I climbed out of the window, and I saw a golden sunset and a land covered in a thick layer of dust. The tower’s remains created a great wall reaching all the way to the lesser ruins, and destroyed a whole block of them. Parts of this once great behemoth were still on fire.

I looked around for foes, but aside from the few mobs running away it didn’t seem like anyone else had crawled out of their shelter yet.

Ben suddenly materialised next to me, startling Tatiana as crawled out of our shelter.

“Darryl. I have to tell you something. Thomas…” Ben said.

“I know.” I softly replied. I got the notification as we were being pummelled by the dust storm.

“It wasn’t your fault. His odds actually went up because of what you did.” Ben whispered back. “It wasn’t your fault.”

I mutely nodded.

“But I’m afraid it’s not over yet. Maestro wouldn’t have sent me back if it were.” Ben said. “Azriel, most likely. The collapse didn’t kill him.”

“Actually, it did.” I said, and send him the achievement I got.

New Achievement! Experience denied!

You just killed something, and it was probably a very difficult and hard-fought victory! Too bad that some enemies don’t give a shit! You just defeated a creature with an automatic revival skill or ability, so you’re going to have to kill them again! I hope you’ve got one more in ya! And you should hope that this isn’t one of those no cooldown infinite ress mobs! Yes, those exist.

Reward: You get to kill a creature a second time! Hurray! Psst! Let me squeeze a little extra in there; his revival skill only works once every 30h.

“Great. So he’s probably full health again despite a freaking building falling on top of him.” Ben said. “Let’s hope diplomacy is still on the table. Just because Maestro wants to see a fight, doesn’t mean he’ll get one.”

I nodded. “By the way. This skull…”

“Hiu didn’t make it out of the building in time, it seems.” Ben said.

“Fuck.” I said. So that’s why I got this damned skull, and received the gains of my Free Hunt Crawler Kill Ticket. I didn’t say anything out loud, though.

“This might sound morbid, but for us it’s a good thing he died.” Ben said. “Fucking Death Watch, we got a teleport for guessing correctly that he was going to die. I wouldn’t have been here if it wasn’t.

“The Maestro’s actions were a bit odd, though. Elise is having a mental breakdown and would’ve recklessly charged Azriel, getting herself killed in the process, yet he went out of his way to make sure that I came instead of her.”

“Makes sense.” I shrugged. “She’s wearing that tiara with a plot of 9th floor land tied to it, the whole reason that the Skull Empire noticed us to begin with. She’s probably the only one amongst us that Maestro doesn’t want to die, at least enough to not let her get killed for his amusement.”

“Oh.” Ben said. “Oooooooooh. I completely forgot about that.”

“Uhm…” Tatiana hummed, nervously trying to involve herself in the conversation.

“Right. Sorry.” I said. “Ben, Tatiana is an archer, though I don’t know the specifics either. Tatiana, Ben is a shadow thief. Can turn into shadows, steal items mid-combat, and he has some items that allow for massive amounts of damage.”

“And the foe we’re about to face off against, unless we can help it, is an Elite by the name of Azriel.” Ben said. “Real douchebag, will enslave you in all but name if you join him. But hopefully he won’t attack us, and we’ll just walk away.”

“If a fight does break out, you should run.” I said. “This isn’t your fight, there’s no reason to risk yourself for us.”

“I’ll be in front, you stealth and build up your assassination buff. Don’t worry about me.” I told Ben, turning to a few shaking rocks as something was slowly working its way out of the pile of rubble.

“I can and I will.” Ben said. “If he turns out to be at full health again, I’ll distract him while you run away. We’re not taking that risk. Promise me you’ll run.”

“I w-”

A metal helmet appeared from the rubble, dented and disfigured to a point that it barely resembled the human face it once was. One eye was broken, and the other shone a bright red. As the figure pushed its way out of the debris, it was revealed that one of its arms had been torn straight off. Wisp-like energy of a sickly light-green hue was flowing out of it before dissipating into nothingness. The other arm came out of the ground last as the figure kicked its way out with its legs, dragging along a massive greatsword.

Level 75 Berserk Town Guard

Spoilers! The silent and stoic Town Guards return to their barracks every night to recharge, where a soul crystal tops them off to make sure they’re ready for another day of standing completely still and doing absolutely nothing but watch their surroundings. Menacingly! This crystal in turn is fuelled by murder, draining all the departing souls in a certain radius and turning them into guard juice! This is the work of ancient but very stable and reliable technology, which won’t just randomly break down or start to malfunction. But when it does… Well, we don’t really have emergency protocols for when it does. We just expect you to run as fast as you can!

