Propagate: A survival litrpg

Day 61

A slight echo resounded as a drop of water splashed onto the filthy stone brick. Drips continued to flow from the various rusty pipes that were strung across the entire dungeon. Light yellow crystals situated in small alcoves glowed with dim light that barely illuminated the curved hallways.

The flickering of the lights and incessant drops of water from the hundreds of barely working water pipes could drive a man mad, and certainly had. Such a dark and unwelcoming place, one you would find only the most heinous of criminals locked within.

So why am I here? Well, the story goes something like this-

“Hey, why did you stop talking? I'm on the edge of my seat, man!” A calm voice emanated from the cell across mine. The architects didn't bother adding lights in half of the cells. I had the fortune of the extra nice chamber, but my fellow prisoner had no such luxury.

“Oh my bad, I just got lost in thought. By the way, how long did you say you were here for?“ I heard a chuckle devoid of humor from across the hallway. Shadows shifted in the black cell as the stranger made himself more comfortable on the damp and uneven stone floor.

“Your good man, I too find myself drifting off quite a bit lately…. I got here about four months ago.“

“Months?! What the fuck did you do??”

“Huh? Oh! You meant the prison, my b. I've been here for about two weeks, give or take a few days. As for the reason, well, tax evasion.”

“....Really?”

“Yep.” He continued after a moment's pause.“ I came here for some more… exotic, types of trading, and got caught up in some kind of black market without even realizing, not that the guards seemed to care.”

“.. How is that tax evasion?”

“ Well, black market purchases are illegal, so of course there are no taxes involved in the process right?” He noticed my expression and continued after a small chuckle. “Yeah, I thought it was stupid too but that's what they told me when I got arrested, so~...” He let out a depressed sigh. “Now I'm here.” His eyes glinted in the light as he settled a sharp look upon me.

“... Are you gonna continue your story? “ I chuckled lightly. "Ah, right. Remind me where I left off?”

“Something about these robed guys attacking some city?”

“ Ah yes, that part…”

After I claimed my ‘associate’ from the medical ward we left on a journey over mountains and rivers. Some jackass decided against putting a road toward the major trading city, so thanks for that.

It took days of harsh survival and hardcore parkour, but eventually we made it to the city. The dwarven trading power of Distentia. The city itself was more like a fortress, at least outwardly. Towering stone walls that gleamed like copper plates stretched between massive pillars of natural rock.

Beyond that city lies… I don't know, actually. Because we got arrested almost immediately. Why? Well, leading up to the massive city gate was a massive line of wagons and clusters of people. Most of those people were not only.. Well, not people, but also very racist. Towards humans. Guess what I am?

You can probably piece together what happened after that. It sucks cause we got really far into the line after like four hours of waiting, only for a group of furries to cut in front of us. I, of course, made a huge commotion over it.

Inevitably, a fight broke out when neither of us decided to back down. I will have you know that I did not start the fight, but boy, did I finish it. The band of mercenaries that was picking a fight were just straight up bipedal wolves covered in gleaming metal and leather armor. Very standard wolf demi human or whatever they’re called here.

Since they hadn’t unsheathed their metal weapons and instead used their fists (and claws) I responded in kind. Half of them were knocked to the ground with a small minority straight up unconscious before one of them unsheathed their sword.

The wolf that did so was barely a foot away and unsheathed his blade way faster than I've ever seen before. Effectively caught off guard, he gouged a deep cut into my shoulder, making me bleed profusely.

Despite the wound healing relatively fast after a small [Health Pulse], I still went ape shit and punched the assaulter so hard that I dislocated his jaw. The disconnected limb hung uselessly from his face, and everyone stood still in shock. Or course, this was the time the dwarven guards decided to make themselves known.

I was immediately and violently tackled and sent to the ground. They were definitely being way more rough than necessary as they cuffed me and I was dragged towards the gate. Li-, I mean, my associate, followed closely behind me accompanied by a gaggle of discontent guards. As far as I could tell, all the wolves got was a stern talking to and a slap on the wrist. Or maybe ankle?

I didn't even get to see the city before I was ushered off into the inside of the wall and shoved into this dirty dungeon. I think it's been about six hours since then, so I'm kinda over it now, though I'm wondering when I'll be released, or at least put on trial.

