“Damn. It really does smell like ass-shit out here here..” I screwed my nose up at the awful smell of the corpse pit fires that had become a necessary requirement in order to deal with the steady growing number of corrupted bodies that had been piling up.

“Yeah it does, doesn’t it..Maybe I should just sink them instead..” Steve frowned with concern and started kneeling down.

“Nah. Don’t want the worms to eat them and end up growing to the size of buses do we Stevie? Let the poor bastards roast in peace..” Catara sniffed and peeled open her fifth nutrient grain bar, sighing with annoyance as she bit in and chewed it lazily. “Fucking EXP hunger..My jaw is aching like a bitch…..Ha. I just reminded myself of you there Biggs.”

Biggs sighed, but failed to hide his smirk of pride.

“Oh I can’t argue with you there Cata..Sometimes it aches as much as my soul..”

She turned her head and gave him a raised eyebrow.

“What a poet. You feeling brave now that you are a lev’ 90?” She finished her last bite staring him down.

He’s not the only one Catara..In less than 48 hours, pretty much all the fighter groups and anyone daring enough have been able to come here and spend a few hours cutting down corrupted and bumping themselves up to 80-90.

“No Maam. Honest answer. I treasure our precious R&R time.” He winked at her, refusing to back down now that he’d come this far.

Go on Biggs! Stand up to this tyranny!

“Hmph! Check out billy big balls..Seems like I’ll have to put in a promotion request after we’re done here now that you’re all grown up. Look forwarding to a special briefing later..Remember that, boys and girls! Sleeping with your superiors sometimes does pay off..” Catara looked forward at the gateway that spewed out a snarling corrupted and smirked to herself.

A few of the defending security team did some wolf whistles as they gunned down the poor corrupted and one of the female soldiers jokingly cat called at Biggs who rolled his eyes and told them to pipe down. Triya was on duty and did a yikes face whilst Steve groaned and felt compelled to set some things straight.

“Tut! Please disregard that! Performance and hardwork is what counts! I won’t approve promotions based on who’s genitals have been..in…Bah! Doesn’t matter! Alright! Let’s finish what we started team.” He walked over to a pile of slagged rock and punched in a handful of bone cores.

#Team#

Steve: Siya, my summons can’t activate the portal but you should be able to take one with you if you wish it.

Siya: I will kindly decline, but thank you, Guildmaster Steve.

Steve nodded, his aura adding to the already thick miasma of pride that seemed to be floating in the air this morning; he raised his arm diagonally for an arm bump, a gesture he was hoping would catch on, and Siya didn't mind returning the gesture. “Alright then. Catara, if you could ask the sec teams to make some space for Miss Siya please?”

“Yes Sir. ALRIGHT PEOPLE! Prepare to stand down in 30 seconds! Brave friendly going through! And we are expecting her to come back very safe, and very swiftly! HOLD FIRE UNLESS YOU ARE CLEARED! Melee force ONLY! AM I CLEAR?” She went oldschool and made a show of it, shouting out the orders, even though I could tell they were getting shouted at in mindspeak at the same time.

“Acknowledged!”

“Ready!”

“Alright. Siya, are you ready-Hmph. I just got deja vu..” Catara patted Siya on the shoulder as she nodded with a questioning smile.

#Siya# So much display for such a short task..

#Godu# Everyone’s just worried about you, they want to make sure you feel supported and cared for because they feel bad that you’re going alone..And they care about you alot in general, of course.

#Siya# Hmm..I too care about them very much. Maybe I should be more theatrical to appease their worries…

She pulled out her large bone greatsword and raised it up and did a light trilling war cry with her wings extended; The defenders loved it and cheered in response. It was a little bit cringeworthy for my tastes…But then I do say some stupid shit too..ugh..

“Okay, that’s 30 seconds. STAND DOWN EVERYONE! Siya, go! Good luck sis!”

Siya didn’t hesitate to leap forward and within the blink of an eye, she reached the watery gateway orb and activated it. A horrible feeling of dread swirled in my stomach like a blender.

