]