57 Mountains of Madness (1/2)

I pointed at the three named ones, “So we kill them, go into the tunnel, clear out the eldritch, then escape before the rift closes?”

Torix shook his head, “Close, but you won’t have to escape at the end. All that happens is the tunnel converts into a normal dungeon once the rift keeper is killed.”

I sighed, “What level should we be expecting from it then?”

“Nothing higher than level 1000. It will likely be another of the angels, like Gabriel.”

I raised an eyebrow, “I thought angels were a human thing?”

Kessiah grinned, “Come on. You know by now that most myths have some truth in there.”

I frowned, “You’re telling me angels and heaven are real?”

Torix shrugged the guard’s shoulders, “Your world is at the dead center of a rift. There have been signs of their presence in the past, throughout your history. Many of your myths are based on these signs, such as the Greek mythology or Lovecraftian fiction. They saw the signs, but they couldn’t prove they existed using the standard logic, so their imaginations filled in the gaps.”

I blinked a few times, “What part of the Greek mythology and stuff is real then?”

Torix shrugged, “Very little, besides the imagery. It’s amazing how mortal minds latch onto the visions of truth far more than thoughts of truth. Seeing is believing, as your kind puts it. Sentients neglect truth proven from logic. We all like to wait until the truth can no longer be denied before accepting it.”

Kessiah leaned onto the shoulder of the guard, “I read a little of that stuff too. The powers were correct, but the Greeks looked at them as gods. I guess something like that would be godlike compared to a normal person.”

My mind was swimming with conspiracy theories as I said, “Did a strike team from Schema come and eliminate them?”

Torix replied, “Yes.”

“And did they leave Stonehenge and the pyramids?”

“Of course not. Why would they reorganize giant piles of rocks? That’s something simple minds would think of.”

I deflated, “Oh, yeah of course. Anyways-” I turned to the portal, “You think the angels or whatever are in there?”

“Indeed I do. You’ve seen what lies underneath their shells. They deceive those that worship them, grabbing tribute and sacrifice. The eldritch are oppressive, and seen throughout the history of your world. The Spanish inquisition, the holocaust, there are many examples of them interfering with your world.”

Althea murmured, “From what I’ve seen from Daniel, it doesn’t seem like humanity needed much to make them do all that. It’s more like they just tipped your war hungry race over the edge.”

I waved her off, “Alright, but is there anything I should know about the angels before I go down there?”

Kessiah leaned another hand onto Aatrox, her weight resting on him. The guards started straining as she mumbled, “Nothing more than you already know. They're tough, especially the upper level ones. You’re lucky that Gabriel hadn’t turned into an archangel yet. That’s when he gets tough.”

Althea frowned, “Uh, you make it sound like you fought him before.”

“That’s cause I have. The angels are always looking for ways to get into other worlds. You can’t kill them here. The only way to handle them is over on the other side. You have to get them while they’re at home, and even I’m not that crazy.”

I sighed, “Honestly, it doesn’t sound like we’re ready for it. I’m not that crazy either.”

Kessiah leaned up, pushing the guard so that he stumbled sideways, “This is a teeny, tiny rift though. They haven’t fed enough to be able to kill us, and besides. You and Althea are crazy powerful for your levels. You both have a lot of eldritch in you, so you won’t be de-buffed like we would be. In fact, I get the feeling you’ll actually be stronger there than here.”

I pursed my lips, “Alright, I’ll give you guys the benefit of the doubt. You haven’t steered me wrong yet.”

Kessaih patted my back, “You bet…Damn you’ve grown. What the hell. You’re almost as tall as me.”

I met her eye with my own. I grinned, “It won’t be much longer now and I’ll be looking down on you instead.”

Kessiah grinned before pressing a finger into my chest, “Don’t get to cocky little guy, or else I’ll have to put you in your place.”

I smiled back, my armor forming teeth, “We’ll see how far I’ve come and how far you’ve fallen.”

She pressed her finger against me, pushing me back and turning me around. As I saw the rift, she said,

“Wait till after you get through that. I’ll be waiting little man.”

Althea gagged, “Will you guys shut up already?”

Kessiah leaned over Althea, “Is somebody…jealous?”