#Godu# Stay safe gir-

She disappeared and I felt the mindspeak connection immediately cut off.

Oo fuck that’s horrible. Stay calm, we expected this. At least it confirms our theory why they’ve been silent all time..

A corrupted burst through, completely missing an arm itself, but Steve pulled it down into the ground and dragged it towards the security team who promptly beat the shit out of it with bone spears and war hammers.

Another corpse for the bonfire..Hurry up Siya, comon..

A minute crawled past and I felt sick, and started to get a strong compulsion to dive through the gate but Marri and Siya made me swear I would do no such thing.

Fuck..FUCK…Stay calm. She’s fine. You’re the one that is the liability. This is her domain.

Another minute past and another corrupted came through, this one wasn’t missing any limbs, but it did look more charred and crispy skinned; it met the same fate as it’s previous mate.

Damnit where are you Siya..

Five whole sickening minutes went past, and only the cunting corrupted kept coming through the gateway.

Not a single smiling face..Not a single happy mothgirl..Not a single sign of Siya..

It became clear that either something had gone horribly wrong, or the worst case scenario was playing out..

How the fuck can the corrupted come through?! I know she’s confident but fucking hell..She can’t fly over the mist! But the gateway works so surely I can come back…

I made up my mind.

Sorry Marri..

“FUCK THIS! I’m going in after her! It’s been too long!” I stomped towards the gateway as protestesting shouts and orders barked at me.

“GRAAGGGH!-”

Out of nowhere, a small smouldering and gargling corrupted came hurtling through, missing-HOLY FUCK!

It smashed into me at great speeds, knocking me back, but I caught it and was about to slipfold its head off when I got a message that made my heart leap out of my chest.

#Siya# H-..healing..H-...elp..

Label: Siya

MAGN: 99.901

HP: 12/2544

Notes: Soulbound partner. Something has hurt her badly.

She was convulsing as she tried to breathe through a melted mouth, sputtering and wheezing, but before I could even utter a single syllable, a torrent of healing Majik slammed into Siya, washing away the charred skin, regenerating her eyes and missing limbs; She trilled out in pain as her breathing organs and others were regenerated

Once her health skyrocketed back up towards 100%, I slipfolded us away from the gateway and behind the others, carefully carrying her into the resting tent and placing her down as she tried to steady her hyperventilating breath; her eyes were not fully formed yet.

"In your own time Siya, you're alright, I've got you.." I held her hand as she swallowed and nodded. "Can I get a blanket please!" I called out as I saw her feet, arm and pelvic scales had been completely melted and were in the process of moulting off; all her clothes were gone and the poor girl deserved the utmost respect and dignity, even if she didn't give a toss herself. Her irises bloomed in the white balls of her eyes, and the pupils darted around as the process finalised; her brain and nervous system were most likely calibrating the newly formed tissues and nerves.

I was pass a blanket and I carefully placed it over her as she got control of her breathing.

#Siya# It's…Chaos. Insanity. Horrid. Death. The cube. I could hardly see it through the bodies. Monsters everywhere. There's one of those colossals Godu! It's eating away at the cube..I think. Or it was eating the monsters..So much death, everything is fighting and bleeding and dying...Mya, Grave, Vyolyn, they're trapped inside. I could briefly hear them. Screaming. They need help!

Images faintly appeared in my black thought space and the hellish scenes reminded me of some kind of Dante's inferno painting.

There are..MILLIONS of creatures!

In some ways I wished rather that it was the mist blocking the communication instead of something like this..But it continued the trend of the universe being sadistically ruthless, and I felt sick thinking about how long they might have been trapped inside.

Was it the same day I left? The day after? Two? Three?!! Damnit! I wish I could just speak with them so we could figure out what to do!

#Godu# Alright Siya, just take a moment and we'll figure out what to do next. Just rest for a bit okay? We won't leave them for long but we need to plan first okay?

Siya was well looked after by the medic team as I relayed the information to Steve and Catara.

"Until we have eyes ourselves, we can't really just blindly jump in-YES, yes, I know they are important to you Godu, but we need to approach with caution, not everyone has your skills or tenacity." Steve put a hand on my shoulder to stop me from escalating further. He was absolutely right and I took a breath and stood down, nodding.

