Chapter 262 Chapter Two-Hundred-and-Sixty-Two

Since Sven didn’t come charging down the tunnel and wasn’t anywhere to be found in the antechamber, Adam backpedalled and dragged all the bodies and loot over to the altar, so that he could grab it before he left. Strangely, the ash and fire brooch didn’t trigger on their bodies, like it had every time he’d been in the challenge arena.

Although he piled up the bodies in front of it, he didn’t step back on the altar, since it would automatically finish the stage when he became the last player standing, and Adam wanted to get as many points as possible, which meant taking down the secret bosses and all of the statues.

“Can you tell me where Sven is hiding?”

[I cannot.]

“Why not? I thought you were able to see their relics and everything earlier.”

[That is not the same as tracking Player locations. Rest assured that if I possessed such a useful feature, I would lend it to you.]

“What’s the point of being an ‘observer’ if you can’t observe shit?”

[I am observing you right now.]

“That’s called having eyes. You know what I’m referring to.”

[Alas, my true powers are limited in this form.]

“So it is a punishment!” Adam said.

Parvillo didn’t respond to the jab, which made Adam sure he was spot on.

Before heading out to hunt down Sven, he ran a quick assessment of his relics.

The night bracelet is out of uses, but can be reactivated with Prankster in a pinch, though I can only use that skill once. My bear traps are functional again, which will help combat whatever bullshit Sven might have cooked up. The nightwing cloak is on a long cooldown, as is my mask, but I can reactivate both with Tinkerer or one of them individually with Prankster.

I’m surprised Sven didn’t join in on the dogpile earlier, since the mask could’ve made them much stronger.

Perhaps it was just a ploy to distract me and force me to use my relics?

But why?

Adam thought about what could be gained from that.

After just a few seconds of considering the question, he had a realisation.

Ah, shit.

Adam lifted off with his wings, making sure to avoid the walls of the tunnels as he flew towards the dead-end corridor that would surely hide the secret bosses.

“There’s a legendary boss relic from this stage too, right?”

[Correct.]

“What does it do?”

[It nullifies magic.]

Adam took a turn through a chamber with shattered statues.

“Can it be used against me somehow?”

[It has an unintended interaction with elementals. They are beings made of pure magic fused to an element.]

“And slime is an element.”

[Yes.]

“So, it can one-shot me?”

[Possibly.]

“Have the secret bosses been defeated yet?”

[Yes.]

“How would he obtain the relic?”

[With more than 100 points of Luck, it will be possible to obtain the Legendary Relic from a chest in the Stage, permitted that the Elphin Deathguard have been defeated.]

There is a total of three chests, usually in relatively fixed positions, Adam recalled.

Besides the scary legendary, he’ll also be able to obtain the stone mask to negate the damage from an attack, the stone talisman to curse a target with wither to increase damage inflicted by 50% with the next attack, or, scariest of all, the stone bracer, which can disable all of my relics for 30 seconds.

Fuck… I shouldn’t have wasted time gathering the bodies.

Adam flew past one empty chest.

“Shit.”

He turned on a dime in the air and flew towards the next one, which would be back towards where he started in the southern part of the stage.

“Can I get around the stone bracer’s power with my evolution skills?” Adam asked.

[Yes.]

Thank God. I would’ve been completely screwed otherwise.

Still, it’ll force me to use my Tinkerer skill if he activates it on me.

As Adam reached the second of three chests in the stage, he was hit with an announcement.

< < Stage Alert > >

< Player No More Mercy has claimed the Altar >

Adam stopped above the opened chest, his white moth wings flapping lazily to keep him airborne.

He already has the legendary. I wasted too much time.

[Be careful with your approach,] Parvillo warned as Adam hovered in the air, considering the best way to attack.

He looked down at the ground, spotting a defeated statue elemental that wasn’t fully dead, since its exposed glass core was still intact. Without its arms and legs, it had no way to move, besides a spirited wriggle.

Almost absentmindedly, Adam gripped the exposed core with his stone hand, slowly pulling it free with gentle rocking motions while mentally chewing on the best way for him to take on Sven.

< < Collectible Relic > >

< Statue Elemental Core (Uncommon) — The crystallised soul of a Statue Elemental >

As soon as Adam had extracted the core, he inserted it into himself and his body turned briefly to stone, before it mixed with the white slime and red blood, turning his body an almost human-coloured beige.

[Unsettling,] Parvillo remarked.

Adam looked down at his body. Unfortunately, I have to agree with that.

“Can you share the legendary relic’s description with me?” Adam said as he flew back towards the altar cavern.

< < Relic > >

< Deathguard’s Cold Gaze (Legendary) — Nullify magic with an attack. 10-minute cooldown | Wearer is afflicted by Scorn, removing all beneficial effects of Worship >

It gives scorn??

That means the Flayed Lady is literally going to sacrifice him just to get me. Unless she’s planning on using him to worship the Chaotic Convergence.

He’ll have access to Leering Prankster, so he can use it twice.

“It counts as a physical attack, right?”

[The effect is technically Void Magic. However, it is only activated on touch. Given that Player Sven Jensen, currently going by the nickname ‘No More Mercy’, does not possess any magical attacks, you should be able to avoid it with your Nightwing Cloak.]

And if that doesn’t work, then I’ve got my guaranteed dodge every two seconds.

Adam flew out of the tunnel and into the antechamber before the last corridor leading into the altar.

[You have 4 minutes and 33 seconds remaining to claim the Altar.]

Where the false wall and the statue with the missing eye had been, was now a small open chamber.

This bastard even grabbed the golden map.

I’ll need to go back to the deathguard chamber after I kill him to see if he also took the spear and sent it to his player house. He should have Builder available after all. It would be extremely petty to do it just to deny me the ‘All Secrets’ bonus, but somehow that doesn’t seem so unlikely given who I’m dealing with here.