Now, what might cause such a malfunction, you may wonder? There’s many ways, each and every single one less likely than the last. But the most common one by far is vandalism! That’s right! Befuddling the ancient tinkerers who made these automatons, it turns out that intentionally trying to break the guards and/or crystal is the most likely cause of this ancient system going haywire! Who would’ve thought? But here we are, finding out that involuntarily shoving the souls of hundreds of people and monsters into a metal frame, violently draining them of their energy in a very painful process, and then breaking the seals and inhibitors that keep them docile, makes for a berserking amalgamation of maddened souls!

That’s right, bitch! Did you really think we were going to give you high-levelled but slow and simple mobs without a motherfucking second phase!?

The town guard turned to us, its one eye shone brighter. Then it shrieked with a hundred voices, each insane and desperate.

“Oh, fuck.” Ben and I said in unison.

The guard was a good twenty metres away from us, and then it was on Ben. It was a good thing the Guard decided to attack our rogue, because there was no way that I could’ve reacted fast enough.

Ben dodged to the right, the greatsword missing his head by a hair’s width. His skin blistered from the sheer velocity, and his health dipped some. The guard had stabbed the massive hunk of metal at him as if wielding a kitchen knife, the amount of power and speed left in their banged-up left arm clearly still more than enough to render the berserk automaton impossibly powerful.

Ben sank into the ground before the guard could do something else, and his shadow rushed away. The guard looked at me, and screamed its symphony of anguish. My vision blurred and I could feel the despair eat away at the last vestiges of my hope and morale, but I already had my shield up and I froze in place the right way.

The guard made some minor movements with loudly screeching joints, and then their left arm went straight from the overextended thrust into a wide slash for my chest. The blade moved so fast that the whole slash was a single-frame blur. My shield clanged loudly and my health menu showed minor fractures in my arm, but the sword’s edge shattered into a jagged mess as the guard’s health fell.

Which demotivated me more than the screams. The guard was already at less than a sixth of its health from everything that happened thus far and they fortunately didn’t seem to be regenerating, but the reflected damage barely moved its health bar. And I felt how much damage they did to me despite the block, so the health bar had to be positively insane.

Three arrows bounced off its head in quick succession, and I couldn’t even see if they did anything. I tried to shake off the paralysis, while my mind raced thinking of a game plan.

With enough Healing Scrolls and health potions I might be able to tank them out, kill them with reflected damage. Maybe Ben could stab them to death, but I had doubts that an animated suit of armour had a lot of vitals vulnerable to stabbing.

I looked at the angry souls flowing from their torn-off arm. The energy dissipated, but every time a face welled out it flowed back in again before it could escape. It didn’t seem to damage or slow down the guard, so this probably wouldn’t allow us to wait it out as if it had a Bleed effect.

Slowly and with lots of grinding metal on metal the guard swung back its sword, and then stood still. The spectres shrieked, and my vision blurred.

The arm swung forward, much faster than it wound up. It clanged against my shield and I popped a health potion, my cooldown of 32 seconds appearing and slowly counting down. I could probably take two or three of those strikes per potion, though the guard made about 6-8 attacks during my cooldown. Definitely needed those Healing Scrolls, unfortunately. I didn’t know if we had enough of those on us to outlast this monster.

Tatiana shot another arrow at the helmet, this one leaving a dent. Virtually no damage. She cursed and continued to back off.

The guard’s odd movements seemed like a hint. I didn’t know if the guards, the ‘You shouldn’t be messing with these guys’ foe of this floor, came with mandatory tricks and weaknesses allowing us to prevail. But if they did, the movements might be a hint.

Its attacks were incredibly fast, and without a screeching noise as if it was well-oiled. But every other movement looked like a rusty and decrepit robot trying to move through its disrepair with ignorant force of will. The guard even moved one part at a time instead of moving like a person.

Maybe it worked like a crocodile’s mouth? They could bite through limbs as their jaws closed, but a human hand had enough strength to keep the jaws from opening again. If we could stop the guard’s movements while it was slow, maybe we could pin it down.

Then there was the leaking miasma. We couldn’t do much with that one, Elise was the only one who could hurt ghosts with her bat.

“Tatiana. I don’t suppose you have any arrows or some kind of weapon that can hurt spectral beings?” I asked.

“Damn, that one is expensive.” Tatiana said. “But I guess it makes sense to shoot the ghost wound instead of the metal armour.”

There was another loud clang as the guard attacked my shield again. The fractures in my arm were back, and my health dropped. It raised its sword in the air for a downward strike this time, and I raised my shield to counter it.

