Chapter 660 (1/2)

“Many thanks for arriving so promptly,” Roy said cheerily, even as he stood on his tiptoes to maintain his position in the trap shaft. “I had resigned myself to another long, long time alone with my own darkness, but fortune has smiled upon me! Truly, it is providence that a previous ally has stumbled upon me. Although we are current enemies, we are both driven by the treasure of this place, are we not? A typical story. We will now put aside our differences and work together to-”

“Shut the fuck up,” Drake growled. With a great heave, he pulled himself out of the shaft and onto the ground of the passage. The entirety of the junction had dropped away, meaning that Drake could only peer down over the edge at Roy. It was just barely possible to see that below Roy, there was a strange liquid of a deep black color.

In a consistent fashion, it bubbled ominously.

Roy winked up at Drake. “Let’s skip the posturing, shall we? I am truly in a pickle down here. Give me a hand, and I swear I will hand over this… Naga’s Determination, yes?”

“Pass up the item, then I will pull you up,” Drake grunted, having no intention of doing any such thing. He lowered his bone gauntlet down the shaft and shaped his hand so his finger was extraordinarily long and flimsy. Good enough to grab a disk, but weak enough to shatter if something else were to seize the bones.

Roy released an aggrieved sigh. “You were always an abysmal liar. Why are you trying to kill me? That’s hardly sporting.”

“Sporting?” Drake snorted, a black humor overtaking him. “You are a dead thing, Roy.”

All of a sudden, Roy was completely still. His eyes went glassy. “All is dead. Consciousness is the indulgence in a chemical-soaked flesh sponge. If you were to open yourself up like a box, you would find only emptiness, Drake.”

That gave Drake pause, and that was probably exactly what it was waiting for.

It being the Frogipede that Drake was too distracted enough to notice. As opposed to its previous compatriots, this Frogipede took great care in lining up its strike and positioning itself. There was only a soft squish as its body folded on itself, and then it exploded into motion to impact Drake at the rear base of his helmet.

The entire back portion of the armor cracked without Ryx there to defend him, and the bone armor shattered into pieces as the attack knocked Drake into the trap shaft. He twisted and Ryx exploded into a bone shield bristling spikes, but the Frogipede brought one of its arms smashing down.

Drake heard more than felt as his head was clobbered into the stone wall. And this was no stone that he recognized, because his skull cracked and didn’t leave even a scuff on the wall. Dizzy, he twisted around as he tumbled down the shaft.

Gurgling in glee, the Frogipede followed him down. Fat globs of saliva dripped down the sides as it drooled in excitement. As his trembling hands scrabbled at the walls, Drake could find no purchase. Ineffectually, he shook his head. Can’t scratch, need to press and suspend. But his body-

Even with his high Endurance, a concussion was possible-

But then a hand grabbed him.

“You have better luck than me. At least I had stabilized before I fell. I could wait for help. But if I hadn’t been right here, right now… tsk tsk, well, it is my duty to be in place for such things.”

Drake blinked and looked over at Roy’s smiling face. His hand was as cold as ice. “What… what are you doing?”

“I’m a Hero,” Roy said with a shrug.

But then both their gazes turned upwards. The Frogipede was charging down towards them, and now that Drake was closer to it, he really didn’t like the sulfur smell wafting up from the bubbling black liquid.

“Can you reach up past the little peon and grab the edge?” Roy asked casually.

Drake frowned. He didn’t like where this was going. And from a few months of working with him early in the System’s arrival, he could guess where Roy’s head was at. “Yes, but it would be cleaner to-”

Roy twisted away, losing his precarious standing position. He flexed the hand not gripping onto Drake and condensed an ax just as the Frogipede smashed down towards them. In an almost dismissive blow, Roy beheaded the thing, deftly twisting his ax to maneuver it in the tight shaft.