DeSean had been around plenty of explosions. The most important component to a gun was igniting the round and allowing physics to push the bullet forward. He’d been around that process numerous times.

Beyond that, he’d witnessed rocket launchers turn enemy walls into smoke and rubble. He’d been around tanks that made his chest wobble when their massive cannons went off. He’d watched artillery come down like hellfire on a sighted fortification. And, of course, he’d had mortars slam around him while eating cold chow and taking a shit simultaneously.

The shadow grenade was unlike any bomb he’d ever been near. He heard it fall in an arc amid the cluster of Shadowed Marines shooting at him like he was fish in a barrel. Before it touched the ground, it burst open. It didn’t roar or thunder. It vacuumed, like someone opening an air-lock door that led to outer space. The type of noise you’d hear in a Sci-fi movie, but with a magical bent to it.

The shooting came to an abrupt end.

DeSean heard thumping body parts and gear slamming down at odd intervals. Dust gathered in piles, shifting across the floors. An overbearing silence followed, and DeSean hoped that was the end of it. But in the corner of his vision revealed 51 seconds on the clock.

This situation was utter bullshit. He was in a lot of pain, and he was uncertain how he was still alive.

“Grit your teeth,” he said, spitting blood to the side. “Bear it.”

A heavy knock against the torn-up counter caught DeSean’s attention. He had 43 seconds and was still pushing himself up when a shadowed figure leaned over and looked down at him. DeSean instantly knew it was the hell-raised version of his Platoon Commander. They looked into each others eyes before violence broke out like a heavy cloud releasing rain.

The Shadowed Commander scrambled over the counter. He raised a knife and stabbed down for DeSean’s chest with the weight of madness and murder.

The Real Marine reached up and grabbed the wrist of the knife meant to kill him. He was forced on his back, fighting a fiendish creature while he naked and torn up.

There were 30 seconds on the clock when DeSean angled the knife to plunge into his gut instead of his chest. A scream ripped out of him, directing his pain as another voice to add to the song of darkness—horror and pain ready to be engulfed.

The dark element responded in kind, lending dozens of strings from all nooks and crannies. They roped the Shadowed Commander’s torso and arms and pulled him away, leaving the knife in DeSean’s gut.

With a pained gasp, DeSean called for more strings to come down from the rafters. They wrapped around his limbs and joints. They helped pull him up per his mental instructions. It was a hell of an effort, but DeSean got stable enough to stand over the Shadowed Commander while the fiend was held with his arms wide against the counter.

“You were broken and ill-fit from the start,” the Shadowed Commander said.

DeSean glanced at the timer. He had 5 seconds. He used the shadow strings to help him get the perverted Marine mug.

“Good Marines died and you survived,” the Shadowed Commander continued.

DeSean used a string to grab the knife handle sticking out of him. He clenched his jaw, yanked on the knife, and poured blood from his guts into the mug. Outside, mortars shrilled, promising another round of attackers with an ever increasing difficulty.

The mortars slammed down. They impacts shook everything like it was going to bring the whole tavern down. It might just if they jammed a whole platoon’s worth of Marines in here in the next few seconds.

“You should’ve died in a dirt hole!” yelled the Shadowed Commander, his fellow grunts storming in through the doorless front entrance.

“Have a drink.” DeSean slammed into the Commander. He poured his own blood into the fiend’s mouth, shadow strings pulling the bastard’s jaw open.

The moment a droplet touched the monster’s tongue, the Shadowed Marines froze. Then they started jerking in a frenzy and slapping at their helmeted heads. A wail clawed itself out of all of them, the power of their voices overwhelming DeSean, pushing him back. His hold on the shadow strings broke, and he had to hold himself up on the bar shelves.

Louder yet was the thunk of a wooden door slamming open to DeSean’s right—it was the backdoor!

DeSean dropped the mug. He left behind the weapons. Getting out was his greatest focus. The Marine hobbled the couple of feet between him and the backdoor as things got weird. Really weird.

