16 Torix Worm, of Darkhill (2/2)

So I charged towards the bot, meeting it head on. It's swords bent then broke against my arms before I smashed the bot with my helm. I turned my torso sideways then kicked the robot with my momentum.

The robot crushed against the metal wall like a tin can. I dislodged my leg before sprinting forward. This was fun. All of this was so much fun.

I crushed guard after guard for over an hour. Less like a dungeon and more like a playground, I relished in my improved strength, drunk off it. The possibilities I'd gain with time, they made me excited for the future.

I ran into the boss of this factory within three hours of hunting. Standing at the center of a circular platform, a spider robot waited for me. It had weapons on each limb, and a giant eyeball for a back.

I stampeded towards it like an angry elephant. I dodged one of its sword limbs before grabbing the leg. I pulled, straining till viens sprung up from under my skin. The leg tore off, and I used it to block another of it's attacks.

I pulled the sword leg sideways, chopping two limbs off. With the opening, I dashed forwards before smashing my hand held sword leg into it's chest. It tried stabbing me, but I ran towards its impaled torso.

I gripped my hands against it's bronze body and pulled apart. The metal screamed as it crumpled. I ran into it's body, tearing wires apart. Oil splurted everywhere as I gouged out its insides. When I forced myself out of the robot's eye, it died.

In a less disturbing manner than eating flesh, my armor gobbled up the robot. I just waited until it was torn apart before checking out my status screen. Hell yeah, another free perk.

[Smart(Intelligence of 10 or more) - Your intelligence is good. Doubles effective memory.]

[Flexible(Dexterity of 10 or more) - Your dexterity is good. Doubles flexibility bonus.]

[Perceptive(Perception of 10 or more) - Your perception is good. Doubles sensory bonuses.]

I was almost out of perks at this point. I figured I'd be listening to quite a few lessons from Torix, so I selected smart. It seemed like the...smart decision.

Terrible jokes aside, I reached another doorway with another slot for a core. I couldn't read the glyphs above, but it didn't matter. I already knew the gist of what it was saying. With that in mind, I put another core into the doorway.

When it opened, it was a doorway much like the sentinel's gate. It warped reality, showing the outside of the manhole I entered. As I walked into the doorway, gravity shifted. I used the ladderbefore crawling out of the dungeon I never knew I entered.

With that handled, I sprinted back towards BloodHollow Caves. My minimap had a direct route towards it. I doubt Torix was a very patient man.

So I sprinted like a man running from a tsunami, half for fun and the other half out of a slight fear. An hour later, I reached the caves that trapped me for over a month. I walked into the doorway.

The sentinel was waiting by the door, as usual. He turned towards me and said, ”Back so soon? I was hoping I would never see you again.”

”Same here, but hey, life isn't perfect.”

He glanced again, silent and still. I passed by him towards the marker on my map. Torix had a little icon for his name and everything now. When I reached him, he was running his hands against the walls, looking for the runes I mentioned.

Once I neared him, he turned and said, ”Good. You came back quickly. Show me where these runes are.”

I nodded and ran towards an entrance. He followed behind me, riding on a ball of black he summoned in a second. When we reached an entrance, he said,

”So this is how that rift holder lived for so long. To have hidden himself so thoroughly just through design...Impressive.”

I said, ”You haven't seen anything yet.”

We entered the tunnel and Torix's jaw literally dropped. He said, ”These runes...They use eldritch language. My son was able to read this?”

I said, ”It's pretty damn likely. You should see some of these. They'll blow you away if you find this impressive.”

We passed by several miles of the tunnel, Torix amazed at the sheer volume of inscriptions. We eventually reached into the colosseum's center. The bat's already cleared out the bugs, revealing the majesty of the spell Baldag-Ruhl cast. I said,

”This is the culmination of your son's work. He and Baldag-Ruhl created this...thing.”

Torix rubbed his hand against the wall, in awe at the complexity. He said, ”To think my son had such an understanding...I can be proud of him.”

I sat there waiting for him to finish his mourning. Torix mouthed a few phrases as he passed certain walls, like,

”This is my son's handwriting. You can tell by the way he dot's his i's.”

”Ingenious, bypassing the limitation of internal mana by drawing from the eldritch dimension.”

”Of course, using a blueprint of another's soul for grounding the innate chaos of eldritch mana.”

”Bah, I can't believe he used a weighting algorithm for displacing the interdimensional pressure, then correlated the flux in time with a quantum stabilizing function.”

When he finished studying the runes, he said, ”This would take a thousand years to carve if you had a thousand people doing it, without a moment's rest. The hivemind helped, I'm assuming.”

I nodded as he said, ”This hivemind was prodigy all his own.” Torix turned towards me and said, ”And your armor is the product of all this. A rather paltry reward.”

I shrugged as I said, ”My armor raised my resistance cap already so-”

The lich said, ”Wait, it raised your resistance cap?”

I nodded as he continued, ”So it's broken one of Schema's fundamental tenants already. Interesting. Very interesting. How much mana has it absorbed?”

I checked, finding 30,000 from all the rats, bats, and machines I've killed. I'm guessing most of it came from the purple insect swarm. Torix continued,

”Then your first objective is raising the level of this armor and getting over level 100. Schema will allow you to travel between worlds then. We will return towards my domain, where you'll learn much of what you need to know about the Schema. You are wise to gain the per level bonuses from each attribute. Veterans recommend this course of action. The sacrifice is worth the benefits later down the line.”

I said, ”Any Ideas on how to gain those levels? Because finding a hard dungeon here is actually harder than the dungeons themselves.”

Torix said, ”Not a usual problem. Caves on my home planet hold monsters well above 3000. Even I cannot hope to fight them.”

I raised an eyebrow as I said, ”What planet are you from?”

”Aren't you a curious one. I will tell you in time. For now, you must prove yourself.”

He pulled out his tome and used a magical scripture. The lines glowed a shining red then purple then black. After a few minutes of channeling, a portal appeared, wide and black and null. More like a void than opening, Torix said,

”From this portal, my personal monsters will come. You can gain experience from killing them. You will either rise, or I will break you. Are you ready?”

I clasped my fists as I said, ”Only if it's a good fight.”

From the portal, a howl like screaming children and the sloshing of torn organs echoed. A set of claws grasped at the portal as Torix said,

”There are no good fights, only slaughter. You can choose to slaughter, or become the slaughtered. Embrace brutality. Become a monster.”

An eye the size of dish plate opened inside the void. Streams of red came together into a splot of blood at its center. An amber yellow pulsed in between the red. At that moment, the feral eyes locked with mine. I banged my fists together like blocks of iron as I said,

”I will be no monster, for I feast on them.”