Adam planted two arms shaped loosely out of the collected flesh into the ground on either side of him. Then he split his ball of blood into three, forming each fragment into a flat disc that he'd easily be able to turn into a blade or spin up to carve through the enemies.

The moment the first Wave started, three Slothling Imps emerged from the dense treeline a few metres away.

Adam immediately shot his three spells forward, deciding in the last second to turn all of them into sharp blades.

With a downwards chop of his control sigil, the blades swung down through the seams between the heads and bodies of the three imps simultaneously, decapitating all of them at once.

[Excellent! You cleared the Wave within 5 seconds.]

I didn't even need to use the arms, he thought to himself as he quickly switched to Gram to force its weapon upgrades to appear from the rewards. It was kind of a waste to use boosted upgrades on chipping stone away from the sword, but he decided he would pick Health and Defence if they appeared.

The imps being easy to kill wasn't that much of a surprise though, since they had never been dangerous because of their defence but rather because of their speed.

He merged the blood back together into a single ball while he brought the flesh-wrought arms over to the three corpses. The arms he'd made were simple, but had elbow joints and clawed rigid fingers locked into beak-like shapes. It seemed silly that making something closer to a functional limb with flesh magic was stronger than simply reworking the meat and skin into basic weapons, but from all his tests it was clear that the more accurate his flesh creations were, the more power they had.

If I could control bones too, then I'd be able to build my own creatures, he thought absentmindedly as he worked the disconnected arms through the imps' bodies, butchering them up like captured prey.

If I went that route, then I'd probably end up like the Tome Keeper… After all, he is also known as the Fleshcrafter, based on the name of his realm when I entered it.

For how much the Flayed Lady and Tome Keeper seem to be at odds, their domains of influence are strikingly similar. But perhaps their similarities are the cause of the tensions.

For him to want me to worship her, it's clear he's after something specific.

But that thing might just be teaching me a lesson about his enemy.

Adam still didn't want to do it, since her quests were clearly geared towards harming other Players. But a small part of him thought that she might be able to make his spells stronger, since she was tied to blood magic.

Trading my morals for power…

It would be easy to justify choosing her if it meant I could go further.

But that road is the same that so many of the murderous time-loopers followed I'm sure.

Justifying cold-hearted murder in the present for some future peace is just an evil spiral that will never end, because when does the future arrive, and if you give a little, it's easy to end up giving a lot. And then, before you know it, you've left behind a bloody trail and lost sight of where the boundaries used to be.

He sighed and pushed away the speculation for now. But he would be lying if he wasn't at least curious about why the Tome Keeper had gone through so much trouble to get such a message to him in this loop.

With the two flesh-wrought arms, Adam scooped up the black-veined heart of bone from within the first Slothling Imp.

< < Collectible Relic > >

< Slothful Heart (Common) — A heart borne by an incarnation of Sloth >

As he started carving open the other two Slothlings, the Eye announced that he was running out of time on his upgrade selection.

He glanced over the options.

< < Upgrades Available > >

< Chip Stone — Reveal a portion of the sword >

< Health (Epic) — Increases health by 10 >

< Defence (Rare) — Increases all defence by 25% >

< Dodge (Rare) — Grants a 15% chance to dodge a direct attack >

Health and Defence, not bad.

"Select Defence when there is 1 second remaining."

[Understood.]

Adam spent the last bit of the break before Wave Two on pulling out the hearts and then collecting the blood and flesh into the air in front of him. As he put the hearts into his Spidersilk Backpack, three blood golems came out of the forest wall.

He sent his blood out as three separate projectiles, piercing them deep into the golems and merging their bodies with Adam's Mana-infused blood. It took a few seconds to pull off, but it was way more effective than against flesh-and-blood enemies, since the moment he gained control, he simply pulled their blood-formed bodies away from the elemental cores they carried within.

