Chapter Two-Hundred

Loopshard

Adam hadn’t realised how much it could hurt to be paralysed. All over his body, his skin felt like it was pumped full of needles, and the gentle breeze filled his body with pain every time it passed over him. His eyes had been open at the time the affliction hit and they were now so dry that his vision was blurry and itchy, making him wish he could scratch his eyeballs. He had assumed that being paralysed meant also being numbed to pain, but clearly the System was not that merciful. When their death came, it would be truly cruel.

The light waned with the setting sun, turning the clouds amber and pink in the bit of sky he saw as a blurry smear. Every second that passed felt long and excruciating, and the wind kept his mind from drifting off, as its every graze lit up the needles in his skin.

Beck had described some of the tainted animals that would appear at night, and while Adam recalled his words, he thought about how they hadn’t spotted a single animal while travelling halfway across the stage. There were some simple melodies in the far distance that Adam thought might belong to the wolves and dogs that Beck had been particularly insistent on watching out for.

The shadow bird still seems the scariest of the bunch.

It likely wouldn’t mind snacking on us given our predicament.

Since he could do nothing else, Adam focused on the melodies, finally feeling like he was making headway with his blood sense mastery. Where once those several kilometres away had been a blur, he was now able to sift through them and pick out individual ones. He could even pinpoint the priest in Old Town, who carried a mix of worry about the encroaching shadow and excitement about the rekindled fire.

His team nearby were filled with feelings of terror, despair, resignation, hope, and frustration. He knew their melodies well enough to tell which feelings belonged to whom, and it was surprising that the pessimistic and negative Natalia was the one whose melody seemed the most upbeat, since she had a hope burning within her, though it was surrounded by a lot of annoyance. Diwa had completely given in to her fear of dying, and her mind was consumed by the terror about how her death would manifest; Chien had resigned himself to his coming death with a sense of finality in his melody; and Seo-Yoon was frustrated and angry with the turn of events, blaming herself for not realising what Heiner had been up to.

A grunt broke Adam’s concentration and he focused on the melody that had suddenly changed. Strained sounds and muffled dragging came from close by, but Adam had no way to show he was still alive.

Natalia pulled herself into Adam’s view. She was dragging her body forward using her right arm and leg. Her hand pulled on the grass for support, while the entire left side of her body was still mostly paralysed.

“Loot,” she rasped, her voice warped by her uncooperative muscles.

[You cannot loot Players who are still alive,] her cube told her.

She looked closer at Adam, then her gaze shifted to Diwa, Chien, and Seo-Yoon. “How are they all alive? Didn’t the paralysis affect their hearts and lungs?”

That’s actually a very good question, Adam realised.

[In the Trials of Defiance, Players only die when their Health reaches 0.]

“I thought you said some things were fatal regardless,” she mumbled.

[The Paralysis affliction does not prevent Players from breathing, it does not stop their hearts from beating, and their brains do not suffer.]

“That makes no sense,” she replied.

She looked back at Adam.

The melody that passed through her made him worried.

Natalia was contemplating killing him.

She wants my loot.

She got closer to him and put a hand on his neck. Just then it dawned on Adam that his raiment had been deactivated by Heiner’s paralysis venom. Natalia’s touch burned him, as if it was slick with flesh-dissolving acid and covered in hair-thin needles.

“You’re still alive, Adam. I can feel your pulse,” she said. Her speech was becoming less slurred with every word, but he was struggling to pay attention with the searing pain on his neck.

Once she removed her hand, he felt himself able to think again.

I wonder if the others feel this too. I’ve never experienced pain like this before.

Natalia has some way of resisting the paralysis. It’s not very fast, but it’s better than having no resistance at all…

Adam was starting to wonder if the mantle of atrophy had backfired by lowering his antivenom stat, though he also wondered if antivenom’s effect would even have worked against something like paralysis.

Maybe if it was high enough, only part of my body would be paralysed?

“What should I do?” Natalia asked him. The brief thought of looting him already passed, and Adam took it as a good sign. She looked around. “Don’t you all talk over each other, I can hardly hear myself think.”

She sighed.

