Trails of light darted beneath me, leaving iridescent arcs that intersected to form a magical diagram. The geometrical construct extended outward from me, encompassing Fink, encompassing the entire room.
A great, invisible force bore down upon my whole being.
Fink thrusted her dual swords at me. But the silver weapons disintegrated into fine smithereens.
And Fink…
Her body collapsed into itself, contorting in ways a human shouldn't. Her mangled form compressed into a sphere. Then it unfolded violently. Her blood shot out in jets, through where her body had orifices, and through where there were none.
She practically exploded.
| MAW OF LEVIATHAN | |
| COST: | 0 Mana |
| COOLDOWN: | Unknown |
| You create an octagon around yourself of size 3142 sq. meters, designating the area within as the Maw of Leviathan. The pressure of the deepest abyss then crushes targets within for 300 (+200% Arcana Point) magic damage. |
I thought there'd be nothing left of Fink. But I was wrong. In front of me, her tattered, bloodied body remained.
The moment of clarity I had during the spell wore off. The full burden of my wounds once more threatened to knock me out cold. I leaned against the wall to avoid falling over.
I checked her HP.
[HP: 47 / 1150]
If I killed her off here, I wouldn't be doing anything wrong. I'd be acting in self-defense, after all.
But I needed answers from her. And…did she really deserve to die? Wasn't she just doing what made sense in her own sight?
…No.
Leaving her alive wasn't worth the risk. If Fink woke up – or if she was only pretending to be passed out – she'd easily kill me if my guard was down. I really wish I had a way of disabling her, like a pair of handcuffs, or a way to disarm her. But nothing came to mind. Perhaps I could lock her inside one of the metal cabinets, the ones with hydrochloric acid inside. But she could just slash her way out…I think…
Lightheadedness overcame me. I stumbled, falling to one knee. My vision faded in and out, and my ears thumped with ringing and the sound of my own labored breathing. I was still on death's door.
I lowered myself to the ground, then crawled over to her while holding my crossbow.
"Sorry Fink," I whispered. "Don't blame me for this."
I aimed my crossbow at her forehead. My hand shook wildly, and I wanted to scream. I wanted to scream so loud that it'd wake me up from this nightmare.
But this was real life.
I pulled the trigger.
There was no triumph. This was not victory.
The crossbow bolt nailed Fink in the head.
[HP: 30 / 1150]
…What? How did she survive that?
I shot Fink again.
[HP: 30 / 1150]
After an interlude of shock, both at her survival and at what I had just done, I remembered. Hei had told me about this, long ago, when we discussed the tournaments he used to enter. It was impossible to reduce someone to below 30 HP without true killing intent.
I wondered which part of me was holding me back. How long would I need to try, before I'd finally muster the conviction to kill her?
I gave up, and instead I knelt down by her.
Her blood-stained dress had a fold, like a sort of pocket. Inside I found a ring of keys; there were at least ten of them. I scrambled to pick it up with my tremoring fingers, which were as slick with blood as the keys themselves.
My arms and legs felt cold and numb. I began to feel drowsy. Desperate for a vestige of clarity, I bit my own tongue. The pain brought me back enough to stand up.
My bleeding had mostly stopped. Mostly.
With Fink's keys in my hand, I left her mangled body behind. I hobbled toward the locked wooden door. After trying several of her keys, I found one that opened it.
Beyond the door, there was a massive cliff, about the area of a stadium.
Upon the cliff was a single metal box, tall and wrapped in chains. It had a lid of sorts on the front, so it resembled an upright coffin.
On the left side of the cliff, a pile of glass bottles littered the ground – some cracked, some intact, all visibly empty, far as I could tell in the dim light here. There must've been dozens, if not hundreds of bottles. They were just like the hydrochloric acid bottles I had seen earlier.
And beyond the cliff, there was nothing. Just pure darkness, that stretched on and on. All-encompassing, hollow nothingness that dwarfed even the cliff itself.
Making haste, I approached the box to examine it. Who knew what troubles might arise if I spent too long here.