“What? No-”

Kessiah grabbed Althea and started tickling under her sides. Althea burst into laughter before jumping away. Kessiah grinned again,

“See you both when you get back. You’ll be fine. Daniel’s strong, and you’ll find out that you are too.”

Althea blushed, “Thanks.”

I walked out into the stadium stairs, “Come on. Let’s go fuck some named one’s up.”

We paced down the steps, my feet thumping on the floor and Althea’s nearly unheard. A couple dozen steps later, and a named one turned towards me.

It was the one with bat wings covering him. He outstretched his wings, exposing a torso with the ribs jutting out of his skin. His face opened, his cheeks splitting. The others each outstretched their wings, the mantis’s buzzing and miss metal feathers flapping.

They flew towards us as the bat person leaned forward. He latched his hands into the ground, and an energy beam charged in his throat. One of Althea’s spears lodged through him a second later, killing him.

The two-winged ones dived towards me. The ascendant mana poured from me before I lifted my hand and forced it down. The mantis thing shot down before smashing against several chairs. Metal feathers launched into me, her talons opened to gouged me. I put one leg back and grabbed her talons.

When her feet met my hands, her claws shattered against my metal. I gripped her feet, and her body flew past. I didn’t budge an inch. The bones in her legs broke as her body kept wanting to fly forward. I clasped my hands, breaking her toes. I pulled her downward, slamming her against the concrete.

The metal feathers ripped from her wings and back against the stairs. I placed a foot on her back and jerked her left leg. The joint ruptured from the socket, the skin splitting. Blood exploded from her wound before I stepped onto her chest. Blood shot out of her mouth before I slammed her leg into her head, cracking her skull.

Two clubbing’s later, and she stopped struggling. The mantis man lifted himself up, buzzing away before Althea shot a bolt between his twitching eyes. I leapt forward as he fell. I lost levity before reaching the mantis. I pressed my heels into his back, sending him to the bleachers. As I landed on them, the chairs beneath us crushed like tinfoil before the green goo inside the mantis detonated under my feet.

The cracks rippled through a portion of the bleachers as I stood tall again. I had just jumped onto him as he fell and used my weight against him. I glanced at a hand. There wasn’t anything unsteady about the outstretched fingers. There was no fear. I clamped my hand. It was good to not be afraid.

I ran towards the entrance of the rift, smashing chairs underfoot. I leapt up and into the green grass at its center. As I landed on the ground, my feet sunk into the earth. The ground didn’t feel hard or sturdy anymore. On my metal feet, it was akin to sand. Something that didn’t give enough stability for me to use my full strength.

With little telekinetic fields around my feet, that softness wasn’t near as bad. I pushed on my feet, digging them into the ground as I shot forward. As I reached the rift, one of the person sized insects crawled from it. I tackled into it, sending us both flying into the rift. We kept moving before I smashed the monster against the other side of the rift.

The green goop exploded once more before I grew claws from my hands. As I slid down the wall, I stabbed my fingers into it. It stopped my fall, the fleshy wall being hard as stone. I glanced up and Althea jumped into the rift right after me. Her arms reformed into two titanic arms, the fingers thick as most men’s forearms.

Those fingers pierced into the stone wall with ease before I grinned,

“You ready?”

Althea nodded, the look of battle across her face. It made her eyes narrow, and her jaw turn hard. The focus, the energy, that was something I loved about fighting. It wasn’t like I was just standing still waiting to die. It’s when you’re closest to death…that’s when you feel the most alive.

I glanced down, and the tunnel turned black at the bottom. I let myself go, falling into the abyss. As the gravity pulled me down, I hit the black fog. As the fog encompassed me, a burning sensation covered me. It wasn’t a painful kind of burn though. It was a pleasant burn. Have you ever had scratches from briars? When you go to shower, it’s going to burn. It’s the kind of burn you know you need though.

That sensation wrapped around me before something else disappeared. It was a subtle feeling, like losing a nagging feeling you forgot was there. As I fell further, the fog disappeared. Out into the world I came.

It was a beautiful hell. I flew upwards now, like gravity flipped. That let me fly up into the sky and see what was there. Around us was a field of spikes. Metallic, cerulean, and ominous, the spines dripped a thick red fluid that all kinds of darker blue insects devoured. They fought for the fluid, like a swarm of ants.