Throw the ritualist into the lake, Adam thought, wishing he had the ability to speak.

“I don’t think I can carry any of you, but I could probably drag you to Silt. I can see it from here. It would have to be one by one though.”

She looked around again, finally noticing the ritualist’s corpse.

“I should get rid of this first, shouldn’t I?” she asked.

She pulled out her katana and moved over to where it had fallen, outside of Adam’s view, with two flesh-shaped hands still wrapped about it. Natalia’s left leg was unthawing slowly, but her arm was still unresponsive and limp.

A grunt preceded a series of quick whooshing swings, and then something thudded down onto the grass. A few moments later, Natalia dragged it across the ground. A huff followed by a splash told Adam that she’d tossed the body into the lake. A second smaller splash followed soon after, and he assumed it was the ritualist’s head.

From the depths of the lake, the same melody that’d appeared when Heiner had been eaten came up towards the new treat, and it attacked the corpse with a violent crash of water.

Natalia gasped. “There’s a huge shark in the lake!” she exclaimed. “I think it ate Heiner earlier.”

She threw something else in the water, and it took Adam a second to realise it had to be one of the sculpted hands that’d held the ritualist. He only just then realised that he couldn’t feel his connection to the mana. Either it had vanished completely, or it required some physical part of him to sense, which, like his System-granted powers had ceased to function.

Another splash told Adam that she’d thrown the other hand in as well. A moment later the shark returned, devouring both.

“It’s like the size of a bus,” Natalia muttered.

We’ve gotta kill it and burn its remains. Both the ritualist and Heiner are inside it, and the Forlorn Shadow can resurrect them both as knights. Heiner would especially be difficult to fight, since he can fly and has two powerful ranged weapons…

When Natalia came back into Adam’s blurred view of the world, her arm was no longer limp and her movements were almost completely back to normal.

“Now the question is, do I bring you to Silt one by one, or do I try to look for potions to cure you?”

Option one, definitely.

“You’re right, let’s take a vote on it. Those in favour of me dragging you all to Silt, raise your hand.”

She lifted Adam’s arm and the sudden pain from the needles in his skin was so immense that he passed out.

Adam awoke to brief glimpses of searing screaming agony, as his body was dragged across the sandy ground to the village of Silt. Every movement felt like his skin was being torn off in strips and cold metal rods fired into his bones and organs.

He passed out repeatedly.

When Adam finally returned to full consciousness and wasn’t engulfed in the most indescribable pain possible, he was looking up at the mouldy and decaying wooden ceiling of some hut. An old lady with approximately three teeth in her mouth was looking down at him, breathing foul air into his face as she examined his paralysed body. Her dark-grey hair was pulled into a braid and her sagging wrinkly face was almost the same colour, but her brown eyes were sharp despite her apparent old age.

A clunk and dragging sound pulled her attention up. It was Natalia returning with Seo-Yoon.

“Exactly how many are ye bringing to me?” she asked.

“Two more,” Natalia replied.

“Aye…” The old woman looked down at Adam again. “Yer lucky yiz were close by, I reckon. The lake’s not right at all, lately. Fish and eels pulling themselves out the water nightly, quite a sight to behold, that.”

< < Quest Unlocked > >

< Tainted Fish >

< Discover the source of the Silt Lake's tainted fish >

< < Optional Stage Objective > >

< Help the Fishermen in Silt >

This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

Are you fucking kidding me!? A quest!? Now??

Oh, sure! Don’t worry, lady, we’ll get right on it! Natalia and the four quadriplegics will solve your mystery in record time!

Adam waited for Natalia’s return while the old woman continued talking to him. He desperately hoped she wouldn’t touch him, but unfortunately those who could not speak for themselves had no say, and just her finger poking his neck for a pulse felt like a knife being hammered into his flesh, sending ripples of agonising pain out across the rest of his body.

Relief washed over him when she moved on to Seo-Yoon.

After some time, which he thought was maybe twenty minutes, Natalia came back with Diwa, her arrival announced by a clunk and dragging sound. Adam was quite sure the loud clunk was produced by whoever she was dragging having their head smacked against the doorframe to the building she was bringing them to.