Sticking out of the box's back, through a pair of holes, were two small hands. Their palms faced outward, into the darkness beyond the cliff. Each finger was trapped inside a metal tube that was attached to the surface of the box, so that the hands could not move at all.
Black veins ran across the hands, as though irredeemably diseased. I grew sick.
"...6E12?" I spoke. "Hey. I'm here to free you."
There was no response.
I noticed an inscription on one side of the box.
Dear Fink,
This is my gift to you, as promised. Now we're even.
Or are we, really? Think carefully about it.
As long as you take good care of him, he will be your ultimate weapon. The spike will do most of the work keeping him in check, but to cancel out his regeneration, you'll need to swap out the acid bottles every six months. And do point those palms away from yourself at all times. If you need to be a little extra persuasive (ahem), try upping the acid dosage.
This device is purely mechanical. Don't mix it with any magical modifications. The protective glyphs inside will cause most magic to fail.
Of course, if you truly, truly don't have the heart, you could open the box and set him free. Though do give me a heads-up beforehand; I'd imagine he'd be quite upset at me, hah. But come on now. I know the sort of person you are. And that's why I've chosen you.
Good luck.
A date marked the end of the anonymous message. This was written seven years ago.
I grew nauseated. My knees began to give.
Hang in there, I scolded myself. Just a bit longer.
"6E12, is that you in there?" I asked again. "I'm here to set you free."
With what little strength remained, I unbound the chains that wrapped the box.
And finally, with one of Fink's keys, I opened the lid.
Inside, there was a boy, no bigger than Becky.
His back faced me, and his hands stuck through the holes on the box. His skin was sickly pale beneath streaks of dried blood. His clothes were mere scraps, tattered and rotted away. A metal band, like a gag, covered his jaw.
Four bottles of hydrochloric acid hung on the ceiling of the box. Pipes of an unknown, transparent material extended out of the bottles, and led into the boy. A thick metal spike jutted from the interior of the box, skewering through his chest.
And yet, he breathed. He breathed in shallow, spasmic gasps.
Something inside me broke, and my body began to move on its own. My cold, bloodied fingers tugged the transparent pipes out of his flesh; clear acid and blackened blood flowed out intermixed. With the butt of my crossbow, I battered and pried away at the box's holes until I could free his hands. I unlocked his gag. And finally, I pulled him off the spike. He was in no condition to stand, so I tried to hold him up, but I myself sank to my knees under his weight.
I tore at the seams of my coat's sleeve, until the sleeve came off, and I wrapped it around the boy's torso. It scarcely helped to stave off the bleeding. But, already, the boy's wounds were closing and healing on their own, miraculously.
Tears once again streamed down my face as I held him, breathless and past the point of exhaustion.
"It's OK now," I choked out. "We can go now."
The boy looked at me with shimmering, brown eyes.
"Yes," he replied in a soft whisper.
The darkened veins in his hands faded away, and color returned to his skin.
"D-do you know where we are?" I asked him. He shook his head.
"We're in the game," I said. "We're in the death game. We're outside of Silvercreek. And we're underground." Despite all my pain, I managed a smile. "Let's get out of here. We can be free."
His lips parted.
"...Free?"
I nodded. "Yes. We can finally be free."
Slowly and unsteadily, he extended a palm upward, as though reaching for the sky far, far above. And he muttered something. A faint shadow shot out of his hand.
Everything above us vanished.
Hundreds of meters of rock and earth, thousands of tons, all gone in an instant. Reduced to nothingness.
A massive hole had opened up from where we were, leading all the way up. I could see the sky on the other side. A cold, distant, crimson sunset.
The boy began to rise into the air. He extended a hand to me.
"Join me," he said. "Tell me you will."
"I will."
As I took his hand, I began to rise up into the air as well. It felt exactly like a flying dream. We floated slowly up, and it felt like I was leaving my pain, my weariness, far down below, back in the dungeons.
And…I think the boy just made me his teammate. I blinked to check the color of his HP bar, and it was indeed green:
[HP: 9838 / 6E12]
Wait. Why would he have his name on his HP bar –
And then it hit me. 6E12 wasn't just his name. It was his max HP.
In scientific notation.
6E12 stood for 6,000,000,000,000.
