Kristoffer Pauly

Loopshard - Chapter 131

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Loopshard hit 6500 followers on RR! \o/

I'm also close to 150 paid members on Patreon, which is unchartered territory for me. I think my previous PB was 125 or something, so we'll already far ahead of that. I really appreciate all the support on this story!

Today is another long-ish chapter like last time. I think they start to bloat a lot when I begin describing things in more detail xD

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Chapter One-Hundred-and-Thirty-One

< < Settlement Discovered > >

< Morgan’s Rest >

Adam steered the Creaking Madam towards the safe haven after sailing them through the Floating Sea for the last hour or so. The journey had been relatively short since he’d been able to navigate according to a cluster of peaceful-seeming melodies and didn’t have to veer off course except to avoid islands. Despite Jabari and Ellen both wanting to get off at the first island they saw, Adam made sure they got to a settlement first, since they ought to be able to briefly get a look at a map.

Morgan’s Rest was bigger than Adam remembered Lenny’s Landing, but still not as big as Windtop Cove. Like the other settlements, the whole thing was held aloft by a balloon from which ropes, chains, bridges, and walkways criss-crossed the space below like a strange spiderweb. It was tethered to a donut-shaped island, hovering above the opening in the middle, and unlike the other two settlements it didn’t have a port for ships to dock in. That meant that all of the ships, even the ones owned by the White Flags, were moored to the edge of the donut island, which grew a verdant forest atop of it and had porous nutrient-rich dark soil. Pathways were carved through the trees, but Adam could tell that there were guards hidden throughout based on their blood melodies, and he was willing to bet there were dug-in ballistae as well, just waiting for an excuse to start blasting.

Even though there was no port, there were small wooden docks with retractable bridges that the ships attached themselves to around the island. As Adam brought them towards one of these docks, he noted the other airships around them.

I think I see ships from each faction except for the Fallen, which is a good sign.

Adam directed the others to grab the anchors and toss them to the White Flags workers waiting on the wooden dock. No one seemed to question how effortlessly he’d steered the ship or how easily he understood the docking procedure.

They probably just want to get onto land.

Fighting on an airship is quite precarious, after all.

Lasse gathered up the valuable that Adam had found aboard the Fallen’s airship and put them in a linen sack that he tossed over his shoulder.

Once they stepped off the Creaking Madam, walking across a bridge that’d been attached from the dock and onto their starboard side, Ellen asked, “How do we make sure no one steals our boat? This is a pirate world, isn’t it?”

“No one will steal yer boat, missus,” said one of the White Flags men who’d helped moor them to the dock.

Ellen scoffed. “Easy for you to say, pirate.”

He gave Adam a look like, “Can you believe this bitch?”

“I think they have a code of honour,” Adam remarked. “And I don’t know if you noticed, but there are a lot of ballistae hidden amongst the trees.”

“So, is this a safe zone?” Jabari asked as they walked off the dock and into the island forest.

Two White Flags guards in white cloth and chains attire came walking towards them right as he said it, their harpoon spears in hand.

“The Cook would like to speak to your crew,” one of the guards said, looking at Adam.

Ellen who was at the front of their group turned to stare at Adam as well, probably upset that he was being perceived as the leader.

Or maybe I’m just projecting that kind of personality onto her because her patron makes her inherently distrustful…

“Does he run this place?” Adam asked.

“That’s right,” said the second guard. “He’s been looking for an unaffiliated crew like yours to run a job.”

“We’re searching for the Godstone,” Cathy said. “If we help him, will he help us?”

“Morgan is a magnanimous man,” the first guard said. “Come on.”

They turned around and led Adam and his ‘crew’ through one of the paths through the forest. There were several branching routes, and they were undoubtedly a part of the defence of Morgan’s Rest.

Jabari clapped Cathy on the back and gave her a thumbs up. It seemed he was commending her for working up the courage to ask about their main objective.

She smiled in return.

While they followed the guards to the settlement, monkeys, snakes, and small rodents were all around them in the thick of the trees, making their presences known by fleeing when they came too close. Adam could of course tell they were there by their melodies, but they were easy to filter out because the song they emitted was fundamentally different from that of other humanoids.

I wonder if it’s because their heartbeats are different?

The others pulled a bit ahead as Adam brought up the rear, but then Julie broke off to walk next to him.

“How much do you know about the White Flags?” she asked.

“We’re not doing your quest now,” he reiterated.

She grinned. “Nothing wrong with scouting ahead and planting the seeds. The Lady told me that it is safest to use people’s natural distrust against themselves.”

“If you want me to help you, you’ve gotta listen to me,” Adam said. “We don’t do this until the last day.”

Julie put her hands on Adam’s chest and pushed him into one of the trees. “I could end it all now,” she said. “I have that power.”

Adam put his hand on her cheek and immediately shot a small glob of his own blood into her body. It wasn’t enough damage to trigger his bleed affliction and she didn’t even seem to register the pain. It also had the added bonus of removing his boon’s protection on her, since it lowered the damage of the first attack taken by 50%.

“And now, so do I,” he said.

Julie’s grin only widened, revealing her elongated canines. “The Lady said you were much more than you seemed. But I know that you need her. If you fail her tasks, she will take everything.”

Adam supressed a frown. In the back of his mind, he’d known this to be the case. After all, for an Absolute who controlled blood and flesh, it would be no challenge at all to fuck up his mind as punishment for his failure. And she knew damn well that any normal punishment would be ineffective against him, since death itself was no threat.

Adam pushed Julie off of him and then turned around to face a monkey that stared down at them from one of the trees. he fired off his Blood Bolt Ring, killing the animal, and then he harvested its blood and flesh.

With his ability to track the living creatures around him, he massacred the lot, taking everything they were made of and bringing it all together to form a human effigy of flesh that was filled with their blood. As a last touch, he lifted it up into the air and attached it to a tree above by a noose made of an intestinal rope. It would allow him to teleport to this place from quite a long distance away and he doubted the guards would notice it since the trees were dense.

“I can tell by your blood that you are scared of the Flayed Lady,” Adam then said, returning his gaze to Julie. “You need me just as much as you think I need you. In truth, I can escape her punishment, but you cannot. If you don’t do as I say, I will explode the little ball of blood I put inside your brain.”

Julie paused for a moment, then her eyes lit up. “I can feel your blood inside me. How exhilarating. Picking the Lady was truly worth it.”

She’s not right in the head…

“Let’s get going before the others start to worry,” Adam said, following along the path the guards had taken and tracking them with his Mandate of Blood.

Although there was an undercurrent of fear in Julie’s melody, it was overpowered by one of joy and carnal desire. To call her crazy would undoubtedly be an understatement, and he wondered how much of it was caused by her worship of the Flayed Lady and her ‘gift’, and how much was just part of who she originally was before the Trials started.

When they caught up to the others, Lasse and Ellen both gave them a curious look, while Jabari and Cathy seem to have not even noticed their absence, engrossed in each other’s company as they were.

From there the walk through the forest only lasted a couple more minutes before they reached the centre of the donut-shaped island. A bridge led from the forest and up to the floating settlement and it moves slightly in the wind. Below the bridge was the large hole in the island that led down to a freefall through clouds that would ultimately terminate at the bottom of the world.

I wonder where Alepheria’s lab is at this time.

With my teleportation spell, I can get the Legendary staff without having to actually fight the Voidspawn Apex.

Last time it was below Windtop Cove, but I wonder if the same is the case this time.

The guards led them to the middle of the structure where a round building was placed and connected to all the major walkways like a hub. There were smaller pod-like buildings and chambers here-and-there, seeming to only be designed for sleeping.

I don’t see any vendors, Adam noted as they went up a bouncing walkway to the central part of the settlement.

As they came through the open doorway, the smell of food wafted over them and Adam realised this was where the leader of Morgan’s Rest resided, since a big man stood inside a kitchen right in front of the entrance, working several pots and pans at the same time. He looked quite similar to Shiff, the Quartermaster who ruled over Lenny’s Landing, since he was a brawny hulk with a big black beard and had chains wrapped around his arms. Unlike Shiff though, he was completely bald, and the left side of his face had been heavily scarred by something acidic, but it seemed to be an ancient wound since his skin had regrown over the injury as best it could. Over his chains and white cloth he wore a stained apron, which gave him a whimsical and slightly absurd look.

The main building was similar to the Captain’s quarters in Windtop Cove in that it was shaped like a torus and was thronging with people. Unlike Windtop Cove though, it wasn’t just designed for the settlement’s leader, since there was also a section for the vendors, as well as a small area that looked like it housed a portsmith.

I wonder if we can do the same trick that Emelia did with Captain Drew to get an early upgrade to our ship for free.

When the cook spotted them, he quickly served much of the food he’d been working on, handing it out on wooden plates to pirates of every faction who were hanging around near his kitchen. Then he hopped over the counter that separated his kitchen from the rest of the floor.

He stuck his big paw out and Ellen shook it.

“Welcome to Morgan’s Rest!” the big man said, his voice like a bear’s roar mixed with forty years of heavy smoking. “I’m Morgan, and you fine folks are right on time for lunch!”

“Your men said you had a quest for us,” Jabari replied.

“That I do! Come, come!” Morgan replied, waving them over to the counter and shooing away some Cloud Skimmer pirates who were sitting on the wooden barstools placed there.

“You’re lucky you know how to cook, Morgan,” grumbled one of the pirates.

“You keep talking like that and my men will throw you down the hole, Davies,” the cook fired back.

The Cloud Skimmers didn’t push it further and just left with their plates of food. It looked like some kind of stew with biscuits on the side.

Everyone except Adam and Julie sat down on the barstools, and Morgan quickly served them six plates of stew and biscuits. Jabari and Cathy dug in right away, while Lasse sniffed the food first before taking a small bite of a biscuit. Ellen, Julie, and Adam didn’t touch their plates.

After serving a few more pirates, Morgan returned and rested his big arms on the counter in front of them.

“I’m sure my men must’ve told ya, but I’ve got a bit of a request that I can’t rightly ask of anyone else, allegiances being what they are and so on,” he whispered, although his voice was still quite loud.

He pulled out a crinkled map from the pocket of his apron and it was dotted with several soup stains. As he placed the map down in front of them, Adam leaned forward to look, absorbing as much information as he could.

Windtop Cove is all the way to the northeast on the edge of the map, but I don’t see Lenny’s Landing on there at all. Iffenguard isn’t shown either, but Mast-Chewer’s Nest is to the far east.

“We’re here,” Morgan said, putting a meaty finger right on Morgan’s Rest on the bottom of the map. “I need you to go here,” he continued, moving his finger west to an unnamed half-moon-shaped island marked with a skull.

“What will we find there?” Adam asked.

Morgan looked around and he registered the nervous note in the man’s otherwise calm melody.

“A slugwhale,” he whispered, this time his voice barely audible above the sounds of the chatting pirates around them and the bubbling pots in the kitchen.

Ah, he can’t say it out loud or ask another faction, because the Drakes are probably protecting the slugwhale.

“What do you need it for?” Adam asked.

“I want to cook it, of course,” he replied. “They’re supposed to be delicious.”

< < Quest Unlocked > >

< What’s For Dinner? >

< Bring the body of a Slugwhale to Morgan the Cook >

Adam laughed. “Sure, we can bring it to you, but we need some things in return.”

“Such as?” Morgan asked sceptically.

“An upgrade for our ship’s hull,” Adam started, “and the whereabouts of the Godstone.”

“I don’t know its whereabouts,” Morgan immediately replied, “but rumours abound within my settlement of a special treasure that was discovered not far from here. It is some manner of mechanism, they say.”

“Which island was it found on?” Ellen asked, leaning closer to study the map.

“Every cook knows when to guard his recipe,” Morgan replied, pulling away the map.

She frowned in response.

“What if I share some news that might be of use to you?” Adam asked.

“Such as?”

“The Fallow’s Fallen have gotten bolder,” he replied. “We were ourselves attacked by two of their airships.”

“Two? At the same time?” Morgan asked. “They normally hunt alone, more spoils for the victor and all that. They’d never do something like hunting in packs. Not anymore.”

“Adam is speaking the truth,” Julie said, backing him up.

“Hmm. This warrants further investigation,” Morgan remarked, clearly taking her at her word. “Very well, I’ll tell you where the mechanism was found.”

He pulled out the map again and indicated a triangular island northwest of their location called Anchor Hole. It was not as far away as the island with the Slugwhale and they’d be able to go there before doing his quest, although the island was greyed out on the map, which Adam took to assume they wouldn’t be able to access it without a special upgrade to their ship.

Of course, I can fly us there, but I’d have to reveal more of my powers to the others.

“Thank you,” Adam said. “And what about the hull upgrade?”

“Talk to my son over there,” Morgan replied, folding away the map again and pointing to the portsmith over in the next section of the round building. “Also, I want the delivery before tomorrow night.”

“What do we get in return?” Ellen asked him.

“Oh, I’ll make it worth your while, don’t you worry.”

With that, they left his counter and Morgan started summoning his men to discuss what Adam had told him about the Fallen.

Adam brought his plate of food with him and ate as they went over to the portsmith, as did Julie, although she just seemed to be imitating him, which was odd.

After a quick chat with Morgan’s son, Adam had secured them a hull upgrade for their ship and the portsmith had run off with some other kids to apply it right away.

They continued on to the vendors where Lasse dumped out their haul of stuff.

“How much is this worth?” he asked the weapons vendor, who was a blonde voluptuous lady in a purple corset and beige pants with bandoliers full of knives strapped to her torso and waist.

“I’ll give ya 500 Doubloons for the lot,” she said.

“600,” said the guy selling Relics. Unlike the golden skeleton who sold Relics in Windtop Cove, the vendor here was an old man in a frilly white shirt and dress pants with a chain belt who leaned on a metal cane.

The woman glared daggers at the old guy, but then she sighed and nodded towards him. “Sell it to him, then come use your Doubloons with me.”

Adam looked through their wares while Lasse traded the valuables for coins, but like Emelia had told him, the rarities were unrelated to Luck, since everything they sold was either Common or Uncommon. It also seemed that Adam’s Vendors meta upgrade didn’t apply to them, nor did his Rewards upgrade, because both of them only sold three items each.

< < Relics For Sale > >

< Morgan’s Stew (Common) — Consume to replenish 50% Stamina and 25% Health over 1 minute >

< Rum (Uncommon) — Reduces damage taken by 25% for 10 minutes >

< Chain Bolt (Uncommon) — Fire from a ballista to launch a chain at any enemy vessel, dealing extra damage to masts. 1 use >

I’m willing to bet that the Rum has the side-effect of making you completely wasted, Adam thought. Otherwise it would be way too strong for an Uncommon Relic.

< < Weapon Types For Sale > >

< Scout (Common) >

< Harpooner (Uncommon) >

< Swashbuckler (Uncommon) >

The Harpooner was tied to the harpoon spear that the guards carried, the Swashbuckler had a chain-wrapped sword and shield, and the Scout just had a rusty dagger.

They might be good once evolved, but I’m guessing their main strengths would be to fuse them with one of the starter weapons like Beck mentioned. I’m pretty sure that’s what Emelia meant as well when she told me about how Harpooner and Javelineer would work well together. It’s just strange that she didn’t know about Fused Weapons, but Beck did. Then again, she wasn’t very good at finding secrets and perhaps she was too focused on doing things the way she knew would work, rather than trying out something new.

“Are we buying anything?” Lasse asked.

Adam shook his head. “I think we should save the money for now.”

“The rum is useful,” Ellen commented.

“It’s 500 Doubloons, miss,” the old guy said.

“That’s expensive,” Jabari muttered.

Ellen nodded.

“Maybe it’s easy to collect coins in this Stage?” Cathy guessed.

Should I tell them about the gold curse? Adam considered, before ultimately deciding that he would wait until it was relevant.

“We should get back to our ship,” Adam told them.

“I wish we could get the map that Morgan had,” Jabari said as they walked towards the exit.

“Don’t worry, I remember most of the points of interest on it,” Adam replied.

“Really?” Ellen asked sceptically.

He nodded. “Just trust me.”

Julie put a hand on Adam’s shoulder and he instinctively hardened his flesh against her touch, trying to pre-empt an attack from her blood. “I trust you, Adam,” she said and grinned at him.

Lasse stopped and looked between them.

“Are you guys dating?” he asked. “You seem to know each other from before the Stage.”

Adam frowned while Julie’s grin just widened. He pulled his shoulder out of her grip and strode ahead of the others.

“Let’s get going,” he said, leaving them to catch up.

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Loopshard - Chapter 130

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--Encyclopaedia---
---Next Chapter----

In case you didn't see it, over the weekend I shared the final art (here) and a 1-minute timelapse of it being made (here).

I'm really happy with how it turned out and I'm sure I'll get more art from the artist in the future, because the linework is just perfect.

Anyway, it's pirating time!

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Chapter One-Hundred-and-Thirty

< < Now Entering > >

< Stage 7 >

< The Floating Sea of Gold >

< 3-day Timer >

Adam opened his eyes to golden light. He was running along the grey-brown wooden deck of the Creaking Madam to adjust the control lines that changed the angle of the mainsail.

These cutscenes will never feel natural to me.

Strange that I have the same role in the cutscene as last time though.

There were four other people working around him and a sixth person stood at the helm, controlling the ship’s heading. Adam moved on to adjusting the jib sail at the bow of the ship, while a woman crawled up the ratlines next to him. He noticed how her eyes tracked him even as her body moved along with the puppeteering strings of the cutscene.

Adam felt an aching nostalgia for the last time he’d been here.

Even if I find a world where Emelia hasn’t been sacrificed, there’s basically no chance of us ending up together in this Stage ever again.

I wish I could’ve enjoyed it more.

Although Adam was meant to protect another worshipper of the Flayed Lady, he wanted to keep everyone on his team alive. It wouldn’t make his mistakes of the past go away, but he thought he might feel better about himself, especially after the mess of Stage Six.

He looked past the jib sail that he was adjusting and down to the figurehead below the bowsprit. The voluptuous woman sculpted from wood was wearing a dress and shawl, and she looked the exact same as last time, even down to the cracks and signs of wear from the weather.

As Adam ran back up the deck towards the helm, he tried to spot the other Players, but without the ability to turn his head it was difficult to see a lot. But it was clear that besides himself were at least two other guys and the woman who’d been staring at him. He moved up the steps from the main deck to the helm, and the guy holding the wheel let go to look at Adam and the other Players who gathered around him.

Adam looked at their faces in turn. The six of them were evenly split between the two genders.

I wonder if that’s the norm. That’s how it was last time too.

Based on the distribution of genders he often saw in the Tavern, as well as who made it to the Self-devouring Eye, it was clear that the base power was lifted equally for both men and women, eliminating genetic differences in that regard. He had known this instinctively but just hadn’t really given it much thought.

The guy who had manned the wheel during the cutscene was a Warrior who seemed to have gone the Frontliner Colossus route, though he had to have picked the final evolution because his two-handed sword was slightly different than the one for Colossus.

That’s probably some Defence-oriented evolution since Colossus gives him 10% Defence with every kill.

He was a spindly black guy, which was a bit at odds with his large weapon and the Forlorn Cuirass he wore. He also had the Scale Trousers, Avalanche Boots, and Lead Coating Relics, the last one covering the blade of his weapon making it a dull grey.

The next was a woman who had picked the Javelineer evolution of Lancer and then an evolution that gave her a shield alongside the throwing spears. It seemed like a strange combo to Adam.

She wasn’t super tall, had pale skin, and her grey-brown hair was tied up in a ponytail. From her expression and the way she carried herself, she seemed a bit mousy. She wore the Bone Armour from Stage Two, which surprised Adam, both because there were so many better options since then, but also because it meant she hadn’t gotten hit enough for it to break. She wore the Captain’s Cape, Duellist’s Glove, and Slothling Spring Boots, and around her neck was the Boomerang Necklace.

A bit of a mismatched setup, but probably not terrible?

After her was another woman with long dark-brown hair, who had gone the Crusader route of the Priest, based on the shield she carried alongside her mace, but it was different than how he remembered it looking when he’d fought the Crusader named Zaria Lewis in his fourth loop, so he assumed she’d taken it to a third evolution.

She wore the Forlorn Cuirass like the Lancer, but she also had the Chimaera Helmet on her head and the Reckless Warlord’s Cape hanging down her back. The cape allowed her to verbally taunt enemies, and Adam guessed she had been the tank in her last group. Lastly, she had a Potion Belt full of medium healing potions, and the Spirited Defender’s Nose Ring, which staggered enemies when she successfully blocked their attacks and increased the damage of her next hit.

But what caught Adam’s attention the most was the black slits on her neck, which the cuirass didn’t fully cover, and the blue-tinged hue to her white skin.

She’s worshipping Nwetrou…

I knew Nwetrou would plant his worshippers in our groups, because there’s no way Beck and I would have encountered them naturally when there’s only forty of them amongst the millions that have survived to this point.

The second-to-last person was a tall guy with tanned skin, light-brown buzzcut hair, and emerald-green eyes. He wore the Slothling boots and coat, and hanging from his hip was the Scope of Insight that let him see a target’s weaknesses. He also had the Magical Quiver to go along with his bow, which was some evolution of Trickster. Since Trickster was based on rapidly firing arrows that could ricochet, Adam assumed the final evolution was something along that vein as well.

Adam’s eyes fell on the last person.

So, this is who I have to protect…

From the bright-red tattoos on her hands it was clear that she was also a Blood Mage. The patterns matched those of the Blood Speaker, and it seemed she hadn’t evolved them beyond that, perhaps because she’d gotten the blood sigils late. Predictably, she wore the Blood Mage Choker, two blood rings, and from her hip hung the Fetish of Sloth that Adam also possessed. Most eye-catching of all though was the red armour she wore. It was near-identical to the one that Riccardo D’Alia had possessed, which meant that it would be resistant to magic. It also looked kind of similar to the armour that was created when Adam used the Beckoning Crimson spell.

I wonder if that makes her resistant to blood magic too.

The way she was staring right at him was off-putting though, and it gave Adam a bad feeling, reminding him of how Riccardo had immediately accused him of being a mimic.

She was half Asian and maybe half European, based on her double eyelids and defined jaw. Even with the anaemic appearance caused by the Flayed Lady’s gift, it was clear her natural skin tone leaned more towards the pale side of the spectrum. Most of her shoulder-long hair was black, but some on the right side was snow-white. He couldn’t tell if it was dyed that way or a natural occurrence.

The cutscene let go of them and everyone except Adam stumbled a step. Then the golden light from his lighthouse’s boon flashed across everyone briefly.

There followed a few tense seconds where nobody said a word, then the guy with the two-handed sword asked, “No one here is a mimic, right?”

“I was just about to ask the same thing,” Adam replied, pretending to also be surprised that there were six of them.

“If one of us were a mimic, how would we know?” asked the Lancer.

The first guy laughed. “Good point.”

“Did you also have mimics in your last Stage?” Adam asked him.

He nodded.

“Anyone else?” Adam went on.

No one else said anything, so he quickly explained what it was and how it was tied to worshipping Nharlla.

“That’s who I’m worshipping…” muttered the Warrior in dismay. “After finding the skinned face in the Tower, I now have to find and kill something called the ‘Half Mimic’.”

“I have to find the False Judge,” Adam lied.

“Me too,” said the Archer, his voice surprisingly deep.

“I need to find a tainted parasite and give it to a dragon,” the Crusader said. Her tone was firm and somewhat cold.

She has to find the parasite?

It’s like I thought then, there must be an island above the bottom of the world where they exist. Perhaps one of the factions is holding on to some?

“I was told to befriend a ‘Noxious Slug Dragon’,” the Lancer revealed when they all looked at her next.

The Warrior laughed. “Befriend a dragon??”

That sounds difficult. Especially if it’s ‘noxious’.

“Who is your patron?” Adam asked her.

“The Guardian?” she replied as though she wasn’t sure.

“And what about you?” the Archer asked the woman who wouldn’t stop staring at Adam.

She finally broke eye contact and said, “The Flayed Lady asked me to defeat the White Flags.”

Her voice was sharp like a blade and there was an ice-cold certainty to it that reminded Adam of the dagger-wielding woman who he’d encountered in his third loop, and who, on the orders of Mórrígan, had promised to kill him in Stage Six.

Shit… I was hoping to get someone normal, but instead it’s a fanatic.

I guess you’d have to be for the Flayed Lady to show an interest in keeping you alive?

And her quest is bad, much worse than what Beck said.

[The timer has begun,] their cubes announced before they could finish their introductions.

< < Stage Objective > >

< Find the Godstone in the Floating Sea of Gold >

“We should introduce ourselves before we get going,” said the Archer. “My name is Lasse.”

“I’m Jabari,” said the Warrior.

Both of them seem reliable and friendly, which is a good sign.

“Adam.”

“I’m Cathy,” the Lancer said.

“My parents named me Ellen, but just call me Elle,” the Crusader explained. Adam thought she radiated an arrogant sort of middle-manager energy, which would doubtfully combo well with her insane quest to summon the Cloud Leviathan.

“Julie,” said the Blood Mage.

Now that they were freed from the cutscene, Adam could hear all the melodies that radiated out from his teammates. He could also hear the melodies that came from the distant horizon in every direction, and two large sources were relatively close, which didn’t bode well.

I think those groupings of melodies might be from airships, and I’m pretty sure they’re getting closer.

That must mean this is the Fallow’s Fallen pattern that Emelia described.

They’d gotten the Whale Eaters’ pattern last time, which revolved around that faction hunting down Mast-Chewer. Though she hadn’t told him much about the one with the Fallen, it started with two airships attacking them, and apparently featured a lot of raids all over the Floating Sea, which meant they’d get attacked a lot more often.

“Now that we’ve all introduced ourselves, we should get ready,” Adam said. “I see enemies in the distance.”

Lasse, who also worshipped Messimer, looked in the same direction as Adam, but clearly couldn’t see anything. Nevertheless, he didn’t seem to question it.

“I’ll control the ship,” Adam said. “Lasse, I need you in the crow’s nest, since you also worship Messimer, and the Scope of Insight is going to be a boon as well.

The Archer nodded and hurried up the ratlines to the top of the foremast.

“I will handle the main sail,” Julie said.

“Then I will take the jib sail,” Ellen decided.

Adam nodded. “Jabari and Cathy, can you handle the broadside ballistae? We’ll be fighting two airships at once.”

Cathy didn’t seem so sure about it, but Jabari gave her a thumbs up and she went down below the main deck with him.

As Adam steered the Creaking Madam slightly and increased the propulsion of the propellers on the back by the rudder, using the throttle on the wheel, Julie came over to him, ignoring the lines for the main sail.

“So, you are Adam Fischer,” she said. “The Flayed Lady told me I would be protected during my quest.”

She ran her eyes up and down his body, pausing at the sight of his red glass hand.

“You must be one of her favourites,” she commented.

Given the gifts that he had been given and how the Flayed Lady had protected him from being completely controlled by Kate’s charm, it was hard for him to deny it.

“Your quest is difficult,” he remarked. “We need the White Flags for now, so let’s wait until the final day before we eliminate them.”

Julie nodded. “If you say so.”

The way with which she easily accepted his words made him suspicious.

Does she know I’m a time-looper?

“How much did the Flayed Lady tell you about me?”

Julie grinned, which made her look slightly demented. “Everything, Adam.”

He sighed.

Of course she did.

“Are we keeping the others alive?” she asked.

Adam met her eyes, giving her a stare of disapproval. “Of course.”

“Even the one who worships Nwetrou?” Julie went on.

Adam paused.

She really told her everything.

“She can’t be allowed to get her hands on a parasite eel,” Adam said. “But we shouldn’t get rid of her just because she worships Nwetrou.”

Julie leaned in close, her lips right next to his ear. “You don’t believe that,” she whispered.

Then she went back to her main sail duty, leaving Adam in a frustrated position.

I think I understand why time-loopers go mad trying to fix all the odds.

With this many Gods and their worshippers planning and scheming, it must be impossible to ensure a specific outcome.

Perhaps I’m being naïve, believing that it’s possible to find a world with all my friends in it. But if I beat the Trials and they don’t exist in that universe, then I fear that I’ll lose the chance to ever see them again. While death may not be the end for people, so long as someone wins, being sacrificed to Nwetrou sounds like it has no option to undo.

Adam pushed his thoughts aside when the two Fallow’s Fallen airships came into view. They had white-painted planks instead of the grey-brown of the Creaking Madam, and there were black spots wherever the paint had flaked away. The vessels were much sharper in shape than Adam’s ship and they moved through the air at higher speeds, thanks to the extra fins on the sides of the hull. The rightmost one had a figurehead of a grinning skeleton holding a lantern, and the other had a snake made of skulls, with candles in each of the empty eye sockets. Both ships flew a white flag with a golden skull on it, which reminded Adam of the first airship he’d encountered last time. Each of the ships also had a large ballista at the front, and he knew Fallow’s Fallen liked to use chains to board enemy ships to loot them.

To maximise their own firing angles, the two ships split and moved at diagonal lines along each side of the Creaking Madam, making it difficult to bring their own ballistae to bear on one ship without exposing themselves to the other.

Although, we will become a narrower target for the one we aren’t aiming at, since its broadside will be firing down at our ship from the front.

His initial idea had been to sail between them, but that was clearly going to be difficult, and the logic of such a move was also questionable at best.

The ships were still hundreds of metres away, but they were already launching bolts through the air.

“Ready on starboard ballistae!” Adam yelled, turning them towards the portside, which was his left.

Bolts zipped through the air, not yet locked in on them, but still too close for comfort.

Adam lifted his Spidersilk Needle out from his belt and manipulated it and its string through the air after activating his blood rings to give himself some material to work with. He managed to weave a push spell pattern while controlling the ship, and it was hard not to feel a bit smug about how Julie was staring at him and his ability to multitask.

“Grab the wheel,” Adam told her as he went over to the starboard side and floated his body down towards where the tips of their ballistae bolts poked out.

Fwoosh!

The bolt directly below him fired off, the surprise nearly making him lose the control over the Mana in his body.

Maybe this was a bit too foolish, he considered as he quickly placed the woven spell onto the tip of a different bolt. The pattern was filled with more blood than usual, which would create a bigger bang.

Once it was primed and ready, Adam pulled himself up, just in time to watch it launch from the ballista inside the ship.

Fortunately, the aim was spot on and the bolt struck the hull of the enemy vessel, killing two of the pirates and triggering Adam’s spell, which delivered its payload into the hold of the ship where most of their ballistae were placed. As the blood shot out, crystallising on activation, he could briefly track the projectiles thanks to the melodies they shared with him. Only three of the dozen shards that were fired actually struck flesh-and-blood targets, but it was enough.

Adam concentrated before sending out a pulse of Mana along the right frequency to trigger the Blood Crystal spell that he’d learnt from Sylvia’s scroll. He couldn’t see the effects, but four of the melodies coming from the enemy ship winked out as the three who’d been hit exploded like blood grenades, taking out a fourth who’d avoided the initial hit. Along with the two that the bolt had killed, the crew who manned the weapons had been wiped out, leaving just a few on the deck, one of whom was killed by the next bolt that struck true.

While Julie and Ellen watched on, Adam ran along the main deck to the bow of the ship before leaping off. The Priest Crusader yelled something after him, but he rapidly outdistanced their ship as he pulled on the Mana in his body to fly the hundred-or-so metres to the ship on their left.

By the time he landed on the enemy helm half a minute later, the first of the Fallow’s Fallen ships had been defeated, sinking down below the floating point, and Julie was turning their portside to bear on the airship Adam was on.

[Small airship defeated.]

Fortunately, none of his ship’s ballistae fired towards him and Adam was able to make quick work of the pirates aboard the ship, since they still had flesh and blood in them, even if they were corrupted by the gold curse and their gilded bones exposed.

Once all of the pirates were dead, an Upgrade Chest appeared along with the message, [Small airship defeated.]

Adam got a Rare Luck upgrade out of it, which put him just 2 away from 25, the threshold for guaranteeing Rare rewards.

Once he’d collected all the blood and flesh from the pirates, as well as some of the valuables that lay around, he flew back to his own ship while the one he’d boarded coasted forward despite no one being at the helm.

Before he landed on the deck, Adam plastered his harvested flesh to the front of their airship, filling the cavities he made with blood. He figured it would serve as an extra layer of defence if he changed the density of the skin that coated the flesh, and having the blood there would be quite useful since he didn’t need to drain himself.

Although, the main reason for placing it all there was that it would be hard to get the others to trust him if he was openly using his grisly form of magic.

“How did you do that?” Ellen asked him as he dumped the looted valuables onto the deck.

“I’m a blood mage,” he replied. “That means I can control my own blood, allowing me to fly.”

From the look that Julie gave him, it was clear that she couldn’t do what he’d done. But then again, she hadn’t picked Flesh Shaper.

That’s probably for the best.

I’d feel uneasy about her being able to fly wherever she pleases.

“What was that stuff you put on the front of the ship?” Lasse asked as he came down from the crow’s nest.

I forgot he was up there…

“It’s an extra layer of protection,” Adam said, not going into detail.

Lasse nodded.

He’s surprisingly quick to just accept anything, Adam thought. He was the only one who would’ve gotten a good look at what exactly Adam brought, so the fact that he didn’t raise a stink helped a lot.

Jabari and Cathy came up from below deck a moment later.

“Good shooting,” Adam told them.

“That was kind of fun,” Cathy said.

Everyone looked at her, surprised by the comment from the timid woman, and she curled into herself a bit from all of the attention.

Then Jabari laughed. “I didn’t even get to fire a single shot!”

Adam laughed as well.

Maybe we’ll be fine with this team.

-----------------------------

-Previous Chapter-
--Encyclopaedia---
---Next Chapter----

Loopshard cover art timelapse

Was pretty surprised, but Nick even made a timelapse of the cover and the various drafts.

Go check out the artist here: https://www.instagram.com/nick_superhero/

He posts videos of his art like this quite often.

Loopshard cover art complete!

I just got the final cover art back from Nick_Superhero who I commissioned for it.

I think it looks amazing, but I'd love to hear your thoughts. I also really like the coloured version of the background he did, but I'm not sure which to use as the cover, so any feedback on that would be appreciated too.

I should be getting the .psd files too, so I could mess around with colours myself too, but not sure if I have the time for it right now.

Anyway, I figured I'd shared it with all of y'all before I post it anywhere else.

Thanks for the continued support!

Loopshard - Chapter 129

-Previous Chapter-
--Encyclopaedia---
---Next Chapter----

The interim between Stages ended up quite long this time around, but I also just had a lot of stuff to show.

But fret not, next chapter we're at last returning to Stage Seven.

-----------------------------

Chapter One-Hundred-and-Twenty-Nine

Beck and Adam looked up at the towering mantis. Her body looked like it was made from green leaves, and it was clear she was quite adept at camouflage, especially since she had some way of making her blood melody barely audible to Adam’s ears.

“I knew there had to be a Mantis vendor!” Beck exclaimed. “The Wandering Forest has a lot of these guys, so I was confused why there weren’t any on the island. It all makes sense now.”

The Wandering Forest was the twelfth Stage according to what Emelia had told Adam. It had a lot of insect humanoids and they were supposedly quite difficult to defeat, even for her. She’d especially warned him about the Weaponmasters, and said they could be identified by the badge they wore.

The kind of badge that was pinned to the chest of the mantis in front of them.

“Are you a Weaponmaster?” Adam asked her, his eyes locked on the bronze symbol of a blade on top of a circle fastened to her green carapace.

“Not many respect that title anymore,” she replied. “But you are correct. My name is Tisa and my duty on Interim Island is to reward those who obtain Victory Pearls. I would much prefer to bring my own blades to bear on those who visit me, in order to test their mettle, but I was told that this is not accepted. It is a shame. I believe it might be entertaining to take on both of you at once. You might even last a couple of minutes.”

“Have you fought a Weaponmaster in the Wandering Forest?” Adam asked Beck, trying to ignore the fact that Tisa had openly said she’d be able to take them both on and win.

He nodded. “Sort of, I managed to hit one during a duel, then it congratulated me and vanished.”

“To strike one of our order during a duel is no small feat,” Tisa commented. Her triangular head tilted and she chittered in irritation. “It seems the ruler of this floating land does not like me to comment about our order and places you have yet to visit.”

If she didn’t know that already, perhaps that means this is her first time talking to another Player in this universe.

“Did the Diviner know about Tisa?” Adam wondered out loud.

Tisa shook her head. “He did not.” Then she chittered angrily. “The ruler is threatening me for revealing the truth. Such cowardice is unbecoming of a warrior. To withhold the truth is honourless. Subterfuge and lies is for the spiders and dark dwellers, not a proud mantis.”

Adam and Beck shared a look. Tisa was a lot more forthcoming than any of the denizens they’d met before.

I wonder if I can get her to reveal things about the Wandering Forest.

The fact that she knows about the Diviner suggests that she is aware of past loops, which makes no sense. I thought all the denizens lost their memories when we looped. Unless… Maybe she’s like the special denizens that arrive after perfecting a Stage. They remember me between loops, after all. But her knowing about another Player outside of my dimension suggests that she’s tapped into all of them, which would make her similar to Luvicidix and Alivida.

Maybe it isn’t just her that’s like this. Perhaps most of the denizens have that power, but they can’t tell us about it because of the rules.

Beck seemed to be having the same sort of considerations, based on the melody of his blood.

I wonder what happens if I give her the Vanity mirror. Perhaps she’ll be able to duel me? That would be useful.

But no, I want to give it to Charlie this time.

“How were you hiding yourself?” Adam asked. “I could barely notice you despite being able to sense the blood of all living creatures on the island.”

Tisa leaned towards Adam, tapping her spine-covered arms with her folded claws. “With enough practice, even vile magics such as yours can be overcome.”

Adam blinked, surprised by that.

Even as they spoke, the melody emanating from her was very faint. He’d only noticed it when she’s snuck up on them.

Perhaps she is able to slow down her heartbeat, since I think that’s the instrument creating the song of the Blood within every living thing.

“So, what are you selling?” Beck finally asked.

“For now, my options are limited,” she said and unfolded her claws, gesturing in front of herself.

< < Mastery Upgrades For Sale > >

< Weapon Looter — Enables the looting of the Weapons possessed by Players you defeated — 10 Pearls >

< Point Looter — Enables the looting of the Points possessed by Players you defeated — 15 Pearls >

< Weaponmaster’s Badge — Become proficient in all non-magical weapons — 25 Pearls >

“Woah,” Beck muttered.

“Point Looter would be amazing,” Adam said.

“Can we only get the pearls from using the Challenge Stone?” Beck asked.

Tisa tilted her head slightly. It looked like she was trying to figure out how she could answer without upsetting the All-Seeing System and violating its rules.

“Only the victories within an arena may gift a pearl,” she answered after a moment.

“Hmm,” Beck muttered. “There’s an arena in the Wandering Forest, and another in Avaricia. Those are the only two I know of besides the Challenge Stone one.”

Avaricia was the seventeenth Stage from what Emelia had told Adam. It was a Stage with a lot of mimics. She hadn’t told him anything about arenas though.

“Are we only awarded pearls if we defeat other Players?” Adam asked.

“Correct,” Tisa replied.

“I bet something happens if we get the Badge and go to the Wandering Forest,” Beck said. “It’s like a special order in that world, the Weaponmasters.”

Tisa chittered in irritation, but didn’t say anything.

Adam didn’t fully understand how the All-Seeing System enforced its rules, but he was pretty sure it was focusing its attention on her in that moment, because he could tell how an undercurrent of fear filled the faint melody of her blood.

“I guess we’ll have to fight a lot of Players,” Beck said.

Adam nodded. “There are plenty of Nwetrou’s worshippers left. I suppose we could start with them. Or maybe the Courtesan’s adherents.”

Beck looked thoughtful for a moment, before saying, “There is a long list of people I think we’d probably be better off without. It’s hard to say if they’ll be an issue this time, since so much has changed, but a lot of the deaths I saw between Players can be attributed to just a handful of people.”

Despite Adam not having a strong desire to kill other Players, the power of something like Point Looter was hard to deny, and he was not so naïve as to believe there were no one that deserved to die. Not after all he’d seen so far.

“Wait, isn’t the Diviner still alive?” Adam asked.

Beck nodded. “Yeah, I think so. I’ve been trying to search for him, but none of the British people named David have matched the way he looked. I’m pretty sure he’s one of the two Players that worship Nwetrou and was told to block us.”

“That seems likely,” Adam agreed.

“Since neither of you have enough pearls to buy anything, would you like to play hide-and-seek?” Tisa asked.

Adam and Beck both paused and looked at her.

“You must be really bored down here,” Beck said.

Adam nodded. “You should come with us to the restaurant.”

“Restaurant?” she asked.

“Come on, you’ll see,” Adam said.

He hadn’t been entirely sure that Tisa was allowed to leave the underground forest chamber, but even though it was a narrow stairwell that led out of the place, she was more than flexible enough to get out. He guessed that she was therefore more akin to the special denizens, since they could go where they pleased, but unlike Sprite, Migraine, and Finnian, she offered no quests for them, making her a vendor like Sylvia. Sort of.

Once they got inside the Player House and went down into the basement, all the denizens within paused what they were doing to look at the newcomer.

Tisa clicked her claws against her spiked arms. “Worry not, the ruler of the island does not permit us to fight. You are safe.”

Adam grinned.

She seriously believes she could take them all on if peaceful coexistence wasn’t enforced by the System?

But then he noticed the way that all of the others looked at the dead leaf mantis and how their melodies wavered.

Wait… They’re actually terrified of her?

Beck didn’t seem to notice and just sat down by a table, waving Charlie over for some food.

Tisa went over next to him, pushing a stool aside so she could stand up against the table.

Charlie didn’t skip a beat as she came up to Beck to take his order, turning next to ask the mantis. Predictably, she asked for different kinds of insect meat. She was told that she’d get meat, but it was clear to Adam that it wouldn’t be insect-based.

He sat down as well and just ordered a milkshake since he’d already eaten earlier.

“Before you go,” Adam said, stopping Charlie from leaving. He handed her the Vanity mirror. “Here. I want you to have this.”

Charlie lifted the mirror up to her face and gazed into it.