“Yeahhhh, fat chance of that.” The stranger explained once I had finished. “What do you mean?” I asked.

“Well, I did some research on this city before waltzing in, so I've heard my fair share of rumors about the higher ups. Even denizens of Distentia call the government a ‘slothful oligarchy’. Apparently, this dungeon is well known for its super high mortality rate.” He clarified, sending a shiver down my spine.

“Care to elaborate?” I spoke carefully.

“I've been here for two weeks, yeah?” I nodded. “Well, I've gotten two pieces of moldy bread in that time. That's it.” I waited for him to continue, but he didn’t. “But, what about water??” I asked, puzzled. He just pointed up at that.

I looked up at the rusty pipe sagging nine feet above me right as a cold droplet fell right onto my forehead. “You're kidding.”

“Nope!” He laughed once again, slapping his knee in the process.

We sat in silence for a time. I pondered an escape plan as the stranger seemed to be humming an awfully familiar tune.

“Hey, what's your name?“ He stopped abruptly and turned towards me once again. "Why? Are you a cop?” This might be a risky maneuver, but boy do I love gambling.

“Well, no. But I am an otherworlder.” His gaze hardened and his posture immediately went rigged. “What..” He stuttered but I cut him off.

“Cops aren't really a thing in this world, at least, not that specific word. A lot of the phrases you've been using I haven't heard from anyone else. Also..”

My serious demeanor melted as my voice resonated with exasperation. “You were just humming megalovania my guy.” His rigid posture shattered as he erupted into boisterous laughter.

“Well shit! You caught me! Hahahah! To think, after months of searching, I find others like me in a place like this. If that ain't fate, I don't know what is! ” He flashed me a shit eating grin that shimmered in the dark. “The names Oldren.“ He stuck one pale white hand out of the cell, despite the sheer distance between our cells, I returned the gesture.

“I'm Max. This pseudo handshake reminds me of the covid times. Bad memories man…” He let out a much more contained laugh at that, still maintaining his massive grin. “Well, I guess I don't have a reason to stay here anymore.“ He quipped offhandedly.

“Say, what's your plan?” He asks as he stands up. He curled an eyebrow at me for a moment before breaking out into a myriad of stretches.

“Well, me and my ‘associate’ are just going around looking for clues and other dislocaters. Which is what I call otherworlders.” I clarified after a second of silence. I’ll make Lily’s existence a surprise for now.

“I like it. Well then, mastermind. What's your plan on getting out of here?”

“Well, I was going to wait for the guards to get me out of here so I could ambush them, but after your story I doubt we’ll be seeing them anytime soon.” He nods at that. “And I definitely can't break these bars, it's the first thing I tried. I'm actually not sure.. Maybe dig out the wall?”

I have no clue what metal the bars were made of, but those things were impossible to bend or break.

“Ah, I think I have a better plan than that.” He looks to the side and whispers to himself, though I pick it up regardless do to my ridiculous sense stat. “No reason to hold back then I suppose.” He crosses his arms, leaving his palms facing the bars with his fingers curved and splayed outward. “What are you-” I naturally cut myself off as Oldren’s arms unfold.

In an instant of bright golden flashes his arms become triple their diameter, and segmented into eight inch thick disks floating evenly apart. Bright yellow light flashes between the disks like lightning, and with a thunderous motion he grabs the opposite sides of the cell bars, and rips them sideways. With fingers outstretched, he drags the bars to the center until he has five bars in each of his massive robotic hands.

It looked like those old cartoons where the robot arms are just segmented pipes with hands at the end, except the segments were disconnected and floating. The metal was either dark gold or black, the chromatics seemed to change with every subtle shift in light.

“Ight, lets go.“ His voice rattled and vibrated, saturated with a slight echo. He stretched out his elongated hands towards my cell. I stood up right as his fingers disconnected and stretched to cover two of the bars. He clasped his hand and swung the two bars backwards with lethal force.

“What the hell is your class?“ His smile returns. “Let's just say… I'm a production class.”

Bruh.