“Mana or money?” Ben said. “I can spot you some if it’s the latter.”

“Mana.” Tatiana said. “I can conjure up arrows with magic, or imbue real arrows with effects as part of my class. I can’t do both at once, but I’ve got quite a lot of arrows so that’s no problem yet.”

The guard suddenly jumped up into the air, easily flying over me. While it was incredibly fast, regular physics still applied for losing momentum and hanging still in the air before falling down. As such, Tatiana managed to leap out of the way before the guard landed and cleaved the ground where she just stood in two.

It ground as it moved again, and Ben stabbed into its back while it was moving slowly. The health bar moved, but if this was the damage caused by Ben’s fully-charged assassinate backstab then we were going to have to hit it a lot harder before this damnable machine would stay down.

The spectres wailed, and I saw Ben stagger before my vision blurred too much. The next swing was aimed for Ben, the guard turning the sword in its hand before making a wide slash at the kid. Ben jumped backwards, but not fast enough.

As my vision returned Ben looked pale and witless, and kept jumping backwards even as the guard stood still. “Fuck! If I failed that one, I’d be dead right now! Fuck!”

The guard screeched as it righted itself, not visibly distraught over the greatsword disappearing into thin air mid-strike. Instead its hand slowly and robotically moved over to the nearest twisted piece of rebar.

“Get behind me, both of you!” I shouted. “Slow as this thing is, their attacks are almost impossible to dodge! I’m the only one that can take their attacks head-on!”

Tatiana didn’t mind following my order immediately, and got behind me. Ben took a moment, but then quickly circled around.

“I’ve got an idea. It might backfire on us, but if it doesn’t then it should make things easier.” Ben said.

“Do it!” I said. We weren’t going to win by fighting this thing patiently, not with the guard’s every change of strategy risking it slaying one of us in a single hit.

The guard leaped at me, once again moving impossibly fast and bridging the distance faster than I could blink. This time it was followed by a cloud of dust and several rocks flying at high velocity. It ripped the piece of rebar and the head-sized chunk of concrete that it was attached to out of the ground, fast enough to break off several chunks by momentum alone. Most of them went wide and exploded into powder on impact far away from us, but not all did.

I grunted as one chunk found my knee and struck it hard. The guard struck my shield at the same time, reducing my health to something much closer than zero than I was comfortable with. The concrete exploded into dust against my shield and the rebar shattered into hundreds of sharp little splinters, most of which struck the guard or just flew into the ground before me harmlessly.

The guard didn’t seem to care, and didn’t even look down at the pitiful remains of their improvised weapon before dropping it. By releasing it with one finger at the time.

Tatiana capitalised on the guard’s period of slow and rusty movement, running around me and aiming her bow at their energy-leaking shoulder. The arrowhead blazed with a green light as she released it, and found its way into the stream of ghostly energy before getting stuck in between two remnants of the arm joint.

The guard shrieked louder than ever before, and this time it was all rage. My vision didn’t blur this time, but it shook and my peripheral vision turned red. Their health dropped significantly for three seconds as more ghosts were pushed into the spectral arrow tip before the effect ran out, and then they ignored the now mundane arrow stuck in the Guard’s shoulder.

Slowly yet menacingly as its missing arm began churning out energy even faster and the spectres’ screaming became uninterrupted, the guard turned to Tatiana. My health bar filled up as Ben used a Healing Scroll on me, and I quickly moved to shield her.

Ben threw something at the guard, and the clay pot shattered upon impact. It dealt no damage, but the Oil of Slipperiness ran down the guard’s body and made the berserk mob shiny and slick.

I had Stalwart Defender and Sumo Stance. The first increased my steadfastness, and the second made me heavier and harder to move. I was all but rooted in place when I had both skills active. The guard still shoved me back a metre as it lunged and found itself overshooting massively because of the oil.

My health shot into the red well past the point of being a sliver as my left arm bones, or whatever my new body had as an equivalent thereof, shattered and the shield struck me with the full weight of the guard’s body behind it. I barely managed to remain on my feet.

The guard had it worse. It flew into my shield headfirst, its whole body’s weight squashing its helmet into the nearly unmoving object that was my shield. My skills making me more rigid and unyielding to being shoved back had really increased the damage it took too. As much as my health plummeted even as Tatiana quickly cast a Healing Scroll on me to prevent me from dying, the guard took a significant hit as well.

Then it fell down, almost anticlimactic in how comically fast it happened thanks to the Oil of Slipperiness.