Trails of light darted beneath me, leaving iridescent arcs that intersected to form a magical diagram. The geometrical construct extended outward from me, encompassing Fink, encompassing the entire room.
A great, invisible force bore down upon my whole being.
Fink thrusted her dual swords at me. But the silver weapons disintegrated into fine smithereens.
And Fink…
Her body collapsed into itself, contorting in ways a human shouldn't. Her mangled form compressed into a sphere. Then it unfolded violently. Her blood shot out in jets, through where her body had orifices, and through where there were none.
She practically exploded.
| MAW OF LEVIATHAN | |
| COST: | 0 Mana |
| COOLDOWN: | Unknown |
| You create an octagon around yourself of size 3142 sq. meters, designating the area within as the Maw of Leviathan. The pressure of the deepest abyss then crushes targets within for 300 (+200% Arcana Point) magic damage. |
I thought there'd be nothing left of Fink. But I was wrong. In front of me, her tattered, bloodied body remained.
The moment of clarity I had during the spell wore off. The full burden of my wounds once more threatened to knock me out cold. I leaned against the wall to avoid falling over.
I checked her HP.
[HP: 47 / 1150]
If I killed her off here, I wouldn't be doing anything wrong. I'd be acting in self-defense, after all.
But I needed answers from her. And…did she really deserve to die? Wasn't she just doing what made sense in her own sight?
…No.
Leaving her alive wasn't worth the risk. If Fink woke up – or if she was only pretending to be passed out – she'd easily kill me if my guard was down. I really wish I had a way of disabling her, like a pair of handcuffs, or a way to disarm her. But nothing came to mind. Perhaps I could lock her inside one of the metal cabinets, the ones with hydrochloric acid inside. But she could just slash her way out…I think…
Lightheadedness overcame me. I stumbled, falling to one knee. My vision faded in and out, and my ears thumped with ringing and the sound of my own labored breathing. I was still on death's door.
I lowered myself to the ground, then crawled over to her while holding my crossbow.
"Sorry Fink," I whispered. "Don't blame me for this."
I aimed my crossbow at her forehead. My hand shook wildly, and I wanted to scream. I wanted to scream so loud that it'd wake me up from this nightmare.
But this was real life.
I pulled the trigger.
There was no triumph. This was not victory.
The crossbow bolt nailed Fink in the head.
[HP: 30 / 1150]
…What? How did she survive that?
I shot Fink again.
[HP: 30 / 1150]
After an interlude of shock, both at her survival and at what I had just done, I remembered. Hei had told me about this, long ago, when we discussed the tournaments he used to enter. It was impossible to reduce someone to below 30 HP without true killing intent.
I wondered which part of me was holding me back. How long would I need to try, before I'd finally muster the conviction to kill her?
I gave up, and instead I knelt down by her.
Her blood-stained dress had a fold, like a sort of pocket. Inside I found a ring of keys; there were at least ten of them. I scrambled to pick it up with my tremoring fingers, which were as slick with blood as the keys themselves.
My arms and legs felt cold and numb. I began to feel drowsy. Desperate for a vestige of clarity, I bit my own tongue. The pain brought me back enough to stand up.
My bleeding had mostly stopped. Mostly.
With Fink's keys in my hand, I left her mangled body behind. I hobbled toward the locked wooden door. After trying several of her keys, I found one that opened it.
Beyond the door, there was a massive cliff, about the area of a stadium.
Upon the cliff was a single metal box, tall and wrapped in chains. It had a lid of sorts on the front, so it resembled an upright coffin.
On the left side of the cliff, a pile of glass bottles littered the ground – some cracked, some intact, all visibly empty, far as I could tell in the dim light here. There must've been dozens, if not hundreds of bottles. They were just like the hydrochloric acid bottles I had seen earlier.
And beyond the cliff, there was nothing. Just pure darkness, that stretched on and on. All-encompassing, hollow nothingness that dwarfed even the cliff itself.
Making haste, I approached the box to examine it. Who knew what troubles might arise if I spent too long here.