"Yeah..Okay mate. Sorry. I saw bits of what Siya did. But it was hell, biblical hell. Creatures ripping each other apart, fire, plasma everywhere, gore and blood running in rivers between the piles of corpses..and there’s a collosal there man...fuck.." I rubbed my face.

Hey. Stay calm darling. Listen, we've got enough data to confirm that the mist doesn't block you from slipfolding. Suggest to the others that you can pick one of your old spots, on the motorways far from the cube and then you can recon from a distance.

Yes! That's a great idea! Thank you Seren!

I relayed the idea to the others.

"Ok. I'm fucking in Godu. I'll need you to pick up one of my team though, she's a devil, a scout. So she's got some kit and skills that we're going to need. The way I see it, this is going to play out in one of two ways. One, we try to bombard from a safe distance but end up in a bloodbath. Or two, we go in as an extraction team, sneak a way inside and then you pull people out. Normally you would be good to go all solo-warpy-time, but we don't know what's inside and based on what you told me, you might need a 'hand'." She smirked. Her calm, confident dryness levelled me out, and I couldn't help but relax, snorting and nodding in agreement.

"Absolutely, I'll follow your lead. You know everything I do about the inside but it could have changed. Tell me where to grab your devil." I grew more confident by the second.

Damn good people I have here..I’m lucky.

"Good man. Steve? Any objections? Biggs? You got any remarks? Or are you just eye candy?"

Steve gave a pursed smile and nodded. "No Miss R. A fine plan. I'll leave the operation to your much more qualified self and I'll keep an eye on things on this side..I'm hoping to all god's that the reason we haven't seen the big one come through is because it simply can't? If it does, we might need to go to the vault..or something.."

Shit I hope it can't..please don't let it come through..please.

"Just here to be eye candy Miss. Think of me as your cheerleader." Biggs had a sparkle in his eye.

The man is excited.

"Good to hear. Let's grab some pom poms and shake some tits…" Catara also had the sparkle.

They're both excited?! Why???

…

..

.

I grabbed Catara's ‘devil’ scout, aptly named because her class codename was indeed 'Devyl' but ironically her name was Angel; long, straight, fair hair, lightly tanned, spotless skin with narrow slanted green eyes, carrying a railgun that was taller than her.

Afterwards, I took a seat and waited for them to get ready and for Siya to recover and get dressed, since she was fiercely adamant to come with us and I wasn't going to deny her.

Never really bothered me but, why the hate on vowels Seren? And do you know the cubes' purpose?

Probably for a good reason but I wasn't in charge of Metadata sooo blame my sibs. Um, not a clue sorry sweety! Mother never mentioned anything of the sort. Could be a skill or some kind of phenomenon. Imagine if it was a colassals nest..

Bloody hell..I hope not!

Whilst I continued to wait, I excused myself and went to speak to Marri about what had happened and what we were going to do. She was not best pleased, but she was understanding and relented after I told her I was going with Siya and especially Catara, since she was a trained combatant, not just any old idiot with Majik abilities.

It wasn't long before Siya, Catara, Biggs, Angel and a medic called Dave were standing ready, all of us were equipped with a good supply of healing tonics and a couple of survival bits, namely a homemade grenade and a bone knife. The plan was a quick test confirmation of me and Siya slipfolding to an old anchor point I'd left on the motorway, and then once I confirmed I could freely travel, I'd then bring along the rest of the group.

"Alright be right back..I hope."

Siya leant in and we Slipfolded, coming out a few miles away from the cube which was clearly visible due to its blood chilling size, but even from this distance I could see and hear the absolute fucking carnage. It was like a doom festival, with filthy black smoke pluming into the sky from practically everywhere, blotting out the sun. The sky was glowing orange and flashing different colours from all the fires and Majik explosions and the roars and screeching was like a continuous volcano eruption, and, also like a volcano, the sheer mass of bodies and Majik was giving off a scorching heat that felt like I was sticking my face near an oven set to full blast.

