SL: Chapter 707 - Day Unknown - Guarded Chamber

AN: My other story Systemic Lands is coming off hiatus. You can tell which story is which by the letters before the chapter, FB for Foxy Blight, SL for Systemic Lands. Two chapters today and tomorrow, then one chapter each every Saturday and Sunday going forward. Schedule is also updated on the top post.

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Current Status: The sphere (the core) has threatened the Systemic Lands for a third time with another calamity. The Almighty System is under threat as the world turns to goo and the monsters that provide life saving crystals are wiped out.

And it isn't just random people anymore. Monster Master Michelle is off somewhere watching over Michael's mother who was messed with by the Disciple and Flesh Crafter. Young Michael, who was a child born in the Systemic Lands and named after our hero.

After surviving the plans of the Divine Emperess's child (The Disciple) to try and kill Michael through terrorism, he became even more focused on grinding and gaining strength, leaving the Empire of Purgatory behind and abdicating his position. Now, Clarissa called on him to help him deal with the threat, despite their heated breakup, there is still trust between them. Knowing they need to work together they team up for a showdown to stop a third calamity from engulfing the Systemic Lands and killing everyone.

In desperate move Michael and Clarissa have entered the rainbow dimension (Astral Plane) to confront the threat directly, using Michael's combat abilities and Clarissa's portable store she kept secret, along with two of her guards. After getting past the drones and beam cannons of the outer defenses, they rest up so Michael can recover energy for his skills, before making a final push towards the threat with their two super bombs.

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The astrolabe failed after three and a half hours. I had around 175,000 energy at the moment. Quite a bit, but nowhere near my maximum amount. The golems seemed content not to push in towards us while I recovered. I didn’t like waiting, but I needed the energy as a safety net. We pushed forward regardless. There was no point in waiting around any longer.

We continued to make our way to the center of the structure, destroying the turrets as they popped up. I checked with Clarissa a couple of times, but she confirmed that my mental map of how things were laid out was correct. We had another split in the passage, this one at a much great right angle, like the letter ‘L’. There was only one direction to turn instead of two.

Carefully checking around the corner, there was another length of passage and things opened up into a larger room with another passage on the other side, leading towards the center of the structure. This was a huge trap. All the warning signs were clearly there.

“Problem?” Clarissa asked me.

“A clear trap is ahead. Brace the walls to make sure we aren’t sealed in by a doorway of some kind and our way back to this point,” I ordered. Clarissa began making more purchases with the portable store, which was truly broken in terms of utility. It really was the ultimate defensive and utility tool.

I turned the corner and began to assemble the frame and the panels, while watching the chamber in front of us. Four turrets popped out of the walls in front of me, and I easily destroyed them before they could return fire.

Once I got closer to the entrance, I got a better angle through the square entryway into the large chamber. “Definitely a trap,” I muttered. I didn’t see any monsters, turrets, or golems. But a large open space like this was just screaming out to be an ambush. “Stack of hundred plates.”

Clarissa made the purchase and I began chucking them through the entryway at an angle so they didn’t go into the passage across the chamber. The plates hit the wall surrounding the opposite passage, bounced off, and floated about. Just like we had done outside, I would create artificial cover and debris.

We built up a frame and panels through the passage right up to the entrance. I was looking arounder the sharp corner in all directions but spotted nothing in the large cube chamber. A very dim illumination effect suffused the place like everywhere else.

“There is nothing in there,” Clarissa whispered back at me. I shook my head. The moment we entered this chamber, something was bound to happen. There was no way there would be something like this chamber, without there being a trap of some kind.

“Four shields, leave the back and the front open,” I ordered. She made the necessary purchases. I entered the chamber slowly, with the shields around me. Clarissa and her minions remained behind. A wave of energy emerged from each of the walls, cutting all the passages off and making our bracing pointless. The Magnite caught in the energy walls, quickly melted away.

There was a burst of light, and for the first time I actually saw a monster appear in front of me. It was a spherical golem, made of metal, not glowing white energy. There were curved panels rotating around the outside. I didn’t hesitate and unleashed an annihilation blast at the spherical golem from behind one of the shields.

One of the plates moved in front of the attack and an energy shield formed in front of it. Weakening the annihilation blast, leaving only scorch marks behind. A trail of energy spun around the surface of the spherical golem, before shooting in my direction. It wasn’t a beam attack, but a massive blast.

One of my shields was almost completely destroyed, I quickly pulled another one into position as I returned fire at the spherical golem. Its floating plates intercepted my attacks, and I switched directly to Acid Shot.

Another conic blast took out the second of my four shields. A lot of the floating plates had been damaged in the attacks as well. My danger sense spiked. I immediately used Air Burst to rapidly adjust my trajectory. A golem with pointy arms and legs, slammed into the shield where I had been standing. Its pointy limbs easily punctured through the shield and sent a burst of energy outwards, blowing it apart.