< < Vanity Activated > >

A fire rose up from her feet and enveloped her, but only for a second, and when it vanished she had turned into a woman with fiery red hair, freckles, and orange-red skin and eyes. Instead of her red carapace, she wore a green apron over a white tunic and pants. The only signs that she was originally an ant were the two antennae that poked out from the top of her head.

She looked down at her hands and legs, a confused but happy expression on her face. Then she lifted her head and met Adam’s eyes.

He couldn’t help but smile. “It suits you,” he said.

“Thank you, Adam,” she replied. “I don’t know what to say.”

“You don’t have to stay in the kitchen anymore or wait on us all the time, you can join us at the tables and spend as much time with Belamouranthe and Weaver as you’d like.”

Her eyes turned misty but she grinned widely, giggling in that bubbly way of hers.

“I will take you up on that,” she said. “But first I will bring you your food.”

She reached into her right pants pocket and pulled out a glove that was also white, with a complicated red sigil on the back of it, and a different one in the palm.

“You can have this as thanks,” she said.

Adam took the offered glove from her.

< < Secret Weapon Obtained > >

< Fire Mage’s Glove (Epic) — The glove of a Fiery Mage >

Beck leaned close to look at the weapon as Adam sat back down next to him, holding it in his hands. “Interesting,” Beck muttered.

I want to play around with this, Adam thought as he swapped out his Spidersilk Needle for it.

As it equipped itself to his right hand, his Blood Bolt Ring on the finger popped off. He stuffed it in his pocket for now.

“How does it work?” Beck asked.

“I actually can’t tell,” Adam said. Like other weapons at this rarity, there wasn’t really any proficiency or knowledge gifted to him when he equipped it.

Charlie had already gone into the kitchen and vanished, but he figured he’d ask her once she returned.

As they waited, Adam asked Beck, “What’s your patron quest for Messimer in the Floating Sea?”

“I have to find someone called the False Judge. I don’t know much more than that though.”

“Do you at least know what he looks like?”

Beck shook his head.

“Weird. My quest is kind of a strange one. Since there’s another worshipper of the Flayed Lady in my group, I just have to protect them as they do their quest.”

“That’s not something I’ve heard of before,” Beck replied. “I think normally the Flayed Lady’s quest in the Floating Sea is to kill a specific NPC in Windtop Cove or something. I talked to someone who lost access to the safe havens because of a person with that quest in their group.”

“That might be an issue,” Adam said.

“Do you know about the sword that makes you crazy, by the way?” Beck asked. “I realise I didn’t warn you about it.”

Adam grimaced. “I’m intimately familiar… Last time I was in the Floating Sea, I lost three group members because of that sword.”

“They always put it in a place close to Windtop Cove,” Beck said. “It’s such an evil trap, especially after Stage Six taught everyone that objectives give you extra Points…”

“Did you meet Iffen when you went there last time?” Adam asked, changing the topic to something else.

“The giant Slug Dragon? No. I want to meet him this time around though. He gives you a quest for the Golden Slug.”

Adam nodded. “You need to feed him offerings first though. And if you tell him you’re hunting the giant airship, then he’ll show you a vision of where it is.”

“That’s good to know,” Beck said.

After Beck had finished eating and Adam had drunk his milkshake, they went up to his room above the restaurant and Adam practised with the new Fire Glove. Charlie had given him a few pointers, but she’d been pretty clear about the fact that it was instinctual for her to use it, and not something that was easy to teach.

The way it worked, at least in the simplest sense, was that Adam could feed Mana into the glove, where it would then allow him to summon fire somewhere close to himself, or directly into his hand, depending on how he activated it. The glove itself was fireproof, so it was easy enough to summon a fireball into his hand and throw it.

But the more Adam used the weapon, the more he realised that the sigils on the top and bottom of the glove were really just different sorts of trigger and control sigils, such as those of his blood mage weapons. This revelation allowed him to start shaping the fire a bit, but most importantly, he found a way, with Beck’s advice, where he could change the qualities of the spells he fired such that they exploded on impact, burned hotter, or left lingering flames.

“I really want to know how it evolves,” Beck said.

“Me too,” Adam replied. “Oh, I almost forgot to ask, do you know if all Stage-dropped weapons only have one option per evolution?”

“As far as I’ve seen, that has been the case. But it can obviously change if you fuse two max evolutions together,” he explained. Beck paused when he saw Adam’s confused expression. “You don’t know about that?”

“No, I don’t… What the hell is a fuse evolution?”

“Fused Weapon,” Beck corrected him. “There are only a few of them that I’ve seen. But I’m theorising that getting both the Crawler’s Arm and Crawler’s Eye to their third evolutions would do something, but that’s impossible unless you can send a weapon back in time since you can’t have both weapons drop in Stage Six.”

“Being able to loot another Player’s weapon would also work,” Adam pointed out, referencing Tisa’s first Victory Upgrade.

“That’s true. It might be why that upgrade even exists.”

“What are some Fused Weapons you know?” Adam asked, quite interested in this hitherto unknown mechanic of the Trials.

“Defender plus the Forlorn Bulwark from Stage Nine does something. I don’t think the final evolution of Defender matters, but anyway that’s probably the most common one. It gives a few extra skills on top of the ones from the evolutions you picked for Defender.”

“That makes the Weapon Saving upgrade even better than I thought,” Adam realised.

Beck nodded. “If you can send back a Fused Weapon that would be something.”

“What are some other ones?” Adam asked.

“There’s the Backstabber weapons and the throwing dagger from Gravegard Castle.”

That’s Stage Fourteen, I think.

“There’s also the crossbow from the Floating Sea and Archer,” Beck went on. “I think there was one for Duellist also tied to Gravegard, actually.”

“So they’re all Stage weapons that fuse with starter weapons?” Adam asked for clarification.

“That seems to be the case,” he replied. “But I still feel like my theory about the Tower Crawler weapons would work.”

Adam turned the Fire Mage’s Glove around in the air in front of himself. “For a moment, I thought that this weapon might fuse with my blood sigils since it also uses sigils for the spells, but it’s not a Stage weapon.”

“I haven’t seen anyone use any weapons tied to the denizens before, so it’s hard to say,” Beck replied. “But there’s a secret weapon in Moonport that uses sigils as well, I’m pretty sure. Maybe you could gain a Fused Weapon that way?”

“I think I know which boss it might come from,” Adam said, remembering something Emelia had told him about Moonport. “But I’ll try and level up the glove anyway, once I’m back from Stage Seven.”

“Just be careful,” Beck said. “I get the feeling that old squid daddy is not gonna let us get away with killing his champions.”

Adam nodded. “You be careful too. You’re the one they wanna kill the most.”

They practised a bit more, and Adam finally learnt how to use the Shade Barrier spell with his blood magic, thanks to Beck, but it drained too much Mana for him to use it without turning it into a woven spell construct with the Spidersilk Needle.

Once Beck returned to his own dimension, Adam spent the last bit of time left practising with his Blink spell using flesh constructs. As far as he could tell, there was no limit to the range, but the further away he was, the harder it was to hone in on the signal of his distant flesh and the longer it took to complete the spell.

Still, this is going to be extremely useful in big Stages. I can basically teleport around as much as I want, saving a lot of time.

I could even put small construct onto other Players, like something as tiny as a finger, and use that to track them and teleport to them.

To make sure his finger theory actually worked, he scattered a bunch of flesh-shaped ones around on the island, but teleporting between them turned out to be much harder, since the melody they gave off was much smaller with their reduced sizes.

I think that for long-range teleportation I probably need to leave behind quite a big construct. Especially if there will be a lot of living things around to drown out the signal.

Once he was done testing his Blink spell, Adam returned to the Player House and wove some spell constructs using his Spidersilk Needle. He left the Fire Glove behind in the weapon rack for now, since he could only bring two weapons with him, and the spell weaving was just too invaluable for preparing ahead of fights.

I hope all these spells can travel with me, he thought as he laid down while Yenna sung a lullaby next to him.

He’d shaped his body back into something close to how he originally looked, but under his skin he’d packed a lot more muscle and made his muscle fibres a lot stronger, but without turning into a roided-out freak like what Beck and Alivida had been so upset about seeing.

Then he finally closed his eyes, the long day and hours of preparation falling away as sleep took over.

-----------------------------

-Previous Chapter-
--Encyclopaedia---
---Next Chapter----

Loopshard - Chapter 128

-Previous Chapter-
--Encyclopaedia---
---Next Chapter----

I feel like I've fallen into a pretty good rhythm for posting, so from now on you can expect a new chapter on Loopshard on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, and if I do more than 3, they'll land in the weekend.

Apologies that it took me this long to land on some predictable schedule, things have truly been hectic.

-----------------------------

Chapter One-Hundred-and-Twenty-Eight

Adam landed on his feet in a field of tall red spiky grass. It was immediately clear to him what Alivida’s cryptic words had meant, because ahead of him, past where the grass ended, was an area that seemed touched by Nwetrou’s power, since it was a discoloured swamp with two large black ponds.

It was no doubt the same arena that Adam had been sent to when Hiroshi Sakurai challenged him, but it was clear that who a Player worshipped had a role in how the arena ended up looking. Even the stands around the arena mirrored the influences of their patrons, with Adam’s side being made of crimson glass and seating figures that looked like they’d been freshly skinned, with their flayed remains hanging about their waists, while their exposed red flesh dripped blood onto where they sat.

On Adnan’s half, the seating area was a mix of driftwood, rotten carcasses, barnacles, and bleached bones. Upon them weren’t figures that were united in appearance, but rather creatures of the ocean. Octopuses like the Envoy in the cave on the island, whale-shark-like things, large fish, sea slugs, half monstrosities like mermen, multi-headed serpents, and a handful of creatures that were like blobs of dark shadows with nothing but round glowing eyes staring at him.

Adam didn’t waste a moment and shot himself forward with a big push of his Princely Raiment and the Mana permeating his enormous body, basically throwing himself right at his opponent like a projectile.

Adnan was quick to react, activating his spring boots and launching himself up at Adam, his spear outstretched in his right hand and his parry shield ready and waiting in his left.

Before they collided, Adam used his magical control to move himself away from Adnan’s spear, ending up above him and immediately punching down into his spine.

The Nwetrou worshipper flew down towards Adam’s side of the arena, hitting the spike grass, which bristled and pierced him like it was alive.

But Adam knew that he hadn’t killed his opponent, because his body twitched on the red spikes that’d caught him.

This bastard must have the Hobgoblin Pendant, he thought as his large frame landed on the edge of the arena on Adnan’s side, his armoured feet crushing the stands and scattering the audience seated there. With his own spring boots and the powerful muscles in his body, Adam flew back towards his side, even as Adnan pulled himself from the spikes and downed a healing potion that quickly repaired his broken body.

He took up a stance as Adam came right at him, but then Adam used his control sigil again, giving himself a boost that sent him up and over the awaiting spear and parry shield. As he moved around the back of his opponent, who was slow to turn, Adam triggered the Heart Lance construct woven onto his right arm.

The sound of a shrill whistle came from inside Adam’s armoured right hand as a hole was created by a pressurised beam of blood and silk. It moved so quickly that it was impossible to really track, and as Adam landed on the red needle grass, Adnan had collapsed in the middle of the arena where the two halves met. There was a fist-sized hole right in the middle of his torso, which had torn apart his lungs and obliterated his heart. His ribcage had a perfect hole in it as well, as did his fur coat relic.

< < Challenge Stone Deactivated > >

< You have defeated Player Adnan Nasr in the arena >

< < Victory Pearl Obtained > >

Adam didn’t get a chance to loot his opponent before he was returned to the basement restaurant of his house.

The Princely Raiment quickly started to disintegrate around him, dropping darkened fragments onto the floor. Since he didn’t want to leave a mess for Charlie, Adam went upstairs to his room and let the rest of the armour shed off of him.

He slumped onto the floor as the adrenaline died down and his heartrate returned to its normal rhythm.

Part of him almost felt disappointed.

It had been so easy.

He pulled out the Victory Pearl that he’d been rewarded.

It was like a smaller version of the Challenge Stone, although it didn’t have the symbol of crossed blades inside and instead there was a golden fluid trapped within.

< < Visiting Stone Activated > >

< Player Becky has entered your Dimension >

Adam got back to his feet and left the Player House, walking the short distance to the centre of the island where his friend arrived.

“How’d it go?” Adam asked.

“It was easy,” Beck replied.

“Yeah…” Adam agreed.

“What do you think the pearl is for?” Beck then asked, a curious gleam in his eyes.

“I knew you’d ask that,” Adam replied.

“Could it be that there are more vendors we don’t know about?” Beck speculated. “How many more secrets are there on this island?”

“Let’s ask Alivida and see what she says,” Adam suggested.

They went to the garden to find her tent, but as they walked Beck kept glancing up and down at Adam’s enlarged frame.

“It really doesn’t suit you,” he remarked.

“It’s more convenient,” Adam said.

“All I’ll say is that I wouldn’t trust you if you looked like that when I met you. It’s freaky.”

“Yeah, I got that loud and clear,” Adam replied.

“What should we do about the last two that blocked us?” Beck wondered.

“I don’t know what we really can do,” Adam said. “We just have to stay on guard. There’s a high likelihood that we’ll encounter them soon enough. Because, despite having the ability to plan far ahead and lay traps for us, Nwetrou strikes me as someone impatient.”

“Do you know what quest Nwetrou worshippers have for the Floating Sea?” Beck asked.

“They have to summon a Cloud Leviathan,” Adam replied. “It’s the next evolution up from a Slug Dragon.”

“That sounds like a fun time,” he remarked.

“I heard from a time-looper I befriended in the past that it’s a massive creature that will devour all the islands and airships.”

“That would be a problem,” Beck said. “But how do you even summon it? This is the first I’m hearing of this thing.”

“You know the lamprey things at the bottom of the world, below the floating sea?”

Beck nodded. “I’ve seen them, yeah, but I never could get close.”

“Well, you’ve gotta get one of them and put it into a Slug Dragon, that will make it evolve into the Leviathan. It can also create a feral Slug Dragon if you put it into a Slugwhale.”

“Then I don’t think we have to worry about it,” Beck reassured Adam. “There’s no way to get down there unless you can fly. Even with the Drake Wing and the Grappling Hook from the Cloud Skimmer captain, I don’t see a way you can get down there unless you possess your kind of magic.”

“Warders can also fly,” Adam pointed out, although Beck had a point.

“If they know what they’re doing, perhaps,” Beck said, making it clear that he hadn’t met such a Player yet.

“Maybe some of the parasitic eels are already on one of the islands,” Adam guessed. “When I helped my friend with her patron quest involving Mast-Chewer, the Drakes’ captain tasked us with taking down a feral Slug Dragon that’d been infected by an eel brought up onto one of the islands.”

“Hmm,” Beck muttered. “That would be an issue to worry about then.”

They reached Alivida’s tent and both went inside, their cubes time-frozen by the opening where violet light spilled out.

“Back so soon?” Alivida greeted Adam.

“We had a question about the Challenge Stone,” he replied. “Can you tell us what the Victory Pearls are for?”

“I cannot say,” she said. The melody of her blood didn’t reveal anything either, and he thought that perhaps she had no idea at all.

“Can you at least confirm that they’re meant for a vendor?” Adam pushed on.

“I cannot say.”

Again, her blood held no answers.

“I knew this was a waste of time,” Beck said. “None of the denizens would tell me if the Mastery Shards were for a vendor either. I think we just have to find out ourselves.”

“It’s a shame Luvicidix already went to sleep,” Adam said. “She usually drops a lot of hints.”

“I’ve always preferred solving puzzles without getting clues, anyway,” Beck commented.

“I suppose we could start from the bottom of the island and work our way up,” Adam considered. “You’d get to see the big creepy eye as well.”

“I can’t wait,” Beck deadpanned.

Although they were friends and got along well, it was hard to tell with how much Beck complained about Adam’s flying skills as he manoeuvred their flesh-shaped platform down to the bottom of the island.

Beck held a lantern on the end of his staff, casting a warm glow onto the island’s cliffside as they descended. It was a good thing too, because the light of the silvery moon did not reach below the surface of Interim Island, leaving it in total darkness.

As they reached the very bottom of the island, Beck and Adam both looked up at the eye that adorned the island’s tip. Three enormous seven-fingered hands of stone grasped an orb with a toothy mouth within which was a large squishy eye.

[You should not be here,] said both of their cubes.

“Well, that’s certainly going to keep me up at night,” Beck remarked, though he didn’t look away.

The eye glanced between them, the warm light of Beck’s lantern reflecting off its cornea.

Adam brought out his Victory Pearl and showed it to the large eye.

Its gaze fixed on the item, but it didn’t blink or do anything special. Still, it was clear that the object held some kind of fascination to it.

Then Adam noticed it. The slow bassy melody of the island changed slightly. He couldn’t decipher what it meant, but he knew it was a clue.

“Should we ask the squid?” Beck suggested.

Adam shot him a look as if to say, “Are you stupid?”

“I was just joking,” he added.

“Let’s see if there aren’t some kind of cave or opening in the sides of the island that we’ve missed,” Adam said.

They spent the next half hour slowly circling the tapering earth and rock that hung from beneath the island, but aside from Sköll’s cave, there was nothing to be found.

“We should check the Market,” Beck said. “I’ve always thought that the fountain could be hiding some sort of secret.”

As they returned to the surface aboard Adam’s floating platform of flesh, his figurative ear piqued for any new melodies of the Blood, he suddenly noticed a new one, but it was incredibly faint. He wasn’t sure if it had been there all along and he just hadn’t been paying enough attention, or if it had appeared only after he’d gotten the Victory Pearl.

“Where are we going?” Beck asked as Adam steered them towards the source.

“Be quiet for a moment,” he replied, pausing the platform in the air above the island’s centre.

Since all the other melodies were so strong and vibrant, the new one was really difficult to locate.

I’ll have to triangulate it, Adam thought and flew straight east, past his Player House.

As he passed over his home and the bright lighthouse, he realised that the melody he’d been hearing from this direction previously was actually coming from the small garden and not the First Light’s brazier.

I think the Glass Sapling might be alive, he thought.

It was hard to pick up the faint melody since he was so close to a stronger one, so Adam moved north towards the Market, stopping when he was between it and the Player House. Although the melodies from the Market were strong, he was at least not directly next to one of them and as such he could just barely hear the new melody again.

He flew them south, stopping when they were between the Tavern and the house, but it was still impossible to tell if they were closer or further from the source.

Adam sighed in defeat.

“Were you trying to triangulate a signal?” Beck asked, quick on the uptake.

“I can hear the melodies of the Blood thanks to this,” Adam said and showed him his red glass hand.

“I was wondering what that thing was,” he replied after seeing the description. “It’s based on the Legendary from the Tower, right?”

Adam nodded.

“And it lets you hear blood?” Beck asked.

Adam nodded again.

“I suppose that tracks for the Flayed Lady,” he remarked.

“I noticed a new melody from someone on the island,” Adam said. “But it’s too faint for me to tell precisely where it’s located.”

“Is it close to the centre?”

“It might be,” Adam replied uncertainly.

“Then we’ve gotta brute-force it,” Beck said. “Bring us down near the altar.”

Adam wasn’t sure what he meant by that, but did as he asked.

Once Beck got off the flesh platform, he wiped his feet on the cobblestones and sneered at it in disgust.

“My ex-wife once forced me to buy a waterbed. That thing reminds me of it.”

Adam laughed. “I can make it firmer for you next time.”

Beck’s frown deepened.

“So, what’s your plan?” Adam asked.

His brute-force plan turned out to be very simple. Since Adam hadn’t been able to get much of a read on the signal of the melody, he was fairly sure it was originating near the middle of the island rather than on the fringes. And as such, they simply had to check the houses to see if any of them were more than they seemed.

Every, single, house.

“Do you have any better ideas?” Beck retorted when Adam told him exactly what he thought of that plan.

“The houses are hollow,” Adam pointed out.

“But perhaps not all of them.”

“And why exactly can’t we just flatten them all to check?” Adam added, before realising the answer himself. After all, if they destroyed a house that had the secret denizen inside, they might kill them and lose access. Or well, Adam would, since it was his dimension. “Nevermind, dumb question.”

“For a moment there I thought all the blood magic might’ve cut off oxygen to your brain,” Beck said.

They spent the better part of three hours moving in a circle spiralling outwards from the centre of the island, checking each of the houses. Adam went through the houses on the southern side towards the Tavern, while Beck checked the north towards the Market.

Since a lot of Players had perished, all of the houses were fully-formed, and Adam wondered if this was a requirement to access the mysterious denizen.

I suppose I was a bit too quick to give up on the idea that the houses might have something to hide. After all, there have been secrets all over the place, so it makes sense the houses wouldn’t just be some meaningless prop.

He yanked the door off his thirtieth house and peered inside. It was hollow like all the ones before it.

Although… So far nothing has disproved my initial assumption.

Then a spell went off to the north, catching Adam’s attention with its light. He also heard how the melody of Beck’s blood changed its tune, becoming excited.

In only a few seconds, Adam had already landed next to his friend and the house that’d caught his attention.

“I found it,” Beck said, his smugness overshadowed by his curious excitement.

The house was no less different than all of the ones nearby or on the other side of the city, but inside was something surprising. It was a stairwell that led down into the island, reminding Adam of the well extension to his house that had unlocked the ritual chamber.

“I told you we should’ve just levelled all the houses,” Adam said. “It would’ve saved us a lot of time.”

“The answer is only obvious once you know it,” Beck replied. “I think it was a good idea to err on the side of caution.”

“I suppose you’re right,” Adam conceded and gestured for Beck to enter the house. “Ladies first.”

Beck didn’t skip a beat and immediately went through the door and down the steps. Adam had to scramble to catch up, and since the stairwell was quite narrow, he was forced to shed much of the flesh and muscle he’d bulked out his body with, leaving it behind him on the steps like clumps of wet clay.

As the steps led deep into the island, they transformed from stone to dirt, and then from dirt to wood. The walls followed the same transformation, and before they knew it, they were standing at the foot of the long stairwell, inside a completely wooden structure. Plants, glowing mushrooms, and roots and twine interwoven, filled the wide hallways leading from the stairs and into some unseen space ahead.

They both had their weapons ready as they followed the hallway, which curved slightly to the right until terminating in a large chamber that was five metres from floor to ceiling. Tall green bushes, thick grass, and short trees filled the interior.

“What the hell is this place?” Beck muttered.

Adam panned his eyes across the space, beckoning the melody of the blood to reveal itself to him, but it was still so incredibly faint. But one thing was certain, it had to be originating from this place.

“Whoever is in here, reveal yourself!” Adam shouted into the overgrown chamber.

Nothing happened.

“If you don’t, we’ll burn down this place!” Beck added, lifting his lantern into the air in front of himself.

Rustling immediately came from some trees nearby and they both turned to face them.

But then Adam heard it, the melody of another’s blood.

He whirled around, a dagger of blood manifesting into his hand as he instinctively reacted to the presence that’d snuck up on them from above.

A towering dead leaf mantis with a green body stood poised right behind them, its dangerous spiked arms hugging its narrow torso.

“I had hoped for a bit of hide and seek,” the mantis said, her voice like the rustling of a bush. “Have you come to spend your Victory Pearls?”

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--Encyclopaedia---
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MADMAN APOCALYPSE - Book 3 - Chapter 45

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If you didn't see it, I'm doing a raffle for audiobooks for Madman book 2 (link). I've already listened to a couple hours of it, and Eric just does such an amazing job with his narration. I literally couldn't be happier.

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Chapter 45

The worst thing imaginable happened as Panda disappeared and Brock’s protesting turned into unintelligible squeaks.

I had become sane.

Immediately the bonds that kept me tied disappeared, but I hardly noticed.

It wasn’t until this moment that I realized why they called this place the Singing City, because the ground itself was screaming a heart-broken aria into the air, with every speck of dust and mote of ash beyond the city’s walls adding a deep bassy accompaniment.

Hair-like tendrils coiled within my ears and tiny insects pushed against my skin from below, producing an itch I felt compelled to scratch. As I tore away my suit to reach my skin, I looked up at one of the orderlies staring down at me.

He was smiling a wide porcelain veneer smile, but his eyes were darkened by shadows. The others around him were the same, big smiles and dark eyes, their spotless plastic coats looking like the armor carried by angels of hell.

Next to me, Bee sobbed loudly, pleading for her parents to come and get her while Chris tried to console her. She’d returned to her human form.

“How does it feel?” the orderly asked, still holding the syringe he’d injected me with. “How does it feel to be cured?”

I screamed and threw myself at him, sending us both to the ground.

He started to laugh, even as I hit my balloon-covered arm into his head again and again, doing no damage at all.

Then three pairs of powerful hands pulled me off of him, tossing me back along the smooth ground of the central plaza. The ground that was made of fused-together bones. The bones of the people who had once prayed to the Old Gods for salvation.

The Singing City had been their mercy.

The Watcher of Worlds had looked upon them, and they had screamed in joy as their bodies flowed together like melted candlewax.

I understood it now that the wool was lifted from my eyes.

All of it made perfect sense to me.

The Great Game and the reason for its creation.

The truth about the cosmos and the Gods that inhabited it.

And the reason why Bee and I had come here.

I knew where it was now, the thing I was meant to find.

The System’s—

“Me-ow?”

I paused and looked up at the top of my head where a sentient hand had appeared.

“Lordie?” I said. “You’re still here?”

The hand-spider purred loudly and rubbed its palm against my hair.

My entire body tingled and my teeth started to vibrate.

The insects under my skin vanished, and the aria of the Singing City died away.

“Stop him!” yelled one of the orderlies.

“Kill the thing on his head!” exclaimed another.

All six of them stormed towards me, but I was starting to realize that they weren’t that powerful without their spells and injections, and for some reason they weren’t bringing them to bear on me again. Perhaps because they couldn’t.

As one of them grabbed me by the chin, Lordie leapt up onto his head like a facehugger and started pumping something from its palm hole and into his mouth.

The unforgettable stench of Eau de Tonsil Stone wafted over me and it was like a flashbang had gone off directly in my face.

I crawled backwards and away from the orderly as he convulsed and spasmed.

Meanwhile, Lordie hopped between the other lab coat freaks and repeated his attack, though the last two of their group took off before he could get to them.

Then he came back to me while Bee and Chris watched in horror as the four orderlies he’d attacked were foaming at the mouth and producing bone-cracking sounds from their convulsions.

Lordie jumped into my arms and nudged against my chest while purring loudly.

The more he purred, the more the ailments of sanity retreated, clearing my mind and making me feel whole again.

Then suddenly Panda appeared in front of me, sitting on his butt on the ground and looking down at his legs in despair.

“Panda!” I exclaimed.

His head shot up and spun towards me.

“Gambit!” he shouted and ran towards me like a toddler that’d just learnt how to walk.

Like Lordie, he also hopped into my open arms.

“I thought I’d never see you again!” he wailed.

“Lordie saved me,” I told him.

“Meow,” he said smugly.

“Gambit, look out!” Chris yelled.

I looked up and saw that the four orderlies were getting back to their feet, their faces pulled into huge disturbing grins with teeth and large round eyes that shone white like the sanity serum they’d injected me with. They’d turned into insanity monstrosities because of Lordie.

“Fuckin’ swing me!!” Brock squealed and I’d never been so happy to hear his squeaky voice.

Panda jumped to my shoulder and Lordie hopped onto my head.

Then I took a large step forward and drove my balloon fist right into the middle of the nearest orderly monstrosity.

Its body shot back towards the tower like a missile, striking its twisted exterior and creating a round crater.

I flung myself forward with SPRING_HEEL, spiking the next monstrosity into the ground. Its body rebounded back up into the air, broken and twisted, and I punched it again, shooting it towards the crater in the tower made by the first one’s body.

As I was about to uppercut the third orderly monstrosity, my whole world suddenly quaked. Then time froze as a warning and pop-up appeared in front of my eyes.

WARNING!

Your Insanity Gauge has reached 100%!

‘Boss Monstrosity Transformation’ unlocked!

[‘Boss Monstrosity Transformation’ x ]

Ultimate Ability

Many of the higher-ups are very upset, to put it lightly.

They spent a lot of resources to set up this encounter, and they were banking on you turning into a Boss Monstrosity this time if you managed to get back to 100% insanity.

Clearly, you are not so easily defeated.

But I think you at least need to appreciate how much they want you gone. After all, Sanity Serum doesn’t exactly grow on trees, and the amount of capybara milking required to produce just a single drop would blow your mind. Filling a syringe with the stuff costs more than the entire budget for most Regions of your planet. They also weren’t meant to inject your friends, but it seems the Players they picked were a bit overzealous about their mission.

Anyway, that’s right, they’re milking capybaras to produce sanity pills and serums.

When you think about it, it makes a lot of sense.

It’s the one animal I’ve vowed to never eat, after all.

I’m fairly sure the System is responsible for you getting this Ultimate Ability, since travelling between dimensions and getting the Prophet class removed your original Ultimate.

It’s almost like the System predicted that this moment would happen.

They do say it knows the future, but that the moths responsible for deciphering its messages struggle to make sense of its words until after events which it warned about have already come to pass.

I’m rambling here. Sorry.

It’s been a while since I had something to eat, and I ramble when I get hungry.

As you can imagine, this Ultimate turns you into a Boss Monstrosity. I don’t think it will be tied to your original System Glitch class, but I’m also not sure if it will be related to your Glitched Prophet class.

I suppose the joy is in not knowing.

It’s like a Christmas present.

Except your skin is the wrapping and the present is inside of you, waiting to burst out.

Transform into a Boss Monstrosity.

Duration: 20 seconds

Cooldown: 1 hour

Time slowly started to thaw and my fist resumed its trajectory towards the chin of the orderly monster in front of me.

Then, without my input, the new ultimate activated and my body started to change.

As my fist slowly moved forward, my arm became longer and my whole body got a head taller. My suit and skin turned black and white in a random alternating pattern, like a twisted Ying Yang symbol, and my torso and muscles flattened and smoothed out, making me thinner. My head became smaller and a large wide brim like that of a hat grew out from the top of my altered head, looking like an oversized mariachi sombrero, except the brim was completely flat and clearly not made of straw, felt, or any material like that. In fact, it felt like my entire body had turned into marbled stone.

Time fully resumed and my elongated arm shot forward, driving my fist into the underside of the orderly’s head. Brock, as well as my Unicorn Suit and weird golden Schmonic Boots, had been transformed by the black-and-white material too, but retained their original shapes.

However, as my fist struck, it wasn’t the usual effect from Brock that followed.

No, it was way different, because the monstrosity simply turned to snow and black ash that floated into the air like they were carried on a breeze.

I didn’t question it and flew at the remaining orderly monster, driving my arm right through its torso and turning it to flour and chocolate sprinkles.

“What the fuck just happened?” Panda asked as the remains fell onto the ground.

“Me-ow,” Lordie remarked.

“That’s true,” I realized. “I do look like Panda now.”

The transformation was already starting to fade as I went over to where Bee was sitting on the ground, Chris next to her.

Without a word exchanged between us, I simply handed her Lordie and she pulled the hand-spider into her arms, hugging him tightly.

Within half a minute, she had returned to her Elphin appearance with pale-grey skin, small white horns, and the purple wing hanging down her back.

“That was scary,” Bee muttered.

I nodded. “It was.”

“You’re scared of sanity?” Chris asked. “I feel just fine.”

I shook my head with a wistful smile. “You would never understand.”

Bee jumped to her feet.

“I know you turned two of them into flour, snow, ash, and sprinkles, but we still have two bodies left to harvest for our flesh mech!” she said excitedly.

“Correction, one body,” Panda said with a frown, pointing over to the tower where I’d sent the first two orderly monstrosities flying to.

The dark unmistakable shape of Billee was busy shoving one of the bodies into her mouth.

“I would really like to go back to base now,” Chris said.

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MADMAN APOCALYPSE - Book 3 - Chapter 44

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---Next chapter----

Chapter 45 coming right behind this one.

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Chapter 44

By the time we neared the foot of the Singing City’s central tower, Gargalob was completely gone. The black portal of water that Skippy had created inside him had vanished as well, but Panda insisted that it wasn’t fully gone, despite the fact that there was no way for us to tell from this far away with all the towering buildings blocking the view.

We had gone around a three-way battle of giants between a large light-blue glowing salamander-slug hybrid, a dark-grey metallic ball of mouths, and a demon made of tar with white bone plates covering its obese humanoid shape. While each of them presented enticing targets to harvest for monstrosity materials, Panda had said that the slug and tar demon both possessed some kind of aura, so getting close wouldn’t be good for us.

My Schmonic Boots were still suffering from the effects of Gargalob’s aura, and the gold that covered them had made them many times heavier than before. However, they seemed to still possess their original speed boost, and the gold was actually preferable to the pee-stained white color they originally had.

The tower in the middle of the city was like a coiling horn made from six individual bone spires that’d been forcefully twisted together. How it had been constructed was a mystery, but so was the rest of the city, to be honest. The edifice was situated in a large open plaza, but strangely, there were no monsters, big or small, anywhere in sight. Instead, six figures all clad in white plastic-looking lab coats stood guard in front of the tower’s entrance.

“Demons?” I asked Panda.

“No, they’re definitely human,” he replied. “But I didn’t think there’d be anyone this high-level besides Steve and Matthew Twine outside of your group.”

I squinted to activate my Appraising Eye and the information for one of them popped up.

[Appraisal x ]

Level 10 — ‘Jones’ — Player

“Settle down, it’s time for your injection.”

Class: Sanity Healer

Main Attribute(s): Strength, Perception, & Wisdom

You remember Jones, right? Him and his buddies remember you, that’s for sure.

Before the GREAT GAME’s initialization, Jones worked at Calm Springs Asylum as an orderly. He was one of the stronger ones working there, so it was often up to him to do the physical restraining along with the five other brawny men on his team. But don’t let his strength fool you, because he can deliver an injection with pinpoint accuracy.

Jones was supposed to become another thumb-head like the rest of the orderlies that now reside within the asylum, but then you went and messed with the dimensions, changing the course of fate forever. It’s funny how even a small change can ripple outwards and affect so many things. But then again, your actions could hardly be called ‘small’. You haven’t created ripples, you have made literal waves across causality and time, and Jones and his buddies avoiding a monstrous transformation are just a small consequence of that.

Now, you might wonder what on Earth a Sanity Healer is, and well… You’re about to find out.

He has been hunting you since your escape from the asylum.

“What do you think their skills are?” I asked as I shared the appraisal with the others.

“They’re obviously going to heal our insanity gauges,” Chris said and started walking towards the group, waving at them to show he was friendly.

Bee and I shared a look.

“Yeah, that doesn’t bode well for either of you,” Panda surmised.

“You’re glossing over the ‘hunting me down’ part,” I said to Chris, but he didn’t seem to care and just kept walking towards the tower.

“Are we fighting them?” Bee asked.

“I don’t think we have a choice,” I said.

“You could just go back to your base,” Panda suggested.

“I want to say hi to Billee,” I told him.

“Me too!” said Bee.

Panda sighed. “Well, then you’ve got some people you have to politely ask to step out of the way.”

“I can ask politely!!” Brock exclaimed. “Just swing me in their direction!!”

I grinned and started rotating my right shoulder, warming up for a fight.

“Meow,” Lordie suggested.

“We’re not harvesting them,” I told him.

“Meow…”

I frowned and turned to Bee. “He says he really wants to incorporate their bodies into his flesh mech.”

“I think we should let him decide,” she responded. To be fair, that opinion wasn’t really much of a surprise coming from her, especially since she was still carrying the net with Gargalob’s golden flesh and Skippy’s blubber.

“Woah, hold your horses!” Panda exclaimed. “You’re talking about something way worse than killing people!”

“Why?” Bee asked sincerely. “Once they’re dead, they don’t need their bodies for anything.”

“She does have a point,” I conceded.

Panda put his squishy arm to his head to steady himself. “This event has really done a number on your moral compass.”

“We’ve gotta win to survive,” Bee said.

“By any means necessary?” he retorted.

She just shrugged.

“Don’t shrug at me!” he yelled petulantly.

I turned back to call out to Chris, but then I froze when I saw that he was suspended horizontally in the air with white-glowing magical bonds wrapped around his torso, abdomen, and legs, constraining him completely.

“Chris!” I exclaimed and fired myself towards the group of six orderlies in their ridiculous lab coats. One of them was holding his arms out, clearly casting the spell that kept my friend trapped, so I altered my trajectory towards him.

Bee and Panda quit their bickering and immediately followed me as she took to the air with him on her shoulder.

As I soared through the air with my balloon arm pulled back and ready to unleash a beatdown, another of the orderlies lifted his arms in my direction, and I immediately felt bonds tie themselves around my body, cancelling my momentum and sending me gently floating down to the ground.

WARNING!

You have been afflicted with ‘Asylum Shackles’!

Time remaining:

3 minutes

Lordie immediately retreated into the transport cage, clearly not a fan of a little bondage play.

Bee let out a yelp and then a moment later she was floating down from the sky next to me, also bound up with the strange chains.

“This is bad!” Panda exclaimed from where he was standing on her forehead. “Their spells are really effective against Players with an Insanity Gauge above 75%! The effects seem to scale with your insanity, so Gambit is trapped for three full minutes, while Bee and Chris are only about one-and-a-half!”

I wanted to yell at the orderlies to eat my turds, but the shackles also prevented me from speaking.

As I reached the ground, arriving almost right next to where Chris was shackled, the six orderlies stepped forward, their plastic lab coats squeaking as they rubbed against their bodies. Three of them had their arms stretched out to cast the spells that kept us bound. The other three pulled out massive syringes from within their coats, almost looking like turkey basters, except they were filled with something that glowed a pale white light akin to the harsh LEDs that’d lit up the asylum halls.

“Is this how I find out this whole adventure was just a figment of your imagination!?” Panda wailed incoherently as the orderly next to me rammed the giant needle into my heart.

WARNING!

Your Insanity Gauge has been reset back to 0% by ‘Sanity Serum Injection’!

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Madman Apocalypse B2 audiobook raffle (CLOSED)

EDIT: All who participated have received emails about their codes (Anxietato, James, Quill, and Apotheosis), since I had enough free codes to give away. Thank you all for participating, and I hope you'll enjoy the audiobook.

Book 2 of Madman is finally out as an audiobook, and Tantor who is publishing it gave me some codes to give away.

The codes are specifically for Spotify, but I have redeemed one myself already and the process is pretty painless. You just need a Spotify account, the link to redeem it, and a code. That's it.

Keeping the above in mind, if you'd like to enter a raffle to receive an audiobook, just leave a comment on this post and I'll do a raffle of all the commenters by the end of this week.

If you don't like Spotify, then the book is also available on Audible at the following link, and I really appreciate anyone who uses one of their monthly credits on it: https://www.audible.com/pd/Madman-Apocalypse-Book-2-Audiobook/B0F7TDTZS1

Loopshard - Chapter 127

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--Encyclopaedia---
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If you haven't seen it yet, I posted something earlier about a change to the price of my Patreon membership, which will go into effect next Monday (December 1st).

Important note: It won't affect anyone who is currently subscribed, since you'll all be grandfathered into the $5 tier, but it does mean that future subscriptions will be only have the $10 tier available to them.

You can read more about it here.

In other news, the artist for the cover image that you all voted on should hopefully be done soon, and once I have it in hand, you will be the first to see it before it goes up on RoyalRoad. After all, I may need y'all to vote on how the title typography should look.

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Chapter One-Hundred-and-Twenty-Seven

Adam felt he’d gotten quite proficient with casting Heart Lance and Beckoning Crimson after practising with both spells for about two hours until it got dark. Beckoning consumed all of his Mana every time he cast it though, which was not ideal, but he’d stumbled onto something game-changing after weaving a construct based on the spell patterns with his Spidersilk Needle.

On his right arm was something that looked like a vambrace made out of red-tinged golden thread. If he nudged his Mana-infused blood trapped inside, it would summon a ball of silk and blood in his palm, which would fire off a pressurised beam of blood when he closed his hand over it. Preparing the spell like this was similar to Sylvia’s scrolls, but didn’t require him to hold anything and invoke the spell verbally.

The woven construct for Beckoning Crimson was quite different though, because it would trigger as soon as enough Mana-infused blood was inside it, so he kept it at 90% capacity where it wrapped around his torso like a belt.

The normal spell pattern was similar to Blink, since it required him to hold a double-helix ring that orbited his torso, centred on his heart. But its main spell component required him to weave a ball of blood around him that he then had to fling outwards, expanding it as it moved. Any blood the expanding ball touched was pulled back to him, healing his missing Health before turning into a flexible armour on top of his body. Expanding the ball consumed as much Mana as he let it, but because of his Mana being halved due to the Prince’s Gambit Sigil, its reach was only about 8 metres, unless he used the woven spidersilk construct.

However, the doubled capacity created by the sigil was more than enough to compensate for this, since it allowed him to wield 40 litres in each of his separate spells, though the diameters of the floating balls was only slightly bigger than before, despite the volume doubling.

He’d also gotten a new idea about how to utilise his flesh magic to store excess blood, inspired by seeing Sarah carrying loot in a repurposed vat sack. After creating a few such vats around him in the Player house and harvesting dozens of dummies for their blood and flesh, he was able to store an insane amount of material on him. It wasn’t exactly something that would be feasible to set up inside a Stage, but he was hoping the Challenge Stone would allow him to bring his spells with him into the arena where he’d fight the Nwetrou worshipper. There was no sense in approaching such a person with honour, and a sudden attack of overwhelming strength was guaranteed to make his success a foregone conclusion.

The biggest change caused by his increased capacity, aside from letting him create some seriously powerful flesh-shaped constructs, was that it made Princely Raiment absolutely absurd. Instead of growing half a metre in height, Adam grew two, forcing the Player House to expand upwards to accommodate him. Aside from making him bigger, it also completely encased him, even his head, where a brutal helmet with a crown on top appeared. In terms of size, he was not far off from the Slothling Ogre, but compared to that creature, Adam was several times faster and stronger, because the way the power of his transformation scaled wasn’t linear with the volume of material that covered him.

With a single step in his monstrous form, Adam could move across the length of the house, and his punches broke the floorboards under him with the sheer pressure they generated.

Having Brawler would be so absurd for this transformation, but being able to weave spells and wear them is genuinely so much more powerful.