"Shit that's fucking hot...So far so good. Let's try and get back." I Slipfolded back with Siya without any issue and breathed a sigh of relief before motioning for everyone to come close.

"Huddle up. Brace yourselves, it's quite warm.”

We slipfolded back, and there was gasps and quiet curses as they were smacked by the heat as well as the sight of the huge cube.

"Fffffuck me that shit is big..And this heat! FFffuaark." Biggs pulled a neck scarf out of a pocket to cover his face.

"Yup tell me about it man..Got any spares?" I pointed to his scarf.

"Uhh..Yeah, just one, but I think if I don't give it to the boss lady, I'll be in trouble…sorry mate." He passed his spare to Catara who blew him a kiss before giving me a 'ha, get fucked loser' look.

"Perks of being female. Sorry loverboy." She muttered as she walked past the dickhead that was me.

"Bah. The Brass are always only looking out for themselves..Hey Godu, everyone, here you go bud. These should work." Dave handed out some slings which indeed did the job. Angel didn't need one, and instead tapped on an unfamiliar Majikware collar around her neck, which splashed out into a mini hurricane of Majik and swirled around her head as it constructed a sleek helmet, which matched the rest of her sleek armour that consisted of a skin tight diving suit that had a few small Majikware armour plates providing additional protection on various places.

"Wow, cool." I quietly said to myself.

She must have heard because she glanced at me and gave a short nod and a thumbs up.

"Alright team. From here on out we're going to let Angel take the lead. She'll ensure we keep fights to a minimum. Although I don't think we'll be so lucky in the last stretch." Everyone went quiet as they stared at the carpet of writhing mass, and the colossal that was chewing on the edge of the cube; The colossal had a bipedal lizard body with multiple pairs of arms, with the head of an angler fish that had two huge black eyes.

"We..don't have to fight that Godzilla looking fucker, right?" Biggs gave Catara a nervous glance.

"Won't be much of a fight. We're like ants compared to that..Alright Angel, let's tread some dirt. Oh and it may seem pointless, but no talking or pointless chatter. Use the mind texting shit only if you need to."

We followed Angel down and through the heavily overgrown fields and Wildlands, picking our way carefully through bushes and light fences. A few times Angel would raise a hand for us to stop and point towards a direction, and then a few moments later some abomination or corrupted would come storming past only to double take as the last thing it saw was us blasting it to bits as quickly as we could. The air was awfully arid and the temperature was getting hotter the closer we got to the source, and I was starting to wonder something..

#Godu# Siya, you okay? Was it this heat that scorched you or was it something else? Let me know if you want to go back for a rest or anything.

She patted me on the back in appreciation.

#Siya# I'm okay Godu. Thank you for checking though. The ambient heat isn't a big issue for me, but to answer the question, no. It was the colossal beast that got the better of me. The gateway exit is buried under them, and when I came out, it was a struggle to break free to the surface, so I was exhausted when I finally did..and then I foolishly thought I could find a way to slip into the hole it was chewing as soon as I saw it..But it's actually melting the cube using its breath which is what scorched me, it is not actually eating it. The cube is successfully repairing itself at the same time I tried to pass through, and this was what took my arm.

#Godu# Shit..Well I'm glad you're okay. I was about to storm in to come get you.

#Siya# Oh Godu..You foolish, kind creature. Please don't do anything without keeping Marri and hatchling in mind. Please.

#Godu# Yeah, yeah don't worry I know..But we can do this. We can get our friends out.

We managed to make our way up a concrete ramp that was littered with piles of rusted cars and impact craters; the road must have been part of a bridge but now it was neatly severed at the edge of the huge trench that surrounded the cube, a trench that was currently a sea of screaming flesh, claws, teeth and blood. The heat was suffocating, but I took a leaf out of Siyas book and deployed my shields into config:prime to provide some shade against the biological furnace.

#Team#

Biggs: This is definitely the most insane shit I've ever seen..And that's coming from someone who used to go to the purple turtle club regularly back in the day. Glad I got this cool helmet. Jealous Godu? Of course you are. I can smell it.