Just as I retaliated with a massive blast, the spiked golem disappeared. Air Burst. I moved behind my last shield as another conic blast attack was unleashed. Air Burst. The destroyed shield was blow apart as the spiked limb golem attacked where I had just been. I had been ready for that, and hit with another blast of energy just as it attacked, making sure to overpower this attack with 5,000 energy. I then unleashed a 20,000 energy attack at the floating sphere golem at the same time.

I couldn’t hold back anymore. Both golems were destroyed. The energy fields surrounding the chamber dropped away, and I noted four other passages had opened up on the other wall faces. Regular golems began to pour through those new passages and the one that had been across from the passage I had entered the chamber from.

This entire chamber was meant to delay and weaken me as the sphere positioned more reinforcements to finish me off. Clarissa was already sending out more shields and plates the moment the energy barriers dropped away, providing me cover from the barrage of beam attacks sent in my direction.

“Rear attack!” I heard Conner shout out. They were attacking from all directions. I quickly used up another 50,000 energy to blow away all the golems as quickly as possible, not caring about efficiency at the moment.

Clarissa and her minions retreated to my position at the far side of the chamber and we entered the passage, working to seal it up. I noted another spherical golem and pointy limb golem teleport into the chamber we had just exited.

“Forward, we will get overwhelmed back there!” I called out. Clarissa rapidly left behind obstructions, but the mini-bosses that were those special golems, would cut through fairly rapidly. We would only be able to delay them for so long.

The sphere wasn’t going to go down easily. This was its last stand before the final battle. A trap meant to finish us off. I took a deep breath and steadied my mind. It was time to make use of my strongest stat, Body, since I could afford to waste more energy. I moved around our mobile defenses, right into the path of the golem, twisting out of the way of a beam attack that scorched a nearby wall.

My fist lashed out and I focused, adjusting my Body stat and using Air Burst to keep my position as I delivered a heavy blow to the spherical golem. Its metal caved and it went flying into a nearby wall. A beam attack hit me in the chest in the moment afterwards. That was why I didn’t want to fight like this. It exposed me to counter attacks.

There was no other choice if I wanted to preserve my energy as we continued to rush forward. I was hit more beam attacks. Each of them left burnt holes in my clothing and small bits of burnt flesh and blood floating behind. I took more attacks on my arms, specifically to protect my breathing helmet. If that was damaged, I would be in huge trouble. We only had one spare and taking a helmet from one of my teammates was something I preferred to avoid if possible.

The attacks kept increasing in their intensity as we flew through the corridors and I smashed golems aside. Clarissa kept leaving Magnite plates in our wake to ensure anything following us would struggle to catch up.

We turned around another ‘L’ shaped turn and I saw a large reflective chamber ahead of us. That would be the center of this complex and where the sphere should be located. We kept flying forward as the number of golems quickly decreased. Minions disappearing right before the boss monster was a game mechanic, it wasn’t supposed to actually happen.

I quickly came to a halt. “You sure it is ahead?” I asked Clarissa. Since I hadn’t seen the sphere in the reflective chamber.

“It should be,” she hesitantly replied. We had the two super bombs left, but everything else was a struggle. I knew I looked like a complete mess after taking so many attacks with my body. I had to make a decision, the golems were closing in from behind us. They were trying to push us into the large reflective chamber.

An obvious trap was still a trap. One we couldn’t afford right now. We were running on fumes and I didn’t risk increasing my absorption of energy. We were going to be overwhelmed while the sphere hid away.

“Super bomb, into the chamber, now,” I said. Clarissa nodded and Gregor pulled his super bomb off his back. He quickly began arming it. Once it was active, I gave it a good push, sending it flying into the large reflective chamber. Clarissa got out more Magnite plates to protect us from the front.

There was a massive explosion as the plates were pressed into us and we were pressed back into the super structure of this base.

Pushing the plates away we floated into the reflective chamber, which had been completely wrecked. There was no sphere here. “No sphere,” I said and looked at Clarissa.

“It should be at the center of the structure, it must have moved or be hidden somewhere else, give me a moment to think about the layout,” she said. It was confusing, since the layout was twisted in three dimensions.

“You don’t have much time, we are going to be surrounded any moment by too many golems. I count six different paths leading to this chamber, counting the one we came out of,” I replied.

“Your guess is as good as mine, where the sphere could be hiding? Does it have to be in the fortress?” she asked.

“Yes. It wouldn’t leave and its control would suffer, also all its energy is floating about.” I closed my eyes and focused. Where was the greatest concentration of energy? Where was the greatest danger? That was where the sphere would be. I turned and then pointed.

“That way,” I said, pointing up towards a heavily damaged portion of the structure. We maneuvered our way there as golems began moving down the tunnels towards the heavily damaged chamber. Clarissa was already setting up more Magnite plates to cover us as I struck out with my hands, pulling apart the metal in front of us.

No more side corridors or running around. We would head straight towards the sphere. Now it was a race, could we get to it, before all the golems got to us and stopped our progress. I really didn’t want to use our second big bomb if we didn’t have to, saving that for the main boss if at all possible.