“Xaolsiai, don't speak and just listen carefully. We're going to zip across prison dimensions.” - Insanic kept tapping with his mandibles until he heard a hollow sound. - “...here. Hmm... a physical boundary. Perfect! Take the larvae, then press your body against the corner... like this and wait. Just wait. We need to build enough power, so it might hurt a little.”

Insanic disappeared into the dungeon. Xaolsiai was loyal and just waited like she was supposed to until she noticed the outline of his silhouette. It was chased by a behemoth creature, the boss of this level.

“Insanic!” - Xaolsiai's mandibles clicked.

“STAY WHERE YOU ARE!”

Xaolsiai watched in fear how the gargantuan torso was closing in. She had only a few seconds before she and the larvae would be crushed to death. She closed her eyes and repeated a mantra. - “Trust your liege, trust your liege.”

Insanic's body pressed against Xaolsiai's exposed underbelly and he hugged her tightly. - “Brace for the impact!”

The behemoth crashed into the two termites, pressing their bodies into a narrow corner. Xaolsiai felt Insanic's torso being driven into hers, but at the same time, she felt as If the walls behind her turned into a tight bubble, that pushed through the fabric of reality itself.

Then, there was the sound of an explosion. Bricks and stone lied scattered around Xaolsiai, who kept her many legs wrapped around Insanic. Her eyes opened, noticing that the weak and smaller insect is battered, but still alive. Their eyes met for a short moment and she uttered, involuntarily. - “My blood, is yours.”

Insanic just ignored it. He stared at the purple skies, then at the orange stalagmites.

“Dimensional anchor.” - He uttered, still lying on Xaolsiai.

They were at an upper level of an island in space. Its edges were shaped like a large crown, and in the middle of the concave floor was a hole.

Insanic crawled out of Xaolsiai's embrace - “Follow me, fast.” - then started to explain.

“...so unreal, three jumps. We're on a record pace. The dimensional anchors are what allow different prison dimensions to occupy the same relative region of space. It helps to avoid the trouble with infinite-downsizing of structures. Although this location doesn't directly lead to the core, with some RNG manipulation, it'll allow us to pick the next subspace.”

Insanic crawled into a hole, then kept climbing the ceiling upside-down and observing. The caves of orange stone were full of bioluminescent flora, with springs surrounded by curling, beaded plants. He walked on a grassy path surrounded by blue and purple fungi, it curved vertically like a semicircle, leading them to crystal mines, where robots made of flesh swung heavy pickaxes and extracted gemstones.

The frame of robots was like a rib cage with all adequate organs inside, they lacked a lower torso and instead hovered in the air, with intestines falling out. Apart from muscles on their four skeletal arms, there were also thick tubes that connected to their elbow and wrists, like a sort of hydraulic device. In place of the skull, were just two nerves with eyeballs attached to them.

“Dig here.” - Insanic ordered Xaolsiai and she unearthed a large, spherical sapphire with a core than glowed like the yellow electrical sparkles were frozen inside, frozen in time.

“What is it?” - Xaolsiai asked, but Insanic just kept on moving.

“Place it here.” - He requested.

The process would continue with several other gemstones, and at the end Insanic just said. - “Now, we wait. With a bit of basic math, that'll be explained on my limbo-net channel, we have shifted the aspectual mass of the anchor, in a few minutes, it'll allow us to open a path straight to the lighthouse. As many of you know, once activated, the lighthouse should point us to the core.”

Xaolsiai watched the flesh robots, she had many doubts. - “Are we safe? I sense that these creatures are under a strong psyche-enslaving spell.”

“Ah, that asks for a reminder. Do not try this skip without a kill switch. It might be a witch-less run, but we're still entering into the sealed territories. Now, we strike. Let's descend deeper, below the mines, and see the changes...”

Insanic climbed a fungal path once more, until a large crater with spiky bones protruding from its surface. In the middle, was another hole. He dropped down, landing on ice. Surrounding him, were mummified corpses of flesh robots, their bandages were drenched in yellow-blackish liquid.

“As expected, %genocide runners would be proud.” - He crawled into a crevice that separated the stone ceiling and ice floor, then slid down the slanted pathway, until it turned into a vertical shaft, where he just jumped down. Xaolsiai was right after him.

The next area was pitch-black, but occasionally there were puddles of water. Insanic didn't seem impressed. - “That's it? We can just use echolocation. No stopping us now. Here... right here. Xaolsiai!”

“Yes, my lord?”

“Kill me, then larvae, then yourself.”

“...but, my lord!”

“Spare me the dialogue! I hate that section. JUST DO IT.”

“My lord, I have to refuse.”

“Oh, C'MON! Do I have to explain everything? We're going for a death warp. The witch's algorithms will lock us in an inner prison, right next to the lighthouse.”

“I... I don't understand.”

“Eh... the witch, she doesn't kill you to the point aspectual shell is removed and the soul is freed. Here, death means an adjustment of your punishment, a maximization of harvest. Do as I say or you'll never be free.”

Xaolsiai hesitated, her mandibles wrapped around Insanic's neck like scissors.

“Do. It.” - Insanic ordered. It took merely a second, and his head dropped to the floor.

[ … ]

Insanic felt overwhelming heaviness, the energy of gravity drove all of his limbs into an obsidian slab. He couldn't move, he couldn't speak. He couldn't see where Xaolsiai and larvae were.

All that he knew, was that he had to get out... but how? He was a speed-runner, not a miracle maker. His kill switch didn't activate, so it wasn't the end of the run, but he felt a need to restart.

I will give it a few days. - He thought, but then an alarming voice laughed in the depths of a room.