Adam had decided that he wouldn’t lean into something so situational as a Brawler and Red Prince combo, because it wouldn’t be feasible to have it active at all times. It served him much better if he had many different tricks he could rely on, rather than focusing entirely on his Princely transformation, and the Spidersilk Needle definitely offered that.

Something he had also started experimenting with, following the Flayed Lady’s advice, was applying his flesh constructs to his own body. It was a lot more difficult to do, since he needed to be mindful of how the limbs mixed into his own blood circulation. Adding several more limbs also tired him out quickly, until he realised that increasing the volume of blood inside himself prevented his limited supply from getting stretched too thin to try and service every new limb.

At the end of his first test, he looked almost like one of the sea urchin monstrosities from the tower. In order to not immediately get attacked by any Players he met, he focused on sculpting his increased mass of flesh into something more aesthetic, managing to turn his arms, legs, torso, and tail into something much bulkier and stronger. And when he coupled his own shaped body with the Princely Raiment, he discovered that the increased mass he’d given himself was not pulled into the skill’s activation. On top of that, it didn’t take up any of his three spell slots for what he could manipulate, since it was his own body.

As he looked himself in the mirror, he couldn’t help but feel like he’d lost a part of his humanity chasing this route of magical self-enhancement, but those concerns were allayed by how much stronger and faster it made him. Adam couldn’t break his own stats and give himself more Speed, Health, or Defence by shaping his body in this way, but adding more muscle to himself and turning his skin into something denser did have a tangible impact on his base speed and natural defence. After all, the stats only accounted for any damage he suffered, but armour could clearly reduce or negate damage by simply not allowing it to penetrate deep into his body, and what he was doing to himself was basically just adding more armour.

The only drawback that he couldn’t do anything about was the fact that bulking out his body, increasing his mass and making his muscles stronger, tripled his natural Stamina consumption. Just running or punching for a minute was enough to fully drain his Stamina and knock him onto his back.

In the end, he flooded his entire body with Mana and used his control sigil to compensate for the physical strain moving around in a large body caused.

On top of adding more muscle and turning his skin into a pseudo exoskeleton, Adam also created flesh pouches on his back where he stored blood, allowing him to quickly inject Mana into them if he needed spell material.

He also attempted to change his skin colour to combat the paleness of the Flayed Lady’s gift, but though he could change the texture of the surface, he couldn’t alter the colour of his skin, eyes, or hair.

Perhaps something like that is more in Nharlla’s domain, he thought to himself.

With his body bulked out by borrowed dummy flesh, Adam left the Player House and went towards the Garden on the western side of Interim Island.

The silvery light of the moon guided him towards Alivida’s tent, and he passed by the flowerbeds of black Dahlias and opened the flap into her abode.

The black humanoid wasp gave Adam a sour look.

“What?” he asked, knowing exactly what the issue was.

“I do not know where to begin…” Alivida said, looking at him in distaste. “You must not forget your… self.”

Adam nodded. “I still remember who I am.”

“It is easy to forget. The mind quickly grows accustomed to a new shell.”

“I won’t forget,” he repeated.

“I will choose to believe you,” she replied after a moment. Then she waved her hand out in front of the crystal ball that filled the room with a violet glow. “You have brought many shards, do spend them all with me.”

< < Mastery Upgrades For Sale > >

< Scale of Nihility — Make everyone forget you — 1 Shard >

< Skipping Stone — Skip a Stage if eligible — 2 Shards >

< Challenge Stone — Challenge a Player to a battle to the death — 3 Shards >

< Lucky Stone — Flip to increase the rarity for the next reward options — 3 Shards >

< Vanity — Turn an Interim Island Denizen into a humanoid — 10 Shards >

Adam paused for a moment as a thought occurred to him.

“Are there other vendors who accept Mastery Shards?” he asked. “It seems peculiar that you would be the only one. Luvicidix just wants Points like the rest.”

“I cannot… say,” Alivida replied.

Her black eyes and blank facial expression made it impossible for him to tell what she was thinking, but the melody of her blood was a different story. He clearly heard the discordant note that emanated from her.

Adam interpreted it as fear.

There might be another vendor who accepts the shards, but maybe she’s scared of that vendor, or perhaps she is worried I will not spend my shards with her in the future.

His eyes went back to the options.

“For the Challenge Stone, can I prepare before I use it?” he asked.

“You can,” she replied.

That makes it a very unfair item to use then, he thought. But at least it’s working in my favour. For now…

“Is there anything I should be wary of when I use it? Like, are there any Relics that don’t work inside it?”

“The Challenge Arena is akin to the Stages you visit, but the arena’s shape depends upon those who enter,” she replied.

“What does that mean?”

“I cannot say.”

Adam thought back to when Hiroshi had used it on him. It had been a pretty simple arena back then, but he guessed that there were different arenas and that they perhaps depended on which Stage had just been completed.

I also have my Cheat Death in case I make a mistake. I’m not going to rob Beck of his chance to get the Self-devouring Eye, so I don’t particularly need that ace up my sleeve. And besides, getting rid of Nwetrou worshippers is worth losing my Cheat Death over, should it happen.

Of course, since I’m allowed to prepare ahead of time, I can’t imagine that I’ll face any problems.

“I will buy the Challenge Stone and another Vanity.”

“Thank you, Adam,” Alivida said.

< < Mastery Upgrade Unlocked > >

< Challenge Stone — Challenge a Player to a battle to the death >

< Vanity — Turn an Interim Island Denizen into a humanoid >

“The Absolutes enjoy when their champions do battle,” the moth muttered.

“I’m sure they do,” he replied as he left the tent and headed back towards his house.

He sprinted the entire way, using the Mana in his flesh to compensate for the strain that his enhanced muscles and heavy body were putting on his Stamina.

As he neared the Player House, he thought about how the Envoy of Nwetrou had been feeding information to Jun and one of the worshippers that Beck had encountered.

If they told those two about us, then isn’t it possible that they’ve also told others?

And if that’s the case, couldn’t those Players simply have blocked us in the Tavern to prevent us from using the Challenge Stone on them?

I really hope they haven’t gone that far, because that would make it impossible for us to do anything about them, and they would be free to wreak as much havoc as possible.

Adam entered his house with these thoughts in mind and went down into the basement restaurant.

“Show me a random Player that doesn’t worship Nwetrou, and who started with the Defender as their initial choice and received the Defender bonus from Stage Six,” Adam told the Eye.

[Understood.]

If his fears were correct, he needed some unknown third party to help him out, and he figured that a Player who picked the sword and shield at the start and got the Defender bonus in Stage Six would be someone agreeable.

Hopefully.

Alongside Beck and their two targets, a fourth person appeared opposite Adam. A European-looking woman. Her hair was dark-blonde and she had blueish eyes, as well as prominent cheeks and full lips. None of her Relics were visible, which surprised him, but he could tell that the white dress she wore had been spun from Weaver’s spidersilk, so it was possible she’d hid her Relics simply so they wouldn’t cover up her clothes. Aside from the Defender bonus, she had also received the ones for All Objectives and Plunderer, which meant her group had probably fared quite well in the Tower.

“Hello,” Adam said to get her attention.

The woman startled, no doubt surprised by Adam’s brutish appearance. She was in the middle of drinking a glass of wine and there was a plate of small crescent-shaped rolls in front of her, as well as a pristine bar of chocolate that she’d yet to touch.

“You got the Defender bonus, right?” Adam asked.

She nodded slowly.

“I got it too, from protecting another Player when a different person in our group tried to kill her,” Adam lied.

“And?” the woman asked, clearly not impressed. Adam realised that him just hitting up a random person to talk about himself probably seemed like some lame attempt at flirting.

“There are quite a lot of people who worship this very dangerous God called Nwetrou, but I’m worried some of them blocked me in the Tavern, because they know I’m hunting them,” he went on.

She nodded slightly, following along but saying nothing.

“They’re looking to kill Players and sacrifice them to their God,” Adam said.

Since he couldn’t hear the blood song of the holograms, because they weren’t really there, it was hard for him to fully gauge her reaction, but he thought that she would at least help him a little.

“What do you want me to do?” she asked.

“Can you ask your cube to count how many Players worship Nwetrou?”

“Is that all?” she asked.

Adam nodded.

The woman turned away to repeat the query to the Eye companion that Adam couldn’t see.

He waited with bated breath until she looked back in his direction.

“43, it says.”

Adam’s breath caught in his throat.

Fuck.

“How many Players worship Nwetrou,” he asked his cube, just to make sure the numbers hadn’t somehow changed since last time.

[41 Players.]

Adam frowned.

“Is that bad?” she asked.

“It is,” he replied. “Can you filter them to show only those who completed their patron quest in the last Stage?”

She turned away again for a moment.

“It’s down to 4 now,” she said.

Shit… They’re definitely the more troubling kind of worshippers then.

“Would you mind describing them to me?” Adam asked.

She apparently didn’t seem to find the request absurd, because she immediately went into detail about each of them. Two were predictably the targets Adam and Beck had already decided they would eliminate, but the other two were unknown to him.

One was a white woman with brown braided hair that was described as having a housewife sort of look to her, which Adam didn’t know how to fully interpret. She used a bow.

The other was an Indian guy with a thick moustache and what the woman described as ‘crazy’ hair. She couldn’t tell what weapon he had, but she said he wore the Mana Hoarder armour from the Tower.

“Do you need my help with anything else?” she asked once she was done describing them the Players.

“No, that was all, thank you so much,” he replied.

“It was nothing,” she said.

Adam smiled, before warning, “If you encounter someone who worships Nwetrou in future Stages, you should be wary of them. They may not all be bad, but their God is definitely evil. You’ll know them by their blueish skin and the gills on the side of their neck.”

“I will be vigilant,” she replied seriously.

“Have you been to the tent in the western part of the island yet?” Adam asked.

“I haven’t been there, no.”

“You should go. There is a vendor there who you can use your Mastery Shards with in exchange for special powers, like being able to carry a second weapon.”

“I wasn’t aware such a thing existed,” she said gratefully. “Thank you. My name is Eszter by the way.”

“I’m Adam,” he replied.

“I will go and find the tent,” she said and stood up, vanishing from his sight.

Adam turned to look at Beck.

“I’m back,” he said to his friend.

“Who were you talking to?” Beck asked.

“We have a problem,” Adam said. “There are two Players who are blocking both of us and who worship Nwetrou.”

Beck frowned. “I hadn’t considered such a thing. But I wonder why it’s only two of them who blocked us.”

“I don’t know, but they both completed their quests in Stage Six.”

“And there’s no way for us to do anything about them…” Beck muttered in frustration.

“I’m worried they may be fanatical zealots, left to sow as much chaos as possible beyond our reach,” Adam said.

“Squid Daddy really wants humanity to disappear, huh?” Beck remarked.

“I’m surprised that there are so many Players that’d willingly do his bidding,” Adam replied.

“Even with all the deaths, there are still millions of people left. For a handful of them to willingly do the bidding of the God of seafood or whatever is not so surprising.”

“I suppose not,” Adam conceded, chuckling at Beck’s random jabs.

“Well, let’s fuck up his day just a bit,” he went on, grinning at Adam.

“You sure you don’t want the parry guy?” Adam asked as Beck pulled out his Challenge Stone.

His friend paused, holding the marble in-between his fingers.

“I forgot to say,” he began, his tone serious as he looked Adam deep in his eyes with his violet spirals. “You look like a goddamn clown all bloated like that. Like you snort creatine recreationally and pump your muscles full of synthol using a turkey baster.”

Adam grinned.

“See you on the other side,” Beck said and vanished.

The Scandinavian Afflictionist vanished as well.

I’d better not leave him waiting too long, Adam thought as he ran upstairs and immediately prepared everything he needed for his Princely Raiment.

It was surprisingly fast to harvest twenty dummies and get enough material.

Before he activated his Beckoning Crimson spell and evolution skill, Adam made a second spell pattern vambrace for the Heart Lance with the spidersilk, putting it onto his left forearm to mirror the one on his right.

Then he manually activated Beckoning Crimson, leaving the spidersilk construct wrapped around his torso for later use, and drew in all the stored blood in the flesh-shaped vats around him.

A thick and dense red layer of armour surrounded him, but it was immediately pulled in to form his Princely Raiment, along with the copious amounts of flesh he’d stacked up.

The result was that his brutish form became that of a towering and monstrous hulk. And since he had used the Slothling Ogre as his dummy target, his raiment reflected its appearance quite well, giving him black fur around his torso and bone-white limbs. The helmet that appeared around his head was a round thing with a crown on top, making him seem even more like one of the ogres.

Hopefully this will scare the shit out of the guy, and then he’ll be dead before he knows what hit him.

Adam hurried downstairs, startling all of the denizens seated within.

“It’s still me,” he told them, but the helmet on his head made his voice sound like that of an ogre as well, and it hardly did anything to assuage their fears. “I’ll be back in a moment.”

He sat down on a chair, but it immediately broke under his tremendous weight. Instead of finding a different chair, he sat down on the table which held his weight, but only barely.

Then he pulled out the Challenge Stone and pointed it at the hologram of the Lebanese parry master.

< < Challenge Stone Activated > >

< You have forced Player Adnan Nasr into fighting you >

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--Encyclopaedia---
---Next Chapter----

Patreon price change

First off, I just want to reassure everyone who is already subscribed that the price they're paying will not change.

Since Loopshard is now 20 chapters ahead of RoyalRoad, I will be returning to the $10 Ascendant tier that I've had since 2023. I went down to the $5 Invoker tier for much of 2025 because I didn't have a big backlog of chapters and thus felt bad for charging a lot per month, but now that Patreon is basically half a book ahead of RoyalRoad, I am going back to this original price.

This change will take effect on December 1st.

However! Anyone who is subscribed to the $5 Invoker tier before December 1st will be grandfathered in, this means that they will keep their $5 per month price structure so long as they remain subscribed, while new subscribers after December 1st will have to pay $10 per month.

I don't want to punish anyone who has been subscribed to me for a while, hence why I'm letting everyone stick to their cheaper price structure if they remain subbed, because the support has really helped me a ton in 2025 and enabled me to pay for art like the covers that my patrons have seen, as well as gifs by Sieghiro which are featured on RoyalRoad, and it has also helped me afford to buy groceries.

Normally, I've had this idea that I would write 3 books at a time on a series and then switch to something new, but I decided that I would keep going on Loopshard until it's done. Also, while the backlog is currently 20 chapters, that number will continue to go up, since I can write about 4 new chapters every week, so we'll continue to outpace RR, even though I'm increasing the weekly chapter count on there to 3 per week, up from 2.

Loopshard - Chapter 126

-Previous Chapter-
--Encyclopaedia---
---Next Chapter----

We're now 20 chapters ahead of RR! That's almost 70k words!

In connection to that I'll have a public announcement out on Monday regarding Patreon tiers (not something that will affect anyone currently subbed mind you), so keep your eyes out for that.

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Chapter One-Hundred-and-Twenty-Six

Adam plopped down onto a seat in the basement restaurant of his house.

Belamouranthe and Weaver were already having a meal in the restaurant, both of them sitting on top of Finnian who had turned into a large blob after possibly eating too much.

Charlie seemed to be in quite a good mood when she came over to his table and asked for his order.

I should give her the Vanity next, Adam decided.

Since it released Weaver from her stall, it should allow Charlie to join Bel for dinner, without being forced to stand and watch when I’m present.

“I’ll have sushi today,” he said. “With warm sake and some of that sweet Japanese plum wine.”

“Umeshu?” she asked.

“That might be what it’s called, yeah.”

“What kind of fish would you like?” she continued.

“I don’t know a lot about sushi, so I’ll let you pick.”

Charlie nodded. “Is that all?”

“For now.”

“Understood,” she replied and walked off. Before she vanished through a door, she cast one last glance towards Belamouranthe.

Yeah, I’m definitely giving her the Vanity. I don’t even care what weapon I get in return.

As he waited for his food, Adam looked around at all the denizens that’d gathered in the restaurant after he entered. For some reason they all came here when he arrived, with Yenna providing music. In a way it was kind of nice, despite the fact that Sylvia was the only human amongst the lot of them. Even though he knew their companionship was a ploy to keep him engaged with the Trials, he appreciated not being the only person on the island.

Adam looked around at the empty tables.

I guess Beck is still busy.

Just to make sure his friend had actually survived, he queried the Eye.

[This Player is not currently seated in the Tavern.]

I hopefully don’t have to worry about him too much, Adam thought. He’s done this before, after all.

Adam rubbed his eyes.

Now then…

“Show me all the Players who worship Nwetrou.”

[Understood.]

To Adam’s dismay, more than ten people appeared around the various tables. There weren’t as many seats available in the basement restaurant as the Tavern, so they quickly cycled through, twelve at a time.

“How many is that?” he asked after failing to count them correctly.

[41 Players.]

Fuck…

Nwetrou is not messing around.

The damage might already be done if all of them completed their quests for Stage Six.

“Show me only the ones who completed their patron quest for Alepheria’s Crooked Tower.”

[Understood.]

All but two Players vanished.

It’s not as bad as I feared, but still… two of them succeeded in sacrificing other Players.

I should’ve been looking out for people like this. I could’ve at least stopped one of them if I’d checked before Stage Six.

I feel bad for Beck. When he loops again, all the rewards and groups will be different.

But maybe him and Gladwyn won’t end up in the same Altar group? That would be a silver lining at least.

Adam didn’t recognise either, but he could tell they were bad news just from looking at them. Both were men, and both had builds that Emelia had described as dangerous.

The first guy was a blonde European, possibly Scandinavian, who had a crooked nose and a scar on his chin that ran down to his Adam’s apple. His skin was tinged blue like a more intense version of what Jun had had, plus he had prominent gills on the sides of his neck. His weapon was a dagger that looked similar to the one for Assassin but was clearly a later evolution. It would likely still be based around afflictions, since Assassin boosted those by 50%. On top of that he had the Plague-Spreader Mask that made afflictions jump to another target when they killed someone.

He's probably stacking afflictions heavily. In Stage Seven he’d be able to get both Scoundrel’s Glove for that powerful Haemorrhage affliction on backstabs, and the Whale Eater’s Snap Gauntlet which doubles the effect for afflictions it applies.

That would present a huge damage boost for any Afflictionists.

He has to die before he can make it there.

The other guy had two weapons, which was only obvious because his spear leaned next to him while he was toying with a rapier in his hands, apparently cleaning his nails with the tip. He clearly had the type of build that Emelia would have called a Parry Master, because the spear behind him was the Spear Dancer evolution of Hoplite, which added the parry shield. He had darker skin than the first guy, but their skin tones ended up looking quite similar thanks to the blue pallor that worshipping Nwetrou clearly gifted. His hair was black and curly, and Adam thought he might be Lebanese because he looked a bit like the actor Lee Majdoub. Since he was clearly double-dipping in both parrying and boosting damage with speed, his Relics reflected the setup, because he wore the Slothling boots and fur coat, as well as the Chimaera Helmet and Vigilant Fighter’s Vambrace, which Kate had also used with her rapier to create weak spots.

I don’t think he can parry my spells the way I’m using them, Adam thought.

I could probably kill both of them, but I have to pick one…

Charlie arrived with his sushi and alcohol, and he took a break to happily devour every bite, though he wasn’t familiar with most of the fish involved. Charlie helpfully explained what fish and seafood each piece of nigiri was topped with, and his favourites of the bunch were fatty tuna, eel, sea urchin, and snow crab, though all of it was quite delicious.

I don’t think I can go back to eating California rolls after this…

He’d consumed the warm sake along with his sushi, but afterwards he slowly sipped his glass of umeshu which was extremely sweet but had a great taste of plum.

Once he was done eating, Adam created a special query to keep track of the two Players while he continued looking through the other 39 Nwetrou worshippers.

It wasn’t a lot of people, but it was still too many, since each of them had the power to permanently erase other Players. Of course, anyone who had visited the deep place and spoken with the squid would possess the Abyssal Tooth, but Adam felt like only those that worshipped Nwetrou might actually use it, although there was obviously no guarantee for that.

I should probably look at how many possess the Tooth, but it might be too many for me to meaningfully do anything about.

The people he looked through mostly seemed like the kind who were just barely surviving by the skin of their teeth, and thus wouldn’t have the opportunity or power to really fulfil Nwetrou’s tasks, let alone most of the Absolute’s tasks. Also, their skin colour hadn’t changed quite as drastically as the two murderers’.

Adam suddenly recalled a memory from his last time in Stage Seven. Emelia had mentioned that Ruimin normally got the Masked Courtesan, but she’d instead gotten Nwetrou.

Has he been interfering with my loops? Adam wondered.

Since Nwetrou’s Envoy had told Adam that he despised time-loopers, Adam thought he might be a target for the Absolute’s ire somehow.

Emelia also said that our team in Stage Seven used to work together really well… Maybe that was because Ruimin had the Courtesan’s charming power?

Either Emelia didn’t know about the Courtesan, or Kate was just really dangerous with it, since she was a very touchy person and naturally had a charming personality. Ruimin struck me more as someone who didn’t take charge and she was definitely quite shy.

There are so many things going on here that it’s hard to wrap my head around…

I truly feel like every Absolute has their own plans that we are all unwitting pawns in.

Adam leaned back in his chair.

There were a few of the Nwetrou worshippers that hadn’t cleared their first task but who looked competent enough to attempt the second one.

The Cloud Leviathan…

If Nwetrou is truly targeting me, then I might encounter another of his worshippers in Stage Seven.

A part of him thought that he would be able to kill anything with his setup, since it wasn’t based around damage, but instead control.

Although, I wonder if I could kill Mast-Chewer, since she had the ability to disrupt magic with her roar. That might prevent me from controlling her blood and flesh to kill her.

If all Slug Dragons possess such a power, then I may not be able to kill them with magic, after all. And if they all possess that, then a Cloud Leviathan would as well, since it’s evolved from them.

“Adam,” Beck said, startling him.

He dismissed his query for the 39 worshippers as he looked over at his friend, but he kept the one for the two murderers intact.

“We have a problem,” he said.

Adam grimaced, realising that Beck had experienced something in Stage Six as well. “Nwetrou is after you,” he replied.

“Did you encounter his adherents too?” Beck asked.

“Adherents? You had more than one in your Stage?” Adam replied.

“There were three in my Stage… I know that Diviner sacrificed quite a few people in my last loop, but I didn’t expect everything to change that much. My Altar group was the same, but for the Tower… It was a completely different group, and there were six of us.”

“Three worshippers in your group?” Adam asked, horrified.

“Only one of them seemed to have been fed info directly from Nwetrou, but the other worshippers quickly assisted him. I did my best to keep the remaining two Players alive while we were hunted down, and we were lucky that they ran into a mimic before finding us. But I was the only survivor at the end. Although, I somehow managed to get all of the objectives, and I even got the Crawler’s Eye again,” he said, lifting a large volleyball-sized eyeball up in front of himself with his right hand. It was literally the Tower Crawler’s eye, except smaller, which Adam thought was kind of weird as far as weapons went.

The coloured dots next to Beck showed that he had obtained the Plunderer, All Secrets, Eradication, All Objectives, Flawless, and MVP bonuses. On top of probably killing 3 Players and getting all of the rewards for the objectives scaled to a 6-man group, it meant he should’ve gotten around 22,000 Points.

“You should invest your Points into a lot of upgrades,” Adam told him. “I’m pretty sure the fun isn’t over yet.”

“What do you mean?” Beck asked.

“Tell the Eye to show you how many people are worshipping Nwetrou.”

Beck looked away to perform the query, but quickly frowned at what he was shown.

“41 Players…” he groaned. “That’s bad.”

“I’m willing to bet we’ll encounter them again in Stage Seven,” Adam said. “The guy who joined my group for the Tower said that the squid told him about me, and that we should work together, since the Flayed Lady wanted me to kill another Player for my quest.”

“Damn it,” Beck muttered.

“Also,” Adam went on. “Two of those 41 worshippers actually sacrificed someone in Stage Six.”

“I’ll get the Challenge Stone,” Beck said decisively, arriving at the same conclusion as Adam. “I’ll finish evolving the Crawler’s Eye to get the shards I’m missing. We can’t let those lunatics live, they’ll just turn into another Diviner.”

Adam nodded. “I’m getting the Challenge Stone too. We’ll each take out one. One is focused on parrying and the other is an Afflictionist, which one do you want?”

“It doesn’t matter,” Beck said. “The Crawler’s Eye allows me and my attacks to become invisible, so I can kill whichever one I get in a single attack unless they have some Relic that protects them.”

“I actually got the Crawler’s Arm and evolved it all the way,” Adam replied. “It has the same kind of invisibility.”

“It’s super useful,” Beck said. “The arm is something I’ve seen a few people use in my last loop. But the invisibility is a lot stronger when you’ve got magic that doesn’t make much sound.”

New fear added to the collection, Adam thought.

While the Beck he’d met the first time had seemed very reckless and too focused on speed, the one who sat before him now was a very unassuming demon wizard. Because he’d had the odds severely stacked against him fighting three of Nwetrou’s assassins, on top of taking on the challenging Stage, all while doing every objective and not getting hit a single time. Not to mention, this was only his second time through.

I believe him when he says he can kill whichever of the two Players he’s up against.

“I’ll take on the one with the rapier and parry spear,” Adam said.

“Phew,” Beck muttered, deflating slightly. “I was a bit worried you’d make me handle that one. I still have flashbacks to my spells getting parried… That puts the fear of God in you. Or Gods, in this case, I suppose.”

“There was something useful I discovered from the Nwetrou worshipper in my group, actually,” Adam said, changing the topic slightly.

“Do share.”

“The ability to traverse between dimensions while in a Stage is a power gifted by Nwetrou.”

Beck sighed. “So much for getting my hands on that. It’s one of the Abyssal Gifts, right?”

Adam nodded. “I’m pretty sure it’s the Eye of Nwetrou gift.”

“Why is it always eye stuff…” Beck said with a frown. “Also, do you think Nwetrou is after me because I killed his champion?”

“Possibly. The Tome Keeper said that Absolutes can be quite petty. At least when it comes to him and the Flayed Lady, but I’m guessing it applies to most if not all of them.”

“Speaking of the Lady,” Beck said. “I see you’re well on your way to becoming a vampire already. I can’t say I fancy the look. Fangs don’t really suit you.”

Adam blinked. “Is that what my transformation is?” he replied. “The denizens kept making remarks about my appearance.”

“Yeah, your teeth already look crazy and you’ve gotten really pale. All you need now is an uncomfortable obsession with a teenage girl and sparkly skin, and you’ve got yourself a lead role in Twilight. Oh, but no, the eyes are different.”

Adam frowned.

“You should ask Charlie to bring you a mirror,” Beck added.

He did just that, and a minute later he was staring at his own reflection.

Holy hell…

‘Pale’ had been an understatement, because Adam’s somewhat tan skin had turned white like a sheet of A4 paper. His canines had grown bigger and elongated slightly, though not to the point that he would have noticed without being told or seeing it in his reflection.

“They’ll get longer after the Floating Sea,” Beck told him while Adam was busy prodding his teeth. “I met a Flayed Lady worshipper in my Moonport group, and she had actual fangs. She didn’t drink anyone’s blood though. At least not that I noticed.”

“Ugh, I hate vampires…” Adam groaned. “It’s totally not my style.”

Beck nodded. “You strike me more as a werewolf guy.”

“I’ve heard that a lot,” Adam said.

Out of everything that’d changed, the worst part was his eyes. His irises were originally amber, like a golden-orange brown hue. But what looked back at him were two red marbles with a black line going through the middle, almost like a progress bar.

What the hell will happen to me when the transformation is complete?

“Wait,” Adam said. “When I encountered another worshipper of the Flayed Lady in a previous loop during the seventh Stage, he didn’t look like this.”

“Did he do the quest in Stage Six?” Beck asked.

“I have no idea.”

“I think it may be tied to that.”

“So, that’s why all of the Nwetrou worshippers apart from those two don’t have quite as prominent skin discolouration,” Adam realised.

“It’s part of their gifts,” Beck said.

“I need to tell you about something crazy that happened to me, by the way,” Adam started, before going on to explain everything involving Kate and her charming power.

When he was done, Beck had a contemplative look on his face.

“That explains a lot,” he said. “Some of the factions that appear in the Lightless City and afterwards are concentrated around worshippers of the Courtesan. I didn’t put two and two together though, but that’s a dangerous power for anyone to wield.”

Adam nodded.

“Alright, well,” Beck started. “We’ve got our targets, let’s meet back here after we’ve both gotten the Challenge Stone and then we’ll take them out at the same time. You know, just in case they’re talking to each other or something.”

“Sounds like a plan,” Adam replied.

There was still a bit left before it would get dark, but Beck needed to get some more Mastery Shards, and Adam wanted to test out his new spells before attempting to use them in a fight against Nwetrou’s adherent.

As Adam practised his new skills, his heart wouldn’t stop pounding in his chest. He had never thought that he would use the Challenge Stone to take someone out.

How quickly things change…

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--Encyclopaedia---
---Next Chapter----

Loopshard - Chapter 125

-Previous Chapter-
--Encyclopaedia---
---Next Chapter----

I should have chapter 126 out early tomorrow. It's already done but needs to be edited.

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Chapter One-Hundred-and-Twenty-Five

Adam hadn’t seen Luvicidix since before Stage Five, so he’d missed her transformation into a humanoid, and since his mind had been so occupied with many other thoughts, it briefly surprised him to behold her new visage as she alighted on the ground before him.

Also, she looked upset.

“Sorry that I didn’t talk to you after the Altar,” he said, pre-empting her complaint. “I just didn’t have anything I wanted to buy.”

Her large eyes brightened at his words.

“I’ll say!” she exclaimed, though she was smiling. “I was so excited for you, since you saved all the Players in the Forbidden Altar, but then you never called for me!”

“I didn’t realise you were following along with how I fared inside the Stages,” he replied.

“Well of course I do!” she said.

“My trip to the tower didn’t go super well,” Adam added.

“While I disapprove of your choice of Absolute, I think you did a good thing in taking out Nwetrou’s adherent,” she said, surprising him once again.

“I didn’t think you were allowed to comment on the other Gods,” he responded.

“Who said that?” she asked.

“I don’t know, that’s just the feeling I got.”

“The All-Seeing System forbids us from aiding Players directly, but we are allowed to have opinions and comments on things that have already come to pass.”

“Then what was that warning about?” Adam asked. “You told me to be careful.”

“I… I cannot say,” she replied.

“Was it about the Flayed Lady?” he asked.

Luvicidix did a ‘my lips are sealed’ gesture across her mouth.

“Why is everyone being so cryptic?” Adam muttered, annoyed. “You do know it just makes me more distrustful of people I encounter, right? Also, the Flayed Lady has so far been good to me, even if she’s very controlling.”

Luvicidix frowned, but didn’t say anything.

She’s definitely not a fan of her.

“So,” Adam said, after letting the silence hang for a few seconds. “Do you have a new upgrade for me?”

“I sure do!” she exclaimed and gestured with a hand in front of her.

< < Meta Upgrades For Sale > >

< Mana — Increase Mana by 50 — 5000 Points >

< Saved Weapon — Start every loop with a saved Weapon of Common rarity — 10000 Points >

< Scale of Remembrance — 2630/25000 Points >

“That’s so expensive…” Adam groaned.

“I don’t decide the prices,” she replied.

“Who does?”

“I cannot say.”

“Of course not. So, how does it work? Do I just start with a saved weapon in my next loop or can I still pick a weapon from the start selection?”

“Since you have unlocked the Second Sheath from my sister, you will received your Saved Weapon in that secondary slot. It will not hinder you from selecting a starting weapon.”

Adam nodded.

That’s very useful then. Probably explains the price tag. And I’m guessing it works like the Saved Relic upgrade, so each rarity tier up is going to be another 10,000 Points. Which means that saving Blood Mage would cost 40,000, and the Spidersilk Needle would cost 50,000.

Actually…

“Would I be able to save my Spidersilk Needle?” he asked.

“No. That weapon is tied directly to the Vanity mirror and Weaver.”

Damn.

“What about evolutions, they’re not saved, right?”

“Correct.”

“Are there other weapons than the ones tied to the island’s denizens that I can’t save?” he asked.

“I cannot say.”

Adam frowned. “That’s unhelpful.”

“Sorry,” Luvicidix replied.

“I’ll be back later,” Adam told her. “Think I’m better off spending my Points elsewhere.”

“Don’t be a stranger!” Luvicidix yelled as she took to the sky and time resumed.

Now then, I think I should find Sylvia before I hit up the restaurant and search for Nwetrou worshippers. Besides, I wouldn’t be able to do anything to them until after I’ve visited Alivida and gotten the Challenge Stone.

But I hope it won’t be necessary.

Still, it’s doubtful that Jun was the only one sent to fuck up this universe.

And if there are others, they’ve probably managed to sacrifice Players during Stage Six…

Adam flew above the houses as he crossed the island to get to the Tavern where the melody of Sylvia’s blood sang out to him. The more he focused on it, the more he could tell she worshipped the Flayed Lady just like him, because inside her was some part that resonated differently than all the other denizens whose song he could hear with the Mandate of Blood.

Sylvia walked out of the Tavern with Migraine in tow just as Adam landed in front of the building.

“You got trophies for Migraine?” the purple goblin asked.

“I don’t,” Adam told him. “I’m here to buy scrolls from Sylvia.”

“Aww,” Migraine moaned.

Sylvia looked down at Adam’s new hand. “The Flayed Lady must have taken quite a liking to you,” she commented. Then she looked up and met Adam’s eyes. “The transformation is underway as well, I see.”

Adam blinked.

Transformation?

“I see you’re not aware of that aspect of her gift,” Sylvia remarked. “You should find a mirror.”

Is this why Yenna said I looked pale?

“What am I turning into?” Adam asked.

“I cannot say,” she replied.

Adam suppressed a frown. He’d heard the same line in response to so many of his questions that there was no point continuing to get upset about it.

“Show me your wares,” he told her.

< < Spell Scrolls For Sale > >

< Frost — Your next attack inflicts Frostbite, halting all of target’s regeneration — 200 Points >

< Conflagrate — Your next attack inflicts Conflagration, dealing periodic burn damage to target — 200 Points >

< Zap — Your next attack inflicts Electrification, periodically draining target’s Mana — 200 Points >

< Desiccate — Your next attack inflicts Wither, increasing damage inflicted to target by 50% — 200 Points >

< Tangle — Snare indicated target — 500 Points >

< Blood Crystal — Crystalise targeted blood — 600 Points >

< Heart Lance — Launch a beam of pressurised blood — 600 Points >

< Blink — Teleport to indicated location within your line-of-sight — 750 Points >

< Beckoning Crimson — Pull all spilled blood within 10 metres to you to replace lost health. Excess blood turns into a flexible layer of armour — 1000 Points >

< Shade Barrier — Negate the next attack that deals damage to you — 2000 Points >

I want to test out my theory first, so I’ll buy the cheapest blood spell she has.

< < Spell Scroll Purchased > >

< Blood Crystal >

< 5425 Points Remaining >

Adam took the spell scroll from Sylvia’s hand and immediately pulled blood out of his own body, floating it in front of himself as a small spherical ball.

He took a few steps away from Sylvia and Migraine, and then he read the scroll while holding it in his left hand and channelling it through his right.

“Blood Crystal,” he intoned.

Energy flowed into his hand, making the crimson glass glow alongside the trigger sigil.

The ball of blood in front of him crystallised in the same way as the Fiendbarb effect, except it was under his control and not a chaotic chain reaction.

Unlike when Adam had used Alepheria’s Mandate to understand the barrier spell inside his spell-tome, the Mandate of Blood activated as he used the spell. It continued to glow after the spell scroll vanished and the ball of crystallised blood lost the bit of his Mana used to keep it under his control, dropping to the ground where it shattered into glass like fragments.

The glow in his hand condensed into a ball and then flowed into his veins.

Adam gasped as he felt the knowledge forcefully lance itself into his mind, inserted like a large syringe and pumping his consciousness full of the spell’s intricacies.

I think it worked.

He brought out a small amount of his own blood and floated it around like a coiling serpent in the air, before mentally activating the specific frequency that was required for its melody to change.

The coiling blood crystallised and he quickly pulled it apart into individual fragments, before shooting them all forward and into the side of a building just as the last embers of his Mana faded from them.

Adam turned to face Sylvia. “I’ll buy all of your spells that can work with blood magic. Except for Blood Crystal.”

The blood mage apprentice frowned. “I don’t approve of this, but I do not make the rules.”

“Do you really care about the Points it would’ve cost me to learn the spells from you?” Adam asked.

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“I cannot say.”

There’s gotta be some important reason as to why all the denizens care about Points, and why Alivida is concerned with collecting Mastery Shards.

Sylvia pulled out scrolls for Tangle, Heart Lance, Blink, Beckoning Crimson, and Shade Barrier.

“That will be 4850 Points,” she said.

“I don’t need Tangle,” Adam told her. After all, he already knew how to cast something similar.

She put that particular scroll back into her cloak. “4350 Points then.”

“Deal.”

< < Spell Scrolls Purchased > >

< Heart Lance >

< Blink >

< Beckoning Crimson >

< Shade Barrier >

< 1075 Points Remaining >

I’ll have to ask Beck to help me test the Shade Barrier.

Adam wanted to test out all the spells to learn them with his Legendary Relic, but since the shade spell required him to take damage and Beckoning Crimson required a lot of blood around him, he stuck with just trying out Blink and Heart Lance for now.

Migraine left as Adam lined up to hit one of the distant houses, but Sylvia stayed behind to watch. He made sure that there were no people in the direction he picked by listening to the melodies around him, and then he read the lance scroll, firing it through his right hand. It was only after activating it that he remembered that he couldn’t tell where Sprite and Finnian were, so he just hoped they weren’t on that part of the island.

Since the scroll itself was charged with magic, it simply summoned blood into Adam’s right hand, as opposed to drawing it out from within him, and then his hand automatically closed around the small ball of blood in his palm, forming a beak with the fingers.

Adam held his hand like that for a couple of seconds, but then suddenly the Heart Lance fired, shooting a thin beam of blood out from between his fingers.

It was completely silent until it struck a distant house and went all the way through.

That’s really strong, Adam thought as the beam disappeared from sight. Sounds from the distant houses behind his target indicated that the lance kept going for a while.

As the spell fully concluded, the glass hand fed the knowledge of how to cast the spell back into Adam’s body.

Unlike the Blood Crystal spell, it was quite a lot more complicated.

He had to first draw out quite a complex three-dimensional pattern shaped like three overlaid wire-frame pyramids that held a floating ball of blood in the middle, and then he needed to precisely close his hand over the ball in the beak shape before it would fire.

Aiming it like this would be quite difficult if I’m on the move.

“Fascinating,” Sylvia muttered to herself after he fired another shot that went through a row of houses.

“How so?” Adam asked, turning to her.

“It is different from how I would have taught you to cast the spell,” she explained.

“Really? How so?”

She paused and Adam shook his hand dismissively, “You can’t say, right?”

Sylvia shrugged.

Adam brought out the Blink scroll and held it in his right hand. He wasn’t quite sure how exactly he would learn it, but he figured the Mandate of Blood might translate it into a type of spell he could understand and utilise with his blood sigils.

He focused on the roof of the Interdimensional Tavern and triggered the spell.

The air was pulled out of his lungs, and then he gasped and found himself standing exactly where he’d been wanting to teleport to.

That was weird.

The knowledge flowed back into his body from his glass hand.

Adam frowned.

It was ludicrously complicated, and the version he’d learnt was clearly tied to blood magic, since there was no way he’d be able to cast it with the Summoner’s wand.

But I don’t think that Sylvia was entirely correct about how it would work with blood magic, to say nothing of flesh magic.

I’m quite sure I don’t need to use it on another flesh-and-blood creature, if I’m understanding it right.

With a nudge of his power, Adam pulled some non-essential flesh and fat from his left leg and shaped it into a simple hand that he fired down at the wall of a house below him, close to Sylvia. The hand left his range of control, but didn’t evaporate or disappear, which was something he’d already been utilising with his flesh magic whenever he reached capacity. When it struck the wall, the short talons he’d given it dug in and it stuck loosely to the brickwork.

Then Adam activated his two rings to get enough blood for the spell.

First he formed a floating double-helix ring around his head and torso, essentially orbiting his brain and heart, which was a safety measure baked into the spell. Next he made a wire-frame sphere of blood, within which was a pyramid that had its four points connected to the sphere.

To activate the spell, Adam shoved his hand into the pyramid within the sphere, before flooding it with all the Mana available to him.

Instead of the air in his lungs getting sucked out, it instead felt like Adam’s blood was pulled from his body and into his hand.

Then suddenly he was hanging from the wall where he’d fired the flesh-shaped hand, his fingers sprouting talons of their own.

Adam let go of the wall and dropped half a metre to the ground. Then he unshaped the talons from his fingers, returning them to normal.

That was quite slow.

It had taken him about a minute to nail the shape of the ball and two double-helix rings, and it consumed 35 Mana, which was just below his total of 40, since Prince’s Gambit used up the other 40.

But at least I can teleport to a flesh construct outside of my manipulation range.

That’ll allow me to leave behind constructs as teleport points in a Stage, which presents some really cool ways to traverse Stages.

I need to test it more though, just to make sure I can use it from really far away and without requiring line-of-sight like the default Blink spell.

“Your mastery is improving,” Sylvia told Adam. “I did not realise the spell could be utilised in such a way, and you formed the spell pattern correctly on your first attempt.”

“Is it the same as the one you would’ve taught me?”

“No,” she replied. She seemed a bit annoyed, if he was judging the look on her face and melody of her blood correctly. It was possible that Adam’s version of Blink was better than hers, especially since she’d made it seem like it would only work with a full-bodied target.

Adam looked at his crimson glass hand.

Knowledge is truly power.

I wouldn’t have had the first clue about how to do this without the Mandate.

“Would you also like to buy my elemental scrolls?” Sylvia asked.

“Maybe tomorrow,” he replied.

She gave him a look. “You won’t be here tomorrow,” she said.

“What do you mean?”

“Your next Stage lasts three days,” she replied.

“Oh, right. For some reason I thought that time flowed differently on Interim Island.”

“It is the same time,” she replied but then froze, a weird look on her face.

“Same time?” he asked.

Sylvia walked off without a word.