We continued down the hallway with no movements to stop us. I made sure to memorize the path when I was brought down here, so I served as the guide. About ten minutes of winding hallways later and we come to a short ascending stairway.

I start going up the stairs after a moment of staring but stop when Oldren gets my attention. “Whoah, hold on. Shouldn't we like, make a game plan or something?” I look behind me quisicly. “What for?”

“What do you mea- there's gonna be tons of guards of there! We need a plan!” I twisted my head to the side like a dog in confusion. “... Just, do to the dwarves what you did to the metal bars? I don't understand the confusion, just start throwing people.”

“We can’t just kill people!”

“Why not?” He started sputtering at that, but I continued after a moment of thought.

“Plus, they're dwarves, not people. So~ it's fine?” That statement seemed to sober Oldren up as he dead panned. “That is definitely racist.”

“Hey, they were racist first.”

“That is besides the point. Actually, why are we debating the morality of murder? You know that we shouldn't, so why all the talk?”

“...Because murder is so much easier! I hate stealth missions! Lets just go in guns blazing, steal my stuff back, grab my associate and then leave.”

“See, this is why I wanted to make a plan. I had no idea about all that other stuff! This was poorly thought out.” I nodded in agreement. “Still, it's not like I actually said we should kill them, just for you to go in and knock 'em around a bit. They don’t have to die, it’d just be an unavoidable accident.”

He looked queasy at the thought. Ah, I see what's going on here. For one, this guy definitely still has morals and stuff, and two…

“Not a fan of fighting are you?“ I assert. He just sighs at that. “I'm a lover, not a fighter. Man, I just wanted to make cool stuff in peace, but now I'm caught up in this mess!” We both sighed heavily.

“I’d be more than happy to go in there myself, but I don't have a weapon. If I had a sword or something I could just slash their achilles tendon and be done with it. The only thing I can do now is punch, and let me tell you. The line between knocking someone out and turning their head into paste is getting uncomfortably thin.”

“Oh, I can make you a weapon.” He says easily. “It won't be very good because of time and material constraints, but it'll do.” He starts tapping the air in front of him, presumably accessing his status windows.

“What kind of weapon?”

“Short sword,” I said instantly.

I ended up leaning on the wall of the stairwell as he fiddled with his menus, shortly after un-transforming his arms. “So…. When are you actually gonna start making the sword? Or, how, for that matter?”

“I've been making it.” He broke into a bare bones explanation once he saw my blank face. “Listen, one of my skills is called ‘dimension refinery’ which basically lets me make stuff through the system, by shoving materials through this thing.” He waved his left hand and a small blue portal appeared. “I can also use it as an inventory, though I have to black list the items to make sure it doesn't get eaten by the skill during crafting.”

“And done. Here you go.” Another blue portal opened above his outstretched hand. A beautiful silver curved blade covered in spider webbing lines descended from the spatial disk. He took the short sword by its black handle and put his other hand above it. Iridescent lines erupted from his palm and swirled into runes and patterns that inscribed themselves onto the blade. He inspected it before tossing it to me.

I deftly caught it and did an inspection myself. I whipped around and cut the stone wall behind me. The blade went right through with minimal resistance, leaving a deep yet thin score in the wall. “You call this low quality? I've never seen a weapon this good before.” He was positively beaming with pride.

I exuded raw confidence as we strutted up the steps. Just like the rest of the prison, I was met with no guards. But not for long. A minute later we found a guard. One, singular guard. Before he could even breath in alarm I rushed behind him and slit his ankles, the silver knife going through the leg armor like paper.

“Wait a second, how is this supposed to take them out? I mean, they can’t move, sure. But he can still scream for help right?” The soldiers sucked in air for another pained screech so I clamped my hand over his mouth.

“ You're right. Plus, even with inoperable achilles tendons he could still crawl away. No, this is so I learn how to do it.” Oldren gestured for me to go on as I continued to wrestle with the angry dwarf. “Essentially, I don't actually know how to knock someone out, without blunt force trauma of course, so I'm using this as an opportunity to learn.”

But how, you may ask? Well it's moderately simple. Turns out, if I focus I can use [Adv Dismantling] on still living beings, though a degraded version. I'm actually not sure how, since it didn't mention that ability in the skill explanation.