The Shadowed Commander slid off of the bar counter and flew back like a toy yanked on a string. He slammed into one of his grunts and fused with the man, gear, weapons, and all. The fusion of men collided with another Shadowed Marine and absorbed him into the growing mass of limbs and objects. DeSean didn’t stay to see what else happened as he crossed the threshold and fell off a short ledge, stumbling.

His blood splattered beneath him as he got his bearing. He saw he was in a ginormous storage room filled with shelves that towered over him like sky scrapers. The ceiling was too far away to measure. Everywhere he looked presented shelves filled with giant dusty bottles of liquor and coffins draped in tattered American flags. There were grinning skulls and cobwebs in the shadowed corners and gaps.

He surveyed the way back. The door was gone. All he could find was a gray stone lane that extended far into the distance, fading into a blurry orange light that dimly lit the place. Tucked into a tiny crevice that nearly escaped DeSean’s attention was a basic health potion.

DeSean staggered over for a quick drink.

Bottle drained, the Marine sat and let the magic run its course. He knew if it wasn’t for his heavily raised Endurance, he wouldn’t have made it to the bottle. Somehow, his Endurance kept him alive even though he was suffering from mortal wounds that should’ve killed him six times over.

His Strength helped a lot, too. It had toughened him against the bullet strikes.Weaker wounds may have not passed deeply into his flesh. But DeSean could tell those Shadowed Marines would’ve gotten stronger and stronger with each wave if he hadn’t figured out a way to escape.

“I gotta be fucked in the head to offer my own blood as a drink.” DeSean rasped, holding the knife that had been in his gut. The health potion’s magic sputtered out long before the Marine could feel comforted. He was still adequately fucked, but he wasn’t a bleeding mess like before.

“So, what’s next?” he asked.

“Kiiiiiiiiillllllllll!” roared the mangled shrilling voices of a platoon of men.

“Ah, that old adage.” DeSean shook his head. “I used to love that phrase.” It was getting old for him now. But of course this Systemic nightmare would throw that at his face along with a System Notification.

Survive.

The Marine just got to his feet when a hulking shape wormed into view two aisles down. The space between them was the length of four city blocks, but the size of the monster distorted his sense of distance. It was an unbelievable thing as it revealed itself wholly.

It had the resemblance of a lumpy and crooked green weenie. When it undulated closer, the tip peeled open like a bursting sore. Instead of pus, grasping arms holding melted guns and chipped knives reached out. A sour-smelling and white miasma spilled from the opening, striking the floor with a sizzling hiss. In the middle of that grotesque ejaculation of horror was a giant green face. It had the stern look of every military professional that sold their soul to the beloved Corps and held its tenets close to their hearts.

“Ah,” DeSean clucked. “You’re hear to fuck me.”

Words couldn’t further express the horror of its existence, so DeSean watched in grotesque awe as it screamed and shouted intelligible slogans and phrases with a cacophony of voices. It dragged itself forward on countless legs with ragged military boots and came at DeSean like a runaway train.

Everything DeSean was prior to the system would’ve suffered a demise here. But he had raised his Focus quite a lot before the Hell Marked Trial. His determination searched for a way out. His intellect sped up his mind’s processing speed and came to a solution. He leaned on his magic again, but this time he called on his [Talented Summoning] Skill. He conjured nine little minions and had them latch on to his leather jacket.

They flapped hard and yanked him up with all of their strength. His feet left the ground. The monstrous amalgamation of a mean green military machine rushed under him, slinging cusses for dodging the attack. DeSean watched, slack jaw as the creature roared under him like an impossibly ugly train. Its sheer mass able to crumple a monster truck like it was a tin can.

It slammed against the shelves as it tried to slow down and turn.

Bottles and coffins rained down. They smashed into the monster’s warty bulk. They fell all over DeSean, too. The falling debris forced his minions to jerk him around to avoid a collision.