“What do you mean it’s the same time!?” he yelled after her, but she didn’t stop.

The melody emanating from her had a discordant note to it. It was as if she was in pain.

What the hell was she trying to tell me?

-----------------------------

-Previous Chapter-
--Encyclopaedia---
---Next Chapter----

Loopshard - Chapter 124

-Previous Chapter-
--Encyclopaedia---
---Next Chapter----

I forgot to account for the Tower Crawler bonus at the end of chapter 122, so the original Point total was 2000 Points short, putting it at 26500 and not 24500.

There are quite a few things to keep track of, and I had fucked up my notes, hence why I didn't realise <.< Anyway, it's fixed now.

-----------------------------

Chapter One-Hundred-and-Twenty-Four

It quickly dawned on Adam what the Flayed Lady had meant by ‘song’, because his new Legendary Relic, the Mandate of Blood, was transmitting a melody up through his veins and into his brain. It was like an orchestra and it grew louder and more complex as he neared the Market.

I think the vendors and their blood is somehow singing to me…

It feels so bizarre.

But he understood how powerful it was just on the surface-level, to say nothing of mastering it, because it essentially allowed him to understand where all living creatures were in relation to him.

It’s astounding that there are so many different melodies mixed together and yet they form a coherent song, he mused.

When he focused, he could pick out individual melodies. From the direction of the Market came eight different tones. Surprisingly, there was also one far above him, but he realised that it must belong to Luvicidix who seemed to reside in the clouds. Aside from her, there were also four melodies coming from behind him, in the direction of the Tavern. But that meant two were missing, since Alivida only showed up at night.

I don’t think Finnian and Sprite are a part of the song.

It somehow felt disturbing to him, because he couldn’t track them in the same way as everyone else.

I also don’t hear anything from the Player House, so the critters in the garden must not be alive. Although… there is a blossoming tone coming from that way. I’m guessing it’s the flame in the lighthouse, though I’m not sure why it would sing with the Blood.

“Hello, Adam,” came a voice from his right, startling him.

It was Sprite.

I can’t rely too much on this power, he realised as he slowly turned to face the shadowy alchemist. Since it doesn’t resonate with elementals and possibly other such entities, they could easily sneak up on me if I focus too much on the melodies I can hear.

“Have you collected any new plants for me?” Sprite asked.

“As a matter of fact, I found a few things you might want,” he replied, taking off his backpack and digging out some stuff he’d collected as he’d flown across the forest to reach the end of Stage Six.

The first thing he handed the alchemist was a flat and grey-brown mushroom. Adam had found it growing from the side of a large tree.

“Gloamcap,” Sprite replied, stowing it into one of his crowded belt bags. “Induces vomiting and diarrhoea if consumed raw, but when cooked or used in a potion it has an invigorating effect.”

Adam frowned. “Do I need to wash my hands?”

“You will be fine, Adam. The island will save you from such afflictions. It is truly an alchemist’s paradise. I can experiment as much as I wish without causing harm to my subjects.”

“Did you just say ‘subjects’?” he asked suspiciously.

Sprite yanked the next plant out of Adam’s open backpack without waiting for him to offer it, conveniently ignoring the question.

“A dandelion. Unfortunately, it is safe to consume raw.”

“Unfortunately?”

“When brewed with the bark of a Dayspur Oak and the leaves of a Trickleberry, it can boost one’s spatial awareness and balance. When brewed with the berries of a Trickleberry and the leaves of a Dayspur, it produces a delicious wine that only has a one-in-three chance of permanently blinding you.”

Now I really want to know who the hell his subjects are…

The last thing Adam brought out of his bag was a large leaf. It was the size of his torso and he’d caught it while flying as it floated up and out of the forest, following some upwards draft.

“Fascinating,” Sprite said. “This is the leaf of a bush known as a Winter’s Roost. I don’t know what it does, since this is my first time actually seeing it, but I will do some experimentations and let you know.”

“Not on people, right?”

“See you, Adam!” Sprite said and sauntered off towards the Tavern excitedly.

“Not on people!” Adam shouted after the mad alchemist.

If someone gets violently sick because of him, then I’m punting his tiny body off the island.

< < Quest Progress > >

< Plantastic Alchemy >

< Sprite would like you to bring him plants from 5 different Stages >

< Progress — 1/5 >

Damn, I thought for a second that maybe I could cheese the quest, since Sprite accepted all three plants.

I should’ve been looking for plants in the Forbidden Altar.

Oh well.

Adam continued onwards to the Market, listening to the melody of the song that came from its direction.

As he kept his ears tuned to the frequencies, he noticed something.

There was a background hum. It was deep and bassy compared to all the rest, but he had initially not noticed it, thinking it was just the wind.

Adam stopped next to one of the houses on the island. They were basically full-formed at this point, a testament to just how many Players had died.

“How many survived this time?” Adam asked the Eye.

[5 million 212 thousand Players survived Stage Four.]

That’s nearly a fifth of how many survived in my fourth loop.

This universe is truly fucked.

But since the All-Seeing System was able to move me back to a previous layer to save Beck, it could in theory rewind all the layers back to the beginning to save a universe from this sort of thing.

Or maybe not?

Perhaps it was only possible because of the power inside me?

The Realm Traveller should possess that power though.

Adam returned his focus to the background hum.

It must be coming from the island itself, he thought.

That makes me want to try something.

With an activation of his two rings, he summoned enough blood to allow him to set a few spell pattern traps on the houses around him.

But instead of sacrificing his shoes to trigger them, Adam instead honed in on the melodies emanating from them. They were all singing with his melody and when he realised this, he understood how limited he’d been viewing his own power. Even when the blood floated far away from him or was fixed into a spell pattern, he could still communicate with it, because it was a part of him. It was truly no different than flexing a muscle to move a finger.

Adam sent a chord through his connection to the blood in the traps and they all activated simultaneously. And as the spell patterns exploded and created large holes into the hollow buildings, he noticed that the background hum took on a discordant note for a brief moment.

The island is alive, so it can feel pain.

I don’t know why I didn’t realise that.

But I think it should be possible to make the island’s eye blink if I surprise it by dealing enough damage to its body.

There are no doubt other less barbarian ways of going about it, but this should at least be a surefire way to fulfil the requirements to unlock the Keening.

Adam continued on to the Market, but felt excited about how much he was already learning in this loop.

It was truly foolish to invoke the System’s ire by carelessly abandoning my past loops, and it was a disservice to myself and my mission to grow strong enough to protect my friends.

I need to stay in this universe as long as I can, so that I can both save Beck from whatever is preventing him from looping again, but also so that when I find a universe where all my friends are still alive, I can actually protect them all the way through.

“Good morning, Adam,” greeted Yenna as he walked past her and the fountain.

Adam paused for a moment to listen to her melody.

As expected of a musician, even the blood inside her has a wonderful rhythm.

“Are you okay?” she asked, concerned. “You look quite pale.”

“I’m good,” he told her and continued down past the stalls until he reached Lucca’s.

“Hello, Adam,” she said.

“I’ve brought some things to sell,” he told her and pulled out all the Relics he wasn’t keeping. He also had the Eye transport his remaining Chimaera Stone and the True Flame’s Icon crown to his Player House, since he didn’t want to sell either.

“The total will be 1825 Points,” Lucca said.

“Deal.”

< < Relics Sold > >

< Queen’s Pendant (Epic) >

< Duellist’s Glove (Rare) x2 >

< Purple Slime Glove (Rare) >

< Slothling Fur Coat (Rare) >

< Slothling Spring Boots (Rare) >

< Vigilant Fighter’s Vambrace (Rare) >

< Bone Breeches (Uncommon) >

< 28625 Points Remaining >

Adam kept the earrings, since they could come in handy later, particularly if he found a way to make one massive trap instead of a bunch of small ones, or if he needed to kill something decisively in one hit.

They may also work on the ballistae that the airships are fitted with, he considered.

Adam didn’t think he’d use the Body of Corruption armour that he’d gotten from the demon he’d summoned, but he wanted to test it out before selling it. He’d also decided to sell the Queen’s Pendant since he simply couldn’t imagine using it now. After all, being Scorned by the Flayed Lady was absolutely going to fuck him up.

“Would you like to see my wares?” Lucca asked.

“Sure, it couldn’t hurt,” he replied.

The spider gestured towards the black chest behind her in the stall and it glowed with golden light, popping open to reveal five holograms. Two were green, another two were blue, and the last glowed purple.

< < Relics For Sale > >

< Grafted Skin (Uncommon) — Cover a wound to heal it completely. 1 use >

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

< Lead Coating (Rare) — Increases the impact of physical weapon attacks by 50% | Lowers attack speed by 50% >

< Sentient Amalgam Helmet (Uncommon) — Reactively defends against direct physical attacks and repairs itself if organic material is available | Cannot be unequipped while the armour is alive and fuses itself with other Armour Relics already worn >

< Grafted Tail (Epic) — Grows a tail on your body >

That Amalgam Helmet sounds like a truly cursed item. No way an uncommon item with such a power won’t be a threat to its user.

Anyway, I’ve obviously gotta get the tail.

< < Relic Purchased > >

< Grafted Tail (Epic) >

< 27625 Points Remaining >

As the tail attached itself to the bottom of Adam’s spine, he heard how the melody of his blood wavered for a moment, until stabilising into a new ever-so-slightly-different tone.

Weirdly, moving the new limb around came to him naturally and he didn’t even have to think about it much.

I can’t wait to play around with this thing, he thought. It should come in handy aboard the airships and floating settlements in the next Stage.

“Would you like to buy anything else?” Lucca asked.

“I’m good for now,” Adam replied and went over to Thea’s stall, his new tail swishing around behind him.

“Swap out my Spidersilk Needle for Gram again,” Adam told the Eye.

[Understood.]

Then he bought 12 Chip Stone upgrades from Thea.

< < Weapon Upgrades Purchased > >

< Chip Stone x12 >

< 22225 Points Remaining >

The second evolution at level 12 removed the stone covering the handle.

< < Evolution > >

< Revealed Handle — Base Speed stat increased to 150% >

The final one at level 18 made the scabbard slide off the blade, which was now completely free of stone. With the stone gone, the weapon was revealed to be made entirely of gold, with the scabbard, handle, and blade all glowing. It was incredibly absurd to look at though.

< < Evolution > >

< Revealed Blade — Base Damage stat increased to 200% >

< Unique Skill ( Wyrm Slayer ) | Perform a piercing thrust that penetrates all physical defences >

[You have fully evolve the Mythical Hero Weapon Type. With the stone removed from the weapon, you may now upgrade it like you would any normal weapon.]

“Are there more evolutions to unlock?”

[No.]

Dang.

Well, it does seem like a powerful weapon regardless.

“Show me what the Mythical Hero’s base stats look like now.”

[Understood.]

< Mythical Hero >

< Level 0 >

< Stats >

< Health — 200 >

< Stamina — 200 >

< Mana — 0 >

< Damage — 200% >

< Defence — 50% >

< Speed — 150% >

< Luck — 0 >

With the Anvil Splitter and Wyrm Slayer skills, it’s quite a powerful weapon, and the stats are really good, aside from the Defence.

“Show me the upgrades for this weapon,” he told Thea.

< < Weapon Upgrades For Sale > >

< Sword Damage (Rare) — Increases sword damage by 15% >

< Sword Speed (Rare) — Increases sword attack speed by 35% >

< Sword Growth (Epic) — Increases sword length by 70% >

< Block (Uncommon) — Increases block effectiveness by 10% >

< Impact (Rare) — Increases the power behind attacks by 15% >

Those are the same upgrades as for Warrior, he realised. Which means the sixth one is probably Deflect effectiveness.

Anyway, that’s three down. Two more max evolutions to go.

Along with the evolutions he’d also gained two new Mastery Shards, putting his total at seven.

“Swap out Gram for the Crawler’s Arm,” Adam told the Eye.

It zapped the sword out of his hands and replaced it with the large skeletal limb. Despite how heavy the golden sword had been, the arm was somehow twice as heavy and Adam was unable to hold it unsupported for more than a few seconds. With a loud clunk, he set the arm down on the ground.

The upgrades on offer in Thea’s stall changed to accommodate the new weapon.

< < Weapon Upgrades For Sale > >

< Club Damage (Rare) — Increases club damage by 15% >

< Club Speed (Rare) — Increases club attack speed by 35% >

< Club Weight (Uncommon) — Increases club weight by 10% >

< Stamina Efficiency (Rare) — Reduces the stamina cost of attacks by 15% >

< Overpower (Uncommon) — Increases defence penetration by 10% >

Huh, it’s a club?

Adam purchased 18 upgrades to max out the weapon, putting his Point total at 14,125.

The last upgrade available for the weapon was Impact, which the Woodsman and Warrior weapons also had. It was clear that the Crawler’s Arm was designed to be a slow but hard-hitting weapon.

Much like the Mythical Hero weapon type, its evolutions didn’t give him two choices to pick between, and he was wondering if predetermined evolutions would apply to all Stage-collected weapons.

[Your Crawler Slayer Weapon Type has reached Level 6.]

[At Level 6, this Weapon Type receives the following evolution.]

< < Evolution > >

< Magical Absorption — Absorbs the Mana of those defeated >

After the first evolution, Mana crystals appeared inside the bones of the large skeletal limb.

It doesn’t seem like there’s a way to use the Mana it absorbs.

The second evolution presented him with an answer to that thought.

< < Evolution > >

< Magical Charge — Enables the charging of absorbed Mana into the Crawler's Arm, boosting the damage of the next attack >

Black rune-like symbols appeared engraved into the flat palm of the weapon, as well as at the bottom where he held it.

With the third and final evolution, new runes appeared all along the bones of the weapon. The design of the symbols reminded him of the text used in Alepheria’s notes on chimaeras.

< < Evolution > >

< Unique Skill ( Crawler’s Veil ) | Coats the wielder in a cloak of Mana, turning them invisible until their next attack or 30 seconds have passed >

A stealth skill??

That sounds so absurd, given how heavy this weapon is, but I guess it’s very on brand for the Tower Crawler.

Adam’s Mastery Shard total was now at 10, enabling him to get another Vanity mirror.

The Challenge Stone was only 3 shards, so I can get that and another Vanity once I’ve maxed out the last weapon.

“Swap the Crawler’s Arm for the Solbor spear,” Adam told the Eye.

[Understood.]

The heavy skeletal arm was replaced with the obsidian spear from the Forbidden Altar.

Once again the upgrades that Thea offered changed. The options were the same as for Lancer, with normal spear upgrades and throwing-focused upgrades.

Adam bought 18 more upgrades, maxing out his fifth and final weapon required for the meta upgrade that’d allow him to save weapons for the next loop. At the end he was left with 6025 Points, which was about what he’d expected, since he’d spent 1000 Points on the tail. If he needed more, he still had quite a few things at his house he could sell.

Nothing visibly changed about the obsidian spear with its evolutions, and it was, like Gram and the Crawler’s Arm, predetermined evolutions that he was offered.

Maybe it’s only for Rare Stage weapons, he thought.

I’ll have to ask Beck about the Crawler’s Eye weapon he mentioned. Since it comes from fully empowering the Crawler, it may be Epic rarity.

< < Evolution > >

< Elphin Bravery — Reduce physical damage taken by 25% >

That’s pretty good, especially if it’s multiplicative with Defence.

< < Evolution > >

< Elphin Agility — All non-hostile forms of movement consume no Stamina >

Woah, that’s honestly super powerful.

You’d just be able to run, climb, jump, and do whatever, without pause. Forever.

And maybe you can even bend the rules of what movements are considered hostile.

< < Evolution > >

< Unique Skill ( Nature’s Chosen ) | Compel the forces of nature to aid you >

This weapon is honestly really powerful, Adam realised. He’d mentally brushed it off, since it was just another spear, but there had after all been a good reason why Haoyang had used it in the universe where he’d been a time-looper. And depending on how exactly Nature’s Chosen worked, it could be immensely powerful, especially since its starting skill, the Scattershot, seemed like it might be really strong already.

“What is the cooldown for Nature’s Chosen?”

[10 minutes.]

That’s really short. So it’s probably not something like causing an earthquake, but maybe if I’m fighting in a forest and use it, a root might trip up my opponent or a branch could block their attacks or something else that might be really useful in the moment.

I suppose it also has non-combat-related utility.

All-around, quite a powerful set of evolutions.

Adam decided to play around with the spear for a bit as he walked back to the centre of the island.

“Thank you!” Thea exclaimed as he left.

Thanks to the melody that emanated from her blood, Adam knew she was quite grateful to him for all the Points he’d spent at her stall. He still didn’t know why the vendors cared about Points though.

Adam looked down at the Mandate of Blood that he was holding the spear with. He wasn’t seeing any visions of its creation or gaining knowledge about its power, so it was safe to assume that the way the Relic worked wasn’t anything like Alepheria’s Mandate.

Still, the song of the Blood is really powerful.

And there’s that whole thing about feeding the Relic to gain knowledge which I’ve yet to explore.

Given how useful it had already been in teaching him a new way to trigger his spell pattern traps, Adam wanted to test it out with one of Sylvia’s spells, since it was possible that he’d be able to understand the spell pattern if he did that.

But first I’ve gotta see if I actually got a new meta upgrade from all the Points I spent.

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Loopshard - Chapter 123

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--Encyclopaedia---
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We should hit a backlog of 20 chapters this week, which is pretty exciting. I've been working pretty hard to make that happen.

EDIT: I forgot to account for the Tower Crawler bonus, so the original Point total was 2000 Points short.

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Chapter One-Hundred-and-Twenty-Three

Adam couldn’t believe his eyes when he saw the Point total for the Stage as he returned to Interim Island.

I got so many Points from those two Player kills, not to mention the Elites.

And killing the Corruption Demon alone gave a ton of Points!

The design of the Trials was utterly despicable, because every objective bonus was multiplied by the number of Players in the Stage at the start and then divided by how many were alive at the end, highly incentivising Player-killing, especially by offering a lot of bonus Points for doing so, which was in turn doubled by having Hardmode active.

But despite knowing all that, Adam couldn’t help but grin. He had almost doubled his Points from last time, which was an insane feat.

Hovering in the air in front of him was a stark reminder of what it had cost him to get this reward.

< < Player Leaderboard > >

< Adam (MVP) — 26500 Points >

< Sarah Ayala — 9350 Points >

< Katherine Joan Williams — Deceased >

< Mikhail Tkachenko — Deceased >

< Jun Jie Lim — Deceased >

I don’t think Sarah got any of the bonus rewards. I hope she can at least get something out of all the Relics she was carrying with her, but when she sees this she won’t be happy with me…

He walked towards the Altar, his heavy backpack and the mimic head carried by his floating arms.

In front of the Altar awaited a black-and-gold chest.

[Since you are the Player who received the most Points out of anyone in your team, you have been awarded an MVP Chest. This Upgrade Chest has four potential upgrades and their rarities are increased by one tier, but you cannot use Reroll Dice on it.]

“Can I leave it for later? I want to use the upgrade on a different weapon than the two I’m carrying.”

[It will vanish when you go to the next Stage. If you would like, I can bring a weapon from your Player House to you. It will require you to swap out one of the two weapons you are currently carrying.]

“Sure, let’s just do that. Swap my Spidersilk Needle for Gram.”

[Understood.]

The stone sword appeared in his hands as his needle and thread were zapped away by the Eye.

He didn’t mind spending the upgrade on Gram’s Chip Stone, unless of course something useful appeared.

< < Upgrades Available > >

< Chip Stone — Reveal a portion of the sword >

< Crush (Rare) — Increases the impact of attacks by 15% >

< Defence (Rare) — Increases all defence by 15% >

< Luck (Rare) — Increases luck by 3 >

Getting the Luck upgrade would put me at 20, which is close to getting guaranteed Rares, but maybe I’m better off getting a free Chip Stone. After all, it’ll cost me 21,600 Points to fully evolve three more weapons for the meta upgrade, since Gram is already at level 6. Every bit I can save is going to be worth it.

Adam had 26,550 Points, since 50 had carried over from before the Stage, which meant he’d be down to 4950 after evolving three weapons. But he also had a few Relics he could sell, so he’d still end up with about 7000 he could spend on whatever.

I should probably send one of the Chimaera Stones back with the Relic Saving Chest. The Purple Slime Glove I put in there will have to go, but that one was only meant as an insurance in case I died.

Adam thought about the options in front of him for a moment, and he ended up grabbing the Luck upgrade since he figured he should hurry up and get to 25, because there would be a lot of powerful Relics he might otherwise not encounter if he wasn’t at least getting guaranteed Rares.

< < Upgrade Selected > >

< Luck (Rare) >

“Pull the Purple Slime Glove out of my Relic Saving Chest and insert one of the Chimaera Stone instead,” he told the Eye.

[Understood.]

“I’d also like to have my Spidersilk Needle back. And put the cores in my backpack into my storage.”

[Understood.]

The Eye zapped his stone sword and backpack. As the items vanished, the needle appeared hanging from his belt with the silken thread coiled around it.

Adam brought his floating limbs over next to him and approached the Altar.

He didn’t know what to expect, but the last time he’d finished Stage Six, a book had pulled him into his Patron’s realm.

Although he was dreading what his next task would be, Adam reached out for the round stone atop the plinth. It was glowing faintly white with potential energy, and when his fingers touched it, a pulse moved through his body, creating a resonance with something inside him.

A part of him that hadn’t been there originally.

The thing that the Flayed Lady had gifted him.

Adam’s blood started singing to her, and then he was simply pulled into that resonating part inside himself, as though it was a doorway that he’d opened and fallen through.

< < Now Entering > >

< The Red Lake >

Adam landed on his feet atop a large round island of crimson glass that glowed faintly. As he looked up and around, he saw red water in every direction. It was like he was inside a hollow ball, but the surface of the ball was liquid.

Ripples travelled through the water from large droplets hitting the outside of the ball. It was a deeply surreal experience.

Next to him, standing there as though she’d been present the entire time, was the Flayed Lady. But she looked different.

A crimson crown of thorns floated above her head, but it was like glass. She wore a suit of spiked armour that was likewise made of crystallised blood, and her skirt of flayed skin was gone with only her blood-slicked red body visible within the transparent armour.

Like him, she was looking up at the ripples in the lake of blood that surrounded their glass marble of an island.

“Are we inside my body?” Adam asked her.

“The Blood is a gateway. A bridge. I find it comforting to be connected to all my children in this way.”

“Can you see and hear and feel whatever I’m experiencing?”

“Of course, Adam. How else would I have safeguarded you from the grasping tendrils of the lascivious Siren?”

“So that was you who intervened,” he remarked, both surprised and off-put by the fact that she had such control over his body.

“She is never satisfied with what she has. She always has to take and charm everyone she can dig her hooks into,” the Flayed Lady went on, ignoring his words. The Siren she was referring to was the Masked Courtesan, and the ‘lascivious’ comment was a clue about the Absolute that he hadn’t realised. It was suddenly obvious to him that the Siren had to be the Primogenitor of Lust, since many of the Absolutes seemed to be the origins of specific vices.

“How can I protect myself against being charmed again?” Adam asked.

“You have a paramour, which inoculates you to an extent. To safeguard yourself truly, you must kill those who wish to corrupt you.”

“I can’t do something with my flesh and blood to prevent it?” he asked, deeply wanting there to be a way to avoid being mind-controlled again.

“When an adherent of the Masked Whore lays their hand on an object of their desire, her power flows through them briefly. As you can tell, it is better to cut such wayward children at the neck and return their blood to the earth.”

“You wouldn’t want the Siren’s adherents in your fold?” Adam asked.

“Such betrayal is delectable but a rare delicacy. Her corruption is deep-seated, sprouting roots that are difficult to pull free, even for me. The only solace is that such corruption stains her followers. The visages they come to possess engender no love in those that behold them. The Siren wears her mask for that reason.”

Adam could tell that the Flayed Lady clearly wasn’t a fan of the Courtesan, but the comments about her mask and ‘corruption’ made it seem like worshipping her would curse you in some way, perhaps turning you into a monster. A siren was, after all, a hideous creature that pretended to be beautiful to lure in its victims.

He looked away from the ripples above him and shifted his gaze to his Patron. In her hands covered by clawed glass gauntlets were pages with an indecipherable script and strange diagrams. It took him a moment to realise what they were, and then he looked down at himself and noticed that he was wearing all of his Relics and carrying his backpack and weapons with him.

“The little boy has such boring fascinations,” she commented as she read through Alepheria’s notes on chimaeras. “With but a bit of imagination, even you could make this.”

Adam was surprised by that and he wanted to ask more, but then the pages disintegrated in the Flayed Lady’s hands and were replaced by two crystallised blood shards, pulled straight from his backpack.

“I enjoyed the way you collected the first one,” she said and Adam felt proud by the acknowledgement of how he’d killed Jun using the Hobgoblin Pendant to disguise what he was doing.

She went on, “But the second kill is not worth mentioning. I enjoy it most when blood is stained by betrayal. The song it sings then is far more beautiful.”

She absorbed both of the shards into herself and then tiny strands of blood appeared from the tip of her left index finger, spreading out like strands of spidersilk. She wove them together in the air and the intricate patterns blew Adam’s mind with how detailed and complex they were, while each strand was no thicker than a hair.

After only a few seconds she was done, and balancing on her finger was a ring shaped like her crown of thorns.

Except, when he inspected it, it wasn’t a ring.

< < Unique Relic Obtained > >

< Sigil of the Prince’s Gambit (Common) — Drains 50% of Adam’s Mana to double his manipulation capacity with Red Prince invocations >

That’s quite a gambit…

“Sacrifices must be made in the pursuit of power,” the Flayed Lady responded to his inner voice.

I’ll have to get more Mana, he thought as he accepted his reward.

The sigil moved over to his left wrist and wrapped around his arm, planting itself onto his skin directly below the control sigil already on that hand. A sudden hollow feeling came over him, but that was the only thing he noticed, and it quickly passed.

The Flayed Lady was already holding something else in her hand, and this time it was the chunk of the mimic’s head. Adam had no idea where she’d gotten it from, because the floating limbs that’d been carrying it were all gone.

“The Shapeshifter is an amusing one,” she remarked. “They say I am the envious one, but I have never wanted to be someone else. All I ever wanted was power, but for that I was given my title. You should not let others decide what truths you believe. However, the Seeing One made this silly game, so it dictates how we are introduced to our prospective adherents. It is unfair, is it not?”

Adam didn’t know how to respond to that.

The Flayed Lady crushed the metal head like it was nothing, and no sooner had its pulverised remains floated up into the water above them than a new thing appeared in her hand. It was the time-frozen egg.

“I would like to keep that intact for the next Stage,” Adam told her. He was quite sure that she was just in a bad mood and taking it out on his collection. And while he didn’t think most of the quest objects had much worth, he had at least seen the value that the egg provided in Stage Seven, since it belonged to Mast-Chewer and could ingratiate him with the Drakes faction.

“It would be foolish to make an enemy of the Sleeping Dragon,” she replied ominously. “Of all the Absolutes, he is the only that the Seeing One fears. Without time, nothing else matters. Should he ever rise from his slumber, then all who traverse the coil shall be brought to a standstill. It would be no different than death, and though I would revel in the downfall of the Seeing One, I would perish alongside it should this come to pass.”

Is she saying that the Eternal Serpent is the Absolute responsible for time itself? That would make him more powerful than all the others combined.

I wonder why he’s even participating in the Trials if he is so powerful. She made it sound like all of the Absolutes, herself included, don’t have much of a choice, since they are less powerful than the All-Seeing System.

A thought suddenly occurred to him.

“Are there Absolutes that aren’t participating in the Trials of Defiance?”

“The Headless One is absent, but I do not concern myself with the rest, since they are weak and disinterested in power. Though I was amused to see that the Petrified One is participating. He has almost as few worshippers as the little boy.”

Petrified One? Is that one of the Absolutes I know or one of the missing few?

“Is he the one called the Keening?” Adam asked.

The Flayed Lady stopped shifting the egg around in her hand and looked right at him.

Then her mouth widened into a grin that reached all the way to her long ears. “He would not take kindly to such a comparison.”

That’s gotta mean the answer is ‘no’.

The egg disappeared from her hand and was replaced by the resistant organ tied to the Guardian.

“You ought to study this,” she told Adam. “The Guardian is a useful one to imitate for those who chose the Blood.”

“Would it make me more resistant?”

“It would, if you can learn its secrets,” she replied and the obsidian organ vanished from her grasp. “While you have moved past your fear, you have yet to fully comprehend the power you possess. You have not yet heard the song of the Blood in your heart. The way you shape the flesh around you also leaves much to be desired. A true Red Prince manifests his power within himself.”

Is she saying I should attach the limbs to my body?

The Flayed Lady turned and suddenly grabbed Adam’s right hand, the obsidian limb with the pearl-white nails. He immediately tensed up, preparing for a flood of eldritch knowledge to explode his mind.

But nothing happened.

“You are safe from its perversions in here,” she told him, holding his hand in the claws of her large glass gauntlets. “It is very like the Seeing One to turn all of its gifts into traps and lessons. But we do not all have to play by its absurd rules.”

As she spoke, the obsidian hand transformed, becoming translucent red glass like the armour that covered her skinned red body. The trigger sigil on the hand sank down into the limb, making him wonder if he’d ever be able to change away from the blood mage weapon type.

< < Unique Relic Obtained > >

< The Mandate of Blood (Legendary) — Resonates with the song of the Blood | When its thirst is quenched, knowledge is imparted upon its wearer >

The Flayed Lady pulled her hands away and Adam inspected his transformed limb.

“Will it still allow me to understand the things that I touch?” he asked.

“It was not understanding that it imparted upon you,” she replied. “I have attuned it to the song of the Blood. Only now will you comprehend what it shows you.”

Adam wasn’t quite sure how to feel about that. He had hoped to be able to learn all of Sylvia’s spells, but now he didn’t know if it would work.

The Flayed Lady grabbed Adam by the chin, forcing his eyes to meet hers. The black pits with the red pinprick pupils bored into him. “You are underestimating my gift. You may not understand this yet, but I broke the Seeing One’s rules for you. The song will resonate within you now. When you hear it, you will comprehend the truth.”

Adam didn’t break her gaze.

She broke the rules to give me this.

She let go of his chin and he took a step back. Then the Chimaera Stone that had been in his backpack suddenly appeared in her hand.

“Get rid of this. Do not use it. It is another trap.”

“Why?”

“The transformation will sever your connection to the Blood. It will dry up the wellspring of magic inside you. And besides, you already possess the ability to take on the shape that it would enforce upon you. It is only your attachment to your vessel that is holding you back. A Red Prince does not fear the loss of such vanity.”

“I will sell it,” he told her.

It vanished from her hand, which he hoped meant that it returned to his backpack.

She looked back up at the ripples in the red sphere of blood that surrounded their glass island.

“I have a new task for you. In the painted world, you will meet another of my children. She will fulfil a request for me, and I want to make sure that she survives the ordeal.”

< The Flayed Lady >

< Aid the Flayed Lady’s adherent in the painted world. >

< Reward: Relic >

“Another Player?” he asked. “How do you know who I will be teaming up with?”

“Even the Seeing One is possessed of blood, and it sings to me, murmuring about what is to come.”

Adam was surprised that she possessed such a power. It would explain how the Tome Keeper had said she was always a step ahead.

“What task is she going to perform?” Adam asked.

“She will explain it to you herself,” the Flayed Lady told him.

Then suddenly Adam fell upwards into the lake of blood.

With a gasp, he found himself standing in front of the Altar, his hand hovering above the spherical stone.

Of all the places to go, inside my own body was not on my list.

Adam looked at his new right hand.

I need to find out how this thing works.

But first I’ll go to the Market.

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Loopshard - Chapter 122

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This chapter ended up kind of long.

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Chapter One-Hundred-and-Twenty-Two

Adam was following Sarah as she walked up the spiralling ramp towards Alepheria’s Study, when he suddenly realised he hadn’t asked about her patron quest for the Stage.

“You said you didn’t know,” she replied when he mentioned it.

“I don’t remember us talking about it,” Adam remarked.

Sarah paused. “I really thought Kate was a nice person when I first met her… I thought she was my friend. But now I wonder if that was all just because of her power.”

Adam nodded.

I do think she had a friendly personality first time I met her in the Tavern, but that just made her boon from the Masked Courtesan that much more dangerous. A natural charm mixed with a magical one is a terrifying combination.

But I don’t think I can tell Sarah that, since she might just think that I am protecting Kate, and it benefits me more if my horrible actions under her spell are entirely pinned on her.

“I hate this,” Sarah went on. “This game is changing us in ways we don’t fully understand. I wonder if I will be able to trust anyone from here on.”

“If you’re worried about anyone else with the power that Kate had, then look at their eyes. If they are worshipping the Masked Courtesan their eyes will glow orange-red.”

Sarah lowered her head. “Why can’t everyone just work together?”

Adam frowned.

I get what she means, but I don’t think such a thing is possible, especially not with the way the Trials are designed. And human nature being what it is, it would be naïve to assume cooperation is always going to work out.

“What was it you had to find?” Adam asked, trying to at least help her as much as he could in the moment, but failing to remember what Beck’s quest object had been when they’d talked about it in his fourth loop.

“The embers of a Mana Flame,” she replied.

“You should be able to make something like that, shouldn’t you?” Adam replied.

“How?”

“Doesn’t your evolution let you absorb elements? You could absorb the energy from the core of one of the mana hoarders.”

“And then what? I cannot make flames come out of my staff,” she said.

“What if you use the Sun Flare spell?” he asked. “You should be able to channel it through your staff rather than your hand.”

“I’ve never… I didn’t think it was possible.”

“Let’s try it when we find some wood for you to burn,” Adam said.

Sarah nodded. She seemed a bit relieved they might find a way for her to complete her quest.

Given that I’m considering using Morrligt in the future, I’d also like to know how to do this quest, since it doesn’t seem straight-forward.

When they walked past the last floor that Adam had cleared out before the ritual chamber, an announcement came.

< < Optional Stage Objective Complete > >

< Destroyed the Library >

“There we go,” Adam said. “Which other objectives have you completed?”

“I got a notification for the Tower Crawler, and I was there for the Cell Warden and the destruction of the Laboratorium, but I didn’t participate in either.”

“I think if you saw the notifications for their completion, then you should still receive Points.”

“That’s good to know,” she replied.

As they reached the floor with the ritual chamber she stopped briefly and Adam knew she’d received the announcement to ‘complete the ritual’.

“Do you want to join me for this one?” he asked her.

“What are you going to do?” she asked sceptically, noticing the two things he’d left near the door: the heavy chunk of metal that’d been the mimic’s head and the large Nightwing Heart.

“I’m going to summon and defeat a demon,” he told her truthfully.

“I’d like to just leave,” she said, and Adam couldn’t fault her for that.

“There should be wood in there we can burn to get you your quest object,” he said. “Wait here.”

He scooped up the two things he’d left by the door and went into the chamber, placing them inside and searching through the ritual ingredients for a few pieces of wood. He spent two minutes touching each piece to figure out if they would burn differently than normal, but it all just seemed to be ordinary timber.

When he came back out, Sarah was leaning on her staff.

“I was worried you might try and get me to fight the demon with you, after all,” she remarked jokingly.

“I found some random bits of wood,” he said. “I figured I would just build a little bonfire and then you can light it up.”

“What about the Mana core? I don’t have any,” she replied, looking into the sack she’d been carrying with her.

“I’ve got a core,” he told her, scooping one out from his backpack. He didn’t actually remember looting them, which was uncomfortable.

“What do you want in exchange?” she asked.

“It’s fine,” he replied. If he had wanted the Relics she carried, he would already have taken them, and doing an unfair trade now would just make him feel bad.

Sarah took the core from him and immediately pulled the blue Mana inside it into herself. As far as Adam understood, it was pure Mana and not some elemental variant, which seemed to be what was required for a Mana Flame.

As she absorbed the energy with the ability from the Element Tamer evolution that preceded Elemental Avatar, Adam saw how her body was filled with that blue light thanks to his cowl, but most of it quickly flowed back out into her staff. It left some lingering spots of energy inside of her, no doubt thanks to the Avatar evolution, but most of the Mana lit up her staff. The two times he’d seen Sarah use the Sun Flare spell, it had been fired from her right palm, but this time she held her staff in that hand.

She aimed the tip of her weapon towards the little pile that Adam had made with the various bits of wood, and then her staff glowed a bright ocean-blue before launching a fireball made of that same colour. It zipped through the air and struck the wood, immediately setting it on fire.

Adam wasn’t sure if he could only see it because of his cowl or not, but the flame that came off the wood was blue like the energy that’d been inside the crystallised mana core.

That has to have done it, he thought.

But how is anyone supposed to do that without being either a Spellcaster who picked a specific evolution or someone who found the Mage Aspirant’s Cowl?

After the flames quickly died down, they both went over to inspect the smouldering remains.

Sarah picked up one of the embers.

< < Quest Object > >

< Mana Ember — The ember of a flame fuelled by pure mana >

“How did you know that would work?” Sarah asked as she placed the ember into her sack full of Relics. It had somehow not burnt her hand, which was peculiar.

“My friend has the same evolutions as you,” he replied.

“Does he also worship Morrligt?”

“No, he picked Messimer. The appraisal skill he gives is supposed to be quite useful.”

“Why did Kate think you worshipped Messimer?” Sarah immediately asked.

“Because I lied to her. I didn’t trust her.”

“Hmm.”

“What?” he asked.

“You’re different than when you were under Kate’s spell. Like night and day. I can tell you’re hiding a lot of secrets.”

“I am indeed a man of mystery,” he joked, but Sarah didn’t budge.

“How are you able to be so relaxed in this Stage? I’ve never been more terrified. It’s like you know everything that’s going to happen.”

Adam smiled wistfully. “I’m afraid I can’t tell you. Now, let’s get you to the exit.”

Sarah laid her hand on the painting of the Floating Sea of Gold and was absorbed into it, vanishing from sight.

Adam let out a deep sigh.

He grabbed the Navigator’s Telescope from where it was used to hold up the table with all the painting supplies on it, and collapsed it into a flat disc that was easier to carry.

< < Secret Relic Obtained > >

< Navigator’s Telescope (Uncommon) — Peer into the horizon of gold and find what your heart desires >

This time I’ll find out whatever is at the end of the trail this shows when I combine it with the Golden Map.

Adam left the cliff and returned to the tower through the floating doorway of Alepheria’s Study.

Once he was back inside he flew down to the ritual chamber and went through the metal door.

The tome about summonings that I absorbed didn’t mention much about what kind of creature a Corruption Demon is, he mused as he collected the ingredients for the ritual off to the side of the centre where the three obsidian pedestals awaited in the red sand.

I also have no idea what it would reward. Maybe something affliction-related?

Perhaps there’s a Blood Demon or something? Summoning that would be useful for my build. I should’ve asked the Flayed Lady.

The Gluttony Demon I could summon instead might give me something related to eating. That could perhaps work well with the Beast, if I selected a setup based around the Monster evolution.

Thanks to the lesson from the Flayed Lady, Adam no longer felt disgusted about the idea that he could eat his enemies to gain their strength. After all, such a thing was nothing compared to shaping his own flesh.

I think I’ll just summon the Corruption Demon.

Since I know where it’s going to appear, I can prepare for its arrival with traps.

Adam considered the First Strike Earrings.

What is the likelihood that the first attack will kill it? he wondered.

He shook his head.

50% bonus Damage on the first hit isn’t worth it if it doesn’t kill, since I’ll be fighting the rest of the time with 20% less Damage.

Adam unequipped the earrings and put them in his backpack, then he mended the holes in his earlobes using flesh magic. It came so naturally to him already that he didn’t even realise he did it.

Over the next 20 minutes, Adam laid dozens of traps all around the space, drawing upon his blood, the spidersilk, and flesh which could also be shaped into spell patterns, though it was awkward since he had to make limbs for it to be effective. Fortunately, the ritual chamber had a few things that he discovered that he could use as magical material, such as pots and vessels with various types of blood, as well as bits of flesh, much of it aged and spoiled. The latter included the creepy skinned face that James had been tasked with finding during Adam’s last visit.

With all the traps prepared, Adam went down to one of the creature floors below, specifically the one with the weird sea-urchin monstrosities, gathering enough flesh to fill him to capacity, and then he returned to the ritual chamber.

I don’t think I’ll be more ready than this, he considered as he looked around at how full of traps the space was. He’d even hung some of them suspended in the air vertically.

Using one of his floating limbs, this one shaped into a double-jointed scaled arm with six long fingers capped with talons, he carefully lifted the ritual ingredients onto the obsidian pedestals in the middle of the room, making sure not to disturb any of the traps.

With the Nightwing’s heart, a ceramic bowl of water, and a pile of salt on separate pedestals, Adam stepped back to the hallway that led out of the chamber. The Spidersilk Needle was ready in his hand, but he had decided to only use it if his traps and floating limbs didn’t work.

And if none of them work, then I may just have to book it for the exit.

I shouldn’t let it get close, since I’m sure a Corruption Demon has a lot of nasty tricks up its sleeve.

After he’d placed the items for the ritual, nothing happened for a moment.

Then suddenly a red pillar of light came down through the chimney-like hole in the ceiling. It engulfed the summoning ingredients and red sand in the centre of the chamber.

< < Secret Optional Stage Objective > >

< Defeat the summoned Corruption Demon >

It worked.

Adam tensed up. Since he didn’t know what to expect, he was prepared for anything.

As the light died away, a humanoid entity was revealed. It stood upon a bubbling patch of black muddy soil that filled the room with the heady reek of crude oil, which was at once sweet and rotten. The creature was covered in pristine white plates that had been organically shaped into some vague approximation of a muscular humanoid figure. The torso segment was one whole piece, but the legs, arms, neck, and face were all separate plates. Visible in the gaps between the plates was an oily black substance like living tar, and two horns of the material sprouted from behind the pristine mask the creature wore. It even had a thin whip-like tail flopped on the ground behind it, also made of the tar substance. The armour looked like a shell made to keep all the tar confined, but the demon’s head was only covered by the mask on the front, and it had been shaped into a closed-eyed and peaceful expression, though the mouth was too wide.

The mask shifted in Adam’s direction. Then an oily smoke-like curtain of Mana poured out from its body and everything in a five metre radius around the demon started to rapidly bubble and decay. It was a corrupting aura and it was spreading outward at a steady pace, threatening to cover the entire chamber within seconds.