However, Diwa’s melody didn’t register the pain of the hit nor the agony of being dragged, making Adam certain that he alone felt excruciating pain while paralysed.

Natalia left to fetch Chien, who was the last person, and Adam came to a horrifying realisation.

What I’m feeling must be my ‘normal’ senses.

The Flayed Lady’s ‘gift’ has just made sure I couldn’t feel them. Being paralysed must’ve affected that part of her inside me, just as it affected my System powers. And without it, my body is filled with piercing agony.

Because of what I’ve done to it. Because of how I’ve warped and transformed it.

Is it even my real body anymore?

I can’t remember.

It raised a more serious concern.

Since it is clearly my body that goes in back in time when I reach a new universe, and not just my mind supplanting itself inside an alternate me, will that mean that looping won’t get rid of this pain? After all, my muscle memory remains intact each time…

The prospect worried him a lot.

The Flayed Lady’s power was like a drug. Potent and addicting, but the withdrawals would devastate his mind and body.

Worshipping her was truly dangerous, no matter what payment the Tome Keeper gives me in return for my countless sacrifices.

Natalia eventually returned with Chien, producing another clunk.

“That’s it then?” the old lady asked.

“That’s all of them,” Natalia answered. “So, you have the potions?”

“Sure you can afford ‘em, missy?” she asked. “It’s 3,000 Silvers per. These things are not exactly cheap to brew.”

Natalia’s melody soured. “We don’t have that much,” she replied.

“How much do yer have?”

“Let me check,” Natalia said and went over to Adam, pulling off his backpack and rummaging through it for their coins. All of their money was inside, but they’d only be able to get one of whatever potions the old woman was selling.

Natalia quickly came to the same realisation.

“Can’t you just give me the extra three and we’ll bring you the money later?” she asked and pulled something out that Adam assumed were Red Rian’s daggers. “We’re handing these in for 10,000 Silvers. We won’t cheat you, and I really need my team back to normal.”

“In better times I would perhaps have been charitable, but I cannae trust a stranger with something so valuable. I only have five and others may need ‘em,” the old woman replied.

Natalia contemplated robbing the woman, but then she dropped the idea and let out a sigh.

“I’ll buy one for now, but earmark three more for me.”

“Aye,” the woman replied and a clinking sound came from nearby as she rummaged around for what Natalia was buying.

Once the money had been exchanged for the potion, Natalia came over to where Adam lay, staring up at the ceiling.

“I’m trusting you, Adam,” she said.

The sound of a cork being pulled out from a flask followed and then Natalia grabbed his lips, setting fire to his face with her touch. She poured an oily liquid into his mouth, and as it flowed down his throat, the pain was like he’d swallowed molten metal filled with shards of exploding glass.

[Antidote consumed! Curing all Afflictions.]

Adam quickly felt the pain permeating his body mellow out and disappear behind a comforting blanket of numbness.

With a loud gasp, he shot upright, covering his dried-out eyes against the glare of a nearby lamp.

“Fuck,” he groaned. “That might be the worst thing I’ve ever experienced.”

He took the backpack from Natalia’s hands and shoved the daggers back inside. “I’ll go to Old Town immediately.”

“If you run off like Heiner, I’ll kill you,” Natalia said.

Adam looked at her for a moment. “I’d never betray someone who saved my life,” he said and meant it.

Then he stumbled out through the door to the potion lady’s shop and pulled on his body to fly himself back to where they’d all been paralysed. It was dark as soot beyond the village’s lights and he worried the shadow bird would hunt him down since he was alone, but he needed to get back the material of his raiment before the Forlorn Shadow turned it into another amalgamated knight.

Once he landed next to the four horses, he quickly located his discarded blood, flesh, and bone. He spun up Beckoning Crimson before activating kingly raiment, rebuilding his protective armour and feeling slightly better about venturing out alone.

Adam’s attention shifted to the horses.

Leaving them here means they’ll be killed and eventually turned into tainted animals. They’re not worth getting potions to save either, since those are limited in supply and expensive.