I gave him a flat stare. Biggs had the luck of a leprechaun due to somehow finding a riot gear helmet with the visor intact..Lucky Bitch..Oh, wait a second, I know that club-

Angel: 5 targets rapidly approaching from behind. Corrupted.

Biggs: Shit!

Angel: 8 targets have gone red from below. Climbing up. Monster types. There’s a Tier I amongst them.

Biggs: Tier I shit!

Catara: Come on Biggs, stop acting like a civ and get elevated and suppress! Godu, try and distract the Organics so Angel can pick them off from range. Siya, you’re with me on the corrupted. Dave, grab a lift from Biggs and be ready to pull us back from the dead!

Dave: Understood.

Angel: Moving.

Biggs: Sorry Maam. Dave, platform on me.

Godu: Alright!

Tier I means above level 100..This will be rough.

Tier I creatures were somewhat on par with the corrupted but with the additional downsides that decay based weaponry had no huge bonus effect on them, so it was like fighting corrupted without our treasured husk remains-based advantage..The only thing we had going for us was that they had only showed up one at a time, so far..and only 3 of them had appeared, so fairly rare monsters, but seemingly always leading a group of other monsters which could be labelled as fact rather than coincidence since it kept happening..one is luck, two is coincidence, three is freakish, but four? THAT’S a pattern.

Dave got close to Biggs as the floor around him started to glow and there was a crack of concrete as the glowing platform smoothly sailed up into the sky a few dozen metres before stopping and hovering.

Angel…was somewhere, but I couldn’t figure out where. She had skills that made her dissolve through walls, similar to Mya, but she seemed to be able to pop her gun out from any solid objects and fire off shots, making her the equivalent of a poltergeist carrying a long range railgun. I say gun but that thing is a cannon. It’s huge. It looks weird how easily she can swing it around-

“GRAGH!”

My time for distractions was gone, as over the edge of the severed bridge, 8 eyeless faces popped over with wide open mouths filled with jagged teeth.

Label: Ropeneck

MAGN: 91.346

HP: 2800/2800

Notes: Need a hand?

The heads came over, followed by a long snakelike neck that was attached to a 6 armed body with no legs, just hands? That’s creepy.

Angels gun popped out from a rust pile at point blank range that she rammed into one their mouths and with a muffled pulse noise, detonated the head like a balloon filled with red custard. Quick as lightning however, the others obliterated the rust pile and I caught a glimpse of Angels helmet getting scrapped from one of the many sharp fingertips as she ghosted into the floor.

Catara: I said FROM RANGE Angel! Let G boy take their focus!

Angel: Sorry C. I hate missing opportunities. Go for it Godu.

Taking a deep breath, I slipfolded to their flank and unleashed a spray of shards, jumping back as one swung their head towards me and promptly taking the opportunity to slipfold it clean off.

I grinned but then sulked as I watched a tiny bubble form which turned into another head that rapidly grew back to the same size as the one I just took; Checking Angels point blank headshot, I saw the same story as the body convulsed whilst the head regenerated, shortly hopping back to its feet-I mean hands..bollocks. The head must just be a weapon. Need to go for the body.

Godu: Angel, their heads just a lump of flesh. Need to aim for the body!

Angel: Firing.

With a noise that sounded like a wine glass resonating in reverse, Angel charged up a heavy shot and unleashed a devastating projectile that ripped through two of the Ropenecks torsos, smashing them each into two messy halves; The others pushed past their gored teammates and sprung forward towards me, heads extending rapidly as they seemingly assumed it was my fault their buddies had been cleaved. I duck and weaved, trying to get closer to their torsos, but they appeared to have good instincts or intelligence, as anytime I made a move to get closer or slipfold in, they would dodge or jump away surprisingly fast.

And that was especially true for the Tier I..

Fuck! The shithead keeps getting lucky hits on me.

My shields were taking the brunt of the Tier I's attacks whilst Angel made progress on taking the smaller ones out, but the damage was something I couldn't ignore and if I wasn't careful I'd be running out of resources to block very soon.