Adam didn’t waste a moment and ran out through the hallway.

The second he shut the door behind him, all of his traps went off at the same time, making him doubly glad to have gotten out.

Adam wasn’t sure how many of his traps had survived the demon’s aura, but the sounds and impacts created by them all was enough to shake the tower around him.

He moved away from the door as the aura spread out of the chamber, turning the metal door to rusted scrap and making the wooden floor curl up as it instantly blackened and decayed.

The demon emerged, but almost all of its white shell was gone.

In the middle of its torso was a large white core, just like that of a slime.

Adam flung two of his three flesh-shaped arms towards it, but they predictably turned to rotten sludge the moment they entered the creature’s orbit.

But he had expected as much and no sooner had his two floating limbs turned to mush than he fired the Spidersilk Needle right through the briefly-obscuring curtain they created in front of the demon.

A sound like a crack forming in a pane of glass rang out through the floor, echoing up and down the tower and returning back to his ears a couple of seconds later.

The aura stopped its steady advance, and the Corruption Demon didn’t move another step further.

< < Secret Objective Complete > >

< Defeated the summoned Corruption Demon >

The demon’s body collapsed in on itself, the magic keeping its humanoid shape intact faltering along with the shattered core.

Where it died, its sludge-like body burned through the already-decayed wooden floor, spilling down through the tower and no doubt doing a lot of structural damage on the way to the bottom.

That could’ve been really bad.

It was probably a good thing Sarah already left.

From where its corpse had burnt through the floor appeared a chest made of the same sludge-like substance, hovering impossibly over the metre-wide hole.

“Is it safe for me to step onto where its aura corrupted everything?” he asked the Eye.

[I cannot say.]

Adam sighed.

For a second I thought this stupid cube was actually useful.

I guess I’ll just use my flesh magic to check.

The limb still had scales from when he’d initially constructed it, but he transformed it into something more closely resembling his own limbs to make sure that anything that could harm him would also damage it.

Then he slowly floated it across the boundary where the aura had stopped its expansion.

Adam kept it there for a moment before pushing it further across the floor.

Nothing happened, but he didn’t want to tempt fate if it was some slow-acting corruption.

He used the magical limb to open the sludge chest and a single Relic appeared, just like when they’d defeated the Bumblebee last time.

God, that Relic was awful, he recalled, remembering how him and James had been nearly incapacitated by the pollen clouds that kept appearing around Gladwyn.

The item that appeared from the chest was a large piece of the pristine-white plate armour shell that the demon had worn. He pulled it towards himself and dumped it on the floor outside the ring of decay made by the aura.

< < Relic > >

< Body of Corruption (Epic) — Increases affliction effectiveness on yourself by 50% | All afflictions suffered by the wearer are radiated outwards in a 5-meter radius >

That is really quite strong, but I’m not sure how to use it right now.

Although maybe…

Adam frowned.

Bleed is an affliction. If I put this on and then cause myself to bleed, then everyone around me would start bleeding too…

I haven’t tested it yet, but I should be able to just pull my own blood back into my body to negate the effect of bleeding I suffer.

In theory at least…

If I had the Beckoning Crimson spell memorised, then it would be super useful.

He put the folded-up suit of white plate armour into his backpack for now.

I’m running out of space again.

With all of the objectives done, Adam flew back down through the tower, avoiding the cascade of rot that followed the dripping mass of the defeated demon’s body. He was searching for Mikhail’s missing corpse, since he wanted to pick up the Blue Shard sword he would’ve dropped.

However, after going through every chamber and even the basement, Adam came up empty-handed.

Instead of heading for the exit, he gathered up as much material as he could from the Cell Warden boss in the basement, and then he flew out of the tower.

He spent the next hour hunting down the bone creepers that clung to the building’s crooked roof on the outside, as well as the few scattered in the forest around the clearing. At the end he’d killed 14 of them, which he knew was a good chunk of Points thanks to the Hardmode bonus.

Additionally, he’d found a quest objective at the top of the tower inside a bird’s nest.

< < Quest Object > >

< Time-Frozen Egg — The egg of a Slug Dragon that has been locked inside a moment in time to prevent its destruction >

This is what Emelia was looking for. She probably didn’t find it because she didn’t look outside the tower.

I wonder if there are other quest objects outside.

Along with the egg, Adam had also collected the Resistant Organ from the basement, which was required for the Guardian’s quest. The eye from the lab was gone along with the fire, and the face that’d been inside the ritual room had gone into making Adam’s traps, but that was fine.

He didn’t really know why he was collecting these things, but since he was also still carrying around the mimic’s metallic chunk of a head, after discovering it had survived the corrupting aura of the demon, he figured he might as well get as many as he could.

That thought eventually led him to the top of the tower, when 7 hours remained in the Stage.

< < Quest Object > >

< Dimensional Splinter — A tiny fragment of a dimensional core, yet powerful enough to maintain the reality-warping nature of the Crooked Tower >

When the Tower Crawler absorbed this last time and turned into Alepheria’s Avatar, it didn’t make the tower collapse, so I should be fine to remove it.

I think…

Adam stared into the glass sphere raised up from the floor of the strange room hidden at the top of the tower. The fingernail-sized splinter floated inside it.

He couldn’t help but remember Gladwyn’s words.

‘It’ll kill us all,’ he told me.

I wonder how he knew, or maybe he didn’t know and that’s why he was worried.

Though I suppose the description does make it seem that way.

Adam broke open the sphere with two of his floating limbs and then reached into the middle of it to grab the splinter.

Before his fingers could close around it, the splinter just vanished.

“What the fuck was that?”

[That is not supposed to happen.]

Adam blinked.

“What did you just say?”

[The Quest Object vanished from this dimension. That is not supposed to happen.]

The tower began to shake.

Okay, time to get the fuck out of here.

Adam flew back down through the middle of the floors as fast as he could while the stones of the tower shook violently around him and waves rolled through the wooden planks of each landing.

When he made it to the portal door of Alepheria’s Study, nothing happened when he tried to walk through. It was simply a blank wall on the other side.

The portal is gone!

He didn’t question it, as the bricks tumbled out of the walls around him, and flew all the way to the bottom of the tower, letting himself basically fall most of the way down before zooming out through the open gate.

Once he was outside, he realised that the tower had shrunk significantly, becoming the actual size it should have been, based on the number of floors.

He flew up into the air to gain a better perspective of his surroundings.

The only way I can get out of here now is if I find wherever that cliff with the painting is located.

Adam went as high into the air as he could, but he didn’t spot anything that looked like a cliff.

I might have fucked myself…

Since he didn’t know what else to do, he picked the direction opposite from where the Sanctuary lay and then started to fly as fast as he could.

After only a couple of minutes, he realised that he was being foolish.

The words of the Tome Keeper echoed in his mind.

‘Though the worlds you visit may seem like a game to you, they are as real as you and me, and the answer to your question lies in this fact.’

He hadn’t been referring to this scenario, but Adam understood the wisdom in it as he turned around and headed for the Elphin Sanctuary.

Once he arrived he asked around for the directions to the cliff with the painting. To his surprise, it ended up being one of the children that played by the giant tree that had the answer.

“The adults call it the Cliff of Mourning, but they said they couldn’t go there ever since the witch moved in.”

“And which direction is it? Northeast like the tower?”

“No, no, it’s southeast. But it’s far. They say it takes two days by carriage.”

Fuuuuck!

“Thanks, kiddo,” he told the boy, handing him one of his crystallised mana cores like he’d promised.

Then he took off, flying as fast as he could towards the southeast. The wind whipped at his face since he stayed quite high in the air to avoid missing the cliff when it came into view, and the world was slowly darkening as the sun set in the horizon.

[45 minutes remain,] the Eye told Adam as he landed on the grass in front of Alepheria’s painting.

He’d almost missed it, even though the massive body of water beyond the cliff should’ve been obvious.

The world had gotten completely dark, but thanks to the sun having set, he could appreciate the magic inside the painting a lot more. It danced and spun before the sight of his cowl.

Despite the fact that his body was shivering from the cold and his hair was permanently stuck in a weird slicked-back hairstyle from the intense wind, Adam felt a fire burn inside him as he walked up to the painting and placed his hand on it.

< < Stage Complete > >

< Tallying Score >

< < Score > >

< 23 Hours 17 Minutes Completion Time >

< 2 Players survived 400 Points >

< 2 Players slain 2000 Points >

< 20 Elites slain 4000 Points >

< — — — >

< Defeated the summoned Corruption Demon 4500 Points >

< Main Objective Completion 2500 Points >

< Defeated the Tower Crawler 2000 Points >

< Defeated the Cell Warden 1500 Points >

< Destroyed the Laboratorium 1000 Points >

< Destroyed the Library 750 Points >

< — — — >

< 1500 Point Most Valuable Player Bonus added >

< 1500 Point Secret Boss Bonus added >

< 1500 Point Defender Bonus added >

< 1000 Point Flawless Bonus added >

< 800 Point All Objectives Bonus added >

< 800 Point Eradication Bonus added >

< 450 Point All Secrets Bonus added >

< 300 Point Plunderer Bonus added >

< — — — >

< 0 Damage Received >

< 26500 Points Awarded >

-----------------------------

EDIT: I forgot to account for the Tower Crawler bonus, so the original Point total was 2000 Points short.

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Loopshard - Chapter 121

-Previous Chapter-
--Encyclopaedia---
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I gave up and changed the chapter title to numbers XD

But just to annoy the commenter on RR, I won't commit to that change over there, lol.

As Throh pointed out in the comments on the previous chapter, Patreon's tab titles are quite short, so it's hard to discern what chapter you're on if you can't see the title.

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Chapter One-Hundred-and-Twenty-One

Adam flew up through the middle of the tower until he reached the laboratorium.

This Stage will be a pain to navigate without the ability to fly… he considered as he looked around for Mikhail’s body.

The flesh smiths’ vats, operating rooms, and deeper chambers were crisped and charred by fire, but since there were no signs of Mikhail on the landing, he went into the smouldering remains to look.

Using one of the vats as a loot sack wasn’t a bad idea, he thought as he passed by the remnants of the creature vats.

From what Sarah said and the Eye implied, Mikhail died outside on the landing, but maybe Kate had me throw his body into the burning ruins to get rid of it?

“Where did I last see Mikhail’s body?” Adam asked.

[On the landing of the Laboratorium floor,] replied the Eye.

“Then where the fuck is his body?”

[I cannot say.]

Adam frowned and went deeper into the chambers, stepping around glowing embers and the charred remains of a flesh smith and a mana hoarder. Then he went down the long hallway that led to the large chamber where the Master Flesh Smith’s spider-like body hung from the ceiling above dozens of operating slabs. Only a few limbs remained and all organic matter had been completely consumed by the fire that’d passed through.

He came to a halt as he saw the figure sitting with his back against one of the empty slabs.

It was Mikhail.

Adam pulled the blood out of his fur coat and floated it into the air.

“Adam,” said Mikhail.

It looked and sounded just like him, but it clearly wasn’t the original.

“Do mimics try to replace the Players that cause them to appear?” Adam asked.

“I’m not a mimic,” Mikhail said and got to his feet. “Where is Kate? Where is Sarah? Let’s beat the Stage together.”

I’m glad Sarah isn’t here to see this, Adam thought as he prepared his Spidersilk Needle with the blood under his command.

I don’t have all my Health back yet, so I need to be cautious.

And since human mimics have bodies that are like metal, I doubt I can use my flesh and blood magic directly on it.

Mikhail held the Blue Shard in his right hand, and his large two-handed sword was nowhere to be seen. He also wore all the same Relics as Mikhail had at the beginning, but Adam remembered how the Hahn mimic had appeared with Relics as well.

They aren’t real.

Just like its face and body.

It’s just a very convincing lie.

If this had been the real Mikhail, he would’ve attacked me on sight I think, just like Sarah.

Instead he’s trying to be my friend.

Adam clenched his jaw and took a large step forward, shooting the needle ahead of him with a spike of Mana. It flew across the space between them in an instant and dug into Mikhail’s torso before he could dodge. Then the spiral overlaid onto the needle triggered, digging the weapon deeper into the mimic’s dense body. A loud bang erupted from within as the Push pattern he’d added triggered as well. It blew a large hole into the mimic’s body, revealing an almost-black metallic interior without any organs or bones.

Even though Adam had known that it was a mimic, he was still relieved to see verifiable proof.

Unfortunately, his attack had not been enough.

I can’t fight it here.

Adam turned around and used the Mana in his flesh to fly out through the tunnel.

Heavy metallic steps chased after him as the mimic came in hot pursuit.

Let’s see if you can fly, you bastard.

Adam flew through the operating room past the tunnel and then out through the open portcullis. His Blood Mage Choker triggered as a dark metallic limb whipped right for his legs, rebounding the attack. He quickly pulled the blood to him while using his ring to fire a bolt back at the mimic just as he soared up towards the next landing.

The mimic didn’t even try to avoid the blood bolt, and when it hit it didn’t seem to do any damage.

As Adam pulled away from it thanks to his flying magic, the mimic watched him from the ground for a moment. Then two large wings grew out of its back, the rest of its body getting noticeably thinner as a result.

With a big leap and flap of its new wings, it jumped from the laboratorium floor and all the way up to the landing that came after it. This time around, the first floor after the lab seemed to house the brutes and the golden chamber where the Slugwhale Key had been hidden. They had of course already cleared it, so there were no monsters for the mimic to concern itself with.

As Adam continued to push his body up through the middle of the tower and the mimic repeatedly leapt up to try and catch him, he spread the blood he’d absorbed from his choker’s activation onto his spidersilk string and weaved a Snare spell pattern.

It was a fair bit harder to reproduce than the Push pattern, but he’d practice weaving a lot, so even while on the move it didn’t pose too big of a challenge for him.

The way the mimic jumped after Adam was quite predictable and he was able to accurately gauge its trajectory as he threw the woven spell onto the platform of the last landing before the library floor.

As the mimic’s feet hit the sticky thread infused with Adam’s blood, the spell triggered and a dozen silky threads whipped up around it, binding it in place as though a spider had caught the mimic in its web. The blood on the thread turned into a serpent, much like what he’d seen in the Player House while practising, and this too coiled around the mimic.

It was completely bound in place, wriggling methodically to try and break loose.

I have to hurry.

Adam continued up to the library floor where the two dead chimaeras remained, alongside Kate’s flattened body.

Without giving propriety much thought, Adam stripped the blood and flesh of the corpses, gathering it to himself.

Then he flew back down to where he’d incapacitated the mimic.

Since it was unable to move, he could easily gather his materials into three floating limbs coated in a layer of blood and get to work dismantling its metallic body.

It didn’t feel like a fight in the slightest, but Adam was just glad that it was over, once he’d broken the mimic into countless heavy chunks of organic metal.

He used one of the floating limbs to pick up the mimic’s head, which had turned into a dark featureless sphere of metal.

I wonder what would happen if I use this in the ritual.

The ‘recipe’ for the Corruption Demon he’d been planning to summon was extremely simple, since it just required water, salt, and the heart of a demon, for which the Nightwing Heart clearly worked. The Sloth Demon required the heart, as well as 100-year-old dust and the fur of a hibernating bear. The special ingredients for the Gluttony Demon was spoiled meat and the rendered fat of a cannibal. For some reason, the ritual chamber in Alepheria’s Tower had all of those things.

I didn’t see any descriptions of summonings involving mimic flesh, but I’d imagine it could summon something related to Nharlla.

After pushing the mimic’s remains into the chamber on the landing, so that Sarah wouldn’t run into it, Adam carried the metallic head with him as he flew back up to the library.

The bones of the corpses he’d harvested greeted him as he landed. Inside the ribcages of the chimaeras were the special cores.

< < Secret Relic Obtained > >

< Chimaera Stone (Epic) — Once consumed, the transformation quickly takes hold >

That’s interesting, the Hardmode for this Stage spawned two of them, but I assumed it would only give one special reward.

Aside from doubling the Elites in the Stage, Adam couldn’t tell what else had changed with the special challenge mode, although twice the number of mini bosses was no small thing. However, since it also doubled the related rewards, he considered the benefits to outweigh the demerits.

At least it didn’t add another Tower Crawler…

Worried he might’ve jinxed himself, he looked up, just in case, but didn’t see anything.

It may add another summon from the ritual though, so I need to be careful about that.

Adam placed his obsidian hand on one of the chimaera stones in an attempt to learn its secrets. Before he’d been able to try it last time, they’d been interrupted by the Tower Crawler.

His mind was pulled into a vision of the stone being brutally forced down the broken-open mouth of a midnight-blue felid, which looked almost like a panther, but it wasn’t exactly the same since its ears and tail were fluffier, and its body was larger. As the stone sunk into the body of the animal, it immediately started to convulse and change into a scaled lizard hybrid, becoming the chimaera that was housed inside the library’s hidden chamber.

He gasped as the vision ended.

Using this on myself seems pretty awful…

I’m quite sure I’d have to swallow it, which would require me to unhinge my jaw, and that is to say nothing of getting it down my throat. I would suffocate first.

But maybe if I manipulate my own flesh I could just push it through my body and into my stomach.

When he realised how insane that idea was he shook his head, as though it could clear away the thoughts.

After taking off his bag, Adam pulled the Nightwing Heart out to make room, relegating it to a floating arm to carry. Then he put the two Chimaera Stones into the backpack and went over to Kate’s remains.

< < Loot ­— Katherine Joan Williams > >

< Mage Aspirant’s Cowl (Epic) >

< Duellist’s Glove (Rare) x2 >

< First Strike Earring (Rare) x2 >

< Slothling Fur Coat (Rare) >

< Slothling Spring Boots (Rare) >

< Vigilant Fighter’s Vambrace (Rare) >

< Bone Breeches (Uncommon) >

In his hurry, he hadn’t realised that she was wearing the cowl that gave Manasight, and he quickly looted it and swapped it out with the crown he’d been wearing since Stage Four. The crown didn’t do anything for him, since it only bolstered summons and ‘subordinate allies’, but he needed it for the secret boss in Stage Nine.

< < Relic > >

< Mage Aspirant’s Cowl (Epic) — Allows you to see Mana and absorb it >

As the hood appeared around his head, Adam could immediately sense the foul Mana that permeated his floating flesh-and-blood limbs, as well as the crimson energy he’d infused into his own body.

Even if you can’t see this energy, I’m sure you can feel it instinctively. That must be why the denizens on Interim Island were so wary of me when I arrived in this loop. They’ve warmed up to me since, but they were definitely distrustful of me at first.

While Adam looted all of her Relics and put them into his backpack, he equipped the two earrings. His fighting style with the blood magic wasn’t all about one decisive strike, but his Spidersilk Needle definitely leaned that way given how he was using it. It would also be handy against whatever he was planning to summon in the ritual, since killing it on the first hit would be the safest strategy.

< < Relic > >

< First Strike Earring (Rare) — The first hit against a target deals 25% additional damage, subsequent hits deal 10% less damage >

I wonder how it determines what the first ‘hit’ is.

If I stack spells on my needle, each of those might be considered separate hits or part of the same hit with the needle. It’s a bit hard to say for sure.

Adam also noticed that Kate had a Relic he’d never seen before. It was a simple Uncommon pair of pants made of flexible bone plates, but the effect was surprisingly strong.

< < Relic > >

< Bone Breeches (Uncommon) — Increases Stamina by 50 | Reduces Movement Speed and Dodge chance by 10% >

It’s been a while since I was in a situation where I needed a lot of Stamina, but it would probably be a great item if you’re defending and parrying a lot.

With all the Relics in his backpack and the mimic head and Nightwing Heart carried by his floating limbs, Adam flew up through the library to the ritual site, dropping off the two ritual ingredients outside the door before going back down to clear the three floors.

He started with the last of the landings between the ritual chamber and library, which had chimaeras guarding it just like his previous visit.

The two earrings coupled with surprise attacks using his flesh limbs were sufficient to kill the enemies in a single blow to the head. With their deaths, more material was added to his collection. Like they’d confirmed last time, the smaller chimaeras didn’t have any cores within them.

He went through the next two landings which were also in the same place as last time. The middle floor had the weird sea-urchin-like human monstrosities of limbs and flesh, and the floor before the library featured the tall aviary full of bone bird librarians and with an impossible backdrop around their cage, showing floating islands and clouds. He hadn’t realised it last time, but now that he’d been to Stage Seven, he knew that it was depicting the Floating Sea of Gold.

If I could harvest and manipulate bones, then I could make my own freaky monstrosities, Adam considered as he pummelled his way through the aviary, flying after the birds as they swooped around to try and flank him. Given just how significantly more damage he was dealing, he knew that the way the bonus from the First Strike Earrings was added had to be multiplicative on top of his sigil damage and overall damage.

He also used the enemies as target practice for his Spidersilk Needle and confirmed that spells laid onto it were counted as separate ‘hits’ for the earrings, which was a shame, but to be expected.

Once Adam was done clearing out all the chambers, he had acquired the following upgrades from the upgrade chests they each rewarded.

< < Upgrades Selected > >

< Luck (Uncommon) >

< Movement (Uncommon) >

< Health (Rare) >

He returned to the library once more and decided to loot the hidden chamber that the chimaeras had emerged from, since it was open.

He found the notes that the Tome Keeper had asked him to find last time, and though he didn’t know what to do with them, he added them to his backpack after trying and failing to absorb the knowledge within by using his obsidian hand.

< < Quest Object > >

< Chimaeral Transmutation Notes — Detailed notes about the process of transmuting living creatures together to form a chimaera >

Like James had done last time, Adam broke a chunk of the sun gem free from the ceiling of the vivarium that’d housed the chimaeras. Since he could see and absorb the Mana that floated around inside the gems, he thought it might be useful to boost his damage against the ritual summon.

But before he took on that fight, Adam waited on the landing of the library for Sarah to arrive.

She hadn’t agreed to meet him, but he needed to destroy the library, which would block the way up, and he figured she might as well get some Points out of it too.

While he waited, Adam tried to slowly and methodically absorb the knowledge of his control sigil with his obsidian hand. He knew that if he could unravel the magic behind how the sigils worked, he would be able to utilise the power in ways that might allow him to defy the System’s rules.

Just like when he’d passed out, a spike rammed into his brain as he attempted to learn what secrets his weapon possessed, but he was prepared for it this time, so he retained his functions and consciousness.

But while he couldn’t make heads nor tails of the flashing symbols that filled his mind, he felt how that part of him that was imbued with the Flayed Lady’s power trembled with desire. He had an uncomfortable thought as he realised it bore a sentience, and that was the fact that everything he saw and learnt might be fed directly back to her. While she wasn’t greedy for knowledge like the Tome Keeper, she no doubt still sought to learn more about the world, because she did not seem foolish enough to reject the power inherent to knowledge.

With a sigh, Adam pulled his hand away from the control sigil.

No luck so far…

He felt like a child who attempted to read through a dictionary with but a nascent comprehension of the English language.

Maybe I can commune with the Tome Keeper to receive the power that would allow me to understand what I’m seeing.

Since Sarah still hadn’t reached the library, Adam continued on to his other weapon, the Spidersilk Needle, but he quickly confirmed his earlier suspicion when he touched the needle, because it bore no special secrets. However, when he ran his obsidian hand through the spidersilk, something did happen.

Adam’s mind was pulled into a forest with skinny grey trees possessed of gnarly reaching limbs. A gigantic spinner hung suspended from an intricate web that connected all the trees like ropes, and a horde of her children watched from all around as she weaved a complex shape out of silk. The way her needle-like limbs manipulated the threads made Adam realise how crude his own constructs were. When she was finished, a large life-like spider hung suspended between her limbs. By injecting just a single concentrated pulse of Mana into it, the construct came to life and skittered off into the forest on some errand.

With a gasp, Adam’s mind returned to the present.

I think I understand now. The Spidersilk as a medium for magic is way more versatile than blood. How the silk itself is shaped, through thickness and elasticity, changes its behaviour, and the way that the giant weaver used it was akin to building circuitry.

I think that flesh magic could function similarly if I take my time to meticulously shape the skin, muscle, sinew, and meat.

Adam’s current method of using his magic was brutish and inefficient. It wasted too much Mana by manually doing everything with his mind, when the best way to utilise the spidersilk and flesh magic was by constructing things in ways that a small pulse of Mana could accomplish the same as a large injection and without requiring him to mentally control it.

I could perhaps even shape flesh into simple constructs and then make them work with a single burst of Mana, allowing me to technically manipulate way more than my capacity allows, since I wouldn’t be actively controlling them.

Adam got up from where he’d been sitting on a limb shaped into a chair of sorts and went over to the edge of the central hole in the floor to look down. He almost immediately spotted Sarah cautiously walking up the spiralling ramp, but it would still be a few minutes before she reached him.

I should get rid of the bones, he thought and quickly got to work stowing them away into the secret chamber. Even the blood splatter that the chimaeras and Kate had left behind was pulled out of the floor so Sarah wouldn’t notice.

There would be no hiding the damage from the fights that’d taken place, but that would not be as upsetting to stumble upon, he thought.

Adam also closed the entrance to the secret chamber, since he didn’t want her to find the bones he’d stashed inside.

Then he sat back down and waited.

I just realised, I never did find Mikhail’s remains. I wonder what happened to his weapon and Relics?

When Sarah finally came into view, she froze as she saw him.

“Why are you waiting for me?” she asked, her staff ready in her hands but not aimed at him. Yet.

“We need to destroy the library, but doing so would make it impossible for you to get to the top,” Adam said.

“Can’t you just do it after I’ve left the Stage?” she asked. “Or would leaving force you to go with me?”

“I could,” Adam replied. “We don’t have to leave together. But don’t you want the Points rewarded for completing the objective?”

Sarah hesitated.

Anyone who had made it this far knew that Points were invaluable and getting as many as possible was necessary to survive.

“Should I climb to the top first?” she asked.

“I could lift you up there,” he offered, bringing out two of his floating limbs and combining them to make a simple platform.

She narrowed her eyes suspiciously but then she looked back up at how many ladders she’d have to climb to reach the part where the ramp continued onwards.

“Only to the top of the library,” she replied uneasily.

Adam nodded and brought his flesh-and-blood platform closer to her, keeping it hovering half a metre above the ground.

Sarah carefully stepped up onto it, frowning as her shoes sunk into the pliable material.

Before she could change her mind, Adam lifted the platform up into the air, flying up alongside it as it steadily moved to the top of the tall bookcases.

Sarah immediately got off the moment he stopped the platform next to the ramp.

“See, that wasn’t so bad, right?” he asked her.

She didn’t reply and instead asked, “What do I need to do for the objective?”

“Can you use your Sun Flare to set fire to the bookcases?”

“Okay.”

Sarah stepped up to the edge of the floor and aimed her right hand at one of the tall shelves below on the opposite side of the tower. Then her hand glowed and a bright ball of sun magic shot across the way, searing Adam’s eyes even though he averted his gaze.

As it struck the bookcase, it immediately set fire to several books.

“Now what?” she asked.

“It should take care of itself,” he replied.

“Then let’s go towards the exit, I want to leave,” she said.

Adam nodded. “Of course.”

-----------------------------

-Previous Chapter-
--Encyclopaedia---
---Next Chapter----

Loopshard - Chapter One-Hundred-and-Twenty

-Previous Chapter-
--Encyclopaedia---
---Next Chapter----

I just realised, next chapter will be "Chapter One-Hundred-and-Twenty-One" ... that's too long, lol. But at this point, if I change it to numbers I feel like I'm giving up D:

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Chapter One-Hundred-and-Twenty

Adam looked around the interior of the ritual chamber. From absorbing the knowledge inside Alepheria’s lab in Stage Seven back during his fourth loop, he knew how to summon six alternate entities with the ritual and the ingredients on offer. But he wanted to get the Secret Boss bonus for the Stage and he wasn’t sure most of them counted for that. It seemed fairly obvious that the summoning had to utilise the Dwarf Nightwing Heart somehow. After all, the Bumblebee they’d summoned and killed last time had just been like a mini boss at best.

Besides the Sloth Demon that Emelia had taught him about, he knew of two more summonings which required a large demon’s heart like that of the Nightwing’s that he’d collected from Stage Three. These summons were also demons, with one associated with corruption and the other tied to gluttony.

Nwetrou is the Primogenitor of Gluttony, so maybe summoning that one isn’t a good idea.

Regardless of which I pick, I need to find my backpack.

I didn’t see it in the library, so maybe it’s somewhere else.

We apparently triggered the secret room with the chimaera, so perhaps we left it in there or something.

“Where did I last see the backpack?” he asked the cube.

[Player Katherine Joan Williams dropped it before the Tower Crawler crushed her. It appears to have fallen down through the middle of the tower.]

“Great…” he muttered. “What about Sarah, where did I last see her?”

[Player Sarah Ayala went down from the Laboratorium floor when Player Mikhail Tkachenko perished.]

That’s pretty far from the library.

I wonder if Kate brainwashed those two again… If so, then Sarah must’ve broken free when Mikhail died.

The charm might not be strong enough to compel someone to do something they don’t want to do, or maybe the foundation of how she was charmed wasn’t strong enough.

Adam frowned.

No. By that logic, I should’ve broken free before Kate died.

Unless…

Despite the gift from the Flayed Lady, Adam couldn’t entirely ignore pain, especially not the kind that directly assaulted his mind.

He looked down at his obsidian hand and the sigil that overlaid it.

My mind must’ve been weakened by the flood of knowledge.

But the Flayed Lady protected me from fully succumbing to Kate’s charm by wrapping me in her power somehow.

Not that it stopped her from controlling me and using me to clear a lot of the Stage…

“How much time remains?”

[15 hours and 12 minutes.]

Goddamn it. Kate wasted all my time with her overpowered Patron skill…

I doubt I can do the speedrun now.

But maybe I will get the Defender bonus?

Although, Emelia said you can’t get that if you’re the only one alive at the end…

Adam frowned.

If Sarah is still alive, she must be hiding somewhere.

I need to find her before the Tower Crawler does.

Adam left the ritual chamber and went over to the edge of the ringed floor to look down through the centre.

I don’t see that creepy eyeball down there, but it must’ve been heading down when it ran into us.

He didn’t let himself second guess and simply leapt off the floor and down the centre, keeping his control sigil primed to the Mana inside his flesh.

Adam fell at great speed down through the floors, quickly passing by the library and soon after reaching the laboratorium where he started to slow himself down. With a firm grip on his own flesh, he floated down past the landing directly below the lab, which was the third up from the bottom of the tower.

Below him lay the dead bodies of Manawings and Mana Hoarders, and further down by the first landing, which seemed to house Metal Slimes this time around, the giant eye of the Tower Crawler was hovering in the air, looking into the chamber there.

The placement of the landings has been mixed around, Adam realised. The Mana Hoarders had been the first landing last time, but now it was the third, and the Metal Slimes had been moved to the first. The lever for the basement was in the barracks that housed the hoarders, and the Blue Shard crystal sword was in the metal forest of the slimes, so them shifting around at least didn’t seem to be too different if Adam had been able to find both for Kate while she’d been mind-controlling him.

He watched the eye of the Stage Boss from above while preparing his attack by layering several Push spell patterns onto his Spidersilk Needle using the Golden Tailor evolution’s effect. If it was focusing on the chamber so intently, it had to mean that Sarah was alive in there, which gave Adam the perfect distraction to set up.

He squeezed as much blood out of himself that he could without exhausting his Mana and Health in order to prepare the spells, then he gripped the back of the needle and let himself plummet towards his target.

Adam fell like a stone, holding the needle out in front of himself like the tip of a human-shaped spear. When the boss was within his reach, Adam let go of the needle and slowed himself to a stop.

As the weapon continued to fall towards the Tower Crawler’s invisible body, Adam gave it a spike to the back with some of the Mana-infused blood that coated it, which greatly accelerated its speed.

The large eye looked up towards him just as his needle struck, unintentionally presenting him with the best possible target.

The four Push spells he’d woven and placed on the needle all exploded in quick succession, blasting the eye and its translucent tear-drop-shaped body and mouth with crystalised blood shards filled with Adam’s Mana.

Like Beck had promised, the boss was susceptible to magical attacks, and the very first hit was enough to make the invisibility cloak that covered it flicker and vanish. The cloak was more than just a concealing veil, since it also imparted a powerful protection onto the boss, and if Adam wasn’t quick that protection would return.

But that was why he’d stacked his spells, and the next three sheared through the body and mouth with devastating power, breaking open the jail of teeth keeping the eye trapped within. The arms that extended out from it simply dissipated as the white shell fell away, leaving the floating eye without protection, like the yolk of an egg.

The needle yanked back to Adam while he dropped the final few metres separating himself from the boss.

The eye started to glow as its gaze locked onto him, but before it could activate whatever spell it had been preparing, Adam swung his left hand into it and activated the Blood Fist Ring.

A spike of blood pierced all the way through the floating eyeball and destroying it, but just for good measure he made the blood violently expand, exploding the boss’ core which quickly evaporated as its pieces flew in a dozen different directions.

Adam continued to let himself fall until he reached the bottom of the tower where he slowed himself down and landed on his feet.

< < Optional Objective Completed > >

< Defeated the Tower Crawler >

Near the remnants of the Crawler’s rapidly-evaporating shell lay Adam’s silken backpack. He immediately went over and inspected the contents while keeping an eye on the first landing where the boss had been focusing all of its attention.

The backpack was filled to the brim, and inside it was the Dwarf Nightwing Heart along with his two pendants, as well as the Slugwhale Key and five cores.

< < Secret Relic > >

< The Slugwhale Key (Rare) — A large key made from the temporal bone of a Slugwhale >

< < Collectible Relic > >

< Crystallised Mana Core (Uncommon) — Mana condensed into a crystal that can power contraptions and sustain simple lifeforms >

Below them, crammed into the bottom of the bag, were two shards of blood.

Adam frowned as he inspected the new one.

< < Quest Object > >

< Shard of Blood — The crystallised lifeblood of Mikhail Tkachenko >

She made me kill Mikhail!

He clenched his jaw in anger.

Despite her attitude earlier, it was clear Kate had taken full advantage of him after he fell under her spell.

I never should’ve trusted her!

Jin was right. We should’ve killed her.

I should’ve killed her the moment I understood her power.

Adam let out a deep breath.

She’s dead now, so it doesn’t matter…

He kept his eyes fixed on the first landing, but if Sarah was truly in there, then she wasn’t coming out.

Where the shell had landed and promptly disappeared, was now a strange weapon. It was a large skeletal arm comprised of both a forearm and an upper arm, and the hand at the end was splayed out flat.

Adam went over and touched it.

< < Weapon Obtained > >

< Crawler’s Arm (Rare) — A colossal weapon formed from an arm of the Tower Crawler. Lingering traces of its magical powers remain >

Feels like a gimmick weapon.

“Stow it in my Player House for now,” Adam told the Eye.

[Understood.]

Adam lifted his body up from the floor and towards the landing above, mentally preparing himself for whatever state Sarah might be in.

If she’s hiding, then she’s terrified.

That makes a lot of sense, given the power that Kate possessed and how she wielded it.

I’d be freaked out too if I watched someone mind-control another person into killing a teammate…

I wonder where Mikhail’s body is though, I didn’t see it in the laboratorium.

Come to think of it, the three Relics I got from Jun’s body weren’t in my backpack.

Adam landed outside the metal forest chamber and cautiously entered. It was the same sight that greeted him as the last time he’d come to the Stage, with a small replica of the Magical Forest clearing rendered in metal and an apple tree in the centre of the room. Granted, the tree had been chopped down when they’d collected the Blue Shard sword from inside it.

Huddled behind the stump of the metallic trunk was Sarah.

She looked like a wreck, with her hair no longer in a ponytail but instead just a dishevelled mess, and her eyes were dilated in panicked fear. Next to her was one of the sacks that’d been used in the lab as a vat to grow some organism, now repurposed into a bag and filled with Relics and other stuff.

It was clear that Sarah hadn’t heard Adam enter, because the moment she saw him, she immediately jumped up and summoned a spell in the air before slamming her staff into it, launching a magical bolt directly at him.

His Blood Mage Choker activated to block the attack, creating a pane of blood in front of him that he quickly took over and placed on the front of his chest armour.

“Relax,” he said, lifting his hands into the air. “I’m not mind-controlled anymore.”

“I don’t care!” Sarah screamed, but she didn’t prepare a second spell.

“You killed Mikhail!” she went on.

“Kate made me do it,” Adam replied calmly.

“Liar!” she screamed and her right hand started to glow.

Adam had no idea what it was, but he immediately activated his spring boots and shot himself backwards out of the chamber, catching his body mid-air outside the landing and staying airborne to avoid whatever was coming.

An incredibly bright sphere of golden-orange light flew out through the opening of the chamber, passing under Adam where he floated but making his eyes sting painfully.

It struck the wall opposite the landing, leaving a two-metre-wide scorch mark.

That was the Sun Flare spell that Morrligt gifts his worshippers.

He floated down to the landing, but didn’t go into the chamber. The situation was too volatile and it was obvious he needed to clear things up before he tried to approach Sarah again.

A nagging voice in his mind told him it was easier just to kill her, grab her loot, and get out of here, but the more pragmatic part of his mind told him that getting the Defender bonus was more important in the long-term, and he needed her alive for that.

I didn’t even want to kill anyone when I came here…

“Sarah! I’m not trying to hurt you!” Adam yelled into the chamber.

“Then leave!” she yelled back.

“I can’t do that,” he said.

“You’re a monster!” she shouted.

“Can I just explain myself?” he asked.

“You already did enough explaining before you killed Mikhail!”

Adam frowned. What the hell is she talking about?

“Kate brainwashed me,” he replied, taking a step into the entrance. “She brainwashed you and Mikhail as well in the beginning, before you fought the Bone Creeper.”

Sarah didn’t immediately refute his claims, so Adam went on.

“Kate made me kill him. That wasn’t me.”

“She didn’t tell you to do it!” Sarah replied angrily.

He walked back into the chamber again slowly. The blood he’d absorbed from his choker activating clung to the front of his fur coat, ready to spring into action and defend him again if necessary.

Sarah was pointing her staff at him the moment he came into view.

“Listen to me, Sarah,” he said. “That wasn’t me. I don’t even know what the fuck happened since I collapsed outside the tower. I just blacked out and then ‘woke up’ when Kate was crushed to death by the Crawler that was just trying to get you earlier. I’m missing like 5 hours from my memory.”

“I also lost my memories after we were attacked in the carriage,” Sarah said, lowering her weapon. “Mikhail mentioned the same thing to me when we entered the tower. He told me not to let Kate get too close.”

That means she didn’t brainwash them a second time. Weird.

The charm on Mikhail must’ve faltered too, since he was pretty much dancing to Kate’s tune before I was mind-controlled by her.

But perhaps there’s a limit to the charm. There has to be if it’s so powerful.

It’s possible that only one target can be fully charmed at a time, and since Kate switched to me, maybe that means the effect on him vanished.

“Can you just tell me what happened?” Adam asked, sitting down on the floor with his back against the wall of the tunnel leading out of the chamber. “I’d really like to know.”

Sarah didn’t sit down, but she quickly recounted the events to him.

After Adam had collapsed following the defeat of the golem, Kate had helped him back to his feet and from then on, he’d done anything she asked of him. Mikhail and Sarah had followed along behind Adam and Kate as he used his blood and flesh magic, along with the Spidersilk Needle, to take down almost everything they encountered with terrifying efficiency.

Once they’d killed the second golem and entered the tower, Kate had asked Adam how he was controlling the flesh and blood of the enemies, and he’d gone on to explain his primary weapon, the blood sigils.

Sarah and Mikhail had grown suspicious of him, since it was yet another secret he’d been hiding, and it was only made worse when Kate had asked Adam to appraise something and he had admitted that he wasn’t actually worshipping Messimer but rather the Flayed Lady.

For some reason though, Adam hadn’t revealed anything about his Patron.

“That must’ve been the Flayed Lady’s doing,” Adam said, interrupting the story. “She did something right when Kate’s mind-control activated. I think she was trying to protect her own secrets.”

Sarah frowned. “She sounds like a bad Patron.”

“Yours is literally the incarnation of solar flares,” he retorted.

“Well at least mine didn’t task me to kill another Player,” she said.

“Fair,” he conceded.

She went on with the story, explaining how Adam had revealed pretty much everything he knew, but curiously he hadn’t mentioned his ability to go back in time.

Maybe I have the Flayed Lady to thank for that.

It would’ve been pretty bad if they also knew I was a time-looper.

They’d gone through the first three landings with Adam telling them about the secrets they’d find, and when they’d gotten the Blue Shard weapon, it was given to Mikhail. All the upgrades had gone to Kate despite their earlier agreement to split the rewards, but since Adam was under her spell, neither Mikhail nor Sarah had pushed back out of fear of his power.

Once they reached the Mana Hoarders’ barracks and unlocked the basement with the lever, they’d ventured back down and defeated the boss down there. Adam had been made to loot the Relic Chests, but the rewards had gone to Kate. The things she couldn’t use were given to Sarah and Mikhail to carry, since they weren’t participating much in the fighting.

“After we finished with the laboratorium, Kate started to ask about how the Points work for the Stage,” Sarah said. “For some reason she was sure that you would know. And you did.”

Adam was glad that Sarah didn’t ask him how.

“When you explained to her how the Point rewards were divided between the Players in a Stage that were still alive, Kate said that she wanted to get as many Points as possible.” Sarah paused, clenching her staff. “Then you just turned around and killed Mikhail where he stood. I ran away before you could kill me too.”

It took Adam a second to understand what had happened.

My mind-controlled self killed Mikhail, because Kate wanted more Points.

The logic is very simple, but no sane person thinks like that.

It’s like when she asked Sarah to attack the creeper, and she charged it with her staff instead of using the magic she possessed.

Kate didn’t understand the power she was wielding, and instead of trying the trick that worked to break the spell on Sarah and Mikhail, she instead took advantage of me when I was unable to fight back.

She might not have been a bad person from the outset, but she jumped on the opportunity when it presented itself.

Otherwise, she would’ve at least tried to share the loot with the others.

Adam frowned.

“This Stage ended up so fucked…” he muttered.

“You killed Jun as well, that’s what you said,” Sarah added, recalling it after finishing her story.