“A few days?” - It drew closer, its torso dripped wet with mucous and was like a body of a slug with six tentacle arms. Its mouth was as wide as a toad's, and above its flat nostrils, one of its two yellow eyes had been surgically removed. The face moved closer to Insanic and breathed with a horrible stench. - “You're staying here forever.”

Insanic didn't like his thoughts being read, but well... what could he do? - What a dumb, stinking animal. If I weren't a speed-runner, I would've stayed here and taught it a lesson.

The beast opened its maw, revealing rows of rotten teeth. - “Teach me? A lesson? You have no idea what kind of torture I had to go through... we all learn our place in time, and so will you.” - It grabbed a scalpel, then started to incise Insanic's abdomen.

I can endure it.

“Oh, I bet... but what about what comes next?” - The monster grabbed a few tubes, then started connecting them to Insanic's guts, nerves and veins. A black liquid started bumping into his body and Insanic felt an urge to scream.

He immediately called for a kill switch, but it did not work.

“Ah... yes... the remote death system. Did you really imagine you will just return to your cozy replacement body and keep streaming... Insanic?”

How... does he know...?

“Allow me to explain, since you're not leaving this place either way. This isn't an isolated prison. We allow the external boundary... to be a bit more flexible and escapable. You and your devices entered here way earlier than you thought.”

Thanks for the explanation, D-class villain... but that doesn't tell me how did you deactivate the kill switch.

“Were you really this arrogant, to think your outdated technology can't be influenced by the witch?”

Before Insanic could reply with his mind, the creature pulled a level next to the slab and he felt how diluted nether substance affects different parts of his body. It fell apart, aged, rotted, disintegrated. Wounds would open and fester, and tumorous growth would appear. Image of his mind split thousandfold and each experienced the same suffering.

The creature stood above Insanic, with a deprived smile, until it noticed a large shadow towering over it. The slug turned with a shock painting its face, a face that was soon crushed beyond any recognition.

The lever was deactivated and Xaolsiai approached the deformed Insanic. - “My... my lord.” - Yellow tears were welling up in her eyes,

H-how? - Only a gurgling sound left the wounded man's lips.

“Save your strength, this run is far from over.” - From behind Xaolsiai, another, humanoid Insanic showed. He moved to the machinery in the middle of a room, picking up tubes with white fluid. - “The metamorphosis is reversible, but it'll hurt as much as during the torture.”

Humanoid speed-runner replaced the nether wiring with the purifier, then pulled the lever again. Blobs of black liquid were drained out of termite Insanic.

When his screams quieted down, he crawled off the obsidian slab, uttering - “Are you the original?”

“Yes.”

“Who would've thought, you cloned the psyche back in the aether cloud.”

“No point in a small talk, we've got a record to break. Follow me.”

“Sure.. what's the next objective?”

“The purgatory pseudo-well, it fuels the lighthouse, but you know the deal.”

“I know... so it was supposed to be me?”

“Yes, but the circumstances changed. You've got a choice.”

Both Insanics stopped in a room with a column of bright light on a round, elevated platform.

“Xaolsiai, I'll take care of larvae for a moment, you just walk inside.” - The termite Insanic ordered.

When Xaolsiai stepped into the beam, she felt a strange tingling under her chitin plates. Then, in a fraction of a nanosecond, they all shattered into dust, and her flesh was torn apart. What remained inside the light, was a single crimson shard.

The termite Insanic stared at the crystal, he... or rather his original self, how many runs they did? Did they already pass millions? Each and every time, sacrifices were crucial to traverse the shortcuts. One soul, suffering for eternity in the worst of witch's simulations was enough to fuel the lighthouse and open the pathways.

Yet, this time, the record wouldn't be even his. It was the original Insanic who was the speedrunner, would he even allow him to live?

The lamps above Insanics lit up and portals were projected onto the surface of walls.

“I will be remembered, for what I do right now.” - The humanoid Insanic spoke and rushed through a portal.

They were a few steps away from the core, but the emphasis on *I* made something inside the termite Insanic break. He could follow, but instead, he just chuckled. - “...so that's how it feels to be discarded... just a clone... just a clone... but your burdens aren't mine. Deep inside, we both know the sins you carry... how a person like you could ever be forgiven? If you only had even the slightest chance of redemption, you would stop.”

The termite moved to the control panels of the lighthouse and disabled it. The portals closed and Xaolsiai's body reformed from the shard. She dropped on the platform, shedding tears.

“Please! No more, I beg you!” - She hastily crawled out of the light.

“You... you're still sane?” - Insanic uttered silently. - “How...”

“I'm sorry! I'm sorry, my lord!” - Xaolsiai wailed, curling up at Insanic's feet. - “I'm too weak to follow your orders.”

“I don't deserve to be called anyone's lord. You're free.”

“...but I swore... my blood, is yours.”

“I'm not worth your blood. I sold you to the witch for a chance to escape.”

“...and save the brood. I... I... can forgive you.”

“I didn't try to save the larvae! I tried to break a stupid record, you wouldn't understand! It was a selfish reason!”

“...”

“...and now, we're still stuck here.”

“...but will you lead us out?”

“I... I guess I can. There are many safe routes in the upper layers of prison. It'll just take a few extra months.”

“Then, this is your chance of redemption. My blood will still belong to the one who saves the hive.”

[ … ]

...and the hive lived, safely transported to one of the outer worlds, but I couldn't leave it at that.

“You're leaving again, my lord.”

“A dwarf prison manifested.”

“100%rescue prison-collapse?”

“...yes, until the day I'm ready.”