Biology between humans and dwarves translates quite well. We both have an achilles, diaphragm, and carotid arteries. If you hit someone's diaphragm, even without super strength, you can knock all the air out of them, effectively stunning them or dropping them to the ground. A solid opener.

Hitting the carotid is basically the ‘neck chop’ employed by every fantasy anime protagonist. Except it's on the shoulder, not the neck. Another solid option is also the most well known one, that being choking. I actually know how to do that one thanks to my brother taking jiu jitsu, the art of folding clothes with people still in them.

By restricting air flow via compression of the neck, and one specific neck artery, the brain shuts off from lack of circulation, taking out your opponent non lethally and easily. The issue is that it takes a while, plus neck armor.

Despite my herculean strength, these dwarves know what they're doing metal wise. While I can still bend the armor, it takes a lot of effort and is very loud. Thus, the Carotid strike is my best option. It's easier to rip off shoulder armor then neck armor, and its alot faster. The issue is.. I've never done it before.

And thus, the captured dwarf. I stare at him pitifuly as I crack my knuckles and prepare for torture. Oldren looks mighty uncomfortable as I continue to smack into the dwarfs shoulder. I had long needed to move on to his left side as I had broken his collarbone on the right.

Oldren had pressed one of the tossed metal bars into the dwarves mouth to stop him from screaming. After twenty minutes of borderline torture, I finally do it right. The dwarf goes limp, and I check his breathing. Laborious, but still alive.

< Acquired skill: [Take Down] >

< [Take Down]- Provides knowledge on how to subdue an enemy. >

A very simple explanation, and a welcome one. Already I can feel the information flooding over my mind and filling gaps in my knowledge. My strategy was flawed, the fact my initial strike worked was by sheer luck, in fact, I'm half sure he passed out from the pain, but that won't be a problem any more.

In all that time, another guard actually had come, though Oldren quickly smashed him into a wall, mostly by accident. He doesn't seem completely adverse to fighting, but he’d rather avoid it if possible. To be fair, if I hadn’t gotten [Will] at the start I'd probably be of the same mind.

With a solid strategy, we began making our way forward. The corridor we were walking down was about eight feet wide, and twenty tall. The whole structure was made of the same dirty white brick as the prison walls, though these had much bigger glowing stones than below.

We came upon a section bordered by two guards, one on each wall. As they turned their heads, I left and sped towards the right one. I ripped his shoulder armor off and smashed my hand into his Carotid artery, feeling his collar bone snap like a school pencil. Woops. Well, at least he's not awake to feel it.

The other one brandished his halberd, which I simply grabbed the handle and ripped out his hands and threw towards Oldren. I reared back and “lightly” punched him in the head. The impact rattled him but didn’t put him out, which was my intension.

I opened up my still extended hand and wrenched his dented helmet off. I then strafed around him and started strangling him by locking my left arm against his neck. He put up a decent fight but started much too late to be more than an annoyance.

“By the way, I never asked, but how do you know where your stuff is?” Oldren ran up to me while still clutching the iron halberd.

“Ah, I have a tracking skill called [Seeking], and it lets me put trackers on stuff. When I got my stuff taken, I just put one on my mantle.” His eyes opened slightly wider at that. “Oh yeah, what is your class?” He asked while stuffing the halberd into his pocket dimension non committedly.

“I'm essentially a jack of all trades, but I lean more towards being a hunter. I've been trying to get into magic lately though.” He bobbed his head up and down. “Magic huh? Neat.”

“You're not as interested as I thought you would be.”

“Well, I've been wandering around this world for a while. I've seen my fair share of mages, though they're pretty damn rare. Most of the ones I've seen were apprentices, and I have to say. Magic seems like a major chore.”

“Well, you're right about that.” I glanced at my two mana related skills, both max level. I feel like there's no real point in ranking them up until I actually get access to a spell or two. Silence rang out and we quickly got ourselves together, and headed forth into the mess of endless halls.

Several more takedowns later, and the skill was already at level three. By now we had stumbled into much larger quarters and rooms. Finally, we came across the door that led to the gate. To the left was the actual gate, and to the right was dozens of guards and parties leading into the city.

