The next room, once again, looked to be a large open space. Basically, the whole floor was open. The thing is, the ceiling was lower this time. That meant that it had the dimensions of a normal floor in the building. The roof and the ceiling were covered in a vast and convoluted criss-cross pattern of grooves.

The central powerline was in the center, blazing ominously. That was all normal. What was odd, to me, was that the room had a powerful draft in it. That undersells it; it was like the room was pressurized. At the stairs, it was almost like being in a wind tunnel.

I stood on the stairs looking for the next wave of demons. None of them appeared. Something was going on in this room. I could tell. I pulled a snow lion corpse out of inventory and tossed it into the room. The cat's body never made it to the ground.

The instant the body crossed the first of the worn grooves, it was sliced in half. Then the chunks were flung randomly in different directions, causing them to transgress against more lines. Those pieces were then chopped. This caused the cycle to repeat again, and again, and again… you get the picture. I wasn't bothered by the overt gore of the sight. It was a snow lion after all. That said, a few unfortunate things occurred. The first was I couldn't really see what was committing this act of violence. The best I could tell, something sharp was involved. Master of deduction, I know, but that was it. The other regrettable outcome was that the snow lion's body had been rendered into a fine puree in a confined space with a strong air current.

I was splattered by more or less the entirety of the snow lion's body and all of its contents. Even when dead, snow lions somehow managed to give me a lot of shit to deal with.

I hate snow lions.

It turns out it is actually very hard to wipe gore off of ice armor when your hands were also covered in ice armor.

Craft Check… Successful

Snow Lion Corpse (liquid) consumed.

Adhesive Goo created 2.7 cubic meters.

The puree congealed into a thick and almost doughy material. I grabbed the edge and pulled. The goo peeled off. I then looked at the massive puddle of gelatine. It resembled a huge version of the sticky gak stuff people use to clean their cars.

Hmmmm.

I picked it up, and it sort of held in a vague ball shape. I then flung it into the room. Now the definition of madness is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results, according to a lunatic in a video game. I was doing something different. Now it was sticky.

That made this science.

The goo splattered just like the snow lion corpse. Unlike the snow lion corpse, these bits of goo had a greater adhesion. I got a much better picture of what was happening this time. The room was being raked by a vast array of swirling, seemingly invisible blades. That did make sense. Demon's people had an absurd amount of people who remembered the world that was, and to make a hurtful accusation, I bet they had an unacceptably high concentration of fans of the live-action Bloodrayne movie in their mix. They were evil.

Obviously, they wanted me to try and dodge between the high-speed, but predictable barrage of blades. I wasn't going to do that.

Destruction Check… Successful

Monofilament wire destroyed.

This also set off some unplanned consequences.

So, this whole apparatus had a delicate balance to it. The line I destroyed introduced a whole lot of slack to the system. Slack, the system couldn't handle without things crashing together. The clanging of metal on metal was so loud and instant at first, I thought I had set off a bomb. A fraction of a second later, I realized I may as well have. The room was filled with shrapnel.

Attack from Shrapnel successful 211x

Attack Deflected 48x damage negated.

You phased through 69x attacks. You take no damage

Ablative Shell layer destroyed.

Ablative Shell layer destroyed.

You take 82 Damage

You are now bleeding.

You are immune to the effects of the Bleed Condition.

Health regen is suppressed from Claws of Darkness and Tenebrous form

HP: 518/600

I had just gotten that second layer back up again. Now I had a bunch of sharp and jagged pieces inside of me. I turned off Claws of Darkness.

"Holy Shit! Someone shouted.

I sat up and saw a demon covered in metal plates gazing at the devastation from the stairs leading up to the next room.

"He isn't dead!" the demon shouted.

"Overpowered, not invincible," I muttered to myself as I sat up. A few of the shallower pieces of grit were forced out of my body.

Commune Check… Successful

You are now communicating with Follower Rachel Blum

Rachel: Hey Doug. Are you busy?

…

It was like a superpower with Rachel. She had the opposite of perfect time. Imperfect wasn't a strong enough word. The obnoxious thing was that she wasn't evil. Hell, once you ignore the cultish Technacoast programming, she and most of her crew seemed like okay people. Kinda… I didn't want them dead, and wasn't prepared to consign them to any terrible fates.

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

A flood of demons began piling down the stairs. All of them had great big swords instead of hands.

…

Doug: I am in a war. Get to the point.

Rachel: I need you to clear a condition, Psychotic Rage. Two of the squad have it. Turns out the drugs can go bad even when they are kept cold. Must have gotten too cold.

…

The first wave of demons ran into the room, doing the horrifying screaming. That quickly turned to regular screaming and falling, and then more screaming in pain. The floor was covered in insanely sharp fragments of the invisible, swirly blades. It is a good thing the demons charged so quickly; I would have figured that out the hard way, too.

A few of the second wave took to the air to reach me.

…

Doug: Give me a minute.

Rachel: Seconds would be better.

…

I made a choice I am not entirely proud of. I didn't spend a second of time stop to help Rachel and her crew. I still had over forty seconds available. I absolutely didn't want to be that guy getting to the final boss fight of a game with 99 mega-elixirs. That was an observable bad choice in a situation with permanent consequences. As far as I knew, there was no resurrection mechanic. Debbie, while nice, seemed to be all about keeping the dead… well, dead. The thing is, though, I was already going very far out of my way for Rachel and her crew, and they weren't actually our allies. They weren't part of this battle. Every ounce of help I gave them was a resource I should be putting into this fight.