“He worshipped a truly evil Absolute,” Adam told her.

“Who?”

“He’s called Nwetrou. Like the Flayed Lady, his first quest is to kill someone, but more than that, he wants his worshippers to sacrifice those they kill to him. If you do that, then the person you sacrifice stays dead forever. They won’t come back, even if you beat the Trials.”

Or if you loop back in time, he thought but didn’t say.

“There’s no guarantee anyone will come back if they die in the Trials,” Sarah replied. “All we have are the words of the cubes and they can’t be trusted.”

Adam nodded. “You’re right about that.”

“But you killed Jun to protect us?” she asked sceptically.

“To be honest, I was mostly thinking of myself,” Adam admitted. “I didn’t want anyone to be sacrificed because I didn’t do something. It wouldn’t sit well with me.”

“You don’t seem that sorry about killing him,” Sarah remarked.

“I’m not. He deserved to die.”

“What about Mikhail?”

“He shouldn’t have died. But I can’t change what happened,” Adam said. “What I can do is get you to the end of the Stage in one piece.”

“I don’t trust you.”

“I know.”

“Tell me how to get out and I’ll do it on my own.”

Adam got up from the floor. “Sure, let’s do it like that. But I want half of the treasure you’re carrying,” he told her.

Sarah scoffed. “This is mine. You already got a Legendary Relic and Kate took all the upgrades.”

Adam grinned. “Then I’ll take whatever else remains in the Stage.”

“Fine by me,” she replied. “I just want to leave.”

He nodded. “It’s really simple. You just follow the spiralling stairwell all the way to the fourth big landing. There’s a door that you’ll go through. It’ll take you to a cliffside on the edge of a forest, and there’ll be a painting. Touch the painting and you complete the Stage.”

“Are you going to clear the way up?” she asked.

“I could carry you all the way up there right now,” he said.

“No thanks.”

“Then give me an hour before you start climbing.”

Sarah relaxed the grip on her staff and sat down on the floor.

Adam took that as his cue and left the chamber.

She won’t ever trust me, that much is obvious, but I’ll get her out of here alive.

-----------------------------

Someone remind me to update the Encyclopaedia soon <.<

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--Encyclopaedia---
---Next Chapter----

MADMAN APOCALYPSE - Book 3 - Chapter 43

-Previous chapter-
---Next chapter----

I might write a couple more chapters this week, but trying not to let it affect my Loopshard posting schedule.

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Chapter 43

Either I mistimed my activate of Skippy’s ability to escape the black watery dimension, or my aim had been off from the start, but regardless of which it was, we ended up inside one of the large monsters that roamed the Singing City.

Skippy flopped out of the black pond and landed atop several piles of treasure with enormous golden organs around us. For some reason there were jewel-encrusted slot machines all over the place, as well as ivory and gold roulette tables.

“Where are we?” Bee asked as Skippy timed out and started to sink into his own shadow.

“Help!” Chris exclaimed from where he was still bound to the back of the eldritch whale by its tentacles, but Bee was quick to free him with a couple slashes of the mushroom cleaver she was still carrying for some reason.

As Chris slumped to the ground, clearly regretting having gone with us, Bee started chopping into Skippy’s body before it disappeared. She managed to cut off one of the fins on his left side, as well as getting a few pounds of blubbery flesh.

“Stop that!” Panda told her, although it was already too late to give it back since Skippy had fully vanished.

“Hold on!” I said as I looked up at the coiling intestinal tract made of solid gold that snaked through the large cavity we were in. “I think we’re inside Gargalob!”

Panda frowned. “I unfortunately think you’re right about that…”

“We’re inside a demon?” Bee asked.

The ground shook and many of the large piles of gold coins, jewels, and golden casino chips tumbled down, threatening to bury Chris where he’d collapsed onto his back exhaustedly. With a punch, I generated enough air to knock one of the golden waves aside, saving him just in time.

But the trouble wasn’t over, as suddenly a golden die hit me right in the head, leaving an imprint of four dots.

“Imps incoming!” Panda yelled.

I looked up and saw a swarm of gold-winged lesser demons descending towards us. They all reminded me of Mammon when I’d first met him, though they were slightly bigger and could obviously fly.

Despite his exhaustion, Chris got to his feet, quickly picking up armfuls of treasure to hurl at the imps that flew down from the area up by the stomach sack to get us.

Bee was already airborne and swatting through the swarm of imps with her Stinky Fish, knocking them into each other and sending them hurtling down towards Chris and I, where they were quickly beaten and stomped to death.

I started picking up coins as well, using Brock to finger-flick them up at the imps. Each hit made the imps pop like balloons, but instead of blood and guts, they were filled with golden confetti.

It made quite a mess.

“Uh, Gambit?” Chris said, tapping on my shoulder just as I was about to hurl back a die I’d caught before it’d hit my face.

“What?” I asked and turned to look at him.

But he didn’t need to tell me what was wrong, because I could see it clear as day.

The vertical pond we’d created when we’d entered into Gargalob’s body was growing rapidly. Already several meters of golden intestines were being pulled into it, shuddering as something deep inside the black water was trying to drag more of it in.

The world suddenly started to tilt as Gargalob began to stumble, and to make matters worse, my goddamn Schmonic Boots were turning golden.

“We need to get out of here!” Panda exclaimed. “Just being in the presence of a powerful demon like Gargalob is enough to turn you into golden statues if you stick around for too long, and touching anything he created with his demonic powers speeds it up!”

“Now you’re telling us!?” I exclaimed and let go of the roulette table I’d been about to throw.

Chris dropped his handful of treasure as well.

“Ah shit, he can hear me,” Panda muttered.

“Your fur is turning gold as well,” I told Panda.

He started to aggressively brush himself off, but to no avail. It was kind of scary to think that he wasn’t beyond the reach of a demon either.

“So this is the Panda you were talking about,” Chris muttered.

“What’s your insanity meter at?” Bee asked as she floated back down.

All of the surviving imps had evacuated since it was clear that the black pond would soon be the size of a lake and devour everything inside Gargalob.

“I’m at 80%,” Chris said.

“That’s too high,” Panda muttered.

“Forget about that right now!” I exclaimed. “We need to get out of here before my prized shoes turn fully gold! It’ll ruin the resale value!”

“How are we going to get out?” Bee asked. “Can you punch a hole through his body? I think it’s too dense.”

“I know of a way,” Chris said and pointed to an open tube next to us. A large portion of what should have been connected to it was missing, devoured by the black water, and it provided us a way to enter.

But we could all tell what its purpose had been and where it would lead out.

I frowned. “Are you fucking kidding me?”

“I’d rather take the golden turd slide than go back into that black water,” Chris said bravely and jumped into the tube.

“Do you think it smells? You know, since everything is gold and stuff?” Bee asked philosophically.

“Only one way to find out,” Panda said with a grin.

My frown deepened.

I blacked out the following 20-second long tube slide ride to freedom, and I only came to when I landed on the ground next to Chris.

He was covered in a sheen of oily-looking spray-on gold. I hadn’t thought that gold could ever look so disgusting up until that very moment.

“FYI, you’re also covered in it,” Panda said.

A deep shudder ran down my spine. “I need a shower.”

We were shaded by the enormous body above us, and when I heard the sounds of Bee coming from above, I made the mistake of looking up.

A large gaping orifice stared down at me like an evil eye, recessed into two sagging buttocks that glistened with oily gold on its already-golden surface, and there were angry-looking sores filled with precious crystals dotting their surface.

As Bee landed next to us, the giant above us staggered, dragging his left foot towards us.

I quickly scooped Chris up into my arms while summoning my sentient longboard, and Bee raised up into the air with her wings and followed after us.

“What took you so long?” Panda asked her as we escaped the large lumpen foot of the demon, moments before it stepped down on where we’d been standing.

“I had to collect some more materials,” she said.

I frowned at the thought of what she might’ve gathered from inside the cursed tube slide of gold.

“It was actually kind of fun,” she then added.

“I thought so too,” Chris said from where I held him in my arms.

“You guys are crazy,” I told them as we completely left the shadow of the gigantic golden body of Gargalob.

I spun around on the board to take a look at him, but he really just looked like a naked and overweight Italian guy in his fifties, except he had luscious red-brown hair spun into curls, golden skin, and two stubby black horns.

He turned towards us as though he knew we were there, and as he made a full rotation, I saw the extent of the damage inflicted onto him by Skippy’s ability.

Gargalob’s entire right side was just a vertical portal of black water. It had taken away his right arm and was rapidly devouring his leg and half of his torso. Within minutes, the giant demon would be completely gone.

Which left the question, what would happen to the black portal to Nwetrou’s abyss?

“Whatever,” I said and shrugged. “Fuck this city.”

“Are you talking to yourself?” Panda asked.

Gargalob roared, his voice shaking the city underneath our feet. It almost sounded like he was screaming my name.

“I see the central tower that Billee told us about,” Bee said.

“Let’s go there,” I replied.

“I’d like to go back to our base,” Chris interjected.

“We’re just gonna briefly say hi,” I told him.

“Wait, who’s Billee?” he asked.

“You’ll see,” I said.

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MADMAN APOCALYPSE - Book 3 - Chapter 42

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Just finished this in time for it going up on RR tomorrow <.<

Anyway, ch.43 is right behind this.

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Chapter 42

I ended up picking the Skippy! ability, since I realized it might work with an ability I’d gotten earlier from the Humanbus Brain.

[‘Vehicle Whistle’ x ]

Passive

Did you know that whistling at Sloth Demons makes them go berserk?

Anyway.

This Skill seems like it has a lot of weird applications, since whoever designed it didn’t really understand what exactly defined a vehicle.

I wouldn’t use it around those fat guys who fantasize about ponies, that’s all I’ll say.

Whistling will animate the nearest vehicle and call it to you. Speed, durability, and duration varies based on the exact vehicle.

Cooldown: 30 minutes

As I reread the description, I also realized that I should probably do the summoning quite far away from the base, just in case it didn’t work on Skippy and somehow made Cooper come running to serve as my ‘vehicle’.

To that end, we left the base with Chris, leaving James in Cooper’s care.

Far to the east, on the opposite side of the city from Samantha’s base beacon, was an all-out brawl between three or four teams over something that looked like a golden eyeball.

None of the bases near us had any activity, so we were clear to pick a spot near the wall of the Singing City where I could use my new ability.

“Shouldn’t we just get in, grab some materials, and get out?” Chris asked.

“This is quite a stupid idea,” Panda agreed, though of course Chris couldn't hear him.

“Here we go,” I said, ignoring them both.

Bee was bouncing on the balls of her feet excitedly, her legs buried up to her knees in the thick layer of ash.

“Skippy!” I exclaimed.

A black droplet fell out of the red sky and struck the ashy ground. Then a strange rolling sensation passed across the area, like waves spreading out from where the droplet had landed like rings in water.

A strange thrum shook the air and a black pond suddenly just appeared, taking a portion of the wall with it. It was 3 meters in diameter and even in this strange realm it looked out of place.

Ripples formed on the surface of the black water and then a whale shark emerged head-first, leaving half of its body submerged in the pond. Its body was dark-blue and white-glowing eyes dotted the front of its large head. A beard of strange tentacles grew from under its large mouth and it had at least eight fins on the sides of its body, with another two on top.

Chris let out a string of expletives as it turned its attention on him.

“You have called for me, Gambit,” said Skippy. His voice was deep and bassy, which was fitting for a creature his size. “You called and I answered.”

“Uh, I’m over here,” I said.

The whale head turned to face me. “I thought you looked different, but now I see you.”

“Pretty sure this guy has really bad eyesight,” Panda commented.

“Fak ‘im up!!” Brock squealed impatiently.

“You don’t mind if we ride you like a vehicle, right?” I asked him.

There was a long pause before Skippy replied, rather confused, “What?”

“I thought we were turning him into sashimi,” Bee muttered, suddenly holding a large mushroom that had grown into the shape of a meat cleaver.

“Hold on a moment, I am the proud offspring of Lord Nwetrou. To be used as a means of transportation or turned into food is far beneath my stature.”

“That’s a shame,” I said. “Anyway…”

I whistled loudly and Skippy’s entire body went rigid.

“Did it work?” Chris asked.

“I told you he wouldn’t be happy with it,” Panda said.

“Let’s get on before he snaps out of it,” I told them and jumped onto the back of Skippy’s large head.

Immediately, two of his beard tentacles curled around like handlebars, and when I grabbed them, I could feel how simple the controls for his body were, as well as the surprising ability he possessed as a vehicle.

Panda sighed loudly as he jumped from Bee’s shoulder to mine. Then she got on behind me. Chris seemed reluctant until shouting came from a team of players that had just emerged from their own base nearby.

With everyone on board, I cranked the right tentacle and Skippy started to hum like a motorcycle.

[Congratulations! You have unlocked an achievement! x ]

‘Cosmic Humiliation’

Humiliated an Absolute’s Spawn.

Hah!

Skippy was always so boastful, bragging about what he’d done and who he knew.

To see him turned into a simple means of transportation was something I didn’t know I needed until now.

Reward: ‘Skippy Plushie’

A plushie similar to the shark whale we were sitting on landed in my lap and I immediately inspected it.

[‘Skippy Plushie’ x ]

Item

This is actually a voodoo doll bound to Skippy.

I don’t think I need to say anything else, just let your mind fill in the blanks.

Weight: approximately one

I put the plushie away for now, and then I revved Skippy’s tentacles. The shark whale shot out of the pond and up into the air, aiming us towards the players that had yelled moments before.

They all immediately turned around and ran back to their base as they saw the giant eldritch whale come flying in their direction.

With a tug on the right tentacle I turned Skippy around in the air and aimed us towards the city and its wall. As we started to plummet back down towards the ground, the fins on the sides of his body flapped lazily, and Bee and Chris both squealed, but for different reasons.

Panda held onto my neck tightly and Bee had her arms wrapped around my waist. For some reason, Chris was strapped to the back a bit behind her with a harness made of beard tentacles that I had no control over.

As the wall of white bone rushed towards us, I activated Skippy’s special ability.

The whale opened his mouth and spat out a stream of black water, creating a vertical pond in the section of wall we were about to hit.

Then we slammed into the pond and were immediately underwater.

Chris’ eyes went wide with horror as our surroundings were exchanged with a bottomless darkness full of distant blue-glowing leviathan shapes.

I activated Skippy’s ability again and suddenly we shot out of the side of a large building inside the Singing City, soaring through the air on our large whale.

“I think we just went to Nwetrou’s abyss!” Panda exclaimed in horror.

“I want to get off this ride!” Chris exclaimed, voice full of panic.

“Do it again!” Bee squealed excitedly as the ground rushed up towards us once more.

“I’m gonna aim us at one of those titans roaming near the city center!” I told the others. “If I can create a pond directly on their bodies, that should probably kill them easily.”

Chris shouted something, but I didn’t hear what it was as I activated Skippy again and we went back into the black water.

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Loopshard - Chapter One-Hundred-and-Nineteen

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--Encyclopaedia---
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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.]

“Did I loot it?”

[No.]

Sarah must’ve taken it then. Or maybe Mikhail.

“Are Sarah and Mikhail still alive?”

[Player Mikhail Tkachenko is dead.]

“What about Sarah?”

[I cannot say.]

Fuck…

Adam managed to sit up. He went to pull off his backpack, but found that it wasn’t there.

“Where’s my backpack!?”

[You gave it to Player Katherine Joan Williams.]

Adam frowned.

I need to get it back, but I may be the only Player still alive in this Stage…

How did everything go so wrong!?

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Loopshard - Chapter One-Hundred-and-Eighteen

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--Encyclopaedia---
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The thick plottens!

Also, Loopshard is going to hit 400k words with chapter 119! My personal best for word count on a story is Isekai Exorcist, which at three books has 427k words.

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Chapter One-Hundred-and-Eighteen

While the others continued to fight the Bone Creeper that remained, Adam shaped his arm into a spike and drove it through Jun’s head, easily creating a hole through his cranium. The internal blood explosion Adam had used to kill him had compromised the bone quite significantly.

With the hole made, Adam retrieved one of the bolts that the creeper had fired at them and placed it through Jun’s open head, shifting his muscles and flesh around to empower his arms enough to drive the large bolt firmly into the forest ground.

Once Adam had returned his body’s shape to how he remembered it looking before, he finally went about looting Jun, though he was only looking for one thing.

< < Loot ­— Jun Jie Lim > >

< Captain’s Cape (Rare) >

< Duellist’s Glove (Rare) >

< First Strike Earring (Rare) x2 >

< Slothling Fur Coat (Rare) >

< Slothling Spring Boots (Rare) >

< Shard of Blood >

And there it is, the thing the Flayed Lady wanted me to collect.

< < Quest Object > >

< Shard of Blood — The crystallised lifeblood of Jun Jie Lim >

Adam held the shard in his hand for a moment before absorbing it into his own body, folding his flesh around it to hide the evidence away. After all, it would’ve been foolish to just put it in his backpack.

Then he swapped his Hobgoblin Pendant out for the Blood Mage Choker, since he no longer needed its affect to trick the wannabe Player-killer.

As the numbness faded and his sense of feeling and touch returned, Adam paused to take in the pain that wracked his body from the transformations. He had managed to avoid breaking his body while manipulating his own flesh without the sense of touch and feeling, but the pain was a potent force that rolled over him in pulsating waves.

With a deep breath, he pushed the pain to the back of his mind.

I should probably be concerned that I don’t feel any shred of remorse for what I just did.

But maybe it’s just because I can’t forgive anyone who would destroy the world for their own short-term gain.

I want Beck to succeed, but he can’t do that if Nwetrou cheats and intentionally sends Players after him.

Once I get back to the island, I need to do a deep scan for all the adherents of Nwetrou.

I may have to unlock the Challenge Stone to get rid of them.

Adam collected as much blood as he could from Jun’s corpse without making it look suspicious, and then he ran towards where the others were still fighting, leaving behind the rest of the loot.

Mikhail was injured, his left arm hanging by his side, but it didn’t stop him from bashing the Bone Creeper repeatedly where it was rooted into the ground. Next to them were three toppled trees that the enemy had clearly fallen from, landing in a way that two of its back legs were stuck firmly into the understory of the forest.

Kate and Sarah struggled to pierce the bone armour of the Elite, but the three of them were working together quite well. Kate used her parries to protect the others from the creeper’s legs that swung at them, and she created weak points on its body that the other two hit repeatedly, thanks to her Vigilant Fighter’s Vambrace.

As Adam closed in on the fight, Mikhail managed to crack the outer shell of the creeper, but they were still far from being able to kill it.

It seems that the weak points created by Kate’s vambrace aren’t actually highlighting the true weaknesses of the enemy and they’re making them less effective because they redirect all their attacks at its dense body, rather than the actual parts they should be hitting.

“You need to target the legs!” Adam yelled at them.

Neither Mikhail nor Sarah listened, but then Kate repeated Adam’s words and they obeyed.

That’s weird…

Adam pulled out his Spidersilk Needle and performed one of the tricks he’d been practising the night before. With the needle in his right hand and the golden thread coated with his energised blood, Adam drew out a spiral with the string, placing it on the front of the needle as tightly as he could.

It was something him and Beck had discovered quite quickly with the Golden Tailor evolution. It allowed Adam to make stable constructs with the silk and ‘wear’ them, but he could also apply them directly to his needle, which produced a powerful result.

With the spring-like spiral placed on the front of the needle, Adam shot it forward with a spike to the back. Thanks to his many upgrades, it flew much faster and with more power than during the Forbidden Altar.

As the tip of his needle touched the back of the creeper, away from where the others were targeting their attacks, the spiral of silk on the front of the weapon triggered.

A crack like the sound of thunder came, and then the needle, which had reached the end of its initial burst of momentum, suddenly shot forward, shearing through three of the legs and stretching the elastic silk another ten metres before yanking back.

A few moments later, the others destroyed the remaining legs and the Bone Creeper cracked like a dropped egg.

[Elite enemy defeated.]

“We did it!” Kate celebrated.

Mikhail and Sarah smiled, sharing her excitement.

Huh. The Russian guy didn’t strike me as the smiling type. More the quiet brooding type.

“Where’s mister incredible?” Kate joked when she saw that Adam was alone. She had clearly not been a fan of Jun’s smug attitude.

“He’s dead,” Adam replied.

“Dead?” she asked and cast him a suspicious look that the other two mirrored.

It’s been only a few minutes and they’ve already formed a tight-knit group…

This is giving me flashbacks to what happened with Maalia, Leon, and Ruimin.

Adam tried to put his apprehension aside and look at it objectively from their perspective, but he couldn’t stop it from nagging at him.

I would probably be suspicious too if I was in their shoes.

“The other Bone Creeper got him,” Adam said.

“Bone Creeper? Is that what these things are?” Kate asked.

“That’s what my cube called it at least.”

“Did you loot his body?” Kate asked.

“No, I came to help you guys as soon as our creeper was dead.”

Kate nodded.

Then the other two nodded.

Okay… What the fuck is going on.

The four of them went over to where Jun’s body lay and Kate grimaced at the sight of him, before realising that the creeper had been killed by a single strike.

“He managed to deal a lot of damage to it, but then it shot him as they both fell towards the ground,” Adam lied.

“Damn, that’s unlucky,” Kate replied, not questioning the shoddy logic Adam had come up.

For some reason, neither Mikhail nor Sarah wanted any of the loot from Jun’s body, so Kate and Adam just divvied it up, with her getting the cape and both earrings. The rest went into Adam’s backpack to be sold later.

I’m gonna need something else to carry with soon, since the Nightwing Heart is taking up so much space.

He noticed that Mikhail’s left arm was still hanging limply by his side.

“Doesn’t he have a healing potion?” Adam asked Kate.

She repeated the question to him, and he just nodded.

“You should use it,” Kate told him.

Mikhail pulled out a healing potion that he quickly drank, restoring his arm to normal function.

There’s something really fucking wrong with him and Sarah.

It has to be because of Kate.

They’re only listening to her.

As they continued through the forest in the direction of the tower, Kate suddenly told the other two to go on ahead and do some scouting.

Once they were out of sight, she stopped walking and Adam came to a halt as well.

Before he could ask what the hell she’d done to the other two Players, Kate said, “Adam, you’ve gotta help me fix this!”

He frowned. “Is it because of your Patron?”

Now that they were up close to each other, he noticed that her irises were glowing faintly orange-red.

“You lied about worshipping the Masked Courtesan, right?” she replied.

“Yeah…”

“Thank God,” she said. “I don’t know what’s the cause of it, but when I met her, she told me to be careful with the boon I was gifted.”

“What kind of Absolute is she?” he asked.

“She controls the power of attraction or something,” Kate said, speaking quickly. “I’m pretty sure it also extends to love. Her boon is a power that allows me to charm humanoids to make them friendly, like those goblins from the village for example. She said I could make them friendly if I’d had her boon back then. One of her titles is also ‘The Siren’. Anyway! The issue is that the charming power is active without me doing anything!”

Adam was reminded of James’ theory about the Masked Courtesan being a deity of love. He had been incredibly accurate with his guesses, which was astonishing in hindsight, considering how little they all knew at the time.

If one of the Courtesan’s other names is the Siren, then it might explain why it’s impossible for Kate to fully switch off the charm.

“It has to be the weakness tied to your worship of her,” Adam theorised.

“Weakness?”

“Yeah. You get a boon and a weakness. Your weakness might be whatever the fuck happened to Mikhail and Sarah.”

“I think it’s because I touched them,” Kate said. She was clearly quite upset about having brainwashed the others. “That’s just the kind of person I’ve always been. I’ve been told it’s a bit much in the past, especially when I get too excited about meeting new people. My sister used to say I’m a golden retriever.”

Adam thought back to their first meeting in the Tavern. She had immediately tried to high-five him.

What a dangerous power for someone like her.

I fortunately feel nothing, but maybe that’s just because she hasn’t touched me yet.

Adam took a step back.

“I don’t think it would work on you,” Kate quickly added.

“I’m not taking any chances,” Adam said.

“But what do I do??” she pleaded. “They’ll die if I don’t tell them exactly how to fight! Sarah tried to attack the creeper thing by swinging her staff at it until I told her to use her magic. I’m not meant to have this kind of power!”

“Take a deep breath,” Adam told her.

Kate drew in an exaggerated breath and then exhaled loudly.

Man, everything she does is extra.

She’s like a rabbit on caffeine.

“There may be a way to break the spell on them,” he started.

“Really!?” she replied excitedly.

Adam held up a hand for her to wait for him to finish his thought.

“If you say the Courtesan is associated with love, then perhaps rejecting them would work. It’s like the opposite of attraction, right?”

“I can’t!” Kate exclaimed. “The Courtesan explicitly warned me not to!”

“Why?”

“She said that rejecting someone’s attraction would make them act irrationally or become violent.”

Fucking hell…

What a goddamn mess of an Absolute to worship.

I can’t believe I haven’t heard about this before. Brainwashing other Players is so obviously prone to abuse.

“Maybe the effect will wear off if we just wait,” Adam suggested. “But no more touching people! Your power is fucking terrifying.”

Kate hung her head. “I just picked her because I thought charming someone else would’ve prevented the massacre I experienced in Stage Five.”

Adam sighed.

“It’s not your fault. But you’ve been handed tremendous power, and you need to be responsible with it.”

Kate nodded. “Thank you, Adam.”

“Do you know how you unlocked her at the Altar?” he asked.

“I think it has to do with unrequited love,” she replied.

That tracks, I guess.

But it’s weird, because Emelia said she got the Courtesan to show up too in the loop before she met me. I wonder why.

Perhaps there are more than one way to unlock that Absolute.

“Who are you worshipping?” Kate asked.

“It’s actually Messimer,” he lied. “I didn’t want you all to know that I have access to the Appraisal skill, since it can be quite invasive.”

Even if she has confided in me, I don’t trust her with the truth.

After all, if she can brainwash the others, then she could easily decide that I was a threat and do the same to me.

But so far at least, I don’t feel any attraction towards her.

Perhaps the charming touch only works against those who are already attracted to her, he guessed. That would at least balance the power a little, although it’s still quite insane to be able to turn people into slaves at will. I’m lucky that Kate doesn’t seem like a bad person.

“Is that boon why you were able to jump off the carriage before we were attacked?” she asked.

“That’s right. It’s also how I knew the legs were the weak points on the creepers,” he lied. But at least it was a convincing lie.

Adam had only known about the weakness of the creepers’ legs because of James possessing the Scope of Insight when he’d been here last time.

I should’ve just said I worshipped Messimer from the start, Adam thought. As a time-looper, faking the appraisal of an enemy is actually quite easy.

“Let’s go get the others before they reach the tower,” Adam said.

Kate nodded and off they went through the forest.

I hope my Stage Seven isn’t such a massive clusterfuck…

Just once I’d like to experience a group Stage where everyone is cooperative and not murderous psychos or whatever the hell you’d call Kate in this situation.

Adam sighed again.

He already just wanted this Stage to be over with, and it hadn’t even been 30 minutes since they’d started.

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Loopshard - Chapter One-Hundred-and-Seventeen

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Now the group-based fun begins again :D

Chapter 118 is coming either tomorrow or Sunday.

I'm trying to at least have a new chapter Monday and Friday to match RoyalRoad's schedule, and then I'll do 1 or 2 additional chapters somewhere between those every week. Once chapter 118 goes out, Patreon will be 16 chapters ahead of RR, but I'm hoping to get to 20ish relatively soon, so there may even be weeks with more than 4 chapters, but no promises.

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Chapter One-Hundred-and-Seventeen

< < Now Entering > >

< Stage 6 >

< Alepheria’s Crooked Tower >

< 24-hour Timer >

Adam opened his eyes as he was puppeteered up the stone steps leading out of the Forbidden Altar and onto the engraved stone disc at the heart of the Elphin Sanctuary. Like last time, there were just a few Elphin guards waiting on the steps of the ritual site, with all the other citizens returning to their daily lives.

The Eye floated away from Adam as he was brought to a halt in front of the stairwell he’d emerged from. It moved to the centre of the large disc and then a tremor rolled through the ground as the disc spun, sealing away the Forbidden Altar.

[For what comes next, you alone will not be powerful enough.]

[With the power of the All-Seeing System, the dimensions shall converge.]

It already has converged, he thought but couldn’t say out loud, since he was still locked in the grips of the cutscene.

The air rippled and the disc spun around so fast that he barely caught the movement with his eyes, even as he felt himself spun with it.

Adam blinked and then there were four figures standing around the outside of the disc, just like him, and each the same distance apart.

Déjà vu, Adam thought as he recognised one of the people, just like last time he’d been here.

He only knew her as Kate, but she’d told him about the Green Slime Glove back during his third loop. It felt like such a long time ago. He remembered her as being British, and she had dark skin and black hair cut in a bob, as well as friendly-looking apple-cheeks. She wore the fur coat like Adam, as well as the matching spring boots. She also had the vambrace Relic that caused parries to create weak points on her opponents, as well as the Duellist’s Glove and the Purple Slime Glove. Her weapon was a rapier, but Adam wasn’t familiar with its evolution and only knew that the weapon could parry, so it was strong against other Players.

He looked around at the rest.

Just five of us this time. That means everyone is meant to be here. I think…

The cutscene let go of them all and everyone except Adam stumbled a step. No sooner had they regained their footing than Adam saw a brief flash of warm golden light coating each of the people around him.

Is that the activation of my Brazier effect? he wondered.

It would absorb 50% of the damage from the first hit any of them suffered.

Uneasy glances were shared between everyone.

The stone orb for the Hardmode floated in front of Adam, but none of the others seemed to really notice, since they were busy looking at each other. He left it switched on, even though he didn’t know what it did, and nudged it behind his back to hide it.

He thought about the completion of the Stage and its achievements.

I’m only missing Defender and Speedrun.

He wasn’t sure how fast he’d have to go to get the speedrun, but given that the Stage was 24 hours long, he guessed it was 6 or 8 hours.

That’s doable.

“I’m Kate!” the British woman introduced herself, her voice bright and chipper. “I’m using a rapier, and I’m good at deflections and parries.”

“Who are you worshipping?” Adam asked.

They all looked at him.

“How about we start with simple introductions first?” she replied cheerfully.

He nodded and pulled out the Spidersilk Needle. “I’m Adam, and I use silk and a needle. I can do a lot of damage from medium-to-close ranges, but I won’t survive a lot of hits.”

Once again, Adam had decided that it was a bad idea to tell people about his blood magic.

“I worship the Courtesan,” he added, lying.

“Me too!” said Kate.

Shit. Maybe I should’ve picked a different one. I figured it was a rare worship option, but I guess not.

I’ll just have to bluff my way out of talking too much about that Absolute, since I don’t know anything other than the name.

“I’m Mikhail,” said the next person, a man with an East-European accent who had a salt-and-pepper beard and short hair, as well as piercing pale-blue eyes. He was the same height as Adam and built of lean muscle. “I use a big sword and I am strong when outnumbered. My patron is Nharlla.”

We may encounter the human mimic because of him.

Adam recognised his weapon as being from the One Man Army evolution of warrior. It increased his power when he was outnumbered 3-to-1. Mikhail’s Relics were the Forlorn Cuirass, First Strike Earring, Scale Trousers, and some leather boots that Adam hadn’t seen before.

“My name is Sarah,” said a woman holding a staff in her arms. It had the same appearance as Beck’s, so Adam knew she had fully evolved the weapon to become an Elemental Avatar. She had caramel skin and long black hair in a ponytail, as well as a very round face and big brown eyes. He guessed she was South American based on her accent. “I can use magic and I’m strongest when I’m far away from the enemy.”

She wore the Bone Armour, Skittish Skaters, Barrage Glove, Echo Earring, and had an Affliction Ward hanging from her belt.

“Oh,” she added belatedly, when the others were still looking at her. “I worship Morrligt.”

The last guy waited until they were all looking at him before he introduced himself.

“My name is Jun Jie Lim. I have a sword and a shield as you can see, and I worship Messimer.”

Adam suppressed a frown as he took in the last guy’s features. He was Asian, but his skin had a strange blue-tinted pallor and there were black lines on the sides of his neck, poorly hidden by the top of his Slothling Fur Coat. He had small eyes and a mouth curled into a self-satisfied grin that revealed prominent canines on his upper row of narrow teeth. His chin was well-defined and he had round cheeks that would’ve perhaps made him charming if not for the secret he was so poorly hiding.

He’s worshipping Nwetrou, Adam realised. He’s got blue skin and gills, exactly like Beck said.

He cannot be allowed to live.

Besides the fur coat, Jun had two First Strike Earrings, the Captain’s Cape, Slothling Spring Boots, and the Duellist’s Glove. His weapon was the Outrider evolution of Vanguard, which increased the damage of the first strike against an opponent, and was itself evolved from Defender. In essence, he could deal a lot of damage with his first hit.

But what made him truly scary was the spear on his back.

Adam recognised it as the Spear Dancer evolution of Lancer, which increased damage based on how fast you were going.

This guy must’ve had help to make this setup…

He is without a doubt the deadliest non-time-looping Player I’ve ever encountered.

[The timer has begun.]

< < Stage Objective > >

< Find a clue to the Godstone in the Crooked Tower >

“Let’s go find out where the tower is,” Kate immediately said and they all followed her up the steps leading out of the ritual site.

Adam kept a close eye on Jun. With just the boost from Vanguard and the two earrings, he could probably kill any of them in a single hit. It was all but certain he’d succeed if he used his glove and spring boots as well. Adam hoped that his choker would be able to stop him, if he tried to attack.

Nwetrou or his Envoy must’ve put him up to this, Adam considered as they followed after Kate while she went around interviewing the Elphin guards and citizens about how to find the tower.

While Adam had practiced in his Player House with Beck the night before, he’d discovered that only 8 million 706 thousand Players had survived past the Altar. It had been 54 million before the Stage.

And despite how fucked this universe is, the Absolutes are still jockeying for control.

There won’t even be more than a handful of Players remaining after Stage Ten, but still they want to influence Players like me or Jun, forcing us to kill each other.

But while the Flayed Lady’s plans are evil, Nwetrou’s are disastrously cruel.

His sacrifices ensure that the wellspring of life is forever poisoned.

If I want to help Beck, then I’ve got to get rid of this guy.

I just hope he hasn’t sacrificed anyone yet.

Eventually they found a man who knew the direction, and he also said he could take them there in his carriage. It wasn’t the same guy that Adam’s group had used last time, but the carriage ended up being the same.

I should’ve gotten the Beckoning Crimson scroll again, Adam considered as they climbed on board the carriage.

He still had the healing potion from Stage Three, but that wouldn’t really do much for him.

Activating the Hardmode might have also been a bad idea. I guess it would double the bonuses we get for killing the Elites and each other, but that might be it.

It would be really useful if it doubled objective rewards, but I highly doubt it would do that.

Still, there’s gotta be something useful for getting all the Hardmodes.

Since Adam hadn’t gone past Stage Seven, this would be his last Stage where he was able to use the Hardmode this run, and despite how much harder it had made the Forbidden Altar, it had definitely been worth it. He just hoped the same would be true again.

As they drove through the forest outside the Elphin Sanctuary, heading towards the tower, Adam and Jun sat inside the carriage with Sarah, while Kate was up front with the driver and Mikhail.

I’ve gotta do it now, Adam told himself as he nonchalantly pulled his silken backpack off and opened it up in front of himself.

I should have five minutes to pull this off, give or take, before we encounter the Bone Creeper in the forest.

Sarah and Jun sat on the opposite bench, which faced in the direction they were travelling, and they were talking about music or something, though Adam wasn’t really listening.

At the bottom of his bag was the Hobgoblin Pendant, along with the Lucky Stone, Dwarf Nightwing Heart, and Queen’s Pendant.

Equip Hobgoblin Pendant, Adam prompted the Eye with his thoughts while he reached in to pull out the Lucky Stone.

The familiar numbness spread across his body as the pendant was swapped for the Blood Mage Choker.

“What do you have there?” Jun asked him as Adam pulled the stone out of the bag and put the backpack over his shoulder again.

“It’s a secret item from the goblin village,” Adam told him. He held the stone flat in his hand while coaxing his numbing blood out through his palm and sticking it to the underside where neither Jun nor Sarah could see it.

“Do you mind if I take a look?” Jun asked.

“Sure,” Adam replied, handing him the Lucky Stone.

As he reached across the carriage with the Relic in his hand, Adam carefully manipulated the blood to stick to the stone in a way they wouldn’t be able to see it.

Jun grabbed the tip with his thumb on top and his index and middle finger on the bottom. Adam acted quickly, sending all of the blood straight through a small hole he made in Jun’s index finger.

The guy paused and turned the stone around, and Adam thought he’d been caught.

But then he just handed it to Sarah.

I think maybe my Bleed affliction didn’t trigger because the ‘attack’ dealt so little damage. A tiny poke to his finger might only be 1 or 2 damage. It should also have gotten rid of the protection my Brazier boon gives.

“That seems useful,” Jun commented after he’d inspected the Relic, none the wiser to the numbing blood that Adam was slowly moving through the veins in his arm and up towards his brain. Since Adam was pushing it along Jun’s bloodstream, he figured it shouldn’t be dealing any damage, though even if it did, the numbing effect would ensure that Jun didn’t know.

“I’m hoping to use it to get something cool,” Adam said, trying to fake sincere naivety.

There was no guarantee that he could get the Legendary Relic with it, and he hadn’t spent his Mastery Shards to get a second stone from Alivida, since she’d told him he couldn’t stack the stones’ effect. It would of course serve him well to get Alepheria’s Mandate for its unlisted knowledge-based effect, but he would be happy with most of the Epic Relics available in the Stage, particularly the Mage Aspirant’s Cowl and any of the grafted limbs.

Jun nodded, though Adam saw the greedy glint in his eyes that he couldn’t quite hide.

Sarah handed the stone back to Adam. “What do you think we’ll find in the tower?” she asked.

Adam shrugged. “No idea.”

“Monstrosities,” Jun said, and it was clear to Adam that he knew more than he was supposed to.

Given that only Beck and Adam should have seen future Stages, it seemed all but certain that Nwetrou was feeding Jun information somehow.

Perhaps he is upset that Beck killed his champion, this so-called Diviner, so now he’s playing dirty to get revenge.

Once I get out of here I need to tell him about it.

“I heard that those who worship Messimer get an appraisal skill,” Adam said.

Jun nodded.

“Do you know what weakness you received?” Adam continued.

“Weakness?” Sarah asked. She worshipped Morrligt, and Adam still didn’t know what weakness was tied to his first boon.

“You receive both a boon and a weakness from your Patron, but it seems that not all of the weaknesses are obvious,” Adam told her.

“I think I know what my weakness might be,” she said.

“Really?” he asked.

“I think using spells also drains my Stamina alongside my Mana. It feels like the air is pulled directly out of my lungs,” she explained.

Interesting.

“The weakness for Messimer is that his adherents take double damage from those who worship the Flayed Lady,” Jun said, surprising Adam.

How does he know that??

Is he on to me?

I don’t know how much Nwetrou or his Envoy has told this guy, which is a problem.

I need to deal with him quickly, but I can’t do it here. I’ll wait until we encounter the Bone Creeper.

Adam thought it was a shame that the guy was aligned with such an evil God, because his build was incredibly strong and could’ve taken him far.

“I don’t know what weakness the Masked Courtesan has,” Adam said, which was true at least.

“We should ask Kate,” Jun suggested, the corner of his mouth lifted into a grin.

Oh, he’s definitely on to me.

Adam let Jun believe he had the upper hand for now, even while his blood swirled around in the guy’s brain, ready to explode at the tiniest impulse from Adam. However, Adam’s magic had a certain range to it, so if Jun moved far enough away, Adam would lose control over the blood he’d injected into the guy’s bloodstream. Granted, if that happened, it wasn’t clear whether Jun would be fine or not, but Adam couldn’t risk it.

Almost the exact moment that they leaned out of the door to crawl onto the roof of the carriage, two loud thunk sounds came in quick succession.

Adam hopped away from the carriage on instinct just as a large bone projectile struck one of the horses, instantly killing it and collapsing its body under the front left wheel of the vehicle. With the reins pulled under itself and the front wheels coming to a sudden stop, the carriage flipped forward, narrowly avoiding a secondary hit from the large bolt that came after the first.

With an exertion of Mana, Adam summoned blood from within himself and pulled it out of his hands. He immediately flung it at the carriage, controlling two separate globs that brought the vehicle to a standstill in a vertical position.

“Get out of the vehicle!” Adam shouted.

Mikhail had already launched himself off the top of the carriage and was charging the leftmost bone creeper that had its legs clasping three separate trees.

I think the Hardmode must’ve doubled the Elites!

Sarah, Jun, and Kate got off the carriage, and Kate made sure to get the Elphin driver to safety as well.

A second after they’d all disembarked, the remaining horse and the vertical carriage were driven through by the giant bolts.

Adam relaxed his magic and the vehicle collapsed back down.

“Jun and I will take the left one, and Kate and Sarah will join Mikhail on the right,” Adam told them.

Sarah didn’t move for a second, perhaps paralysed by the sudden attack, but then Kate grabbed her arm. “You heard him!” she shouted.

Adam brought his floating orbs of blood back to himself along the ground like snakes so that Jun wouldn’t notice while they ran towards the bone creeper clinging to a tree several metres ahead of them. When the blood got close to him, Adam pushed it into his fur coat, where the black fur made it hard to tell it was even there. Fortunately, Jun was focused on the enemy ahead of them, allowing Adam to liberally use the blood to push himself to go faster, and making him able to almost keep up with the Outrider.

With the other three out of sight and hearing range, Jun said, without even lowering his voice, “Through his Envoy, Nwetrou told me about you. He said we should work together. I know you worship the Flayed Lady and I know what she has asked of you in this Stage.”

“And I’m sure I know what Nwetrou asked of you,” Adam replied, not trying to hide who he worshipped anymore since the guy clearly knew.

“Is that so?” Jun asked as they both dodge to the side of a bolt fired straight at them.

“He wants you to sacrifice someone, right?”

“I hesitated in the Altar,” Jun said. “This time I won’t make that mistake. His Envoy told me about the powers I would receive if I am diligent in my ‘worship’.”

“Let me guess, one of those powers would be the ability to travel to another Player’s dimension?” Adam responded.