Shit! At least the corrupted were stupid! This fucker seems to know what it's doing-

It swung it's gnashing head around like a giant snooker ball on the end of a rope, forcing me to lean backwards horizontal and then slipfold behind it, finally punishing its stupid and aggressive stunt by surge charging into its torso and 'dicefolding' the shit out of it; the first two folds squeezed tightly but met tough resistance as they tried to close, but the third one hammered them all home and I went a tab bit overboard as I cubed its body but spent my reserves.

Crap! Exhausted my resources!

Wine glasses sung in the air as Angel popped out from the exact angle that left the remaining ones lined up like dominoes, and she grunted as her barrel intricately split into two, then three and ejected several projectiles that flashed through the air weaving a triple helix pattern that pierced them all in a single blinding attack.

"Nice.. quad kill..thanks" I leant on my knees as the heat and exertion was taking its toll. Angel floated out of the floor and gave me a short salute, then went back over to the edge and crouched down to continue surveying as Siya, Catara and Biggs finished off their targets.

Dave sent out a squad of humming gold and silver flying pyramids that went to each of us and sprayed out a stream of cool, regenerative Majik and promptly perished into dust.

#Team#

Catara: Take a breather for a few mins. Have a think about how we want to approach. Then we make a decision.

Phew..much better..Thank you flying doritos..

Godu: Well, I can see the triangular ferrofluid door that gave me the weird message about MAGN 80. I vote we need to find a way to get to that, but not sure how..Shit I hate this disgusting heat.

Damn I wish I had brought Immo with me..Could really do with her blizzard stuff right now..But I couldn’t dare drag her out.

She loved our home and all the people in it. Every chance she got she would go out on patrol to watch over others and she rarely returned to me unless I called out for her.

Thinking of her reminded me why it was important to help others, even if it seemed dangerous or illogical.

Everything has a knock on effect..If we hadn’t of helped her, would Siya have survived the tunnel crossing? And if she hadn’t survived then I would not have been able to get to base in time for Marri and-

Catara: Hm. Alright, the question is how? I assume you can’t teleport us there safely?

Godu: Oh, I’m not sure, it would be-

Angel: Not good. Something is pulling their attention.

Angel was on her feet, slowly backing away from the edge; the riotous noise had changed and was definitely getting louder. Catara hurried over to her.

Catara: Huh? What do you-

Catara cursed loudly after witnessing what Angel had.

“RIGHT. Rest time is fucking over! We’ve managed to pull half of the cunts! Any other ideas? Or are we just going to have to wade through them?” She motioned for everyone to come to her. As I looked over the edge, a million angry eyes looked back at me with murder, hunger and violence on their tongues, I clocked hundreds of Tier I’s gunning for us with their groups, and it was hard to even tell what was simply blood mist over what was my perception highlighting threats in a red hue-

Siya: Oh no! No!-

Angel: We’ve got more incoming from the back-ANOTHER COLLOSSAL SIGHTED! ON OUR SIX!

Sure enough, there was another gargantuan nightmare power crawling through trees and buildings a few kilometres away, heading directly for us; although I had a strong suspicion that it couldn’t give a flying shit about us and was more interested in the hot buffet and perhaps some cube or fellow titan for dessert. Normally the solution would have been to fly or slipfold, but I had zero space to slipfold safely and flying might have worked but Seren couldn’t carry us all at the same time.

In anycase, we’re either aborting this mission or we need to move through the crowd.

Hey Darl, it might be time to re-enact the storming of the gates, remember? Crack open a tin of beans?

Ah, you mean the group formation? Is that viable here?

Yes, I believe so! Plus I’m itching to try something new I’ve got that I think you will find quite, exciting.

Alright, you’ve got my full attention! I’ll get the others!

Quickly explaining what we needed to, Catara didn’t question it and ordered we huddle and prepare to take a ‘shortcut’. A 200-300 meter ‘shortcut’, that, in reality was only a shortcut to the floor of hell.

Catara: Let’s do it super boy. Get your sweet demon out here and take us down!

Godu: Uhh, there’s no space for that, we’ll need to jump down!

