Now my all-powerful strategy was cooked! Tossing slimes was mostly useless, but I could use it to toss the closer ones back from me while using my Death, Stun, Petrification, Slow, and Disintegration Rays to kill or slow the ones that got too close. I used the Charm Ray on a slime that tossed, but it had no effect.
There were still more than half left, I had barely killed a third of them, so it was time for the seventh eyestalk to do its thing. I tossed another slime that was getting too close, then pointed to the center of the area that would get the most if it was another meteor strike. I activated the rays and blinked all my eyes as I was bathed in red light, and the roof of the cave was torn off.
[Hail of Blades Ray] Activated!
'RUN!' -Tequila & Dansei.
That was cute, I had no legs, but that didn't stop me from floating back around the corner, and started to panic. There were small points of lights filling the sky, everywhere, and the tunnel I was floating down was all red! What the hell was this! I reached the final turn as the first blade hit the ground, just missing me.
The end of the circle was just around the corner, but I still had to dodge five more close calls before getting out. The circle instantly turned blue, and I was safe, as the ground was hammered with long glowing blades. I didn't have a reason to pant, but I did it anyway, I only avoided the blades because I had seven eyes to pinpoint where I would be hit from.
'What the hell was that?'
'No idea, we just knew you were within the damage zone, cool move though! You should use that seventh stalk more often! You can get by with this easy peasy!' -Dansie.
'You know if that would have been the meteor strike, then there would be anything left of me to clean up!'
'Pft! You're fine. Plus, you wouldn't make anything that would intentionally hurt you, maybe maim, but you'll heal fine! Trust that you built this as an all-powerful class that only you have used before, there is still the Star Devourer and Dragon aspects, but there is something weird going on with this game.' -Dansei.
'Oh, you mean the mission that never ends?'
'I think the normal MainFrame is compiling everything into a single changing run. You might have to complete more challenges, but you have triggered something in the system you built for MainFrame that is overloading Reginold's blocks. Since you have unlocked the beholder Class, we have been able to be freer when speaking about certain things, but not completely.' -Tequila.
'Does that mean if I finished this long and arduous quest, I could finish on this world so quickly?'
'Your original plan that we talked about before the game started was for you to run this game fast, you had a place to drop the girls, and this was just to get them into the Hall of Gods. You wanted to get the other girls that are part of your harem, and life used to the game and that's why you decided to include them in your play through.' -Dansei.
'Just how much do you remember now?'
'All of it, but not the games before this one, like resets. I can remember up to the point that we were sent into Reborn from Second Life, but nothing until your first run, and we did that. Now we are here on your second run, and the best yet according to Mom!' -Dansie.
Talk of the first run avoided again, something bad must have happened. This wasn't the time for aberrant thoughts. It was time for me to finish this game.
Chapter 252: The Floating Eyeball Of Destruction
I was a bit peeved that I didn't increase my Mobile Lair bar, but I floated on. Dansei was right, I would just have to trust in my love of the random to get me through this. I turned the third corner, and the place was crawling with little black beetles, everywhere again.
I just fired off the seventh Random Ray eyestalk while turning to "run" for the hills. I was having no part of those bugs! Floating for not, they were on the roof and had a hundred and ten percent chance to fall on me. Nope, not today satan!
[Lava Grenade Ray] Activated!
I was outside of the range and I had caught all the bugs! I turned back to see what was happening and all the bugs were gathering to a single black rock with brilliantly glowing red cracks. The rock was starting to shake and get brighter, and I could see heat waves start to radiate off it.
Suddenly, the bugs started to pull away, and then scurry faster. The rock exploded, spilling out impossible amounts of molten lava. The bugs on the ground were instantly devoured by the cascading gouts and waves of burning rock. The bugs on the walls and ceiling fell and died in small pumps of black bits.
[Mobile Lair Creation] 50% Complete!
[Negative Energy Cone] Activated!
There was a slight haze along the edge of my vision, but only for my main eye, and nothing else had changed. I opened up my attacks, and I now could use Sleep Ray, but only on a single target, and only once every minute. Still, it was something helpful. Almost like a kill spell if no one ever wakes them up, but what was up with my wave vision one my center eye?
'This will be your trump card. As long as you look at a creature, it can't regenerate. Then when it dies, if you are looking at it with that eye, it will come back to life under your control.' -Dansie.
Woah! That's pretty intense! I could have had an army of bugs! The spell was done, and it was like nothing had ever been in the tunnel, and I could clearly see another turn up ahead. This was a pain, but it was all leading up to something that I had originally planned for. So, I just needed to keep pushing and leveling up my lair, but that took all of what I had killed so far.
I started to float forward at top speed, the average speed walk. Could I get a speed boost? No, Dave, you are the floating undead eye of destruction! You only get slow-rolling chaos!