“Okay.” I whispered “Outside this little area to the left and up a ways is some kind of building holding my stuff, as well as my associate. I'm guessing it's some kind of storage facility, mixed with a nicer jail? The thing is, I'm not sure how to cross this road without getting spotted.”

Oldren smiled. “Well, I know how I am gonna get across.” He held up an arm, which transitioned into that vibrating, golden metal. His hand instantly became robotic, and cubic. As if the metal was made out of legos or something, it was very alien. A wave of energy pulsed across the surface, and the entire thing blinked into non-existence.

“You can turn invisible? That's blatantly unfair.” He grinned at me as his entire body transmuted into the golden robotic state, quickly followed by the glassy wave. “Well, technically it's just turning transparent, not bending light, but it has the same effect.”

He waited for a group to pass by before leaving. The light caught his body slightly, forming a hardly recognizable rainbow sheen across his surface.

[Supplementation]? Speed.

I quickly adapted to the stat change and burst across the clearing. Not exactly a sophisticated method, but it seems to have worked. One of the younger looking guards looked bewildered, before shaking his head aggressively and resuming his eternal poker face along with the rest of the guards.

I got back next to Oldren and tapped him on the shoulder. He seemed shocked that I knew where he was, but then remembered my tracking skill. He shifted his metal flesh to semi-transparency, 20% opacity according to him. Making him look like a ghost yet giving me just enough to track his movements.

We walked along the sheet metal paths until we got to a small office. Or the front was small at least, while the back extended thousands of feet backwards. Oldren went fully invisible as I entered the office. A bell at the entrance rang and a dwarf smoking a crack pipe nodded his head at me lazily.

The dwarf folded his legs back under the table, and melted into a more professional posture. He donned a fake smile and collapsed his hands, expecting my business. Business was not what he received.

Instead, he had the pleasure of me flying at him. I used [Spring] to instantly accelerate myself towards him with my hands outstretched. I slammed into him with great force and immediately started choking him by putting pressure on his neck arteries. Before he could even gasp in surprise, he was out.

I stood up from within the small office and looked around for anything that would catch my eye. I zero in on a set of keys and snatch them before kicking open the door. Oldren materialized beside me before vanishing again.

In the back of the office was a huge storage room. At the very back there seemed to be some type of holding room, as I detected Lily within. I could also hear voices, though they were unnaturally muffled.

I roamed around the storage room until I eventually found my stuff in an uncaring pile on a high shelf. I brought it down and began donning my gauntlets, shin guards and cape. I noticed that my knife was nowhere to be found, while my bow was discarded into a pile of trash.

I lassoed my bow onto my shoulder after doing a quality check. Then, I equipped my quiver, which suspiciously had none of my master arrows. My knives were gone as well.

“Wow, this equipment is…” Good? “-Terrible.” oh.

“Whoever sold you this was praying on your downfall. How have you even survived for two months with this shotty gear?” I hit him with a middle finger, which made him genuinely confused. “Wha, I-”

“I made it dumbass!” I almost shouted at him, but managed to hold back at the last second. The comment really had hurt too, considering the quality of the knife he made. He made a vastly superior product than anything I've made, in a fraction of the time, and then called it ‘make-shift’. That sort of comparison would hurt anyone.

I stifled my bruised ego, and tried to move along. I've got a child to save after all. I told him it's whatever and then gestured towards the door at the far end. I'm not sure why they put the rooms at the very end of the storage part, it seems inefficient to me.

We got to the door and I kicked it down. Bright light flooded into the otherwise dimly lit storage room. Within the cell an interrogation was clearly taking place, with a familiar form slumped over and tied to a metal chair.

In front of the chair was a shiny metal desk, with a very bright and swingable light hanging over. Behind the desk stood a very slender and tall man with a black mustache and a very punchable face. Two guards clad in plate armor and metal halberds jerked in place before rushing at us.

The first guard charged with the spear part of the halberd. I deftly dogged to the side and grabbed the long handle near the blade. I pulled and ripped it out of his hands and threw it to the side. The dwarf was unbalanced as a result, so I smashed into his back armor from above, slamming him into the ground.