I shook my head to clear the blurring effect of the wailing somewhat, noticing that the continuous screams were actually better for us. The sudden transition from clear to blurring and the vertigo that came with it were the biggest problem, the wails growing less potent as we adjusted to it for a few moments.

I panted as shards of my arm fell onto the ground below, and I quickly switched my shield to my right arm. My left arm could still move, but it was a shattered mess and whole chunks looked like they could fall off by just moving it. I hoped this wasn’t going to be a repeat of the Krutnik incident.

Then it dawned on me that I was only feeling a muted sense of pain. There was some, and I certainly felt my arm, but it was duller than it should be. Barely an inconvenience. That was… disconcerting.

The guard tried to get back up, and slipped down. It tried again, and slipped again. It moved in a different way, and slipped a different way. Its helmet was flattened and loose, and as it fell a third time it just came clean off.

More miasma poured out of this second lost limb, and this time there were a lot more ghostly faces in the stream. They wailed and screamed, but the effect just wasn’t the same when the guard was flailing on the ground like a slippery baby.

I kicked the guard away, and with its negligible friction it skidded like a flat stone thrown over a pond before crashing into a pile of rubble. This time the impact dealt no damage. Still, it was clinging on by a thread, at least according to the health bar.

“Almost.” I panted. “Just a little more.”

“Stay back, Darryl. You can’t take another hit from that thing.” Ben said before sinking into his own shadow.

“Ten more seconds before I have enough mana for another Spectral Arrow!” Tatiana said, eyeing the guard.

My health suddenly rose out of nowhere, my body shrinking a bit as the holes left by missing splinters in my arm grew closed.

Trevor: I see that the fight wasn’t over after all. I don’t have that much mana to spare, there are people in need of healing everywhere, but I can give you this much.

Trevor: Sorry about your friend, by the way.

Darryl: Thanks.

I returned my attention to the guard as it finally managed to stand up again. It was covered in soot and dust, the oil rubbed off or covered in at least a few places. It slowly raised its hand and made a fist, preparing to finish this one way or another.

Ben: Aaaaaand my shadow dagger doesn’t actually ignore their defences, hurt the spirits or circumvent their health. Damn, I was kinda hoping for that.

Ben appeared behind the guard and stabbed at it, but the guard ignored him. Ever since Tatiana hurt it with her Spectral Arrow, it hadn’t taken its eye off her. Even after losing its head.

“Hey ugly! Over here, you piece of junk!” Ben said, kicking the guard in the shins without response.

Tatiana moved behind me and I readied my shield.

Then the guard leapt, shooting past me. It tried to swing at Tatiana, but its strike went wide. It slid to a stop, and slowly began to turn around. Tatiana was already behind me by the time it faced me.

This time the guard leaped up into the air, and Tatiana jumped out of the way as it punched the ground. I quickly turned around before it could attack my slightly softer back, but the guard just righted themselves slowly.

Ben shot it with his crossbow, and the bolt bounced off without doing anything. I cursed, seeing as it was going to leap before I could get in the way this time. Instead of trying, I kicked at its feet hoping that my Spartan Kick and the remnants of oil would do the trick.

The guard shrieked louder, and I missed the kick as my vision swam.

The guard leaped at Tatiana, and I felt my shin shatter as the guard leaped into it and tripped up. It faceplanted into the ground, except it had no face to plant of course, and the ground shattered upon impact. The spectres wailed even harder, and started to leak from numerous cracks in the armour.

Still, the guard slowly got back up. At this point looked like it would break apart by itself given time, but it wasn’t giving up. It would never relent. It couldn’t even conceive of the notion. It got back on one knee, and then slowly tried to stand up straight.

Tatiana walked towards it, looking down upon the broken knight. She aimed a spectral green arrow down the dark hole where the head used to be, and released it.

The not-head of a hundred howling spectres screamed in anguish and hatred as the arrow cleaved through, and the hollow armour began to light up. The cracks rapidly grew larger and the miasma flowed out uncontrolled.

I quickly hobbled away on my one good leg as the ground began to shake under me. Ben and Tatiana had the same wise idea to take cover. I jumped behind the nearest pile of rubble that passed for cover, and held my head down.

The guard exploded. Instead of heat and tremors there was a chilling wind as the spectres shrieked in joy. For several seconds, green streaks flew over me and off in all directions, ignoring us.

“Is everybody okay?” I asked.

“Yeah. I’m good.” Ben groaned. “Just landed on a rock, is all.”

“I’m fine.” Tatiana said.

“Good. Those ghosts are probably going to be a problem, but I vote we make it a problem for tomorrow.” I said. My proposal was accepted unanimously.