I wiggled my eyestalks threateningly to no one, and then let out a whistling sigh through my mass of jagged teeth. I was just coming up to the corner now and I slowed down getting to the corner. I poked an eyestalk around the corner to see what I was dealing with.
From what I had learned about the Beholder, it was a creature that was immensely paranoid and created from dreams. They always planned ahead and took out many different types of contingency plans to prevent them from being killed. I couldn't play chess in the third dimension, little lone the fourth, so I had to just try and be crafty.
My average eleven intelligence must be the work of that hair-brained Reginold! Dammit! Twelve manticores were waiting in the hallway, but they were too far away for me to be able to start killing, but I had number seven, so I fired off the Random Ray.
[Frost Dragon Egg Ray] Activated!
No ring came up this time, but a ten-centimeter-tall frosty egg shot halfway down the hall. When it stopped, it exploded in a puff of frost blueish white smoke filled the area. I wasn't sure if I should run or not, but then a frozen solid manticore flew out of the mist and smashed on the ground, then two more.
I quickly came out and looked at them, using my Telekinetic Ray to smash into the other two. All there exploded on impact into black bite, but then the stone turned to dirt and three undead manticores pulled themselves out of the dirt. The smoke was clearing but the area, but now it was covered in ice.
The nine remaining manticores all rushed on paws, scorpions' tails waving behind them. My three waited, and then just before the group hit the ice. I sent my three forward, and I followed at a distance, waiting for the inevitable to happen.
It was like watching a pile-up of cars in the winter, the claws did nothing, this was Dragon Ice. The stuff was hard as diamonds and closer than the surface of the moon, or at least that's the way I remember making it.
The first one went down, and then it was like dominos after, each tripping over the last, and the second they fell down, they started to freeze to the ice. The first six made it off the ice, but the other three weren't so lucky and were frozen to the ice at an unavoidable pain staking frost-burning death. The other six were set upon me there and I used the Disintegration Ray on one, then charmed another while putting one to sleep that was trying to circle.
As the three undead
servants cleaned up the last of them, the three on the ice disappeared, and dirt replaced the ice, and three more manticores crawl out. I commanded them to just to the other side, and the dirt stayed where it had crawled out so the others could cross. After six more puffs of black bits, I had a small force of minions.
These would be no match for dragons, but they could be a start! I would collect an undead army of monsters to get the girls back! The real question was whether or not they would want to even come with me, The Floating Eyeball of Destruction, and my undead army, hehe!
Chapter 253: Great Splitting Golems
The next area was a cavern, but there was nothing inside, at first glance, but as I looked inside I noticed something. The roof of the cave was covered in stalactites but I could see glittering colored scales poking out from behind them. So, an ambush was set, dragons were crafty creatures, but not as crafty as me!
I sent one of my manticores into the center of the cave, but the dragons didn't budge. I then sent the manticore straight up to fly into the dragons, but it was instantly incinerated into little black bits. Hmm, that was annoying; I sent the other eleven manticores inside, and then I slowly entered.
The cave closed behind me the second I was through the door just like I was worried about. The cave was a lot taller than wide, and If I were to try and use my seventh stalk, there was a good chance I would be caught in the blast. I got the manticores to spread out, I couldn't reach them, but their fire wouldn't reach me on the ground.
"HEY! What are you waiting for? I didn't know so many chickens could get that high! Wish I could have been here to see the dogpile you must have had to make to get up there, BWAHAHA!" I roared up to them laughing.
They didn't budge, but I could feel every cat's eye on me. Well, time for plan number two; I sent four of the remaining eleven up to the dragons. All of them flew to random areas, but none of them were aiming for dragons.
Three were torched, but the fourth smashed into a big long stalactite, knocking it free. The manticore was killed, but I used my Telekinetic Ray to catch the massive cream and rust-colored spike. There was nothing on the ground, so I had nothing to use as projectiles, but now the game had changed, and I prepared the manticores to attack on my signal.
The dragons were starting to move around, but I was about to really stir things up. I hurled the spike up, and wings opened as the dragons started to fall and flap their wings. I speared two with my first shot making them disappear into black bits as then exploded.
Then, the ground on either side of me became dirt, as two undead dragons, both white and missing tore chunks of flesh, the sails of their wings torn. That meant nothing to a dragon, and the two rose off the ground and started to attack the other dragons. They were killed fast, but they took three with them, and the living dragons couldn't keep up with the endless wave of undead dragons.
Any that tried to scoop down and flame me, was set on by undead manticores. Soon, there were no living dragons left, but I still had three of my own dragons, and five manticores left. Not a bad run!
[Mobile Lair Creation] 75% Complete!
I friggin hope so! That was a lot of dragons and manticores! What would I have to kill to get to one-hundred percent?!