It felt truly cruel to kill something that couldn’t even move or respond to pain, but Adam knew it was the only solution, aside from feeding them to the lake shark, which would be truly messed-up.

Once the horses were dead, he absorbed them into his raiment, and then he flew off to Old Town, going as fast as he could to outpace any of the Shadow’s monsters lurking in the dark. The light of the moon didn’t do much to guide him, so he relied almost entirely on his blood sense to bring him to safety.

The moment he landed inside the lit streets of Old Town, Adam breathed a heavy sigh of relief. He had no deep attachment to this particular loop, though he wanted to support Beck as best he could and help the others stay alive, but the thought of dying while being paralysed and feeling all pain amplified a hundred times was something he feared.

A small mercy for those who were tortured to death was that they got to find closure in the end.

Adam had no such luxury. A truly bad death would permanently scar him and could be an obstacle for his future progress. An obstacle that could lead to the permanent loss of his memories if he failed to fulfil the System’s requirements to reach stage five every loop.

Dying to Nwetrou’s gaze in the abyss had been a terrible way to go, but it had been quick.

Dying to the Forlorn Shadow’s tainted animals while paralysed might have taken hours.

From now on I’m keeping as many affliction wards on me as I can carry.

I had no idea a simple uncommon venom could be that dangerous.

I really can’t believe Heiner thought up such a devious strategy. It seems almost out of character.

Adam thought back to how Heiner had initially tried to bring his charming power to bear on them, perhaps in some attempt to rule over the group and make the stage easier, or perhaps for some far darker and disturbing purpose.

I wonder what went through his head though.

Then Adam recalled the way he’d been looking at his ring moments before attacking them.

Could the demon relic really be that corrupting?

Maybe it promised him a way to survive?

Or maybe it’s the Flayed Lady interfering with me again. She may have caught on to me attempting to break free from her, and to block me she warped Heiner to betray us.

Adam would find no answers in his speculations, so he pushed the thoughts aside for now. There were more pressing concerns, though he hoped to find answers soon, such that he could avoid similar betrayals in the future.

The first thing Adam did was get the attention of a guard in the market plaza. Most of the shops were closed and the stalls stood empty, but a couple of guards with lanterns still kept a watchful eye on the area.

He went over and showed them Red Rian’s daggers. To their credit, they recognised the weapons immediately and led Adam to their captain, a man by the name of Tabian. He praised Adam for his work and handed him the reward money on the spot.

Like with the golden nail weapon, the daggers reappeared in front of the guard captain.

< < Secret Weapon Obtained > >

< Red Rian’s Fangs (Uncommon) — The blood-drinking knives of the Bandit Lord known as Red Rian >

< Blooddrinker — The damage of bleeding-type Afflictions is increased with every second they are active on a target, up to a total of 500% after 4 minutes >

It comes equipped with an evolution effect from the start, despite only being uncommon?

There are quite a few unique bleed afflictions, so making a build around this effect could be very potent, especially since many of those bleeds are either based on weapon damage or total health.

Coupled with the scoundrel’s glove’s haemorrhage effect, it might actually be possible to kill targets with a single affliction.

“Send them back to my Player House,” he told his cube.

[It is not possible to perform that action with Red Rian’s Fangs. The weapons must be equipped if you wish to bring them with you.]

Adam paused, looking closer at the red glow of the blades.

“Are these knives cursed?” he asked his cube.

[I cannot say.]

It said the same thing about the Golden Prince, so they’ve gotta be cursed. That explains the powerful effect…

Adam looked at the guard captain. “Would you mind disposing of these knives?”

“Indeed,” he replied. “Red Rian’s legacy must not go on, and much of his evil work was done with these weapons. I shall find a way to destroy them safely.”

“Thank you,” Adam told him.

I’m not letting one of the others become cursed again…

After leaving the guard station and the captain behind, Adam went to the church and met with the priest. He was unable to enter the building because it was permeated with holy magic, thanks to the golden flame inside the central brazier.

“I was worried you would not return,” the priest said. “Where are the others?”

“They are somewhere else,” Adam replied. “We need you to give us a true flame. Preferably in some kind of box to prevent its power from leaking out.”

