Kim hopped unto Noah’s back, who took off. I finished off the nugget-mage with a 30x preset and a deca flew me to the other. My eyes remained trained on the unfolding chaos while an inattentive volley of quad launches affected the embedded swords and shattered the last sorcerer at my back.

  At the same time, Jill got her knee kicked out from under her. The variant grabbed her and dragged her helplessly along the ground by the head, slamming her through one suddenly erected block of ice after another. It was a miracle she held on to her halberd. The others failed to keep up. Elias attempted a few experimental sling bullets but achieved nothing, intercepted by rising panels of ice. They stopped, downed a set of potions and resumed their attempts at catching up. The oriental asshole paused along with them and stomped Jill’s helmet several times before switching its priorities to spacing again.

  The spearman statue prevented Kwame from channeling despite Carlos’ restraining efforts, a centaur accelerated and the javelineer cocked an arm while I drank my own full set of boosters. Noah and Kim withstood a siege by the environment itself, under constant assault by obstructions, extending protrusions, uneven ground, dropping chunks and so much more.

  Everything happened at once. My heart threatened to explode, rapids raged in my ears, my mouth filled with cotton, and my stomach cramped. Time slowed.

  Where do I go? Javelin threatens everyone…

  A full bar propelled me towards it and ate my fifth coin. A short-spear crashed against the floor, deftly evaded by Noah. I edited my regeneration sequence in mid-air, refilling at 375 per second now. Somehow, the variant must have noticed my lapse in focus because a solid wall sprang up in my low-flying path and my shieldsword did nothing to mitigate the high speed collision. But it saved my life when the expected javelin arrived through the ice, knocking me away in a rolling skid while my shieldsword clattered away. Darkness swallowed me. What happened to the flares? Shit.

  Seven rapid-fire deca-launches pulled me first into the air, then this way and that, completely disoriented. My score of newly fired flares winked out instantly. Only the mind-compass, thankfully available with the Errant beyond my senses, guaranteed a purpose for my haphazard flight. Another javelin soared past, merely a few meters off target, further aiding my navigation. There. A final evasion brought me close and I slammed into a giant chest for the second time. The embedded snipe entered control range and tore through the bastard, fueled by 200 energy, separating shoulder from body. An instant later, a full bar obliterated a hip on the opposite side, crippling this awakened enchantment. Coin number six turned to dust.

  Before my feet touched the ground, a pillar erupted from the wall and crushed me against an unseen barrier which appeared equally out of fucking nowhere. From the corner of my eye, I saw a spear tip heading for me and only barely succeeded in shattering the pillar with my preset. Thirty launches yanked me upwards, but not before I loosed a penta-powered barrage of five swords into the remaining shoulder. It died from that. Some miracle of hyperawareness dispelled the bastard. Kim finally got his shit together and turned the lights back on. Moments of orientation stretched.

  Kwame finished off the soldier with glitchy acid line spam while Carlos pressed himself against the wall. Wide strips of fabric held back what must have been a sideways spear slam in a complicated arrangement. Copious amounts of blood sullied Kwame’s remaining and severed dreads, flowing from his partially exposed scalp.

  Elias was being dragged along by the centaur, hatchet lodged in its belly. Cleo used her daggers like icepicks, tearing long grooves into the horse-man, climbing towards its upper body as it struggled to shrug them off. One of its legs looked thinner than the rest.

  Kim’s decoys were constantly dissipated by erupting frozen lances. Noah danced all the while. He dodged and smashed them in clipped movements that jostled Kim like he’d been thrown on top of a tumble dryer with a brick in it.

  The variant pitched Jill through an icy dome which surrounded them. She chugged her full line of stat augments in the air before bouncing off a newly emerged block. Kwame and Carlos had their hands full surviving their own newly allocated forest of frozen spears. Jill needs backup. A quick coin check confirmed extensive energy reserves. Two presets brought me closer to her. A duo of swords kept me adrift near the chaotic melee.

  Before I could shoot anything, layers of crystalline cover formed slanted roofing. Frozen panels tracked along with the icemonk, forcing me to retarget a long range snipe towards the centaur. Precious seconds passed… C’mon. C’mon. A perfect trajectory appeared and a fully fueled blade streaked in a blur into the weakened rear leg. Severing it brought down the rampaging beast. A seventh coin crackled away.

  Darkness strobed. A glance showed Kim rapidly switching between barriers and anti-suppression like a panicked madman until Noah regained his balance. Cleo and Elias worked frantically on the centaur, clearly desperate to finish it off. Damn it. A split second of free fall ended when a duo-deca sent me careening towards Jill’s overhead airspace. Assembled set of quality 100 half-plate or not, double triggers of her counter or not, impossible determination or not, she surely couldn’t last long anymore. I have to play this extremely carefully, the variant will kill me instantly in hand-to-hand.