Dave: Jump?! That’s a good joke!?

Siya: I will support you Dave.

Biggs: I’m good with the height. Superpowers and all.

Angel: Likewise.

Dave: You can’t be-

Catara: GREAT CHAT! GO! GO! GO! MOVE!

Serens construct burst from my back and didn’t hesitate to be the first to jump down and we all followed, with Biggs surfing down on a platform, Catara turning into mist after a few seconds to cushion the fall into oblivion, and Siya was holding on to Dave who was crying out as she sailed down. Angel had just jumped off and unloaded a storm of railshots into the horde below, but as soon as Seren landed on top of them, the startling reality of how many bodies were actually down here became apparent. Her construct burst through with a sickening explosion of gore until impacting the ground, three fleshy layers deep, and she proceeded to gouge out space with frightening strength, creating a small clearing just as we landed. It was like hopping into an eldritch wasps nest full of rival colonies, as the noise and heat reached disgusting heights; the monsters writhed and fought each other all around us as we neatly landed on blood-soggy dirt.

Catara pulled out her shield.

Catara: STAY BEHIND SEREN AND STICK CLOSE TO EACH OTHER! I’M AT THE BACK! GO!

Seren let out a scratchy-synth warning cry as we got into a formation with Catara at the back, Dave and Angel in the middle, and me and Siya on the sides. Seren thudded her kite shields together to form a plough, and then she ploughed forward.

At first her momentum was great but it turned from a powerwalk through fleshy snow, into an absolute crawl through drying concrete pretty fucking quickly, we’d only made it barely 20 metres with 200-250 more to go before she had to stop.

Seren you okay?

UGH! I might have-FFF-misjudged this a bit-AGHRR YOU TITFUCKING BITCH! Would you be a darling and help me-UFF-please?

Catara: GODU?! WHY ARE WE NOT MOVING?

Godu: It’s okay! It’s just the mass is much more difficult to move through! I need everyone to get REALLY close! It’s about to get fucking messy!

My face broke out into a wild grin as I anticipated the prophesized carnage; everyone squeezed real close as they knew what was coming.

I activated ‘blenderfold’ mode.

Squelch. Shlick. Sploosh. Splat. The noise was horrific, but glorious. ASMR for your typical psychopath.

Creatures screamed, howled and gargled their last breaths as I expanded out my slipfold to it’s maximum, which covered about a 5 meter radius away from me, and blipped us forward a few centimeters over and over about 20 times. The result was as expected and Seren was able to pick up some speed and we followed her as she charged forward.

Dave: This is utterly insane! There’s so much BLOOD! WHAT THE FUCK!

Catara: I did warn you Dave! Stay close to Godu if you don’t want to join the red mist!!

Oh my gods look at all the EXP! I can feel myself getting closer to 100! HA! Man this must be what it feels like to be insane!

The ground had started to noticeably rumble as the lizard colossal got closer, and the Angler one that had been chomping on the cube must have noticed it too-

“!!!!!!”

An earpiercing noise like a volcano sized elephant erupted from the Angler, a sound that could be felt as much as it could be heard.

Okay! Insanity courage is gone! That’s terrifying as fuck!

We were about halfway now, and the noise had managed to help distract some of the flesh swamp, making it easier for Seren to punt them out of the way.

Not a big fan that we’re heading towards THAT!

The Angler straightened up and cried out another challenging bellow as it took a squelching step forward, and then another, and another; it moved far faster than I imagined for something that size, even though it appeared sluggish.

Catara: This might be too much fucking Kaiju-Fishzilla shit for my liking Godu! Be ready if we need to abort. We will come back another time. Sorry.

Siya: But we are so close! There might not be anything left to come back to!

Angel: 111 metres to the gates.

Biggs: This is NUTS!

Dave: AGHHH!

Godu: Piss on it! We have to try!

Seren if you’ve still got those party tricks, now would be great!

Owwhhhu, I wanted to save it for a special occasion..