The other guard was coming from behind me now, and I actually got a small prick of danger as he aimed for my head in a wide arc. He missed, of course, so i twisted around violently and shoved the shiny knife right into his stomach, piercing the armor like paper, before tearing upwards viciously. Blood spurted from the wound as the knight collapsed backwards onto the floor with a heavy thud. Not quite dead, but soon.

Without wasting a second, I cut the rope binding lily with a wide downwards slash. I looked at the bars to my upper left, to see her stamina below one third and blinking red. Several conditions showed on her status, like exhausted, unconscious, dehydrated and starved.

The spindly and pale man was screaming in barely understood tongues, though I needn't understand the language to know his plight. Lily's state had driven me to rage, causing me to lash out at the obvious interrogator. My strength was so great, and his skull so flimsy, that his head exploded from the impact, painting the wall red as his body slumped to the ground like a sack of potatoes, his jaw still hanging open from where it dangled on his neck.

I took Lily’s limp body in my arms, and began walking out of the room. Before we left I made sure to have Oldren carry Lily’s backpack. As we exited the holding office I noticed large swaths of footsteps headed our way.

“Looks like our cover is blown. Escape plan?” Oldren had somewhat of a dark expression on his face, but he didn't let his emotion leak into his reply. “I’d say over the wall is our best bet. With your movement skills it should be a piece of cake.” I shake my head.

“The wall is too high for me to go up in one bound, if I could use my skill all five times then I could probably clear it, but there aren't any foot holds that I can see.”

“I can make you some platforms.” Oldren explained, and he began fiddling with his status. The footsteps drew closer, and after fifteen seconds, Oldren summoned another portal and drew out a large metal stake. Halfway down the dull silver stake thick and sturdy fletching expanded out of the sides for about six inches.

“I'll make a few more, and you throw them into the wall, then jump onto them in succession.” He stops for a moment and looks at me pointedly. “Of course, that's under the assumption that you actually can do that.”

“Uhhhhhh, rain check, we need to go.” I dodged a volley of arrows and began making a break for the wall, which was a moderate distance away. As we ran, I beckoned Oldren for one of the iron stakes.

I passed Lily to him mid run and caught the iron stake simultaneously. I began running calculations before finding a small problem.

Okay, if I jump with all my strength and with [Spring] I can get around 200 feet in the air. Every brick in that wall was around eight inches tall, so that means… Wait, how tall is the wall?

“Oldren, how tall is the wall?”

“I DONT FUKIN KNOW!!!”

“OKAY DAMN! No need to yell.”

Okay uhhhh… if Oldren makes five stakes, I'll just split the wall into five parts and throw the stakes at every interval. I hope my aim is good enough. Actually, I think my strength is more of an issue.

“Okay, I've made six, including that one.” He nodded his head toward the one I had hefted on my shoulder. Well, I'll just treat this one as an extra. We stopped and I prepared to throw. I called on [Sharp Shot] to the best of my ability. Aim… and fire!

I threw the first stake with explosive force. It sailed through the air like a missile, eventually gravity took its hold and it began curving in the air. The missile pinged into the wall only a few yards off where I wanted to the side. But then, it fell to the ground. My throw was not nearly powerful enough to send it deep into the wall, it was embedded only a few inches in, enough to give me false hope before plummeting to the ground.

Oldren looked at me concerned as he watched the iron stake plummet, and as we were getting close to the wall. Soon, I wouldn't be able to throw them at all. Ight, I didn't want to do this, but clearly I'm not strong enough. All spare stat points to strength, and shift [Supplementation] as well.

< [Supplementation] Experience threshold Reached. Lv15 -> Lv16>

Strength 80

< Applying [Supplementation]... >

Strength 96 (+16)

I noticed a large backlog of notifications, but decided to ignore it for now. I need to focus.

“Okay, the next five are done! I applied them with wind resistance enchantments, so they should fly better!” I took the next iron stake and aimed. I took a deep breath before hurling the stake with all my might. The air formed into a shockwave that displaced a huge cloud of dust. The missile blurred before sinking deep into the wall, right where I wanted with only small deviation.