  Jill got some words out before taking a knee to the face, recoiling back by punting the butt of her halberd. She avoided a flurry of eye slit aimed stabs with another pair of counter activations. “Pressure it!” A low kick dented her thigh-plate. Sure, fuck it, why not. A valid arc locked in and a sword flashed, powered by 750 energy. One more coin gone. It certainly put me on the map. The unusual variant backstepped away from Jill and paused to right its robes, sliced by the blade now halfway deep in the ground. It looked at me for a moment. Just to be safe, my floating footholds rose upwards. The lull afforded me an opportunity to take stock.

  Carlos wasn’t getting anywhere, but Kwame’s flickering form closed in slowly, constantly displacing along his trailing center-line. Elias and Cleo already ran towards us. Jill’s beating resumed. Stains of blood marred her armor, already pooling on the ground below. I have a better idea. A series of four aerial dashes brought me to Noah, followed by a yell. “Kim, grab hold, you’re flying Gabriel airlines! Noah, dog pile that fucker with everyone else.” He reached out and thirty launches carried us to relative safety. We drifted down lazily, supported beyond the limit of my control skill. Our four brawlers reached the variant almost at the same time and chaos ensued.

  It had to abandon most attacks due to the sheer overwhelming pressure, yet still somehow wove in between six fucking weapons and a shield while fighting back. Even Carlos started making headway. Jill finally landed a hit when another 750 of mine almost nailed the variants foot through a lucky, increasingly rare valid trajectory. The shot drained a ninth coin, nearly emptying my right bracer. My left still held plenty, refilled by the spoils of hallway slaughter. It didn’t matter.

  Kwame’s lines entered the fray. They blossomed in empty spaces, narrowing options. Noah landed a pair of hits on knee and hand. Cleo stabbed the small of its back while Elias hooked a leg. An invisible bind wrapped the other. I couldn’t do anything, forced to jolt Kim and me upwards, but the same wasn’t true for Jill. She landed a solid glowing hammer blow through its ribs from behind, disintegrating everything in the path of her sweep. The pike end bit deeper, nearly bisecting it.

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  Manifold pillars exploded outwards, knocking everyone back. A mistake punctuated by the sharp crack which announced my shooting of a double-bar into the fucker. It shifted as the blade passed through the side of its fireball shaped head in a shower of chips. The rest were already rushing as an acid jet forced it to sidestep, but Elias was ready. A savage grin broke his stoicism as he grabbed the bastard in a rear naked choke.

  It took only a few moments for the variant to shake him off, but the damage was done. Its robes fell apart in ragged pieces as the infest ability dug into it. Noah unleashed a stunning combo attack together with Cleo. Four weapons rained down blows when one of Cleo’s daggers clipped Jill. She dropped her halberd, grabbed the variants arm and tore it the fuck off. That signaled the end of its ability to defend. Even so, separated limbs clutched and clawed, trying to get back together. Three seconds of relentless assault later, the asshole stopped moving, finally succumbing when there were nothing but pieces left of it.

  “Jesus fucking Christ, what the hell was that thing?!”

  Cleo moved up to the corpse-bits while the rest collapsed on the spot and we rejoined them. “This is new, have a look for yourself.” She frowned at the variant corpse and started crushing the remains. Pissed, are we? I get it.

  Thinking ‘condense’ brought up the usual looting screen, although there were no options available.

  “Reflection of a past Ascendant. Natural talent: Ice manipulation. Mastery Stage: Beginner. Power: Weak. Energy corrupted, condensation unavailable. Regeneration stage: 0%”

  Beginner? Weak? “Is this a fucking joke? It’s even regenerating. I think it’s undead or some shit.”

  “Are you not always complaining about how full of shit the System is? For once, I agree with you,” Elias said, “Cleo, let me.”

  He plopped himself among the pile of body parts. Looking closer, I saw the beginnings of reformation. Elias was having none of it though, dissolving them at equal rate. He clearly wanted to leave nothing behind, but some parts resisted, like they did Cleo’s attempts.

  Everyone else opted for some well-deserved rest, nursing their many injuries and fussing over Jill especially. She waved them away. Something caught my interest as the adrenaline high continued, leaving me upright for now. I probably hadn’t taken all that much damage anyway. “Mind if I check that out?”

  “Go ahead, knock yourself out, I doubt it can be any worse.”

  Our victory unveiled a staircase, right where the monk drew its circle. It also cleared the exits and plethora of icy debris. I went down the steps and approached a shiny orb, cradled by a pedestal in a little cubby. Nearing it triggered a System screen. Loot? The words staggered rather than flowed, like a computer calculating results in bits and pieces.

  “Primary guardian incapacitated, analyzing bastion core… Lingering Errant control detected… Requirements below threshold… Differential considered adequate for supplementation. Energy quota fulfilled. Calling down System strike.”

  Calling down awhatnow?

  Another item populated my list of standing notifications while thin streams of smoke began rising everywhere. “Warning: This area has been marked for a System strike. Blast radius: 3,45 kilometers. Grace period remaining: 03:59:47. Distance to epicenter: 0,00 kilometers.”