The living gore trenches started to close in even thicker, my slipfolds struggled tremendously to close and sever, creating horrific, nightmare flesh kaleidoscope geometries and patterns as the Tier I’s acted like spanners in the folds, wedging them open even though they were layered on top of each other, the snarling mutated faces and eyes would thrash back and forth through the slipfold layers.

The exertion was too much. Way too much.

Seren?! We’re going to abandon them if we don’t do something! I’m at my limit! PLEASE!

There was a temptation to Slipfold to the wall and just drop everyone down-

W-T-F! Why didn’t I just do that in the FUCKING first place?!

I tried but the slipfold placement failed, immediately, the surface of the cube seemingly interfering with or deflecting the process.

Figures…FUCKING CUBE!-

Owwww okay! Okay! This should clear it, but I didn’t want to do this so early because I can only manage one every 24 hours and it takes sooo much EXP and Majik to charge!..Hummpphhh..Hopefully we don’t need it again today..Alrighty!!!

Up in front, Seren abruptly stopped and bent slightly forward with the shields slamming down by her sides, impaling meat and dirt. The front of her body ripped open like an iron maiden, reminding me of the time back in the arena, but this time, 10 huge spider-like metal legs shot out and a pure black orb flickered into existence between them as the legs jittered around, plucking at invisible guitar strings.

What the f-

Violently, plasma and electrical energies arced from the legs and carrassed the orb, enlarging it like a balloon as it distorted light around it.

Behold!

She carefully released the orb and it slowly floated up into the sky, a trail of Majik and plasma stringing between the spider legs and the orb like both had been dipped into honey.

MY DEEP VOID!!

This was no time to crack dirty jokes.

The trailing plasma and Majik was blasted back, flowing and spreading out, surrounding us like a silk sheet being blasted around in a hurricane, the edges violently flapped as the black sphere shot out a blast of air including thousands of tendrils that grabbed and yanked in anything not tied down within 100 metres, pulling it into its nothingness, simply deleting them. The tendrils brushed against the cube and a white orb bloomed into existence that turned into an explosion of Majik, or energy or plasma, or fucks knows anymore! But I noticed it did obliterate some of the cubes mass. The orb and silk sheet evaporated, and inf ront of us, our path was as clean as a whistle apart from the blood soaked mud.

But it wouldn’t, nor couldn’t stay clear for long.

Dave: That thing lives on your back?!! I’ve been eating breakfast next to a tactical Majik NUKE all these months??? How are we still ALIVE!!

Siya: Beautiful Seren!

Angel: Wow. That was cool.

Biggs: Fuck me bloody sideways..Maybe we should have started with that first!?

Catara: LATER BIGGS. RELIGIONS WILL BE MADE FROM THIS MOMENT. BUT NOW IT IS TIME TO FUCKING CHARGE!

Godu: Going ahead! I’ll try open the door!

The large cleared space was rapidly filling back up, and our stunt had caught the attention of the two cuntzillas that were now fully focused on making a beeline for us, Shitshitshitshit!, but I was already at the door, tapping everywhere in a panic looking for the-bloody THING, come on! OPEN!

*BWAAAAAARG*

A klaxon blared out.

BASTILLE ACCESS GRANTED.

REQ: 80 MAGN - MET.

VIRGINS MERCY! THANK YOU!

Catara: IT IS GOING TO GET US! WE WERE TOO LATE! TIME TO FUCKING ABORT! GODU GET US OUT OF HERE RIGHT NOW!

I turned around and watched in horror as the Lizard leapt from the top of the outercrater, diving down towards the others as they sprinted up the ramp, there were mere seconds before it would reach us. Time started to slow down as I braced myself to abort this monumental clusterfuck, unless this 3 sided fucker opened in the next few milliseconds.

I glanced back and saw a somewhat insulting and ominous message, just as Seren slammed into my back.

ADVENTURE AWAITS.

EH!?-

The others were thrown into me, slamming us all into the wall just as the air turned scalding and the light was blotted out by the colossal hand that was about to squish us.

But we didn’t hit anything, nor did we become meaty pancakes.

Instead, we went straight through the ferrofluid and fell straight down a tunnel made of trillions of streams of light.

…

..

.