I successfully landed the next two stakes, going higher and higher up the wall. By this point we were getting close enough that I wouldn't be able to throw them anymore, but I still had another minute. Of course, we could run much faster, but we were only trying to outpace the furious guards behind us, we weren't actually making a break for it.

I activated [Sharp Shot] once again, but I got a strong feeling of rejection. The third shot had been a narrow miss, but the skill was adamant this time, I could not land the shot. The solution was simple, I just called upon my will to strengthen my body even more.

< [Existential Empowerment] Activated. Target: [Supplementation]. Skill level has been temporarily increased. >

< Empowered [Supplementation] has hit the Level limit. Skill will temporarily exceed its limits. Cooldown will be tripled. >

< Due to the stat: Strength surpassing 100, the overload skill: [{Concussive Blast}] has been temporarily acquired >

< Concussive blast- Your movements displace air with such ferocity your attacks become ranged! >

Strength 111 (+16)(+15)

With my body still adapting to the base stat change, and the extra layers of strength tacked on top, I could feel the strain breaking my muscles apart, but still, I prevailed. My next throw was successful, and the one after less so. But it had to be enough. We had reached the wall, and the end of our rope.

Oldren was clearly not built for this, his chest heaving and sweat flooding his face, but he pressed forward without complaint. I had effectively put myself on a timer. Oldren passed Lily to me and I executed my first [Spring] to the iron stake.

Right before my jump, I saw Oldren shift his arms, the golden energy whirled and transmuted his flesh to metal. It didn’t quite liquify, in fact, his arms seemed to fly apart, like a reverse lego time lapse. The golden pieces converged where his hands used to be, eventually forming into giant picks. Similar spikes formed on his transformed feet as well, and he began climbing up the wall surprisingly fast.

I used spring to get onto my third stake when the arrows came. Most of them missed, but a few had come very close to nipping my flesh. I would have fired back if I hadn’t been holding lily. I executed my second last leap once my next charge had filled. The toll of my skills and prolonged stamina use was starting to get to me.

It reminded me of my battle with the ants. Instead of the relatively slight but constant use of stamina, I had been forced to give up large chunks as time went on, with not an ounce of reprieve. It's not like [Existential Empower] really had a time limit, but it became obvious that after a certain threshold it became much more taxing to maintain. I had just passed that threshold.

My vision swam and I rocked slightly on the stake. My stamina had gone below one fifth and was now flashing, the number had grown bright red. Critical, but not fatal. Oldren was about halfway up the wall at this point. It seems he transmuted his back into metal, judging by the arrows sticking out of his back and no obvious signs of impediment.

I jumped once again onto the fifth stake, the distance upwards shorter than all the previous. I vowed to take a proper break, until I felt the stake shift from under me. Upon inspection, it seemed that this stake only went in about half as much as the others. Still enough to stick, but not to hold my weight for any amount of time.

A cold wash of dread slithered down my back as the stake began to slide out of the wall. I had no choice but to push [Existential Empower] even harder. The strain became unbearable, my muscles screamed for a break, but the rapidly slipping iron stake invalidated that plea.

I couldn't take more energy from the skill, that was limited by the level. But what I could do was manipulate the energy itself. Instead of evenly spreading the energy across my body, I kept the energy on my lower half and redirected it to [Spring].

The efficiency was horrible, 80% of it lost in translation. But I managed to push out those extra few seconds for the cooldown, and that was all I could ask for. I focused everything on that skill, every ounce of strength on that last leap. I jumped.

The stake fell to the ground as I rocketed upward. I drifted on top of the wall, but had no energy left to control my fall. I clutched Lily as tight as I could, and spent my last whispers of energy shifting my body midair to land on my back. The fall crushed my spine and forced me unconscious, every last drop of energy depleted.

Soon Oldren was spotted climbing on top of the wall. He panted hard on all fours while sweat dripped onto the wall. He spotted Max and Lily a few yards away and shambled towards them. After checking and making sure they were both alive, he breathed a sigh of relief and passed out onto the wall, only a few feet from the other two.

Despite the ingenuity of the dwarves, they had no way to get to the top of their walls. Thought to be impassable, they had developed no such contingency. What a folly. The now trio would soon wake and be confused at their surroundings, but that's for another day.

No, I have something else to show you.