A door appeared ahead, but these ones opened of their own accord. A wide-open plain was revealed, with a monolithic fifty-meter tall metal golem that had more moving parts than you could shake a stick at!
What the hell was this thing?! I was the size of one of its rivets! Even the knuckle joints on the toes were three times the size of me! I came in with my undead party, and the door disappeared behind me, leaving us with nothing, but the plains and our almost guaranteed doom.
So, I flung it.
Just a good old Telekinetic Ray, and I sent the massive thing flying. When it crashed down I was knocked from my feet and landed on my ass. The big bastard had some weight, but I cheered when I got back up. The massive robot had cracked in two, right down the middle!
Wait...the thing was starting to change...ARE YOU KIDDING ME?! It was moving parts around and rebuilding itself, making two now instead of one and they were only half the original size, but they were still at least twenty-five-meters tall! I shot a Death Ray at one and a Disintegration Ray at the other.
I was annoyed with the results. The small spots that I shot disappeared, but then the golems split again, and now there were four twelve-meter metal monsters. I fired the seventh eyestalk at the center of the four but held back my minion. That was when I noticed the little molehill appearing at my feet.
[Almighty Push Ray] Activated!
The sun was instantly blotted out and I was in red, but it didn't take much to get my party and myself out of the range. There was a massive stone hand coming down, and it slowly crushed the four metal golems into the ground.
To my extreme annoyance, eight more golems were rebuilding themselves, but now I had a pile of the little bastards crawling at my feet. Each one of the miniature golems was only about five centimeters tall, but they were exact copies like the bigger one. The other golems seemed to be tired of getting smashed into the ground, and now they were charging, but I decided I would use the same technique as I just did.
This would be a war of attrition, but I only had to keep killing to get more troops and watching. This battle was already over, but that thought was the trigger like Murphy was just waiting for my confidence to burst free.
The golems tore through the monster, and none of their attacks did anything to the armored six-meter giants. All of my pets, including my mini golems, were slain, and now I was in a pickle. This is what I get for even thinking it would turn out well!
Murphy's Law has always been a joke, but in a world where you are a moving part, and even your thoughts can be heard. The smallest boost of confidence can get you into real trouble!
Chapter 254: [Welcome Home]
I fired off other lasers and I was starting to lose count of the splitting metal golems. I was trying to buy more time for my seventh to recharge while I was trying to back up at the same time. The problem was I had got a new ray, but the new Fear and Charm ray were doing nothing, these things were just mindless drones.
"Finally!" I shouted as I fired into the mass, then turning and floating as fast as I could away.
[Orbital Rod Ray]
Oh shit! There was a lot of space between me and the red barrier, but there was no magic circle this time. I could see the sky start to light up and then I noticed the red barrier looked like it was going into the ground. I tried to move faster, the first of eight would impact on the far side from my judgment, so I should have time to make it across the twenty-meter gap between me and the barrier.
The rod plunged into the at a way too fast speed to even count, MACH 10 plus at least. For an entire moment that lasted just under one second, there was nothing and I was almost there with the golems far behind me. Then It happens, all hell broke loose.
The ground exploded into waves, tearing the landscape apart behind me. The destruction caught up with me, and I was slapped by an acre of flying grass out of the range of the spell. I was able to catch myself, but I whirled back around and rushed back trying to get the golem back in my vision.
Golems were popping up from molehills everywhere around me, and the ground in front of me was still getting hit by rod after rod. Each one was spaced with time for maximum damage to happen and everything had settled. After the fifth rod, they were too far down for me to claim with me Negative Energy Eyebeam, so I turned away and focused on the sea of golems.
I commanded the undead golems, which was weird to think about, something that was never alive was now undead, and I controlled them to reform into one single golem. They swarmed on my command, and slowly started to rebuild into a six-meter tall version of themselves. Then I got them to make a place for me to tuck into.
The golem opened up its chest like a large mouth, and I floated in, turning to face out the chest. The maw closed around me, and then the
metal golem reshaped the inside of its body. It closed in tight to make me comfortable and made holes for my eyestalks to poke out of in the front and back.
I couldn't control the golem-like a MAS, it was more like having a partner to help me. I would call him My Big Friendly Giant, just because I could remember loving the movie. That part of my life was weird to think about after spending so much more time inside Second Life and Reborn. If I really thought about it, my twenty-two years in my mortal shell were just a pin drop in the years I have spent as a Spark in the virtual world.
The spell was done, and the ground was back to normal as if nothing had ever happened. All the golems were gone besides the ones I controlled. A massive set of doors appeared, but they were filled with a bright white light, but there was no improvement to my Mobile Lair Creation bar.
Frustrated, I commanded The Big Friendly Giant to proceed through the gate. The moment I entered the light, I was burned from existence, oops wrong door. That was my thought, but something else happened.
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