“How did you know?”

Thanks for confirming that for me.

I bet that’s what the Abyssal Gift called Eye of Nwetrou does.

“Lucky guess,” Adam replied.

As they reached the trees that the creeper had attached itself to, Jun looked up at the monster while it slowly pivoted its body so that its ‘barrel’ faced straight down.

Without warning, Jun kicked off the ground by triggering his Slothling Spring Boots, flying straight up at insane speed, which was clearly boosted even further by his Outrider ability to rapidly close the distance to a foe.

As Jun flew past the Bone Creeper, having aimed himself slightly to the side of it, his blade slashed all the way through its dense body, producing a powerful shockwave when it cleared the other side and sending the two separate halves of the elite down towards the ground where Adam hadn’t even begun to try and prepare a follow-up attack.

The ground jumped under Adam’s feet as the heavy enemy struck the forest floor.

[Elite enemy defeated.]

He’s a lot stronger than I expected.

He might not be far from Emelia’s normal damage with her setup.

Jun skidded down the side of a tree and landed on his boots on the mossy ground next to Adam.

“See?” Jun said smugly. “There’s a benefit to us working together.”

“Who should we go for first?” Adam asked.

Jun looked towards where the others were clearly fighting the remaining creeper in the distance. None of the Players were actually visible, but they could see the impacts of their attacks echo through the treetops from where they were standing.

“Kate,” he said. “I fought someone with a rapier in the Altar. The parry ability it possesses is very dangerous. She might be able to put up a serious fight if we don’t take her out of the equation first. I don’t think the greatsword guy or Sarah would be able to do anything.”

He’s scared of Kate because she could actually nullify the entire strength of his build with a well-timed parry or deflect.

“Do you want to wait until we know how to finish the Stage?” Adam asked.

“No,” Jun said. “We don’t need them.”

Did Nwetrou also tell him how to beat the Stage? Adam wondered.

Jun turned back to face him.

“You’re pretty strong I’m guessing, even though you haven’t shown off your weapon yet. But you knew that attack was coming before it hit the carriage.”

Adam grinned at how right the guy was without even knowing the truth of it.

“That’s right, I’m pretty strong,” he said.

With an imperceptible twitch of the index finger of his left hand bearing the control sigil, Adam exploded the Mana-infused blood inside Jun’s brain.

Thanks to the Hobgoblin Pendant’s effect, Jun didn’t even seem to register what’d happened as blood trickled out of his nose, ears, eyes, and mouth.

Then he collapsed to the ground.

“You chose the wrong God to worship,” Adam remarked.

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Loopshard - Chapter One-Hundred-and-Sixteen

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--Encyclopaedia---
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This should've gone up yesterday, but i ended up kind of busy because of the Isekai Exorcist book 2 launch. Anyway, chapter 117 will be out tomorrow.

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Chapter One-Hundred-and-Sixteen

Adam went down the steps of his Player House and into the basement restaurant, and no sooner had he entered than all of the special denizens, as well as Yenna and Weaver, came through the door in the back. Belamouranthe appeared like last time as well, transported to the island by a giant blue flower that appeared in the middle of the basement.

She greeted Adam and handed him the same All-Mother’s Fruit that she’d gifted him last time. Then she went over to where Charlie and Weaver were.

He had agreed to meet Beck and Gladwyn right after the Altar, but when he sat down on a seat, the constantly-running query to show him time-loopers didn’t reveal Beck.

“Show me Beck,” he told the Eye.

[This Player does not exist.]

Adam panicked for a second, but then he remembered that Beck wasn’t using the nickname in this universe.

“Show me Benjamin Sharpe.”

[This Player is not currently seated in the Tavern.]

Maybe I got here too fast, since he always goes to Gladwyn’s dimension first.

“Show me Gladwyn.”

[This Player does not exist.]

Adam shook his head. I don’t think I’ll get used to calling them by their real names…

“Show me Wi—”

[Another Player is trying to communicate with you. Do you wish to talk to them?] the Eye interrupted him.

“Is it Beck? I mean, Benjamin.”

[Correct.]

“Pass him through.”

Beck appeared opposite Adam. He was leaning his chin on the knuckles of his left hand while spinning an empty bottle with his right.

“Hey,” Adam said.

“William is dead,” Beck immediately replied.

Adam froze. He hadn’t expected this outcome.

“We ended up in the same Stage,” Beck explained before Adam could say anything.

“Shit…” he muttered.

“Yeah. It was bad luck. In a way, it’s ironic that the Diviner killed him in Stage Three last time, because if I’d had to fight him in the Altar, then I don’t think I would’ve kept going. I kind of feel like giving up already,” he admitted.

“You can’t!” Adam exclaimed.

“He had the lighthouse, and you said I can’t get a new flame from you because you only get one per loop. And since you’ll be gone when I loop again, I won’t be able to get it from you. So, it’s pretty clear that it’s impossible for me to save him.”

Beck sighed.

“I don’t want to do this all by myself again…”

“Benjamin, listen to me,” Adam said seriously.

The old guy lifted his gaze and met Adam’s hard stare. His purple spiralling eyes seemed a little duller than before.

“I managed to save everyone in my Stage,” Adam said. “Cathrine Boyle, Nicolas Sánchez Romero, Mei Wu, and Momo Manalo. I saved them all and still cleared the Altar.”

Beck sat up straight in his chair. “How?” he asked.

Adam explained everything he had done while Beck listened with rapt attention.

“Do you think killing all the statues played a part in it?” Beck asked. “And would I have to activate Hardmode?”

“I don’t know. But it might be easier that way, since it would slow down all the other Players. Only two of the four in my group ended up encountering each other before me, but they both ended up working together because there were too many statue elementals after them.”

Beck nodded. “I don’t think anyone in my grouping would die to those things, and if I coordinated with Gladwyn ahead of time, then we should be able to get everyone. I normally start in the westmost stairwell and Gladwyn arrives on the opposite side, so we’d have good coverage of all the chambers. Whether or not the others would be willing to cooperate is another story.”

“You’re not giving up, right?” Adam asked.

“It’s worth giving a try,” he replied noncommittally.

“Last time I was in the Altar, I saw one of my original friends die in front of me. But I’m still going because I know I can find a universe and save her, along with all my other friends,” Adam said. “You have a chance to save your friend in this universe, so you shouldn’t give up.”

Beck smiled wistfully. “William refused to trade places with me. He said he was too old to become a time-looper. Lying bastard. I’m older than him!”

“There’s also no guarantee that he would’ve made it to the Self-devouring Eye by himself,” Adam said, trying to support Gladwyn’s sacrifice in a way that Beck wouldn’t blame himself too much.

“He ended up dying to the Stage timer,” Beck went on. “I didn’t see it. He just vanished when the timer ran out and then I was transported to the Worship selection. It was a small mercy at least.”

Adam nodded.

If he’d had to fight his friend to the death, it would’ve left a permanent mark.

I don’t think I could do it.

My power allows me to get out of making a choice in such a situation, but Beck has no choice but to keep living. If he wants to save his friend, he needs to keep going and survive.

Adam had a sudden epiphany.

The reason why this universe stopped looping is because of this moment.

It’s because Beck, the only person left with the potential to become a time-looper, gave up trying after watching his friend die in front of him.

I need to do what I can to support him so that he keeps going.

They hadn’t made a bet for Stage Five, since it had felt in bad taste, and now Adam was doubly glad they hadn’t. It would’ve soured things even more.

“I see you chose the Flayed Lady after all,” Beck suddenly said, his eyes locked firmly onto Adam’s.

“How can you tell?” he asked.

“Your skin colour and your eyes,” he replied. “Your skin looks like one of the vampire’s from Moonport, and the veins in the whites of your eyes have gotten bigger.”

Good to know there are tells.

“Do any of the other Absolutes change the appearance of those who worship them?” Adam asked.

“The squid guy’s boss gives you gills and blue-tinged skin,” Beck replied.

“You mean Nwetrou?”

Beck shrugged.

“Anyone else?”

“The All-Mother gives you a soul wing. The colour apparently depends on your personality.”

“I’ve heard about that,” Adam remarked. “But I didn’t think there’d be others who found out how to save Belamouranthe besides time-loopers.”

“During my last loop I met some Players who killed the Elphin Queen before she could kill the girl. There were also others who had the Queen die during their Stage Four, but since the girl survived they didn’t lose the Stage.”

“Weird,” Adam replied. He’d assumed that if the Queen died, then the Stage would end. But apparently the ‘defend the ritual site’ objective didn’t require her to survive, though he had to wonder how precisely that made sense and how the cutscene for Stage Five would play out if she was already dead.

“How did you know about the signs for Nwetrou?” Adam asked.

“That’s what the Diviner used,” he explained. “After I killed him, I tried to pull off his weird helmet, though it wouldn’t budge. But that’s when I noticed the gills and skin colour.”

“It’s gotta be related to the boons Nwetrou gives if you worship him,” Adam said.

Beck nodded.

There was a brief pause where neither of them said anything.

Then Beck asked, “Do you mind if I visit your dimension?”

“Sure,” Adam told him. “I’ve gotta show you my new weapon too.”

“You did promise that, didn’t you?”

Later after Beck had come to Adam’s dimension, they were in the Market where Adam was looking to spend his 9950 Points to evolve his Spidersilk Needle.

“Are you sure that isn’t hurting you?” Beck asked, a slightly disgusted frown on his face as Adam landed on the cobblestones next to him.

“Does it look that bad?” Adam replied. Thanks to the Flayed Lady, the pain of manipulating and moving his own body didn’t scare him anymore, and he’d become able to manipulate the blood in his own veins without feeling like he was about to die every time he stopped the flow for a second.

“Uh… Yeah,” Beck said honestly. “It looks like hooks digging into your weirdly stretchy shoulder skin and lifting you off to get butchered.”

Maybe I should practice this in front of a mirror before I go to the next Stage…

“It’s pretty useful though,” Adam said. “Especially for moments where I can’t collect a lot of blood and flesh to manipulate.”

As he said it, he shifted the flesh from his left arm to his right, bulking it out and making it strong enough that he could easily do a single-arm handstand to hold himself aloft.

“I think I’m gonna be sick,” Beck replied, turning away.

Adam returned his arms to their normal shape, or as close to it as he could. It was a bit hard to remember exactly how his flesh and muscle had been distributed, and since he was sure he’d shape the arms more in the near future, he didn’t worry too much about it.

“What have you gotten as your secondary weapon?” Adam asked Beck.

“Nothing yet,” he replied. “I’m waiting to get the Crawler’s Eye from the tower.”

“I’m not familiar with that one.”

“You need to complete the four optional objectives and then defeat the Crawler.”

“Won’t that empower it?” Adam asked.

“It’s worth doing,” Beck said. “The weapon is able to make you go briefly incorporeal, granting immunity to physical damage, and it uses these invisible hands as its form of attack which is pretty powerful. It took me a while to learn how to use it last time, but I brought that weapon all the way to the end with me.”

Emelia didn’t mention that one.

I get the feeling that her idea of which weapons are worth using or not was quite shortsighted though. There are probably a thousand ways to get strong, it just takes skill, luck, and perseverance to get to the Self-devouring Eye.

Adam had shown Beck a little bit about how his Spidersilk Needle worked, and he had immediately expressed interest in its evolutions. It was something Adam was also very curious about.

As such, they stopped in front of Thea’s shop and Adam spent the 8100 Points necessary to fully evolve it to level 18.

The first evolution gave him a choice between two options that either made the needle gain a silver tip or glowing green veins throughout the off-white bone it was made of.

< < Select an Evolution > >

< Spidersilk Needler — Double the maximum potential speed of the needle >

< Spidersilk Spinner — Double the effectiveness of spidersilk >

“Neither seem that good,” Beck muttered. “But I would pick whichever is more likely to give you upgrades tied to magic.”

Adam nodded. It was the same thing he’d been thinking. “Since the Spidersilk Needle is both a physical and magical weapon, these evolutions clearly target those two aspects. Needler is no doubt going to focus on boosting the physical aspect, and since spidersilk is what allows me to cast spells, or whatever you call them, then Spinner should lead to more magical stuff. At least I hope so.”

“The green effect also looks cooler,” Beck added.

Adam grinned. “Then it’s settled.”

< < Evolution Selected > >

< Spidersilk Weaver => Spidersilk Spinner >

The next two options changed the appearance of the spidersilk itself, one turned it an ephemeral green, though it was only really noticeable when it was coiled together. The other turned the string golden along with the glowing effect of the needle’s veins.

< < Select an Evolution > >

< Hallowed Vale Seamster — All spidersilk constructs can be triggered twice >

< Golden Loom — Effectiveness of spidersilk constructs scales up to 300% based on complexity >

“This is a tough one,” Adam said.

“Double triggering is always good,” Beck commented.

“Stacking boosts is even better,” Adam replied.

“It’s based on complexity,” Beck pointed out. “In the time you take to make one complex construct and trigger it once, you might be able to make two simple ones that both are triggered twice.”

Adam scratched his stubble. “So, it’s a choice between power and speed.”

“Always pick speed,” Beck said.

“But I always go for power…” Adam replied.

“I don’t know if I can do this if you’re gonna be like that,” Beck told him.

Adam laughed.

Then he picked Golden Loom.

< < Evolution Selected > >

< Spidersilk Spinner => Golden Loom >

“I swear you’re just doing this to irritate me,” Beck muttered with a frown.

“When I crash and burn because of my choice, you’ll know to pick the other option,” Adam replied.

“I thought you said you’d stick with me to the end.”

“I don’t think I said that,” Adam responded.

“No, I’m very sure you did.”

“Old age must be affecting your memory.”

“That’s right, you should listen to your elders.”

Adam laughed again.

After six more upgrades, the final set of evolutions appeared. The left hologram had the needle adorned with a golden tip. The right option gave it a gold-and-violet tip, and infused the glowing veins and string with violet as well.

< < Select an Evolution > >

< The Golden Tailor — Spidersilk constructs become stable enough to be worn >

< Gold-specked Illusionist — Unique Skill ( Golden Illusion ) | Weave an illusion of golden spidersilk that will perform one action. 50 Mana cost >

“Hah!” Beck exclaimed. “You’re gonna end up making clothes!”

“That does sound pretty useful actually. I could take my time weaving something and then use it for later. Like a glove that punches really hard, or a shirt that nullifies damage, or whatever you can think of.”

“Are you actually able to weave things like that?” Beck asked.

“No…”

Beck grinned derisively.

“But I’ll learn!” Adam exclaimed.

“You should pick the Illusionist,” he said.

Adam looked at where the Eye sat on the ground shaped into a pyramid. “Since the Illusionist says ‘weave’ in the description, does that mean I literally have to weave the illusion?”

[Correct. Although the Golden Illusion spell will assist you.]

“How much will it assist me?”

[I cannot say.]

Beck’s grin widened. “You should’ve picked the Hallowed whatever evolution.”

“I’ll make it work,” Adam told him and picked Golden Tailor.

< < Evolution Selected > >

< Golden Loom => The Golden Tailor >

The 18 upgrades he’d bought to get the three evolutions were as follows:

< < Weapon Upgrades Purchased > >

< Needle Damage (Epic) >

< Needle Damage (Rare) >

< Needle Damage (Uncommon) >

< Needle Impact (Uncommon) x2 >

< Needle Speed (Epic) >

< Needle Speed (Uncommon) x4 >

< Spidersilk Effect (Uncommon) x2 >

< Spidersilk Efficiency (Uncommon) x2 >

< Spidersilk Power (Rare) x2 >

< Spidersilk Power (Uncommon) x2 >

< 1850 Points Remaining >

Adam had also gotten three new Mastery Shards to his collection, putting his total at five. He heavily considered spending three of them to get another Lucky Stone from Alivida, since he’d end up with two and might be able to guarantee he’d get the Legendary from Alepheria’s Crooked Tower. Although, first he had to make sure they could be activated simultaneously to buff the next reward.

“I’ve got 1850 Points left, what else should I buy?” Adam wondered.

“Are you going for anything specific, long-term?” Beck asked.

“I want to get the meta upgrade that lets me save weapons between loops.”

“What do you need for that?”

“Five fully-evolved weapons.”

“You should save up for that then,” Beck said. “Unless you feel particularly weak in some area.”

Adam brought up his status to check.

< < Player Status > >

< Adam Fischer >

< Red Prince >

< Level 53 >

< Stats >

< Health — 170 (+20) >

< Stamina — 50 >

< Mana — 75 >

< Damage — 125% >

< Defence — 60% (+60%) >

< Speed — 70% (+20%) >

< Luck — 10 >

< Attack Speed — 125% (+25%) >

< Relics >

< Attack Speed +25% >

< Defence +25% -25% >

< Speed +10% >

< Upgrades >

< Bleed +40% >

< Defence +60% >

< Health +20 >

< Movement +10% >

I definitely need more Mana and Defence.

Even with Blood Mage Choker and Slothling Fur Coat cancelling each other out, 60% Defence is terrible. And the more Mana I have, the more effective I’ll be with my blood magic and the Spidersilk Needle.

“Yeah, I need to buy some more upgrades,” he told Beck.

He went over to Karie the cricket’s stall, and in the first batch got a Rare Mana upgrade. In the next set of five he had to pick between Uncommon Mana and Defence, and ended up picking Defence. Next he got a Rare Bleed, then Epic Defence, followed by a Rare Defence, and lastly an Epic Luck.

< < General Upgrades Purchased > >

< Bleed (Rare) >

< Defence (Epic) >

< Defence (Rare) >

< Defence (Uncommon) >

< Luck (Epic) >

< Mana (Rare) >

< 50 Points Remaining >

That’s better.

Adam was now at 80 Mana, 110% Defence, 55% Bleed, and 15 Luck.

He felt ready to take on Stage Six.

But first, I need to practice more.

“Let’s go practice,” Adam told Beck.

“You’re just gonna make me watch you knit sweaters, I bet…” he replied sourly.

“Possibly.”

Beck shrugged. “I guess I can always go down into your basement when I get bored.”

“That’s the spirit,” Adam said with a grin.

They immediately left the Market and went to the Player House.

On the way, Beck said, “I didn’t get the Tome Keeper this time.”

“I figured,” Adam replied. “He’s a hard one to unlock. Who did you pick instead?”

“Messimer,” he replied. “I’ve heard a lot about the Appraisal skill he offers.”

“You didn’t get pulled into a weird place, right?”

“No. It was kind of anti-climactic, truth be told. I was just met by this weird triangle-headed guy in a suit in front of my island altar.”

“Another time-looper I met said that Messimer’s Envoy wore a toga,” Adam replied.

“Weird. This guy just had a black business suit on. Although his tie was kind of cool. It was red and had blinking eyes on it.”

“Maybe they send different Envoys depending on the universe,” Adam guessed.

“I’m glad he wore a suit. A toga is one slip away from being a sexual crime taking place. I mean, it’s all just out there,” Beck said, making a face.

“I’m pretty sure they’d wear something under the toga,” Adam replied.

“No, they definitely won’t. Everyone I’ve seen in a toga has gone commando underneath.”

Adam laughed. “And where have you seen this?”

“Every time I visited William down in Florida.”

Beck paused for a moment.

“Actually, it may have just been a Florida thing, now that I think about it.”

Adam laughed even harder.

-----------------------------

-Previous Chapter-
--Encyclopaedia---
---Next Chapter----

Isekai Exorcist book 2 just released!

Book 2 of my series, Isekai Exorcist, just went live on Amazon today.

It's available as eBook, Paperback, and on Kindle Unlimited.

If you are unfamiliar with the series, here is the blurb of book 1:

---

Not all monsters can be defeated with a sword.

Ryūta is suddenly transported to a new world, where he is assigned the dangerous role of Exorcist and has to quickly adapt to a life of constant danger. In order to survive in this new world, he’ll hunt and exorcise ghosts, revenants, demons, and other supernatural beings that cannot be defeated with normal weapons.

To aid him in his exorcisms, he’ll summon apparitions to his side as familiars, and he must learn to utilise special Exorcist tools and occult ritual magic.

But it is not just monsters that Ryūta comes up against, as corrupt adventurers scheme to destroy everything he is trying to protect.

---

Book 1: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DZ8N4MYG
Book 2: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0FDR719N3

I'd appreciate any support you can give, but no sweat if this isn't your cup of tea.

I do think this might be the best premise I've ever come up with for a story, but it is probably just a bit too niche for a lot of people, since paranormal investigation doesn't exactly make books fly off the digital shelves XD

Book 1 didn't do amazingly when it launched as it unfortunately landed right at a time where Amazon was super buggy, which definitely didn't help. But it's still my treasured creation and I'm just really happy to have to published.

Plus, how cool is that cover??

Loopshard - Chapter One-Hundred-and-Fifteen

-Previous Chapter-
--Encyclopaedia---
---Next Chapter----

Like with the introduction of the Tome Keeper and his abode, I had a lot of fun writing this chapter.

-----------------------------

Chapter One-Hundred-and-Fifteen

Adam’s feet landed on something soft that felt like grass. He looked down at his feet and saw that it was not a normal kind of grass but instead made of long flexible spikes, like the quills on a porcupine, and they were red like freshly-spilled blood.

He lifted his eyes from his feet, seeing that the needle grass extended out in every direction around him, following the curvature of whatever thing he was standing upon. It was like the carpet on the outer layer of some vessel, though it had to be massive in size, given the gentle slope of the curve on either side of him. It ran down with the horizon, intermittently interrupted by bushes, trees, and various plants that were all made from some variation of spikes, thorns, needles, or a combination of all three. All were dyed red in various hues and minute differences that were somehow enough to make them stand apart rather than meld together into one.

In front and behind him, the landscape stretched far into the distance, none of the gentle slope of what he saw to his sides. Towers of woven and spiralling thorns rose high from the carpet of quills, rising up towards a ceiling that was like a thin membrane protecting the thorny garden from the void of space beyond. The sight immediately reminded him of the strange walls they’d found in Alepheria’s Tower on the laboratorium floor. It was unmistakeably made of skin.

Despite the inherent hostility of thorns, Adam didn’t find the place to be inhospitable, and as he wandered around aimlessly for a bit, he saw a certain beauty in it, albeit an absurd one.

Compared to the arboretum within the Fleshcrafter’s Abode, the Garden of Thorns felt organic and real, rather than artificial and purpose-made. It was like an artwork, though he didn’t fancy meeting the artist behind it, though it was surely an inevitability.

Suddenly the needle grass bristled, a wave rolling towards him from the horizon, raising every needle into the air briefly, before they fell down on the other side. It was a mesmerising sight, and he watched in awe as the quills flipped themselves in a synchronised pattern, the wave coming right at him. Even the hedges, trees, and towers underwent a change, with their thorns, needles, and spikes shifting positions.

When the wave reached Adam, the spikes he stood upon did not attempt to lift him, but all around him the quills flipped.

It’s like I’m standing on the back of a living creature.

He stepped off the patch of needles he’d prevented from flipping, and the moment his weight was off they rearranged themselves too.

Something he noted belatedly was that he hadn’t been forced into a cutscene when he’d arrived here, like with the Tome Keeper’s home. Adam appreciated that, because even after experiencing it so many times, he was unable to get used to the feeling of being controlled.

He reached the nearest tower and at his approach the thorns shifted to let him in. Inside were curling vines that provided an organic stairwell up to the top of the tower as well as down below the surface. Adam started by climbing it to the top.

From there he saw much further than before and he even spotted the end to the landscape in the far, far distance, though he could not see where the sloping sides led to, even from this vantage point. One thing was clear at least. He was standing atop something that was incredibly long and rounded on the sides. In his mind he pictured a sentient spike flying through the black of outer space, its quill-covered body bristling against solar winds.

When he placed his hands on the lip of the tower to look down over its edge, he realised that his blood sigils had returned. Aside from that though, none of his Relics nor his other weapon had come with him, and he was still wearing his original outfit.

Adam felt how the Garden of Thorns overflowed with blood that he could simply grasp and control, but it felt disrespectful to do so, and he was wary of the Lord who ruled over this strange realm hurtling through the void of space.

When he followed the vine-made stairs down below the surface, his mind did a flip to attempt to make sense of what he saw, because another floor of red quills carpeted what should’ve been the ceiling but which was in fact an extension of the ground. The space followed the gentle curve on the sides until they met to form another floor of red quills far below him. It was like he was on the inside of a bottle and the sensation made him uncomfortable. The proportions of things and the distances and angles between them did not make sense to his mind either, and it felt like he’d wandered into a non-Euclidean space dreamt up by a fever-induced hallucination.

Adam was afraid of letting go of the vine since he’d fall quite a distance before landing on his feet, but then the vine itself shifted him upside-down, placing him on what was surely the underside of the garden he’d just come from, and yet the gravity kept him from falling.

He looked around for some indication of where to go, but all he saw were more trees, hedges, and towers of thorns. And when he looked up, he saw the scenery reflected above him too.

Nevertheless, Adam ventured out from the tower that’d brought him, following the curvature that bent upwards until he reached another tower on what had moments before been the ceiling. The distance, although appearing great at first, shrunk exponentially with every step he took. He watched the shifting needle grass and trees as he walked, and he felt himself lose grasp on how much time had passed since he’d arrived in the Garden of Thorns.

Within the second tower was another stairwell and he followed it down, until down became up and things flipped again.

But unlike what he’d thought, he hadn’t arrived on the exterior surface opposite from where he’d come. Instead he had entered into a new mind-bending space, where the curving sides had flattened out but the long stretches ahead and behind him curved upwards, forming a massive ring that he could hardly fathom ever traversing to the other side. And unlike the other areas he’d ventured through, this one was quite a bit more gruesome, thanks to its inhabitants.

Large reptilian creatures of crimson scales and red thorns slithered across another garden with shifting needle grass and trees, but on their backs where spikes protruded, as well as on the plants they tended, were the screaming remains of humanoid creatures. None of their voices were heard and they were all without skin, flayed as if punished for a heinous transgression and pierced by needles that shifted and moved like they were alive.

Jesus…

The reptilians ignored Adam and seemed to go out of their way to do so, taking wide berths around him while they went through their miserable work. As Adam watched one of them, its long dexterous tail reached up to a spike on its back and grabbed the flayed and screaming elf-like creature there, only to pierce it through on a hedge made of thorns the length of Adam’s arms.

The red needle grass rippled, but this time it was only a sliver of it that moved. As Adam shifted his attention to it, the ripple flowed like a slithering serpent through tall grass, painting out a sinuous route towards a tree that was as large as one of the towers.

Adam didn’t question it and followed the path laid out for him, not sparing a second glance at the gruesome displays around him.

When he reached the tree, it was even bigger than it had looked from afar. It was formed from millions of interwoven roses with red thorns and stalks, as well as crimson petals neatly displayed. From its central trunk grew large limbs that reached out into the air around it, and upon these hung the brutalised remains of even more humanoid creatures. All of them skinned, and all of them screaming silently.

This must be what hell looks like, he thought.

“Adam,” said a kind female voice, startling him.

He looked up and saw that on a large limb further up sat a figure. It was a woman who reminded him a bit of the Elphin Queen, though she had no horns and her hair was made from long worm-like veins pulled out of her scalp. Her red naked body was lithe and thin, and around her waist hung pale-beige tatters that it took him a second to realise was skin. Her own flayed skin, worn like a skirt. Though she was flayed, her body seemed whole, as if the exposed bloody flesh he saw was her new epidermis. Her ears, which should surely have gone with the rest of her pale-beige skin, were long like an elf’s, and her eyes were large and pitch black with a single pinprick crimson pupil within both of them. Even without her skin she had full lips and a nose, and her mouth was shaped into a pleasant smile.

She scaled down the side of the tree made of roses, her hands unharmed by the countless thorns.

As she landed on the needle grass in front of him, he noticed how her crimson body was actually slick with blood, but it was structured to look like a layer of red skin, reminding him of how the flexible armour from the Beckoning Crimson spell made his own body look.

It also surprised him how tall she was, easily twice his height, and yet he didn’t feel intimidated in the slightest, which he barely registered as being odd. The skin that hung around her waist and covered the top of her legs and abdomen was somehow not unsettling to him at all, even though he saw how meticulously it must’ve been peeled from her body.

“The Blood has chosen you, and you have chosen the Blood,” she said.

“Are you the Flayed Lady?” he asked.

She reached out and put her left hand on his cheek. Her fingers were warm and soft.

“You were right to choose me,” she told him, affirming his question.

Her hand moved to his right arm and the fingers ran down to his hand and the sigil inscribed there.

“I have not had a Red Prince in a long time,” she said, and for some reason Adam felt proud of her acknowledgement of his achievement.

“I want to learn more about how to use my power,” he told her sincerely.

“First you must let go of your fear,” she said.

Her right hand grasped Adam by the chin. Her whole hand could encompass his head and crush it if she wanted. And yet she was so gentle with her movements.

Adam didn’t struggle as she leaned his head back and placed her left index finger on top of his lips.

He felt something warm push its way through his lips and into his mouth, before sliding down his throat. It was warm and filled his taste-buds with an overpowering taste of iron.

A momentary panic overcame him. A natural instinct when drowning.

But then it subsided.

Or rather, it was overwritten.

“The Trials of Defiance make a mockery of our power,” the Flayed Lady said. “It is theatre for the Seeing One. To birthe a Red Prince outside this silly game, many steps must be taken to first prepare the vessel. In here, you may simply become a facsimile by following the rules.”

As she spoke, more and more blood pulsed its way into Adam’s mouth and down his throat. It absorbed into his insides before reaching his stomach, and he could feel how it changed him in subtle ways.

“At the end of a Red Prince’s birth, a droplet of my blood is required. My eager children undertake quite the journey to obtain such a thing. To you, dear Adam, I give it freely.”

She pulled her finger away from his mouth and he gasped and sputtered as he could finally breathe again.

Her right hand still kept his head tilted back. It was as if she worried some of her blood would spill out from within if she let him move.

“I care not about the Godstone,” she told him. “It is part of the game that we Absolutes must play amongst ourselves. But the rules do not bind me like they do the rest. The Seeing One wishes to put me in its chains again, and it is not just you that it is challenging to defy its power.”

“What did you do to me?” Adam asked, not understanding what she was talking about.

“I unshackled you from your weakness. Do not let pain rule you, Adam. Embrace it.”

Despite the cryptic words, Adam knew exactly how she had changed him, and a part of him feared it.

“If you don’t want me to seek the Godstone, then what do you want me to do?”

“You may collect it on my behalf, but I do not wish to use it for myself. It would be no different than to bow at the foot of the Seeing One. The other Absolutes do not care about where power comes from, only that they can possess it. Their desire for the Godstone gives it tremendous importance and allows it to be used in more ways than one.

“To make good use of it, we shall prepare a ritual. First you must obtain the crystallised lifeblood of another Player in the Seeing One’s little game.”

Adam didn’t say anything or let any emotions show, but the Flayed Lady took a step towards him. The hand that held his head lifted him off the ground and up so that his eyes were looking right into hers.

“You have ventured around the coil with your power and seen what it is I wish for you to obtain. Instead of fearing my plan, you should embrace it. I know that the little boy sent you here to spy on me, but I do not care. All my children were once wary of me, but they came here nevertheless, and they never left me once they saw what I can gift them in return for their adherence.”

Adam swallowed. He had been afraid of this. After all, it had been unlikely that the Tome Keeper was the only one who knew everything that took place within his domain. And they had planned to betray the Lord of Betrayal. It would be like trying to hide a secret from the Tome Keeper. It was foolish, yet Adam had been too persuaded by his words to realise.

“Your blood sings all your intentions out loud for me to hear, even if you try to mask your emotions and thoughts from me. All that bleed sing to me. It is a symphony that resounds around me endlessly. The little boy thinks he is special, but there is no treachery and betrayal that I do not perceive. To attempt to betray me is an admirable folly, but you do not possess the mastery of your own blood, because your power is gifted through me. Even the little boy and his fleshcraft is but a poor facsimile of powers I wielded since before my Ascension.

“When you borrow power, such as how his mandate was given by the Seeing One, you are helpless to fight back. Let it be a lesson to you. As a Player in the Seeing One’s game, you must understand this truth if you wish to truly defy its rules.”

The Flayed Lady let go of Adam’s head and he dropped a metre to the ground, landing on the soft needle grass unsteadily.

“Bring me what I seek and I will give you the power that you yearn for,” she told him.

The needle grass rippled around him in a swirling pattern, raising up and blocking him from seeing his surroundings.

Then he blinked.

In front of him was an altar with a plinth and a round stone atop it.

The light and the air was different from where he’d just been, and it was a welcoming sensation.

He collapsed to his knees, the strength drained from him by the intense encounter with the horrific deity.

So much for the Tome Keeper’s designs reaching far into the future, when the first step of his great plan is foiled at the outset.

Adam looked down at his right hand. His Relics had returned to him and the Blood Bolt Ring was fitted around his finger.

With a nudge of his Mana, he changed the texture of his skin from soft to spiky, a poor imitation of the needle grass.

With another pulse he turned the spikes into scales and his fingers into claws, with the nails like talons.

It was no less painful than it had been during all his tests, but the Flayed Lady had been right.

Adam had no reason to fear the pain.

And she had given him the key to unlock the true potential of his power.

A little pain in exchange for a potential I never put to its full use.

Adam stood up and put his hand on the Altar.

The Flayed Lady’s voice filled his head, repeating the quest she had given him.

< < Altar Communion > >

< The Flayed Lady >

< Bring me a crystallised shard formed from the lifeblood of a Player killed by my magic. >

< Reward: Relic >

By her magic, she probably means the spell I got from worshipping her or blood magic in general. I wonder if the rings I have would count for that?

But Adam didn’t have any plans to kill other Players just to fulfil her request. His morals wouldn’t allow it.

With a sigh, he pushed the thought from his mind for now.

Then he flooded his own body with Mana, going until he reached exhaustion.

Even that couldn’t knock him down, because exhaustion was just pain given another shape.

With a running start, Adam leapt into the air, lifting his own flesh above the houses of Interim Island as he flew towards his Player House.

He had a lot of things to tell Beck and Gladwyn.

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--Encyclopaedia---
---Next Chapter----

Loopshard - Chapter One-Hundred-and-Fourteen

-Previous Chapter-
--Encyclopaedia---
---Next Chapter----

Not sure if 115 will go up today or tomorrow, but I'm already working on it. Hoping to get a lot of writing done before I dive into my final project. But it should be easy enough to juggle both since I can do it all from home.

I'm the kind of introvert where an open office is my version of hell, so working full-time at my internship was super draining and didn't leave me much room mentally to focus on writing. I might not have mentioned this, or maybe I did ages ago, but I'm in the final semester of a programming education. For my final project I'll be making an ethical gambling site, lol. Anyway, if coding interests you, I'll probably post something on the discord server in the #coding-corner channel in about a month or so. If I can manage to deploy it to Azure, then I might even be seeking some testers to help break whatever unholy code concoction I produce.

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Chapter One-Hundred-and-Fourteen

Adam and Mei continued west through the tunnels, trying to reach the Hispanic guy with the Defender weapon. Although it didn’t seem like she trusted Adam, it was clear that she appreciated them working together to take down the statues. They’d managed to defeat eleven of them before they ran into the guy in one of the large chambers.

He was in the middle of fighting four statues, doing his best to protect himself with his shield, but clearly not able to effectively kill the elementals bearing down on him, since he couldn’t find an opening. Every strike he blocked pushed him back, and Adam knew it was just a matter of seconds before his Stamina ran out and he was chopped to bits.

Adam and Mei came to his rescue, and despite scaring the shit out of the guy, he was quick to thank them.

“You saved my ass there,” he said. “I’m Nicolas by the way.”

“I’m Adam.”

“Mei,” said the Asian woman. It was still the only word Adam had managed to get out of her. She hadn’t even particularly seemed to question the logic that they could all get out of the Altar alive.

“I thought we were meant to fight and kill each other,” Nicolas said. “I’m glad you guys didn’t attack me…”

“We can all get out of this together,” Adam said. It wasn’t exactly a lie, since he knew for sure there had to be a way. It was just more the lack of knowing how that made it feel like a lie when he said it.

But, I would rather instil hope than despair.

“So, are we gonna go save the other two then?” Nicolas asked.

“That’s right,” Adam replied.

The three of them went east from the chambers near Nicolas’ stairwell, going through the chambers and tunnels that Adam and Mei had already cleared before reaching one of the bigger rooms that had six separate entrances. Within they found twelve statues, several sarcophaguses, and a Relic Chest.

Adam opened it and revealed a Stone Talisman within.

< < Relic > >

< Stone Talisman (Uncommon) — Sacrifice the Relic to curse a target with Wither, increasing damage inflicted to the target by 50% with the next attack >

“Who wants it?” he asked the others.

“Mei should take it,” Nicolas said.

She nodded and grabbed it from the bottom of the stone chest.

Nicolas’ setup should likely have been an offensive one, since he’d gone the Vanguard route instead of taking Guardian like Gladwyn. Because his weapon wasn’t a Spellblade, Adam knew that Nicolas had chosen the other evolution after Vanguard, but he had no idea what it was and what it did. Regardless, his setup of Relics seemed kind of random. He had the Scale Trousers which gave 50% Defence at the cost of 50% Speed. On his right arm he wore the Vigilant Fighter’s Vambrace that made parries reveal a weak point on his opponent, even though Adam wasn’t sure the Defender could parry attacks. And he also had the Avalanche Boots which made kicks disorient, as well as the Bark Armour.

As they continued east through the tunnels, killing thirteen statues on the way, Adam found out exactly what evolution Nicolas had. It evolved from Vanguard, which increased the damage of the first strike by 50%, and was called Outrider. The evolution made any movements to close the gap between himself and an opponent twice as fast.

Coupled with the Spear Dancer evolution, the Body of Sloth Relic, and the Slothling Spring Boots, he could end up dealing so much damage.

Although Nova hadn’t said so, Adam highly suspected that he’d been using the Outrider evolution before switching to the Forlorn Knight sword and shield he’d told Adam about.

It makes no sense that he would pick a defensive Relic like the Scale Trousers when the whole point of his evolution is speed, but I guess he might not have had a choice.

Adam told them that his weapon type was Spidersilk Weaver and made no mention of the blood mage. He’d also kept his blood manipulation of the needle and silk rather subtle, since he feared they wouldn’t trust him if they knew he could manipulate their bodies.

When Adam, Nicolas, and Mei reached a large chamber that connected the two eastern stairwells, they suddenly ran into the other two Players they’d been seeking. The pair were fighting off seven statue elementals. The girl with the blond-dyed hair who wielded a spell staff was doing most of the damage while the other woman used her shield to protect her, but Adam could tell they were both running out of fuel.

“We’re here to help!” Adam announced as the trio rolled in and took care of the statues.

Once nothing but sand and broken stone remained, Adam went over to the Spellcaster.

“Are you okay? Looks like you were about to run out of Mana.”

“I’m okidoki,” she replied in a bright voice before pulling out a blue potion from within her Sanctuary Defender’s Robes and downing it.

“You aren’t going to fight us, right?” asked the other woman with the eyebrow piercings and black-and-green hair. Her accent marked her as Scottish, the only accent he recognised so far, since Mei didn’t say anything except her own name and Nicolas barely had an accent in the first place.

“Adam says there’s a way for us all to get out of this together,” said Nicolas.

Mei nodded.

Now I really hope it works.

“How about we clear all the statues out first,” Adam suggested. “That should get us the most Points possible by the end.”

“I like this guy already,” the Asian with the dyed hair said.

“I’m Catherine,” said the girl with the piercings. “And she’s Momo.”

“Catherine?” Momo asked, confused. “You said it was ‘Cat’.”

“That’s what all my friends used to call me,” she explained.

“I’m Nicolas,” said the Hispanic guy.

“Mei,” said Mei.

“That’s the only word I’ve heard her say so far,” Nicolas remarked.

Adam laughed. “Me too.”

Mei just shrugged.

After about twenty minutes had passed, their team had gone down every tunnel and dealt with every statue elemental, racking up a total of 65 kills. Based on how many the others had killed without him, it seemed the total number of statues for the Stage was 75. It would be an absolute enormous amount of Points for each of them when they made it out.

If we make it out, Adam reminded himself.

They had also looted all the Relic Chests they came across, five in total, counting the first one that Mei had looted. As with his last time here, there were only three possible options: the Stone Talisman that cursed a target; the Stone Mask that negated a hit and then cursed the wearer; and the Stone Bracer that could disable someone’s Relics for half a minute but would disable the wearer’s for two minutes.

Adam had graciously allowed the others to pick what they wanted, ending up with the only bracer out of the bunch, while Mei and Momo received the talismans, and Nicolas and Catherine got the masks.

Like Nicolas, Catherine had also picked Outrider, but she had evolved a third time into Kingkiller, which doubled her damage against bosses and elites. It was pretty useless in this Stage, unless Players counted as elites, but it would be strong in the group Stages to come.

Momo had initially picked the Seeker evolution of Spellcaster, which turned her basic attacks from spell balls into bolts, giving them more range and piercing capabilities. From there she had evolved it into Swarm Master, which allowed her to use Mana to split spell projectiles. However, she said that it was really expensive and that even if she used all 100 points of Mana, she could only get her spell to split seven times, despite upgrading her Casting Efficiency several times to reduce casting cost.

Once they reached the dead-end that hid the secret bosses, he told them all to stay back as he opened the way and went in, since none of them were super strong and he feared the fight would just get someone killed. He activated both of his rings to get enough blood and then went into the secret chamber with the Deathguard.

Compared to the stone statues, it felt embarrassingly easy to kill the three Elphin, since they were after all just flesh and blood.

Once they lay dead at his feet, he had the strong urge to strip them of all their flesh to fill his reserves, but he relented, since he didn’t want to scare the others when he came back out. He did however collect as much blood as he could, coating his body with it in a way that made it just seem like random splatters.

After the fight he went up to the shrine that the Deathguard had been protecting and grabbed the obsidian spear.

< < Secret Weapon Obtained > >

< Solbor (Rare) — Spear of a forgotten Elphin hero >

< Unique Skill ( Scattershot ) | Launch the tip of the spear forward as a barrage of piercing darts >

[You are already carrying two weapons and cannot carry a third. Would you like to swap one of your weapons to wield this weapon or return it to your Player House?]