Sticking out of the box's back, through a pair of holes, were two small hands. Their palms faced outward, into the darkness beyond the cliff. Each finger was trapped inside a metal tube that was attached to the surface of the box, so that the hands could not move at all.
Black veins ran across the hands, as though irredeemably diseased. I grew sick.
"...6E12?" I spoke. "Hey. I'm here to free you."
There was no response.
I noticed an inscription on one side of the box.
Dear Fink,
This is my gift to you, as promised. Now we're even.
Or are we, really? Think carefully about it.
As long as you take good care of him, he will be your ultimate weapon. The spike will do most of the work keeping him in check, but to cancel out his regeneration, you'll need to swap out the acid bottles every six months. And do point those palms away from yourself at all times. If you need to be a little extra persuasive (ahem), try upping the acid dosage.
This device is purely mechanical. Don't mix it with any magical modifications. The protective glyphs inside will cause most magic to fail.
Of course, if you truly, truly don't have the heart, you could open the box and set him free. Though do give me a heads-up beforehand; I'd imagine he'd be quite upset at me, hah. But come on now. I know the sort of person you are. And that's why I've chosen you.
Good luck.
A date marked the end of the anonymous message. This was written seven years ago.
I grew nauseated. My knees began to give.
Hang in there, I scolded myself. Just a bit longer.
"6E12, is that you in there?" I asked again. "I'm here to set you free."
With what little strength remained, I unbound the chains that wrapped the box.
And finally, with one of Fink's keys, I opened the lid.
Inside, there was a boy, no bigger than Becky.
His back faced me, and his hands stuck through the holes on the box. His skin was sickly pale beneath streaks of dried blood. His clothes were mere scraps, tattered and rotted away. A metal band, like a gag, covered his jaw.
Four bottles of hydrochloric acid hung on the ceiling of the box. Pipes of an unknown, transparent material extended out of the bottles, and led into the boy. A thick metal spike jutted from the interior of the box, skewering through his chest.
And yet, he breathed. He breathed in shallow, spasmic gasps.
Something inside me broke, and my body began to move on its own. My cold, bloodied fingers tugged the transparent pipes out of his flesh; clear acid and blackened blood flowed out intermixed. With the butt of my crossbow, I battered and pried away at the box's holes until I could free his hands. I unlocked his gag. And finally, I pulled him off the spike. He was in no condition to stand, so I tried to hold him up, but I myself sank to my knees under his weight.
I tore at the seams of my coat's sleeve, until the sleeve came off, and I wrapped it around the boy's torso. It scarcely helped to stave off the bleeding. But, already, the boy's wounds were closing and healing on their own, miraculously.
Tears once again streamed down my face as I held him, breathless and past the point of exhaustion.
"It's OK now," I choked out. "We can go now."
The boy looked at me with shimmering, brown eyes.
"Yes," he replied in a soft whisper.
The darkened veins in his hands faded away, and color returned to his skin.
"D-do you know where we are?" I asked him. He shook his head.
"We're in the game," I said. "We're in the death game. We're outside of Silvercreek. And we're underground." Despite all my pain, I managed a smile. "Let's get out of here. We can be free."
His lips parted.
"...Free?"
I nodded. "Yes. We can finally be free."
Slowly and unsteadily, he extended a palm upward, as though reaching for the sky far, far above. And he muttered something. A faint shadow shot out of his hand.
Everything above us vanished.
Hundreds of meters of rock and earth, thousands of tons, all gone in an instant. Reduced to nothingness.
A massive hole had opened up from where we were, leading all the way up. I could see the sky on the other side. A cold, distant, crimson sunset.
The boy began to rise into the air. He extended a hand to me.
"Join me," he said. "Tell me you will."
"I will."
As I took his hand, I began to rise up into the air as well. It felt exactly like a flying dream. We floated slowly up, and it felt like I was leaving my pain, my weariness, far down below, back in the dungeons.
And…I think the boy just made me his teammate. I blinked to check the color of his HP bar, and it was indeed green:
[HP: 9838 / 6E12]
Wait. Why would he have his name on his HP bar –
And then it hit me. 6E12 wasn't just his name. It was his max HP.
In scientific notation.
6E12 stood for 6,000,000,000,000.