As Adam slowly neared the tunnel mouth, he saw something he hadn’t expected.

The floor, walls, and ceiling were covered in thin red lines, which came together to form shapes. Although Adam didn’t know where his brain was, he felt it squeeze and tighten as he looked upon the drawings.

[Do not approach,] Parvillo warned.

Adam stayed put obediently, knowing something was wrong.

“How is Sven able to use blood magic?”

[This is not Blood Magic. This is Chthonic Script. If you enter the tunnel, you will be transported to the Flayed Lady’s Realm.]

“What the fuck? What the hell do I do?”

Parvillo didn’t reply, instead pulling away from Adam to float just before the tunnel threshold.

< < Stage Alert > >

< A Principal Eye has reset the Stage Environment >

Golden light swelled within Parvillo and washed over the chamber and connecting tunnels, flowing outward in all directions, and wiping away the red linework barring Adam’s way. The damage to the chambers was also repaired, but the defeated elementals stayed dead.

Parvillo really wants me to win this if he’s going this far.

“YOU FILTHY CHEATER!” Sven screamed from within the cavern beyond the corridor. The way his vocal cords were stretched to form the words proved just how badly the Flayed Lady wanted Adam to lose.

Adam thought back to one of their past conversations. She had brushed him off when he’d asked if he would be able to ascend to become an Absolute. It wasn’t something he sought, but perhaps the Flayed Lady was terrified that through his betrayal of her and the defiance of the All-Seeing System, he might be able to carve out his own mandate to seek Godhood.

Perhaps that is the ultimate test of the Trials?

Perhaps it is only possible to win by ascending?

[4 minutes,] Parvillo said, breaking Adam out of his thoughts.

Adam took a deep breath.

Here we go.

The strategy he had decided on was the simplest one. Overwhelming force using all of his power and evolution skills to win. Playing mind games wouldn’t work against someone as cunning as the Flayed Lady. He’d have to beat her puppet into dust.

With his fluffy white wings, he shot himself through the tunnel at speed, rounding the bend and immediately locking onto Sven, activating his porcelain mask and his fetish of sloth. Besides Sven’s legendary crown, cloak, tooth, mask, and eye, he also wore spring boots and the forlorn cuirass.

The imp materialised on the floor of the tunnel behind Adam as he zipped out of the opening and into the cavern.

A bear trap flew towards him and Adam quickly dodged to the side, just as Sven actually thew it a half-second later. The trap struck the tunnel and released a loud snap.

He’s nowhere near as strong as me, Adam thought as he flew in with an empowered right claw.

As Adam swung, his hand passed right through Sven’s blood-red body and released a massive explosion of air that knocked him away from his target, who quickly turned to throw another trap.

Adam’s dodge activated and his body bent around the bear trap as it passed by him, striking the cavern ceiling nearby and snapping loudly as it triggered.

Then Sven leapt at him with an activation of his spring boots. On his face was the porcelain mask, but it suddenly turned into the stone mask relic. As the first mask was replaced with the second, Adam briefly saw a pitch-black eye set into his liquid blood body.

He hot-swapped them after triggering the foresight effect.

Adam was on his feet, ready to throw a bear trap of his own, when a relic on Sven’s right arm disintegrated.

[All of your Relics have been put on a 30-second cooldown.]

The bracer had the downside of putting all of the wearer’s own relics on cooldown too, but Sven had clearly activated his aristocrat’s mask and nightwing cloak beforehand, giving him a few precious seconds of pseudo-invulnerability and foresight. He would still have his Prankster to allow him to activate his deathguard relic’s magic-nullifying attack, which could one-shot Adam if it landed.

It would have been an amazing plan, if not for the fact that Euphoric Tinkerer and Leering Prankster let me circumvent the stone bracer.

Adam activated Tinkerer just as Sven came flying at him with his hands raised with long clawed fingers outstretched, glowing with a dark light.

Sven swung his magic-nullifying attack into Adam’s torso, the claws passing right through him as though he was a mirage.

“NO!” Sven screamed as Adam dropped his bear traps by his feet. He still had a second of the nightwing cloak’s protection, allowing him to swing his clawed hands at Adam like a feral beast. Adam dodged both, using the porcelain mask’s effect to see Sven’s future movements.

Then Adam powered up his right hand and swung it into Sven the exact moment the effect of his cloak wore off.

BANG!

Half of Sven’s body exploded, three of his five cores disintegrating in the process. Although he’d swapped to the stone mask, the stone bracer had put its effect on cooldown, preventing it from negating Adam’s strike.

Then Adam’s imp caught up, tearing a clawed foot through a fourth core and vanishing, leaving the fifth one behind for Adam to simply reach in and grab with his stone hand.

Sven’s blood slime body shot out spikes to try and skewer him, but Adam dodged them all, even though he didn’t need to. Just to be safe, he reactivated his cloak and mask just as Tinkerer’s effect wore off.

With a loud slurp, Adam pulled the fifth core out of Sven’s body and kicked him backwards onto the two traps he’d dropped seconds earlier.

The remnants of Sven’s blood-red body exploded into a fine mist, the two traps creating a large crater in the floor and pushing Adam back a few metres.

Then he crushed the final core with his hand.

[Two traps triggered. 200 Points rewarded. Final opponent defeated.]

[Good job, Adam.]

“Thanks.”

[Step onto the Altar and expel the Flayed Lady’s influence once and for all.]

Adam looked over at the altar as he pulled out his two spidersilk bags. “How long have I been in the stage?”

[7 minutes.]

“Plenty of time then.”

[What are you doing?]

Adam grinned. “Getting as many points as possible.”