Adam grinned. The weapon rack was such a good purchase.

“Stow it in my Player House.”

[Understood.]

When he exited the chamber, the others looked relieved that he was unharmed, although Nicolas seemed worried that Adam might’ve been hurt, considering the copious amount of blood that now coated his body.

“I’m fine,” he told them. “Do you want to see what’s inside?”

They all peeked into the hidden chamber, but since there was nothing special except for the corpses of three scary-looking Elphin warriors, they quickly lost interest. He was glad none of them asked about the shrine in the back, but fortunately it just seemed like a normal decorative fixture of the Stage if you didn’t know there’d been a weapon on top of it.

They finally went towards the Altar, but Adam stopped them on the way when he found the special statue. It was now the only one in the entire Stage that hadn’t come to life, which made it really obvious that it was special.

He placed the Skyblue Pearl into the statue’s hollow eye-socket, revealing the secret room and stone chest, within which was the round map. It could be slotted into the Navigator’s Telescope from Stage Six and then be used to find treasure in Stage Seven.

< < Map Obtained > >

< Golden Map — Follow the trail of this map at thine own peril, but at its end awaits a treasure unlike anything known to thee >

No one protested him taking the map, since there was only one, because, as Nicolas put it, Adam had been the one to kill the most statues and was the ‘man with the plan’.

After they went through the rooms they had cleared earlier, they walked in a procession through the snaking tunnel that led to the cavern with the stalactites that dripped water onto the uneven floor. In the centre of the naturally-formed chamber was the Altar with the fifteen plinths, four of which were larger than the rest, and the large stone orb in the middle of the round base between them all.

They all shared uneasy glances as they approached the Altar, but Adam reassured them it would be fine.

It has to work.

The All-Seeing System loves our suffering, but it also claims to be fair.

We are defying the logic of the Stage in a way that most might not consider, because they’ve been told that only one Player may claim the Altar.

The Trials have shown, time and again, that we cannot trust the cubes. And since it is only the cubes that tell us we cannot claim the Altar together, and not the System itself, then it should work.

After all, the System’s message was just to claim the Altar before the timer ran out. Nothing else.

Adam took a deep breath.

It has to work.

“We’ll do this together at the same time,” Adam said. “I think we should hold hands for this.”

Mei frowned. “Why?” she asked.

Nicolas and Momo both gasped, before laughing at each other’s reaction.

“The God that we are appealing to is the God of Life,” Adam said. “Surely a display of cooperation isn’t a bad idea.”

“That’s pretty gay,” Cathrine remarked, before quickly adding, “I’m allowed to say that word.”

Mei snorted and laughed loudly. Then she immediately took Adam’s left hand and grabbed onto Nicolas with the other.

Despite her comment, Cathrine grabbed Adam’s right hand, already holding onto Momo, who was bouncing up and down excitedly.

“Alright,” Adam started. “I’ll count down from 5.”

[Only 1 Player may claim the Altar,] said their cubes in unison.

The others froze.

“It’s lying,” Adam said.

Mei nodded. “It told me my parents and grandmother would die if I died, because anyone related to me would die alongside me. My sisters are both dead and yet I am still here.”

“Said the same thing about my nan,” Cathrine added.

“No hesitation,” Adam told them, feeling his hands starting to get sweaty with nervousness. If it didn’t work, then he would have to do something fast to survive, and it wouldn’t be pretty.

“5…”

“4…”

“3…”

“2…”

“1!”

All five of them, hands interlinked, hopped onto the base of the Altar.

[You have reached the Altar,] their cubes announced. [Place your hands on the Worshipping Stone to lay your claim.]

Adam grinned at the slight change in its wording from last time.

It said hands, plural!

They all let go of each other and ringed around the stone orb in the Altar’s centre.

“On 3,” Adam said.

“Counting up, or counting down?” Cathrine asked.

“Down,” he replied.

“Just making sure.”

“Alright, here we go,” Adam said.

“3…”

“2…”

“1!”

All five of them put their hands on the stone orb.

< < Stage Alert > >

< Player Adam has claimed the Altar >

< Player Cathrine Boyle has claimed the Altar >

< Player Nicolas Sánchez Romero has claimed the Altar >

< Player Mei Wu has claimed the Altar >

< Player Momo Manalo has claimed the Altar >

[Congratulations! You have successfully claimed the Altar.]

“Yes!” Adam shouted excitedly.

Nicolas rushed forward and embraced him in a hug. “We did it!” he exclaimed.

A clump formed in Adam’s throat.

“We actually did it,” he replied, feeling lightheaded from the flood of emotions rolling through him.

“Thank you, Adam,” Mei said.

“Sorry for calling your idea gay,” Cathrine apologised.

Adam laughed. “You meant ‘happy’, right?”

“Uh, sure…”

“What happens now?” Momo asked.

Before Adam could reply, all of them vanished.

< < Stage Complete > >

< Tallying Score >

Shit! I should’ve informed them better before this.

I honestly can’t believe that really worked though!

The Tome Keeper is kind of an asshole for not giving me this solution when I asked, instead teaching me such a roundabout way. I guess his answer did fulfil my request, but it’s a lesson to be more specific when I ask for a solution.

< < Score > >

< 29 Minutes 26 Seconds Completion Time >

< 0 Players slain >

< 1000 Point Secret Boss Bonus added >

< 800 Point Flawless Bonus added >

< 800 Point Pacifist Bonus added >

< 150 Point All Secrets Bonus added >

< 0 Damage Received >

< 9250 Points Awarded >

9000 Points!?

That means that all the statues I killed gave me 100 Points each!

Wait, we almost ran out of time… I should’ve kept a closer eye on it. That could’ve ended poorly.

Before Adam could absorb everything that had happened and the huge influx of Points, the whole world suddenly blinked.

***

Adam reappeared where he’d been standing, but all of his Relics were gone, along with the Eye and his weapons. He was wearing the clothes he had started with, even though the shirt should be long gone.

I forgot about this…

This time, only six of the fifteen plinths around him lit up with potential energy.

Controlled like a puppet, he bent down and picked up the stone orb in front of him, causing all of the water on the base of the Altar to stop moving and become reflective like a mirror.

His eyes scanned the plinths from left to right as his head was forced through the motions. The first plinth for the Tome Keeper was not lit up by the haze of energy, but the second one marking the All-Mother was. The next four were dark, but then out of the four larger plinths three were lit. Of the last five on his right, only the first two were lit.

As the cutscene released its grip on him, the stone sudden felt heavy in Adam’s arms.

< < Worship > >

< Select the Absolute you wish to serve >

Adam looked over the options, but only two were new to him. From left to right, they were:

< < The All-Mother > >

< Lord of Sustenance and Fertility >

< Mother of all Elphin >

< Boon: All-Mother’s Fruit (1-Stage Cooldown) >

< < The Eternal Serpent > >

< Lord of Eternity >

< Icon of immortality and time >

< Boon: Pause Time for 10 seconds (1-Stage Cooldown) >

< < The Void > >

< Lord of Nothingness >

< The dark of the cosmos, the null and the empty >

< Boon: The End to the Suffering >

< < The First Light > >

< Lord of Light >

< The spark of creation and the seedbed of life >

< Boon: Heal another Player to full (1-Stage Cooldown) >

< < The Flayed Lady > >

< Lord of Blood and Betrayal >

< Primogenitor of Envy >

< Boon: Blood Dagger spell >

< < Nwetrou > >

< Lord of Black Holes and Deep Places >

< Primogenitor of Gluttony >

< Boon: Breathe underwater | Black Ponds traversal >

The Flayed Lady is literally the Lord of Betrayal and origin of Envy…

By comparison, the Tome Keeper being the origin of Greed doesn’t seem that bad.

There’s just no way that worshipping her will not end poorly.

I also don’t like that if I meet anyone who worships the Tome Keeper, then I will feel compelled to attack them…

I’m sure the weakness I’d get from worshipping her would also not be something great.

Adam sighed.

But the Tome Keeper is of course right. Knowledge is a key. It unlocks many doors. And I am perfectly positioned to worship her now, since she is also the Lord of Blood.

I mean, who knows what tricks I might learn from her.

At the same time, the idea of picking the First Light is really intriguing, but taking damage if I hurt other Players is going to make it difficult to deal with murderers I’ll no doubt encounter from here on…

He also considered picking the All-Mother, since her healing fruit could work well with blood mage’s ability to turn Health into spell material.

Plus, she seems like one of the good ones.

So long as you’re nice to children.

The Serpent could also be really useful down the line, and there’s the fact that his weakness is kind of a boon in the way it doubles the duration of all effects. It might even work on Princely Raiment’s duration, depending on how that skill is classified, since it’s kind of a buff.

He thought about it for a while and had to adjust his grip on the heavy stone quite a few times to avoid dropping it. He was pretty sure that if he let go and it fell to the ground, he would be screwed.

At the end he had reached a decision, although he was sure it would come back to haunt him.

I really want the gift that the Tome Keeper is willing to give me in exchange for fulfilling his request.

Adam heaved the stone orb up over his waist as he reached the plinth. With a huff of exertion, he pushed it up over the edge of the short pillar and it rolled down into the recess where it quickly came to a rest.

The haze of potential energy lighting the other five plinths immediately drained into the mirror created by the water below him. Then that energy flowed into the pillar he had chosen.

< < Worship Chosen > >

< The Flayed Lady >

Immediately, darkness filled his surroundings and he was dragged out of the Forbidden Altar.

< < Now Entering > >

< The Garden of Thorns >

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--Encyclopaedia---
---Next Chapter----

Loopshard - Chapter One-Hundred-and-Thirteen

-Previous Chapter-
--Encyclopaedia---
---Next Chapter----

I was a productive writer yesterday, so you get two new chapters today.

In definitely unrelated news, I went to bed at 7:30AM.

In actually unrelated news, Patreon did another goof and now all hyperlinks open new tabs, which is just the dumbest most unnecessary change possible. Just good old Patreon devs making changes no one wanted. So if it's bothering you when you click between chapters using the links, just know that I didn't make that decision <.<

Also, thank y'all for voting on the cover drafts. Really helped me a lot with deciding. It is of course 3A that ended up getting picked, but I think in the future I might get 3B and 1 turned into covers too.

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Chapter One-Hundred-and-Thirteen

As he slept, Adam saw the cosmic eye of the All-Seeing System in the void of space. Each dot forming its shape was a galaxy onto itself, and each galaxy blinked intermittently like attentive eyes in the dark.

The last time it had spoken to him, Adam’s ears and nostrils had bled.

But it was blissfully quiet in his sleep.

Merely observing him.

But that attention alone spoke volumes.

Adam had reached the convergence of dimensions in Stage Five.

If he perished now, he would not lose his memories and progress.

< < Now Entering > >

< Stage 5 >

< The Forbidden Altar >

< 30-minute Timer >

Adam opened his eyes. The image of the cosmic eye was seared into his vision like he’d stared too long into the sun.

I’m safe from the System’s punishment, he told himself.

In front of him on the stone disc of the Elphin Sanctuary stood Belamouranthe and her mother, the Queen. Around them on the steps of the ritual site watched the citizens of the city, and under Adam’s feet flowed mercury, travelling through the grooves in the enormous disc.

The cutscene repeated the events of the last time he’d come here.

Belamouranthe was saved from her mother’s sacrificial dagger by the magic imbued into the All-Mother’s Wrath necklace that Adam had given her to wear.

The citizens of the city supplicated themselves before the display of the All-Mother’s power as massive blue flower petals grew around the girl to protect her. Then the flower closed and took the girl away, leaving behind the Queen who’d been struck by the backlash of the necklace.

The woman screamed into the air, while the citizens of the Sanctuary song with one voice. It sounded like a pleading song to appease the wrath of the All-Mother.

The Queen stumbled towards Adam, who could not move because of the cutscene’s hold on him. Her red soul wing was fracturing like glass, falling apart with every ambling step she took.

Then she dropped to her knees and plunged her sacrificial dagger into the side of her own neck, spilling cerulean-blue blood onto the disc where it quickly combined with the mercury.

“I do this for mine people,” she said and wrenched the blade all the way through her neck.

With her sacrifice, the All-Mother was appeased, because the citizens of the Elphin Sanctuary were spared the horrific curse they had received the first time Adam had come here and the girl had died.

Once the Queen was completely dead and her lifeblood drained into the pattern under Adam’s feet, the ground rumbled and opened the way for him down into the Altar.

Like a robot, Adam turned away from her body and towards the stairwell.

Then he blinked and was transported deep below the surface.

He was walking along the spiralling steps of the pillar that led him into the Forbidden Altar.

With a blink he was moved further down, time skipping conveniently within the cutscene.

This time he saw four other spiralling staircases around him.

The default number of Players for the group Stages up until Stage Ten was five, but Adam had been the sixth Player the last time he’d reached the Altar. As he understood it, the sixth Player was someone added when the original group composition of the universe was changed. It could happen as a result of the interference by a time-looper in the beginning of the universe, changing who survived and who didn’t. But it also happened when someone used the Abyssal Tooth to eliminate a Player from the universe.

Like the Tome Keeper had hinted at, using the power of Nwetrou permanently erased a person from existence. Depending on their actions prior to the Trials of Defiance, their removal from existence could have a serious impact, such as when Nova had sacrificed an evil Player to save others, only for 2 million less people to survive Stage One.

Even a bad person can profoundly shape the universe in a way that benefits others, Adam mused. Just like how a good person can negatively affect the world despite only meaning well.

If defying the Trials means that I have to worship Nwetrou and sacrifice people permanently, then I’m not sure I can do it…

He would have to sacrifice a hundred people to obtain enough Soul Drops to buy everything that Skǫll sold. That amount of sacrifices would doom any universe to oblivion. But Adam still thought about the Eye of Lord Nwetrou item that the octopus Envoy sold, because eye symbolism was significant in the Trials. It had to be related to defying the All-Seeing System’s designs, somehow.

He pushed the thoughts from his mind for now and looked across the stairwells until he saw the Asian woman with the long hair. Unfortunately, he couldn’t see her weapon or Relics.

The other Players looked at each other and at him, and none of their expressions seemed overtly hostile. They were more worried and confused.

No one yet knows that this Stage forces you to kill others…

He made a note of where they would all go, and realised that he was in the very middle of their stairwells, which was south of the Altar. It was the optimal place to get to the other stairwells quickly. The Player on his left was the long-haired Asian woman whose weapon he didn’t know, and past her was the Hispanic guy. To his immediate right was the woman with the black and green hair and piercings, and after her was the Asian girl with the dark skin and blond-dyed hair.

Adam blinked again and arrived at the foot of the long staircase.

The grip of the cutscene released him and he immediately brought out the Spidersilk Needle and activated his Blood Fist Ring to give himself a small glob of blood energised with his Mana.

< < Stage Objective > >

< Claim the Altar before the timer runs out >

The stone orb with the eye floated in front of him, glowing red. He kept it active for the double Points he’d get at the end.

With all of the statues coming to life, the others should be slowed down significantly, which should allow me to get to the Altar first.

[The Stage will begin in 30 seconds.]

[Only 1 Player may claim the Altar.]

[If there are other Players alive, claiming the Altar takes 5 minutes. Once the Altar is claimed, surviving Players will perish.]

It has to be a lie.

Adam walked up to the edge of the boundary beyond his stairwell, ready to take on the statues further down the hallway that was warmly lit by glowing sun gems in the ceiling.

I’m still missing Speedrun, Eradication, and Pacifist from this Stage.

If the others don’t attack on sight, then maybe we can attempt to claim the Altar together. Pacifist also gives quite a lot of Points in this Stage. 800 according to Emelia.

While the Tome Keeper said that it is possible to save someone in the Altar by using the First Light’s braziers and flames, it sounds way too complicated to be ‘fair’, particularly because it’s only doable by time-loopers.

The System probably has a simple way that all Players can survive but is betting that our base nature will prevent us from discovering it. Having all Players survive and claim the Altar together could definitely be a possible solution.

Still, Adam was hesitant to take the pacifist approach. He didn’t know the characters and personalities of the four others, and all it took was one person choosing their own survival over that of the rest to totally ruin Adam’s plan.

[Begin.]

Adam launched forward, flinging the needle ahead of him.

The statues lining the walls of the hallway immediately came to life. Three with spears and three with swords.

Six right off the bat…

I may have unintentionally doomed the others.

The needle yanked back towards Adam and he moved his head to the side, allowing it to fly past him. He threw out three loops of the spidersilk string bound around his right hand, having already coated it in a tiny layer of blood.

Then he spun around as the needle flew back towards him, sending it forward through the three hovering loops of silk with a spike of energy to the back of the needle.

The statues didn’t even attempt to move out of the way as the needle burst forward with a crack of sudden explosive momentum. The tip flew right through the centre of a spear-wielder, continuing into another statue right behind it before it yanked back towards Adam. Both of them turned to sand as their glass cores broke.

While collecting their cores would be useful, there’s no easy way for me to extract them, least of all when I’m facing this many at once.

He dodged the needle on the return and sent more blood into the string to create two floating loops as it came back around again.

The needle exploded forward a second time, killing another two statues and teaching him that for these enemies the speed boost from two loops had the same effect as three.

The last two suddenly picked up speed to get to him, while raising their swords and trampling the sandy remnants of their fellows.

Adam retreated slightly and used his foot to add some force on the elastic string, flinging the needle into the first one’s torso and creating a small hole. It yanked back and he spun around, using more blood to launch the needle forward again.

It was just enough power to dig sufficiently deep into the stone torso to crack the core, but, as the statue warrior fell apart into sand, the other swordsman statue shot forward with a downwards swing of his weapon.

Adam sidestepped the attack and looped his string around the statue’s torso twice as he moved behind it, then he energised it with a manual injection of Mana to spare his dwindling reserves of blood.

With a pull of his right hand and the Mana in the string obeying his command, the two loops around the statue’s torso contracted in an instant, the fine thread shearing through the stone body and the glass core in the centre.

The statue fell apart in two halves which turned to sand when they struck the floor.

Okay, the Hardmode in this Stage is pretty tough…

I’ve gotta hurry.

Adam summoned a bit of blood using his Mana, but stopped when he reached about 25% of his total reserves. It didn’t create a lot, but it was enough for a few more attacks with the Spidersilk Needle, though he figured he could also create the spell pattern for Push directly onto the torsos of the statues to break them open if necessary.

But since none of the enemies bled or had flesh for him to manipulate, he had to be extremely precise and sparing with how he applied the blood magic.

If it wouldn’t make all my pain receptors explode in one harmonious symphony of agony, then I could use my own body to break the enemies perhaps.

After all, flesh magic had so much potential that he’d yet to fully explore, but having to use his own body was out of the question.

He had brought the Hobgoblin Pendant, but that was only because of his discussion with Sylvia last night. He wasn’t intending on using it to manipulate himself though.

Since she was an apprentice Blood Mage, she had come up with a lot of truly devious ways to use his blood magic. She had been impressed by some of Adam’s abilities with the blood, but had chastised him for being reluctant to use his own body as a weapon.

One of the most insidious powers that blood mages possessed was the fact that they could pass on the afflictions contained within their own blood, while isolating it from hurting themselves. Basically, they would intentionally poison themselves but carefully manipulate their bloodstreams to isolate and gather the poison such that it didn’t hurt them, and then they would deliver that dose of poison to their enemies, enabling them to kill other people with an inconspicuous attack.

It was horrifying to know that it could be utilised in such a way, and Adam was glad that Ezral had focused more on summoning than putting such theory into practice. Still, it was a good thing to be wary of, since Emelia had told him the vampires in Moonport possessed blood magic amongst other forms of bodily manipulation.

While Adam wouldn’t intentionally poison himself, through his tests with Sylvia he’d discovered that many effects from Relics were carried within the blood of a Player. One of those effects was the pain-nullifying power of the Hobgoblin Pendant. It would, in theory, allow him to put on the necklace and then attack someone with his blood, making the damage he dealt unnoticeable by his target since it would immediately numb the area he struck. It was a disturbing way to fight, but Adam knew it was foolish to not at least consider all the options he had.

Still, if I’m going to kill other Players, I don’t want to do it in such a cowardly way.

He’d also theorised that he’d be able to share the Scorn affliction from the Queen’s Pendant, but that was a far more self-destructive way to take down others, since he’d end up scorned in the process.

Adam hurried down the hallways, using the bit of blood he controlled to speed himself up. He avoided the next set of statues by using his spring boots, shooting himself through two interlinked rooms before sprinting to the first chamber that would allow him to venture towards the nearest stairwell to the west, which lay on his left.

Every chamber and hallway was a significant threat, since all of the statues within came to life. Most of the hallways had six, but many of the rooms had more than that.

Out of all the Hardmodes he’d done so far, this one represented the biggest spike in difficulty he thought, though a part of that was also due to his main weapon being particularly weak against enemies that lacked flesh and blood.

As he went towards the stairwell that the Asian woman with the long hair would’ve arrived at, he stopped within a large chamber to deal with five statues pursuing him. Fortunately, not all of the ones he’d awoken kept up the chase, since otherwise it would’ve created quite an issue.

Once the statues were dead, he continued through the room, killing the eight within it as well.

He had to activate his Blood Fist Ring to refill his stock of blood and he also summoned a bit as well. It felt like it wasn’t anywhere near enough of what he’d need though.

Adam was about to venture further in to reach the stairwell, when the sound of running steps came towards him. He quickly backed away from the tunnel mouth and into the chamber.

When the woman came around the corner of the hallway leading to him, she skidded to a halt, raising her spear in his direction.

Adam noticed the Duellist’s Glove on her left hand which held the spear, as well as the Slothling Spring Boots and the Fur Coat that he also wore. From the shield on her right forearm and the design of them, he realised that she had evolved her Lancer weapon into the Son of Thetis variant, which he himself had used in his third loop. The main difference though was that she wasn’t using the Fiendbarb.

“Come on!” he yelled to her, gesturing for her to join him inside the chamber. “Let’s kill the statues together!”

The sound of stone feet on the floor echoed up the tunnel behind her and she quickly looked back before fixing him with a hard stare.

“If I wanted to kill you, don’t you think I would’ve tried already?” he told her.

She seemed to accept his words at face value and quickly ran towards him.

Since she wore the spring boots, she could quickly attack him, but Adam went against every instinct screaming in his body to try and make his reckless pacifist plan work.

The vision of Charlotte Hayes, the first Player he’d killed, came to his mind unbidden.

This will work, he told himself. I can save them.

As the woman drew nearer, it looked like she was about to say something, but then three statue warriors burst into view at the end of the tunnel, running towards their chamber at speed.

Adam moved forward, hoping the woman wouldn’t try to stab him in the back. Since he wore the Blood Mage Choker, he had an insurance against backstabbing attempts, but he wasn’t keen on trying it out.

With a spike of the Mana-infused blood coating the Spidersilk Needle, he shot the weapon down the chamber and into the tunnel. It just barely pricked the leading statue in the centre of its torso before yanking back.

Adam spun around as the needle flew through where he’d been standing, its tip still pointed directly ahead. Then he tossed out four loops of charged spidersilk.

Something like the beat of a drum came when the needle returned and Adam spiked it through the floating loops of thread. The sound made the air vibrate and thrum.

The needle shot through the leading statue and continued through the next one in line, before burying itself halfway into the third. It was fortunate that the statues were extremely simple entities that didn’t consider the fact that running in a tight formation was to their detriment.

As the needle yanked back, Adam caught it in his hand with a simple zap of his power, stopping its momentum on the spot. Then he turned around and offered the woman his hand while the statues crumbled into sand behind him.

“I’m Adam,” he said.

She looked down at his hand, clearly noticing the intimidating tattoos.

“Mei,” she replied without taking his hand.

Can’t fault her for that, he thought and grinned to himself.

“Do you want to try and save everyone with me?” he asked.

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Loopshard - Chapter One-Hundred-and-Twelve

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Oh my God, I'm actually done with my internship tomorrow. They're getting no more free labour out of me!

Make sure you check out the cover drafts and vote on which is your favourite. Click here to go directly to the post.

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Chapter One-Hundred-and-Twelve

Adam had initially assumed that the Spidersilk Needle was a melee weapon, but it wasn’t really possible to hold and stab with. Or well, it was possible, but it wasn’t easy or functional. Although Legendary weapons didn’t imbue much in the way of intrinsic knowledge, unlike with most other weapons he acquired below Epic rarity, it was offset by Weaver being able to tutor Adam in ways to use it.

Her immediate response to his attempts to grip the needle around the wide base like a dagger was to slap it out of his hands and grip it with two of the spidery legs sprouting from her back. With the silken string wrapped around the tip of the right leg, she used the left to fling it like a small javelin.

Upon seeing the very basic way it was used, Adam thought it was just a finnicky version of the Lancer’s throwing evolutions, but then she started using the string and he realised why the weapon was Legendary.

Weaver loped forward and threw the needle straight ahead only for it to violently yank back when it reached the end, due to the spidersilk thread’s insane elasticity. As it flew back towards her, the tip was still pointed straight ahead. She twirled around as it passed right through where she’d been standing, then she threw out loops of the silk wrapped around her spider leg. It hung in the air for longer than seemed possible, and at first Adam thought it was because the string was so light, but, as the needle bounced back a second time, it passed through the loops and triggered a special effect, revealing there was more to it than that.

The needle exploded forward with absurd speed, stretching the thread way beyond what seemed possible and tying knots on the loops it shot through. The resultant buffet of wind it produced ruffled Adam’s brown hair aggressively. Predictably, the needle was yanked back as the elastic spidersilk contracted, but Weaver easily caught it in her hand where it slowed down unnaturally.

“That was impressive,” Adam said honestly as she handed back the weapon.

“My mother is said to be able to produce feats of real magic with her needle and string,” Weaver replied. “I am still a novice.”

“Didn’t look like a novice to me,” he told her. “You were using Mana to manipulate it, right?”

Weaver nodded. “Spidersilk is woven with magical energy. That is why it is so strong.”

Adam tied a few loops of silk around his right forearm but kept a fair bit loosely draped around his fingers, then he threw the needle in front of him.

It didn’t go very far and it didn’t fly straight either. Predictably, it hit the ground and he had to reel it back in himself.

Hmm, I think I have to use Mana for all of the steps.

Like keeping a volleyball in the air, but every hit against the ball has to involve Mana.

Maybe…

Though he had his theory, actually putting it into practice was pretty tough.

After a couple more attempts, he managed to spike the needle and make it fly straight ahead. It didn’t drain a lot of Mana, but it was noticeable regardless.

As the needle reached the end of its forward momentum, it yanked back with sudden speed. Adam didn’t know how to stop it and was too late to dodge, so it flew right back at his face, triggering the Blood Mage Choker in the last second, forming a shield in front of him that the needle bounded off of and clattered to the ground.

“Man, this is difficult…” Adam muttered.

“It is normally designed for someone with eight legs,” Weaver pointed out.

“That doesn’t explain how you were making it look so effortless.”

“It must be in my blood,” she said.

“That’s cheating,” Adam replied.

Weaver looked astonished by the response for a moment. Then she giggled.

“Alright, I’ll play around with this later. Let’s go get some food,” Adam said, pulling the blood out of the shield his necklace had made and transforming it into a floating ball.

He paused.

Wait a second.

He looked down at his hands where the needle rested along with the string, and then up to the ball of blood he was manipulating at the same time.

With a thought, he moved the ball around.

I’m able to use both of my weapons simultaneously?

“Actually, give me a second,” Adam told Weaver. “You can run ahead if you’d like.”

“Understood,” Weaver replied and suddenly switched to using her four back limbs to lift her feet half a metre up from the ground before she skittered off towards the Player House.

I think I can hack the Mana manipulation problem with the spidersilk if I use my Mana-infused blood.

With a few deliberate motions of his control sigil, Adam coated the needle and spidersilk coil in blood, making it quite a fine layer that was hard to really see atop the string, but which gave the needle gruesome look.

He tried the basic throw move again, but using his energised blood to spike the needle, like a little intentional zap. It consumed some of the blood coating the needle, but he had enough to do a reverse spike when it yanked back, making it stop mid-air for a second before it dropped.

I wonder if this is an intentional combo.

I’m pretty sure the Spidersilk Needle is meant to be ridiculously difficult to master, since you need the hand-eye coordination to throw it and control the thread, as well as the dexterity to toss the thread to make quick loops in the air, while also injecting Mana at every step.

By comparison, shaping and manipulating the Warder barrier or Blood Mage spells was much easier, since it was tied into one ‘skill’, whereas the needle required three.

I haven’t used a lot of dexterity-based weapons and my hand-eye coordination frankly sucks, so that part I’ll have to practice a lot. But I’m already familiar with manipulating blood without needing to focus too hard, so I can at least do that part without too much worry, eliminating one of the three requirements to master this weapon.

Actually, if I can use my blood to manipulate the string as well, I won’t have to worry about learning how to toss the spidersilk in the air, since I can just shape the thread into what I want.

To test it out, Adam lifted the silk from his hand and moved it a few metres out in front of himself, making two loops with it like what Weaver had done.

Then he spiked the needle through them.

Woosh!

The projectile shot forward with a lot of speed, consuming all the blood coating the looped string. As it reached the end of its momentum, it fired off a large spike of blood, which seemed to just appear out of thin air.

The spike tore through the side of a building, adding to his already bad track record of property damage this loop.

“Woah,” Adam muttered.

Then the line yanked back and the needle flew at him like a missile.

Oh shit!

He spiked it sideways and the needle suddenly pointed left, flying back towards him while spiralling in the direction it was pointing.

Within a second it had spun around him three times, wrapping the string about him before he remembered how to stop the needle from moving by using another zap of his energised blood.

I’m glad Weaver didn’t see that…

“Nice trick,” a voice said sarcastically and Adam froze, still bound within his own weapon.

He slowly turned to look at Sylvia who’d snuck up on him.

“Can we pretend you didn’t see that?” Adam asked.

“Depends on how much you’re paying for my silence,” she replied.

***

“Why are you surrounded by girls?” Gladwyn asked as Adam connected to him via the basement restaurant.

As advertised, the basement worked the same way as the Interdimensional Tavern, so it was possible for him to talk to his friends without going to the Tavern.

Charlie had clearly been quite happy to have another kid she could spoil, but unlike Belamouranthe, Weaver was quite well-behaved and almost had to be encouraged to even order food to begin with.

In order to get Sylvia not to share the embarrassing thing she’d seen, Adam had reluctantly agreed to show her everything he’d learnt about blood and flesh magic.

But first they were having dinner.

“You’re just jealous,” Adam joked.

“Isn’t that a child on your right?” he replied.

Beck appeared next to Gladwyn as he sat down, apparently returning from somewhere else.

“Who’s the kid?” he asked, narrowing his eyes suspiciously.

“It’s Weaver,” Adam told them. “I used the Vanity on her.”

“Huh,” Beck muttered.

“I thought she was just a small spider,” Gladwyn said. “Not an actual child.”

“I had the same thought,” Adam told them.

“So, what did you get?” Beck asked.

Adam lifted the Spidersilk Needle and showed it to them. “It’s Legendary and uses magic to throw the weapon and manipulate the string.”

“I’m having a hard time picturing that,” Gladwyn remarked.

“Same,” Beck said.

“I’ll show you after Stage Five,” Adam responded.

“I don’t know how I feel about killing other people,” Gladwyn said.

“Hesitation will get you killed,” Beck told him pragmatically.

“I know, I know.”

“There is a way to have multiple Players survive,” Adam said. “If Gladwyn and I were to go to the same dimension for Stage Five, it would actually be possible to pull off.”

“Because of the lighthouse?” Beck asked, quick on the uptake.

“That’s right,” Adam said. “You need that, and then you have to claim the Altar together without killing any other Players or island denizens.”

“Does the squid count?” Gladwyn asked.

Adam paused before bursting out into laughter.

“Seriously!? In two separate loops of mine you kill Skǫll!?” Adam exclaimed.

“Three times,” Beck said. “He killed the squid in my last loop too.”

Adam doubled over in his chair with laughter.

Some things don’t change.

That’s comforting to know.

When he was done and had wiped the tears out of his eyes, he straightened back up and said, “No. He doesn’t count. He’s not part of the island since the Deep Place he resides in is beyond its influence.”

“I think the squid is a she, actually,” Beck corrected Adam. “I’m pretty sure she was hitting on me when I went there in this loop.”

Gladwyn and Adam shared a glance.

“Could still hit on you if it was a guy,” Gladwyn pointed out.

Adam nodded. “Maybe you’re just what an octopus fancies.”

Beck frowned. “Ah… you’ve got me there. I actually don’t know how to respond to that.”

Adam laughed again.

“Anyway,” Beck said. “Killing the squid might cause problems in Stage Eleven.”

“I’ve heard that too,” Adam said.

“What kind of problems?” Gladwyn asked.

“Basically, a lot of monsters will want to kill you. Even ones that should be friendly,” Beck explained.

From Emelia’s explanation of Stage Eleven, Miredeep, Adam had gotten the impression that it was connected to Nwetrou, given the symbolism, objectives, and creatures they’d apparently encounter in the Stage. This was further backed up by Beck’s statement that the Stages were tied to the various Absolutes.

“That’s okay, I don’t mind grilling some seafood,” Gladwyn said.

Beck shook his head. “So lame.”

“Yeah, that was kind of a terrible one-liner,” Adam agreed.

“It also doesn’t make any sense. You don’t have any fire magic,” Beck said.

Like in Adam’s fourth loop, Gladwyn had initially chosen Defender. Adam wasn’t sure if he’d gotten the Second Sheath yet, but he assumed so.

“I’ll find a way,” Gladwyn insisted.

“We should figure out who actually won our bet,” Adam said.

“I found out we can actually ask the cube to count how many of the Elphin died,” Gladwyn replied.

Beck frowned. It was quite clear he hadn’t been able to keep a lot of his people alive.

“How can we trust what Adam says if we can’t hear his cube?” Beck asked.

“Don’t try to deflect from the fact that you’ve clearly lost,” Adam shot back.

“Don’t worry,” Gladwyn assured him. “I’ll tell you what Beck’s cube says.”

They all turned to the Eyes following them and asked the same question.

“How many of the Elphin died in Stage Four?”

The Eye piped up, awoken from its mindless stare into a wall by Adam addressing it directly.

[No Elphin died during your Stage Four.]

“Hell yeah,” Adam said.

[54 million Players survived Stage Four. Currently, 44 million Players are utilising the Dimensional Tavern.]

That’s really damn low…

“Thanks for that unsolicited dose of sobering reality…” Adam deadpanned.

[Apologies. I assumed you would like to know several statistics about Stage Four and the survival rates.]

It actually apologised.

“Unless I ask, don’t tell me. It’s a fucking bummer.”

[Understood.]

“I lost 10,” Gladwyn said.

“Me too,” Beck added.

“Liar!” Gladwyn immediately exclaimed. “I heard it say 22. You can’t fool me!”

“I lost 0,” Adam boasted.

Beck narrowed his eyes and looked at him suspiciously.

“How?” Gladwyn asked.

“I made all of them immediately go back to the centre of the Sanctuary and tell all their friends to do the same,” Adam explained.

“I told mine to do hit-and-run tactics,” Gladwyn said. “It worked pretty well.”

Given that he had the Flawless, Secret Boss, and Eradication bonuses, that was definitely an understatement.

“I… uh… I forgot about the bet until after the first breach,” Beck said. “I was a bit too focused on getting the secret weapon that Adam mentioned.”

Adam shook his head.

“Since he’s the loser and you’re the winner, what’s your punishment for him?” Gladwyn asked Adam.

He thought about it for a bit and the long wait clearly bothered Beck, who fidgeted a lot with the fork that’d come with his food.

“Alright, I’ve got it,” Adam said. “Beck has to go to the Deep Place and ask Skǫll if they’re male or female. If they’re male, then Beck has to also change his name to Becky.”

Gladwyn grinned. “That’s a good one.”

“Just you wait, Adam Fischer,” Beck said threateningly, pointing his finger at Adam.

20 minutes later, Beck returned, a complicated expression on his face.

“What happens if the answer is ‘both’?” he asked.

Gladwyn and Adam shared a look.

“You have to change your name,” Gladwyn then said.

Adam nodded.

“Fuck…” Becky replied.

***

Adam left his Player House basement to go visit Alivida a couple hours after it got dark, since he wanted to use the Orb of Insight to see what Players he’d be up against in the Altar. Sylvia had stayed back at the house but would join him for his practice later.

< < Orb of Insight Activated > >

< Viewing Stage Five — The Forbidden Altar >

Adam’s mind was pulled into Alivida’s crystal ball and he saw more or less the same things about Stage Five as when he’d first used the Orb of Insight in his fourth loop. The main difference were the faces at the end. There were five of them, counting his own. Three were women and besides Adam there was another guy.

He didn’t recognise any of them, but he made sure to memorise their distinctive features. The man looked Hispanic, with large dark-brown eyes, caramel skin, and a very faint scar between the top lip and left nostril. Two of the women were Asian. One had thin eyebrows, glinting dark eyes, pale-yellow skin, and long black hair. The other had short and wild blond-dyed hair, dark skin, and a mouth that looked like it defaulted into a smile when at rest. The last woman was Caucasian with black-and-green-dyed shoulder-length hair, and had green-blue eyes and two piercings in her right eyebrow.

< < Orb of Insight Deactivated > >

Adam’s mind returned to his body and he gasped like he’d been holding his breath.

I might be able to find them if I query the Tavern with their specific traits.

Just a shame it only shows me their faces and not their Relics and weapons.

Before returning to the basement of his Player House, Adam swung by the Market to see Thea. Since he’d gotten the Vendors meta upgrade, she showed him five weapon upgrades for his new weapon.

< < Weapon Upgrades For Sale > >

< Needle Speed (Uncommon) — Increases needle speed by 20% >

< Needle Impact (Rare) — Increases the power behind needle impacts by 15% >

< Spidersilk Efficiency (Uncommon) — Reduces the manipulation cost of spidersilk by 10% >

< Spidersilk Effect (Uncommon) — Increases spidersilk responsiveness by 30% >

< Spidersilk Power (Epic) — Increases spidersilk effectiveness by 70% >

“I’m guessing the last potential upgrade is Needle Damage, right?” Adam asked.

“I cannot say,” Thea replied.

“Seriously?”

She just shrugged.

Needle Impact seems similar to the thing that Woodsman had, which made axe strikes hit harder.

The Spidersilk Power is no doubt the same as Blood Mage’s Invocation Power, which means it would make the strange silk tricks hit much harder. Probably. I’m still not entirely sure that’s what Invocation Power does for my spells…

I could buy an upgrade, since I have 700 Points left, but I think I’ll hold off on that.

“I’ll be back tomorrow,” Adam told the beetle smith.

“Goodnight then,” she replied.

Adam returned to his Player House by the silver light of the moon, playing around with the Spidersilk Needle and his blood magic as he sauntered across the cobblestone streets. He hadn’t really gotten that much better at using it, but he figured it would be useful for the Altar nonetheless. After all, he had to kill the other Players if he wanted to get any blood and flesh without hurting himself, so dealing with the Statue Elementals would be a pain in the ass. Particularly because he was planning on triggering the Hardmode for the Stage too.

From what Emelia had told him before they’d died in his fourth loop, the Hardmode for the Altar meant that all of the statues would awaken, and they would be a lot tougher to crack. But if he could kill a lot of them, he would get a ton of Points.

However, the real benefit of the Hardmode was that it also doubled the Points rewarded from killing other Players. If he killed the other four people who would be in the Stage with him, he’d get 2000 Points, not to mention whatever price their Relics would fetch when sold.

But activating Hardmode might get them killed against the statues.

And besides, I don’t really feel that excited about having to kill other Players, even if there’s the Eradication bonus tied to it…

Adam sighed.

He entered his Player House and went down to the basement restaurant, finding a seat and immediately running through queries to locate the four Players he would be up against.

Although he couldn’t find the Asian woman with the long hair, since she hadn’t had something that allowed him to really narrow down the query to find her amidst literally millions, Adam was able to find the other three. The Hispanic guy had picked Defender, as had the woman with the eyebrow piercings. The Asian with the blond-dyed hair used Spellcaster. Between them, none of their Relics were cause for worry, since nobody had the slime gloves or blood rings. But Adam wasn’t completely familiar with their weapons, and the two who used the sword and shield had gone a different route from Gladwyn, since their shields were slimmer and more aggressive-looking. The fake blonde with the staff also wasn’t using an evolution Adam was familiar with.

Beck had gone the route of Acolyte to enable up to three spells to be primed, then Element Tamer to be able to absorb elements and incorporate them into spells, and finally Elemental Avatar, which allowed him to imbue his own body with the elements he absorbed too, gaining high resistance to damage of that kind, which sounded ridiculously strong. It would also pair well with the Mage Aspirant’s Cowl that allowed the wearer to see and absorb Mana.

Adam tried again to find the last Player he’d be facing, but he still came up empty.

After eavesdropping on the three others for a while longer, trying to get a good sense for them, Adam hit up Gladwyn and Beck again.

They talked until the Tavern shut down, but, surprisingly, the basement restaurant remained active and Charlie didn’t go anywhere.

It was an extremely strange experience for Adam to see all the people, who normally popped in and out of existence on the seats around the different tables and bar, get up and vanish all at once. Of course, the special denizens, plus Yenna and Weaver, were still present within.

Adam listened to Yenna’s soothing guitar melody for a few minutes, and then Beck appeared opposite of him.

“Weird, right?” he said, referencing the lack of Players.

“It feels almost like a secret hideout,” Adam replied.

“Gladwyn is refusing to spend his Points on it,” Beck said.

“Understandable. For what it is, it’s too expensive,” Adam replied.

“Not if you like eating late night snacks in bed,” he argued.

Adam laughed. “Well, I’m getting off for tonight. Got a bit more practice to get done before taking on the Altar.”

“See you tomorrow,” Beck said.

With that, Adam got up from the chair and said goodnight to the denizens in his basement, before heading up the stairs to his private quarters with Sylvia in tow.

He spent a couple of hours practising with the Spidersilk Needle and blood magic while she gave small pointers, then she left his house and he went to bed.

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Loopshard - Cover design poll

Told ya I'd be back with more drafts. Just didn't realise the artist would do 8 O_O

I'm having a bit of a hard time deciding, so if you could vote on which you like the most, it would be really helpful.