As one, the golems were absorbed into Adam's collecting orbs, though much of the blood that formed them sloshed away and disappeared into the grass when he reached the storage limit for each of his three spells.

It was a bit of a waste, but he'd beaten the Wave within 10 seconds and completely filled up his reserves.

During the following interlude, Adam went over to the two spawns for the Slothling Imps that would appear. Since the Hardmode clones emerged out of the same place as the originals, it was easy enough for him to draw out the traps in a way that he'd be able to catch most if not all of them. He drew the spell pattern for Push near both places in oversized versions, and then pulled the flesh he'd planted nearby to his side, since he didn't have a ton of blood left afterwards.

He'd also gained a surplus of flesh from the imps he'd butchered, but unlike the blood he wasn't actively manipulating, the flesh could just be loosely sculpted and placed nearby for when he needed it, making it a much more efficient thing to harvest and allowing him to go overboard with using it. Although, the fact that shaping it was more intricate and a necessity to gain the full effect of the magic, it wasn't quite as straight-forward to use. And unfortunately, trying to make spell patterns with it had not been fruitful, since the patterns struggled to stay coherent when formed into skin or flesh, almost as if it warped the material.

Watching how Beck created his spells had also not really aided him much, since his staff did the majority of the work and Adam's attempts to imitate its spell patterns had no effect, even though he understood what they did.

As Adam selected the Chip Stone upgrade from the options, Wave Three began and the treeline almost immediately exploded with shards of crystallised blood, shredding four of the six imps, but two made it out mostly unscathed since they'd been shielded by arriving last.

Adam sent a snaking projectile of blood after the one on his left and the two flesh-wrought arms after the other.

The left one immediately launched at him with a powerful kick of its legs, but he quickly turned the blood snake into a long blade that split the top of the imp's body at the shoulders as it sheared through, diverting its trajectory away from him as the two parts pulled away from each other.

Before the right one could leap, Adam drove both of his floating arms through its round furry torso and pulled it apart with terrifying ease, releasing the collectible heart from within just like splitting open the husk of a chestnut.

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I wonder if the strength of my flesh-shaped limbs is also controlled by Invocation Power, because they're pretty damn strong.

Once again there was an Epic Health upgrade in the pool of options, so he selected it after preparing for Wave Four.

As the ogres burst through the trees, they immediately triggered two of Adam's primed Push spells, blowing open their gorilla-like hands and causing two of them to stumble. He sent a slicing blade of blood through the third, carving deep wounds into its arms and making it falter too.

By then it was already game over for them, because Adam sent his flesh-wrought arms up into each of their torsos, shaping them into unstable balloons that imploded violently, breaking open big holes inside each of them that sent down a deluge of blood and made all three ogres collapse.

He then mixed his Mana-infused blood with the ogres' and though it took about 15 seconds in total, he was able to absorb and control enough that he could then simply pull the rest of the blood out of their bodies, causing them to die one by one.

Once again, it was way too much blood for him to wield all at once, but instead of letting it spill onto the grass and disappear, he coated as many of the trees around him as possible, setting himself up for the final Wave.

He butchered the remains of the ogres for more flesh, blood, and the collectibles within, but this time the hearts were of a higher rarity.

< < Collectible Relic > >

< Greater Slothful Heart (Uncommon) — A heart borne by a greater incarnation of Sloth >

With tripled summons, the final Wave will be the biggest hurdle, Adam realised and prepared accordingly.

He set several Push traps at the various spawn locations, making sure to avoid the place Ezral would appear from, since he needed to be kept alive to summon the Nightwing. Setting all the traps required quite a lot of blood, so he used some of what he'd coated the trees in, and also set up a floating barrier that he could use both defensively and offensively, depending on the need. Given that Ezral was a blood mage, Adam was fairly sure the spell he'd been hit by last time wouldn't be able to pierce blood barriers as easily as Warder barriers. But he did need to worry about the boss trying to take control of his spells.