It wouldn't do to come up empty-handed when one of my people asked for help. That was the bottom line. The goblins were my people. We were literally going to war together. That wasn't actually the best measurement. It was hard to argue with, but I had no doubt about what I considered the real test. The goblins were hoping to build a home, a place to live, and I would have some space in it.

That made them my people.

Attack Successful! Kate the Kay-nife takes 42 damage.

Attack from Kate the Kay-nife Blocked.

Counter-attack Successful. Kate the Kay-nife takes 39 damage.

Oh shit. I wasn't one-shotting demons anymore. Technically, I hadn't managed to two-shot Kate the Kay-nife. There was a non-zero chance, I wouldn't with Claws of Darkness up. Again, the ladies still had better names. Step it up, guys.

Please Select Followers to Bless…

It wasn't too hard to find the two followers who were dealing with the Psychotic Rage condition.

The description for that condition made spending the 70 MP easy

Psychotic Rage

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaKILL!aaaaaaaaaaaaaaAAAAAAAAAAAAAAkill!aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAaaaaaaaaaaaKill!kill!KILL!KIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIILL!

Thank you, Mental Resistance. I appreciate you.

Holy shit…fuck that.

Attack from Fuckhands McMike Dodged

Counter-attack Successful. Fuckhands McMike takes 69 damage.

Fuckhands McMike is stunned

I dodged a judo chop from a flying demon with machete hands and turned to clock him. I hit him square in the dick. It wasn't pleasant for anyone. While I wasn't exactly the winner, Mike was totally the loser. He fell on the ground, hard, the ground covered in sharp metal. He wasn't going to take to the air any time soon.

Fuck Mike and his hands.

It took me another three minutes to fight my way through the demons. Between them and needing to perform constant Destruction checks to clear the floor, I just wasn't making good time. Assuming this pace the whole way up, it would take me two hours to get to the top. My real concern was that was the optimistic timeline. The resistance was getting stronger. Then again, the folks on the first few floors had a certain cannon fodder energy to them. These guys weren't screaming elite force, but they certainly were tougher than the shield crew.

The last guy on the floor stood in front of me. He had chainsaws for hands and was trying to rev them threateningly.

"Hey! Hey! Hey!" I shouted over the engine roar.

"What?" Chainsaw-fan yelled at me.

"How do you function without hands?" I called over the noise.

He looked at me, confused, and then stopped revving the chains. His hand morphed back into humanoid-looking hands. "They just change back. I can jerk off any time I want."

"Interesting place to take the conversation," I said before kicking him in the head. The impact knocked him down on the stairs, and I brought my boot down with a heavy stomp. That was the end of this floor. I manifested another layer of Ablative Shell. The weapon-handed jerk-offs had done an acceptable job cracking my shell as I manifested them.

Now that I had one up, the healing could really begin.

I climbed the stairs to find the area where the demons should have fought me. It was a tangled mess of spikes and electric sparks. After a few Construction checks, I had a path to the stairs leading to the next floor. Before I could ascend the stairs, the central power column blazed with energy. Before it was an infernal orange-red, now it was blindingly white hot.

Commune Check… Successful

Rob Shiv had a bad idea. Not just any bad idea either. As far as bad idea went this was the best one. It would absolutely work.

"Surel, you be serious," the Brit objected.

"I'm serious, and don't call me Leslie Nielson," Rob told him.

"What?' The Brit frowned, and then ducked a blast of hellfire. He stuck the barrel of his rifle round the corner he had his back to and sent a burst down the hall to express his contempt to the demons heading their way.

They had managed to get into the control room. Job well done. They hadn't managed to do so undetected. Job… it wasn't helpful to criticize things. Besides, the results were what people cared about.

Trouble was the results weren't all that great so far either. The demons required pass codes to open specific cells. They had executed the demon running the control room as soon as they got inside. Reckless, maybe, but they had been ducking a barrage of hellfire. So, Rob was willing to give them grace.

"Sorry, the reference didn't work, besides you ain't seen the movie," Rob told the Brit. He was sawing the right hand off the demon's body.

"Sod it," the Brit said, diving across the gap to Rob's hidey hole. "We have nowhere to escape to."

Rob finished cutting the hand free. The demons required codes to open specific cells, but all it took to open every cell was a handprint. It wasn't a perfect solution. Rob was certain, some of the sorry bastards locked up weren't their friends and never would be. He was also equally certain that opening all the cells would cause chaos. Probably multiple rounds of it. The first would be the doors opening. The second would be when folks had dealt with their first grudge and started going after their second. The third would be when everyone realized that none of them could leave the tower without destroyin' the central anchor.

The thing is, goblins thrived in chaos. Demons seemed to like order and hierarchy. This sort of chaos would likely buttfuck them something awful, and not in the fun way.

"Your friends are 'ard cases, right?" Rob asked the Brit.

"Three of the hardest," the Brit confirmed.

"Then we should let them out," Rob held up the hand.

"Move when I fire," Brand said.

Rob liked workin' with professionals. The Brit let loose, and the hellfire slowed. Rob wasn't one to hesitate. He dove across the gap to the control console and slapped the hand on the reader. When it beeped a happy beep. He pulled the big lever.

Alarms wailed, and a big red light started flashing. A moment later, the distant echoes of big doors opening started, that was followed by the screaming.

Message ended

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