  Kim and Jill yelled in unison, “GODDAMNIT GABRIEL WHAT DID YOU DO?!”

  “A Godstrike, I think. And it wasn’t my fault, happened on its own. We should probably get out of here though.”

  “Well, at least we won’t have to waste a fortune blowing the place up,” Kwame said.

  “It might be prudent to hurry back to base camp. Everyone will be worried sick once it arrives,” Cleo said while staring at me.

  “There is no point in staying regardless. We are leaving at best possible speed,” Elias commanded.

  Seems like a waste. “Why the rush? We have plenty of time.”

  Noah spoke up for once, “You want to try for the treasure rooms and then probably get stuck there so we can escape dramatically at the last minute or die trying?”

  “Aren’t you curious? Look at Jill, gear’s the only reason she’s alive. Cleo, you even hurt? What about you, Elias?”

  “No, I’m fine,” she responded.

  Elias neglected to answer my question, taking refuge in authority instead. “I said we are leaving, end of discussion.”

  It didn’t take us nearly as long to get out of the fortress compared to forcing our way in. Regret pained me once shock faded and a glance under my armor revealed half my body covered in massive bruises. No one gave a shit about my requests to slow down. Throbbing pain accompanied every step. At least Kim’s preparations for our exit afforded me a brief reprieve.

  In truth, there was no real need to hurry since we’d escape the blast radius no matter what, even crawling would’ve done the job. It was a good thing we didn’t barge ahead mindlessly though. It turned out the turrets were still active and Kim used up the last of his stored high-magic charges to send decoys about.

  The notification disappeared once we exited the danger close range but we continued onwards regardless. For some reason, none of us were willing to take any chances. Despite Cleo’s minding of things that weren’t her business, she didn’t say a thing once we decided to shoot up a bunch of green flares and hang around to see the fireworks. We passed the time by eating fervently and refreshing endurance potions. Jill slacked on the timing and we had to force feed her through a seizure. The brash idiot hadn’t complained once on the way here, yet was apparently on the edge of death. Something worth paying attention to in the future.

  I rose up high once the destined moment approached, aided the usual way. Kim joined me, stepping on tiered barriers, powered by the shit-eating grin on his face. “As it turns out,” he said, “I can fly too.”

  “No, you can float. There’s a difference. I can prove my point but don’t feel like giving you a shove.”

  “It hardly matters, nor would that accomplish anything.”

  “It would be fun. Anyway, like I said, mage shit.”

  “Heh. Got to you, eh?”

  “How do you feel about piercings?”

  “How do you feel about being cut in half?”

  “Ah fuck it, fireworks are about to start.”

  Threads of smoke conjoined to form a pillar of white light. It stretched out from the pentagon into the sky above, with no end in sight. The timer ticked down to zero and a concentrated bright pulse descended from the heavens. Once it reached the ground, an invisible soundless wave propagated radially from the epicenter, neatly disintegrating everything in its path. It left behind nothing but a fuck-off sized crater, like a vast ice cream scoop had been taken out of the landscape. Cut off corridors lined the sides at the bottom, exposing the Underway below. We shared a moment of silence. Will they leak, I wonder? We should try flooding at some point, see what happens.

  “Got to be honest, I was expecting a little more fanfare.”

  “You just watched a gigantic magical structure be unmade in a fraction of a second, and you’re not impressed?” Kim said.

  “I don’t know, figured there would be a mushroom cloud or something, a big explosion at least. You know - a bright flash, booming thunder, shaking ground.”

  “Gabriel, we’re in the air. And the crater is kilometers wide. Who knows what kind of force allows this to occur? I’d say god knows but I doubt even that would be appropriate.”

  “Well, god might not know, but the System sure as fuck does.”

  “Considering what we just saw, it’s probably for the best if you keep your mouth shut on the subject.”

  “Nah, we cool. It just blew up a fortress for me.”

  Kim shook his head, disbelieving.

  “What? If a little commentary was enough to piss it off, don’t you think we’d be dead already? It’s obviously capable of blowing stuff up. Makes me wonder why it doesn’t just wipe out all the Errant.”

  “True, you’d definitely be dead. And isn’t the answer evident?”

  I stared at the impossible devastation. It had all been so clean, clinical almost. Yet Errant structures permeated everywhere. What would happen if the Underway just disappeared? How deep did it go? Would anything remain afterwards? How much energy would it cost? Clearly, the System didn’t feel like shelling out too much. Buy your own damn safety, it seemed to say.

  “Yeah, I guess you’re rig- Shit.”

  “Too late. You said it.”

  “Technically, I helped keep you alive. Call it even?”

  He paused for a few seconds in mock contemplation. “Fine.”

  The rest quipped and squabbled just as we had, even Noah and Elias joined in. It continued for hours. We couldn’t take things too seriously, after all.

  Not without breaking.