I wonder if I can copy some of his by watching him when he casts them.

I'm pretty sure the thing he hit me with in the fourth loop was the Heart Lance spell that Sylvia sells.

With his preparations set and vaguely-shaped arms of harvested flesh planted around him, Adam selected the upgrade, another Chip Stone, and started the final Wave. He was sitting down to keep his Mana recovery as high as possible, since he would definitely need it for this.

Immediately, nine blood elemental wolves poked their liquid snouts through the trees and then all of them jumped out at once.

Bang! Bang!

Five exploded like balloons right off the bat as they triggered two of his traps, and he was already moving his blood spells through the rest, quickly assimilating their bodies under his control and sweeping the harvested blood through them to collect their essences, using the excess to coat the trees and his planted flesh-wrought arms.

Six more wolves quickly appeared from the trees, followed by Ezral the blood mage.

"A blood mage!?" the boss exclaimed in surprise. "You want the girl for your own devices!? You know not the forces that you meddle with!"

Adam ignored the mad ramblings as he moved his orbs of blood through the six wolves, stripping them of their bodies and leaving behind the stones. Their blood too went to the trees and creepy arms Adam had planted.

He had taken out the wolves so quickly that the boss stumbled back a step and yelled, "You have left me no other choice!"

He frowned.

That was quick. I won't be able to get the collectibles from the rest of the summons he was supposed to bring out.

Ezral opened a hole in the palm squeezing the Fetish of Sloth, coating it as he summoned a large shape. Adam took the opportunity to spread the last of his collected blood onto the surfaces of the trees where it wouldn't immediately vanish.

Then he pulled as much of the planted flesh to him as he could hold in the air at once, before retrieving the scroll of Beckoning Crimson from his pocket.

He triggered the spell scroll, causing a red glow to coat his entire body, and then he activated his Princely Raiment skill.

Blood flew to his body from the spell scroll, coating his skin in a flexible red layer of armour since he was already at full health, but then the skill activation brought him to 10% Health, which the Beckoning Crimson spell quickly started to heal.

All of the flesh he floated out in front of himself was pulled onto his body, and the layer of flexible armour mixed into it as it too joined the Raiment. He grew half a metre in height and his torso was covered in dark fuzzy hair, while his arms and legs were bulked out and covered in a dense layer of white bone-like armour.

At the same time, the rest of the blood that flew towards him from the coated trees and planted flesh-wrought arms healed him back up to 130 Health, which was about 80% of his total.

With a simple nudge of Adam's left arm, which was warped by the Raiment into a pale off-white limb ending in a three-fingered claw with gruesome talons, he lifted a nearby planted arm and shot it at Ezral, just as he finished manifesting his ultimate summon.

The blood mage brought up a blood barrier, but Adam simply moved the limb around by bending it on the elbow joint, tearing its claws through Ezral's arm, cutting the hand off at the wrist and dropping the Fetish of Sloth to the grass. The boss quickly used his magic to stem the deadly flow of his own blood, but with another command, Adam drove the flesh-shaped arm into Ezral's eye and skull, killing him before he could truly fight back. Then he picked up the Secret Relic and threw it back to himself, hoping that touching it with his spell would count as having collected it for the bonus reward.

< < Secret Boss Discovered > >

< Dwarf Nightwing >

< Wave Timer extended to 150 seconds >

Adam grabbed the nearby tree trunks with his enlarged claws and caused them to splinter and crack, toppling them over just as the Nightwing flapped its wings to jump.

He sent up three flesh-wrought arms, grabbing the creature mid-air as it was briefly exposed to the sunlight and became corporeal. Then he pulled them in different directions, tearing off one of its wings, and destroying the other while also gouging a grievous hole through its abdomen.

The Nightwing collapsed to the ground at Adam's feet.

Half of its body fell into shadow, but its neck and head were in the amber light of the setting sun.

In his transformed body, Adam reached down, grabbed its large head and twisted it around.