And preventing me getting turned into a sizzling vampire roast.

“There is a matter I would like your aid with,” the priest said, not at all in a hurry to accommodate Adam’s request. “The city of Gothershall lies much closer to the invading Shadow and a true flame would aid them in their coming defence. I would like you to bring the first flame to them.”

Adam nodded. “Of course.”

< < Quest Updated > >

< Carry the Flame >

< Bring a True Flame to the city of Gothershall >

Father Adam went inside the church and found a lantern made of dark metal that, instead of glass walls, had panels to lock away whatever was placed inside, until they were pulled open. With a simple gesture, the priest severed a piece from the golden flame and placed it inside the metal box. He sealed it and returned to where Adam waited outside.

The aura of the holy flame was much reduced while trapped in an enclosed space, but it wasn’t a perfect seal, making it dangerous for Adam to hold with his own hands. As such, he pulled the raiment gauntlet off of his left hand and floated it out to grasp the handle atop the box.

“Once unsealed, the flame will go to where it is needed most,” the priest explained.

Sounds like that makes it hard to use.

But Beck didn’t say anything about it, so it’s probably more intuitive than it seems.

With the box floating out in front of him, Adam flew back to the village of Silt, braving the dark night once more.

Tainted and foul melodies flared to life around and below him as he shot his body across the landscape outside Old Town, but none were quick enough to catch up to him.

In his mind’s eye, Adam imagined the Forlorn Shadow’s reaching arms trying to grab and devour him, and for good measure he added a zigzagging pattern to his flight, hoping to not be a predictable prey.

When the lights of Silt came into view, Adam breathed a sigh of relief and brought himself back down to where Natalia had brought them all.

Like the old woman had said, there were tainted melodies of creatures pulling themselves out of the lake. The same rhythm rolled through them all, like the beat of a drum to dictate the speed of their march.

Natalia came outside the house the moment she noticed his return, and the melodies of the others, who were still paralysed within, filled with relief and hope.

“I’ve got the money,” Adam said and handed the sack of 10,000 Silvers to her.

“Thank you,” she replied with a smile. “I’m glad I could count on you.”

“Of course,” Adam said. “You saved our lives, so we all owe you a lot.”

Natalia ran back inside the building. “Wake up, granny! I’ve brought the rest of the money as promised.”

Adam looked at the metal box he’d brought with him. They’d be able to get another flame once dawn broke, and because of that, he was curious to try something that Natalia had theorised about the Old Vow.

He pulled off the ring and used a disconnected finger to float it towards the box, making sure to move far enough away from the building that the true flame’s aura wouldn’t hit Diwa inside. Then he backed as far away as possible while keeping the black metal box inside his manipulation range, and with the floating gauntlet he pulled the lid open slightly and inserted the ring, before closing it again.

The aura around the box diminished, at least as far as he could tell. Then, suddenly, the holy magic was pulled inward, all of the energy leaking from the box vanishing.

Adam pulled open the panel and saw that the golden flame had disappeared entirely.

The Old Vow lay within, glowing hot and with a bright golden hue to its metal. Where there had been a flat surface with the carving of a flame was now a brilliant orange-golden gem.

With the floating finger, he brought the ring towards him, but it exuded a slight holy aura about itself, making it clear he wouldn’t be able to wear it on his hand without taking damage.

< < Secret Relic Obtained > >

< The True Flame’s Oath (Rare) — The Prince desired that which was by birthright the inheritance of his older brother. He took the Shadow into his own being and shattered the Kingdom’s oaths and promises. Now he sits, atop his forlorn throne, waiting for the Shadow to consume him fully. Only by the light of a True Flame may the Forlorn Shadow be truly banished | Resist the Forlorn Shadow’s attempts to control you | Imbue your weapon with the Oath’s power and launch a Cross of the True Flame to drive away all shadows. 24-hour cooldown >

Adam read the description, at first marvelling at the special ability, until he realised the cost.

I shouldn’t have done that.

I really shouldn’t have done that.

They would have to face the Forlorn Shadow in battle. The ring would make that fate inevitable.