In disparate spots, portions of the bugs would disperse from one of the icy millipedes. They drilled out of the ground and dragged other insects into their burrows. The ground was gray, the kind of gray you see in a rotting corpse, but every part of the ground teemed with life. The shades of blue and white flowed together, almost like a river of paint.

As I fell towards the ground, I glanced up at the red sky. There was a pillar of energy firing off into the clouds, reaching high up before splitting into white tendrils that reached around in every direction. The invisible forcefield was where all the life ended, like this was a different world being forced into our own. The red sky and air floated into and out of the sphere, as if just outside of the sphere was a different dimension. Hell, maybe there was.

I didn’t have time to think about it as I landed against several cerulean spikes. The rods of metal broke against my metal skin with a brittle cracking. The insects dispersed from the points of impact, scared shitless I’m sure. I pulled at oppression, revving the aura up to full strength. Glancing up, I spotting Althea flying over. I shouted,

“Don’t come near me.”

“I know. I’m not going down there. It’s disgusting.”

I glanced around, and all the insects crawled towards me. They seemed to know I was an enemy. I glanced at my health bar, but there was none. I frowned. That’s the feeling that went missing, Schema’s influence. It didn’t matter much for me though. I could operate off feel anyways.

Some of the smaller insects curled up and died before reaching me, oppression draining the life from the tiny creature. The larger ones reached me in droves, but I smashed them with ease, drilling through their shells with my telekinetic wrath. A few minutes later, and I was bathing in the blood of the insects. I destroyed he insects against the blue, metallic spires around me. I broke the spires, and I wielded them as weapons.

The bugs, they couldn’t hurt me. I was too tough, too hard, and too vicious. The droves turned to hoards that turned to groups then single insects. Before I knew, I cleared out an area the size of oppression around me. Glancing around, my armor would reach out and pierce insects, draining them. It was field day for my armor. After all, it enjoys a feast.

Althea’s voice ebbed above me,

“You’re the guy that just runs down there and starts killing bugs. Do you see what I mean?”

I stomped on a bug, the shell caving before ripping a spine from the gray ground and gouging another beetle above me,

“Unlike you, I can’t fucking fly. I would try talking things out.” A bug leapt at my face, the mandibles clawing towards my nose, “But these things don’t seem like they’re that into negotiation.”

Althea fired harpoon after harpoon at the beetles before one of the centipedes shot out of the ground. With tiny, red eyes, it glanced at me before glancing at all the carcasses. It hissed at me, trying to scare me off.

I banged my chest before spreading my arms wide.

“Come on you fuck.”

The centipede shot towards me, the ends of its legs ending in shining claws. As they tapped against the earth, ice spread from below the monster. It vomited the liquid nitrogen at me, but I caught the liquid with my telekinesis.

With a pull on my hands and shoulders, the liquid pulled into a sphere as I launched the liquid back onto the creature. As it met the shell, the ice spread atop the monster.

It must have had specific parts of its body designed to hold the cold liquid. It wasn’t immune to the cold altogether. It reared back before I ran up and grabbed it with a telekinetic link.

Once set onto the creature, I jerked the monster towards me. The invisible pull surprised the creature, my feet digging into the ground. Once it flung towards me, I stepped forward and spun on my heels.

A heavy right straight shot towards the monster’s head before tearing through half the centipede’s body. The cold liquid landed on the metal of my armor, but it only hissed for a moment before evaporating. It really wasn’t that bad.

I shook off the cold before glancing around. No more insects were coming towards me anymore, so I walked around for a few minutes and absorbed the eldritch around me. At least that’s what I thought they were. I couldn’t be certain if these were the same things after all.

At that moment, an odd sense of familiarity returned. My HUD didn’t return, but I did receive notifications.

Data upload present. Current total level growth: 28. Upload speed: 1 attribute point per minute.

So the data worked like a phone’s data line. You could still get the benefits, it just took a long time. I guess that’s why Schema didn’t bother with the HUD. My health and stamina bars where only useful if they were up to date. Otherwise, they were useless.