A bone-splitting and tendon-tearing cacophony came from the destruction of the Nightwing's neck before he simply tugged, pulling the skin and flesh apart and decapitating the boss.

It was only once the boss was dead that Adam allowed himself a moment to truly appreciate what his transformation had turned him into. The Raiment was created with a mix of blood from the various summons, as well as the flesh of both the Slothling Ogres and the Imps, but the appearance was decidedly on the ogre-like side, since they'd seemingly ended up contributing the most flesh.

< < Wave Five Complete > >

< < Stage Complete > >

< Tallying Score >

As he waited on the score, he started peeling open the Nightwing to reach the heart inside.

< < Score > >

< 60 Seconds Completion Time >

< 600 Point Secret Boss Bonus added >

< 500 Point Flawless Bonus added >

< 300 Point Speedrun Bonus added >

< 150 Point All Secrets Bonus added >

< 0 Damage Received >

< 4370 Points Awarded >

60 seconds. That is so stupidly fast, though the timer reset caused by the Secret Boss is a big reason there, since the real time spent is more like 90 or 100 seconds I think.

But a solid chunk of Points regardless.

Not sure how the fuck I would've handled this Stage on Hardmode with some of the other weapons. I feel like this one was made to suit Blood Mage extremely well, but fighting that many enemies with something like Warrior or Backstabber would've been impossible maybe.

Even Beast might've had a rough go at it.

Although I guess if I didn't care about the collectibles, it might've been fine.

Adam hadn't gotten the imp and golem spawns off the boss since he'd killed the wolves fast enough to trigger the Nightwing, so he'd lost out on 12 collectibles, which was a shame. However, he'd managed to collect 3 greater hearts, 9 normal hearts, and 18 elemental cores. That was easily over 3,000 Points in total.

He finally managed to reach the Nightwing's heart and pull it out, just as his Raiment started to deteriorate rapidly.

After dumping it into his backpack, he frowned and realised he'd once again have to use his shirt to carry the rest of the cores, since there was no more space inside the bag.

I hope the silk shirt is more stain-resistant than my original.

< < Collectible Relic > >

< Dwarf Nightwing Heart (Rare) — The heart of the Dwarf Nightwing once owned by the Sloth Demon Glool. The lifeblood trapped within may awaken a slumbering power >

After collecting the remaining cores into his shirt and picking up his backpack, Adam looked through the Relic Chest options, immediately picking the Blood Mage Choker since it showed up. One of the rings that he wanted appeared as well, but he would have to get it at the Market along with the other one later.

< < Relic Selected > >

< Blood Mage Choker (Epic) — Creates a pane of blood to protect the wearer. 120-second cooldown | Increases damage with Blood-based attacks by 25% | Reduces Player Defence by 25% >

Since he hadn't switched to Gram in time, the upgrades showed ones for the blood sigils, but Adam didn't mind, since he was able to get another Rare Sigil Effect to boost his shaping powers. From the second upgrade choice he got a Rare Defence.

With the choker equipped, that put his Defence at 40% with the Epic and Rare Defence upgrades he'd collected on top of the 30% from the Bone Armour. He was expecting to get a lot more Defence at the Market.

I wonder if Luvicidix will get upset that I won't spend my Points with her for a while. There's just too much stuff to grab at the Market this time, and after next Stage I'll be buying a lot of things from the Builder too.

He briefly considered his stats and where he was best served to invest his Points, upgrades-wise.

My damage potential is obviously good, but I need more Health, Defence, and Mana.

Adam took a deep breath as the Eye teleported him back to Interim Island.

Although he hadn't stayed near the carriage wherein Belamouranthe had waited for him, she arrived next to him in the centre of the island.

"Let's go shopping," Adam told her.

"I would like another dress!" she exclaimed excitedly.

Adam grinned and they set off for the Market. An upbeat melody of a hurdy-gurdy flowed through the air.

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