A bottle the size of a bus pulped four of them and brushed past DeSean’s shoulder. The others lost control and got scattered, dropping DeSean.

Heart in his throat, DeSean saw the monster reaching up with gnarled green hands bursting out of its taffy-like flesh. The Marine listened for the melody of darkness as he tumbled toward the grasping reach of green hell.

He heard a quiet choir of darkness and pulled on it. An elemental string shot around his waist. The life line went taut, hooked to a shadow underneath a shelf. DeSean swung away from the monster’s clawing fingers like a drunk and battered Spider-Man.

“Let’s do that again!” he grunted as he reached the apex of the swing. He unhooked himself from first shadow web and latched onto another that uncoiled from a higher shelf ahead of him. DeSean repeated, finding more room to maneuver away from the monster. He lacked the finesse to keep from spinning around like a top, however.

The creature screamed at him, arching up. It sprouted bigger and more muscular arms. Latching onto the shelves, it clambered up and started to give chase. Bottles and coffins fell in its wake.

“You’re literally trying to fuck me into oblivion,” DeSean muttered.

It was keeping up with him. Hell, it was gaining. The monster adapted further, clambering along the racks like a centipede on a wall.

DeSean swiveled around the corner of an aisle.

The green monster whipped its bulky, disgusting body after him. It latched onto a parallel rack with its lower body and swung its upper body at the Marine. Giant swat incoming!

“Nope!”

DeSean dispersed the shadow web and entered a free fall. A giant fleshy wall whooped through the air above him, ruffling his shredded clothes. It slammed into the shelves, tossed down debris, and forced DeSean to finesse his way out via shadow strings. He skimmed dangerously close with the floor before starting his ascent from under the massive green weenie centipede.

A shadow engulfed the Marine. He looked up and spotted the monster flying through the air on an intercepting course with him. It was going to slam him with everything it got.

DeSean dropped the shadow string attached to a shelf ahead of him in favor of one he pulled from under the worm’s body. The string latched on and threw him roughly to the side. The rapid changes in velocity did a number on him, but he grit his teeth and endured.

The dodge was an unfortunate mistake.

The worm had grown an extra long, multi-jointed limb behind its back and out of view until now. It swung around and snatched DeSean midair, pulling him along for the quaking landfall.

The weight of its body and the speed of its descent spilled acidic white blood and green sinew everywhere. All along its length, the monster burst open like a derailing train spilling the guts of its carts.

The arm holding DeSean slammed into a shelve, crashing open bottles and spilling awful liquor over him. It dragged him down, shook him around, and squeezed the life out of him as it pulled him closer to its spilled guts that filled the air with a burning smoke.

With a feral snarl, DeSean dug his fingers into an exposed cut on one of the gnarled green claws. His fingers turned to mulch, but he had its blood. [Vicious Curse Spinning] handled the rest as DeSean spoke the words quickly and with magical might. His curse magic invaded the hand, melted the digits, and left DeSean falling a few yards away from the puddle of acid gathering under the worm.

He fell on glass shards, splashing more liquor all over himself.

His body screamed for him to lay there, but the Marine knew it was not yet time to rest. He listened for the dark melody, conjured a string to wrap around his wrist, and used the literal life line to drag his beaten, torn up body away from danger. Something wet and heavy slammed down inches from his feet, splashing his legs with droplets of acid.

It burned. Everything burned. But DeSean kept going.

He didn’t look back. He heard their wailing, their cursing, their clawing hands digging nails into the stone. They were so close they were practically breathing against his neck. But DeSean kept pulling himself away.

His hand smacked against something solid. He looked up blearily and saw the steps of a rickety wooden staircase. On the third step was a stamina potion.

“It’s almost tempting,” DeSean said, “to stop.”

But the Marine knew better. The monster was long behind him now, but he had more of the trial ahead of him. So he got on one hand and both knees, and started the desperate, painful climb up.

The stamina potion took the edge off, thankfully.