Too Stubborn to Die

Book 4: Chapter 17

Passing through chambers of compacted trash, Aaron knew he was getting closer to his goal as his stomach began to rumble, and he increased his speed.

This had gone on long enough, and it was about time he completed this quest. But most importantly, he worried about the others.

Passing through one chamber and into the next, he found the menacing robot waiting for him, just like before.

He was a little distracted, though. Perhaps so much exposure to the corruption was starting to get to him, because he had developed an insatiable hunger for bacon and eggs. Like it was the only thing he could think of. Just piles of the stuff. And he could imagine himself shoveling it into his mouth by the bucketload.

And that was precisely when the attack came. Out of nowhere, the blindly fast robot swung at him, and he actually took a hit, dislodging his jaw. Luckily, Aaron wasn’t so easy to kill, and it was just the thing he needed to wake him up.

But it was surprising. Even with his incredible mental fortitude, the corruption had started to weave its way into him over the relatively short period of time it had taken him to hunt down all three seeds.

He threw himself into action, dodging and phasing. He wasn’t planning to spend as much time training against this robot as he had the previous two. But he did take a few minutes to weave everything together.

It was one thing to practice his new techniques individually, and another entirely to use them as he would normally in a fight. And he bounced around, dodging and phasing as he would normally.

Even for Aaron, it was rather surprising how quickly he had integrated the new techniques. It came so naturally to dodge, and then use his phasing as a backup to avoid attacks he couldn’t escape. Then again, he had been doing this for a while now.

And the more he used his new anchors alongside his improved phasing, the better he got at integrating them, and the efficiency of all his techniques improved. He wasted less energy and was faster at chaining Skills and styles together.

This was on full display as he bounced around, phasing through lasers and various other attacks as he closed the distance in a split second, and deactivated the robot with a bullseye punch against its energy generator.

Hastily, he stashed both the robot and the seed into his storage and looked back toward the way he had come.

Finally, he could feel the difference. There was no more corruption seeping into this world, and he felt himself regaining control over his appetite.

However, it was far from perfect, and for some reason, he still wanted bacon and eggs. He could feel the sensation weakening, but it was taking its time.

“Huh, interesting. These seeds are trouble.”

That thought didn’t last long, though. He couldn’t linger on such things, and the seeds were safe in his storage. He needed to keep moving, but now that everything had quieted down, he realized it was kind of weird that he had no quest notifications.

Even if the corruption seeds had been a hidden secondary objective, he would have thought that something directly related to his quest would provide a System notification when he dealt with it. Assuming Mr. Fake was telling the truth.

Aaron got a bad feeling that he had been duped. But it wasn’t so much the run around that bothered him. It was more the thought that he might have to defeat whatever powerful monster was in the orb.

But that doesn’t make sense, either…

There was no way the second stage of this dungeon could expect them to defeat a C-grade monster. He doubted anybody would be able to do that. And so if the seeds hadn’t actually weakened it, how were they expected to move onto the next floor?

Aaron Dober: @Kim Soohyun, @Talia Rhineheart, I’m done down here. Coming up.

Aaron wasn’t too worried about giving himself away. In fact, if the royal guards came looking for a fight, he was quite happy to provide one.

Kim Soohyun: @Talia Rhineheart, @Aaron Dober, Hey! I got through the mirror maze! Wanna meet outside the orb? Me and Talia are here waiting for you! Come asap!

Aaron groaned as he saw the text.

What the hell is she thinking? I thought I made it clear that there are dangerous people around. She’s going to get herself killed!

He wondered what to do. If he said he was coming, he would be broadcasting his intentions to everybody. But he couldn’t just say nothing. Soohyun had turned herself into a sitting duck and painted a massive target on her back. And who knew who was planning to take advantage of that?

Aaron Dober: @Talia Rhineheart, @Kim Soohyun, Soohyun, get out of there and sit tight! Find somewhere to hide. I’ll come find you! You too, Talia!

Talia Rhineheart: @Kim Soohyun, @Aaron Dober, You heard her, Aaron. We’re here waiting for you!

“What? Not you too, Talia. Dammit! It’s not the corruption messing with their minds, is it?”

Kim Soohyun: @Talia Rhineheart, @Aaron Dober, Find us? We’re right here. It’s super easy to find us! I’m right here outside the orb waiting for you! You can’t miss us!

Aaron facepalmed. How obvious did he need to make it? If this kept up, these women were going to get them all killed. Well, maybe not all of them. But he certainly didn’t want the ants getting to them before he got there.

Aaron Dober: @Kim Soohyun, it’s not safe, Soohyun! Tell her, Talia. Tell her about the royal guards! Get out of there and wait for me! Remember, I said be careful!

Kim Soohyun: @Talia Rhineheart, @Aaron Dober, Don’t worry about it, Aaron. We’re both here. It’s perfectly safe. Trust me. Cya soon!

Talia Rhineheart: @

Kim Soohyun, @Aaron Dober, Sure is. Don’t worry so much. There’s nobody around.Aaron groaned. It seemed he wasn’t getting through to them, and he was just wasting time with this back-and-forth messaging.

In an instant, he shot back toward the shaft leading up to the chamber. He couldn’t waste another minute.

He needed to get back, and he needed to do it fast.

***Talia***

The moment Talia had cleared the mirror maze, she had found Soohyun waving her down. Not long after that, Soohyun had explained her plan.

Unlawfully taken from NovelBin, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

She wanted to use global chat to try to get the ants to attack the two men in the following cavern. Talia had been a little hesitant at first. She knew the royal guards were no joke, and she doubted those two creepy dudes stood much of a chance against them.

But if they sounded stupid enough to Aaron, there was a pretty good chance he would come rushing back. And with any luck, the two men would drain the royal guards down a little, and the three of them could finish the job.

And now, all they had to do was watch and wait.

The three of them, alongside Zero, spied from the tunnel, masked by Talia’s shadows. It was a pretty decent plan, all things considered. Except, it started to bother her that the two men were just standing there. Surely they had seen the messages too, and even if they were happy to fight them, she wondered why they weren’t setting up an ambush. She already knew they were rogues and employed deception well.

“Nice shadows, girlie,” came a sour voice from the cavern, and the little man turned toward them. “But you should have realized by now that I, too, work with the shadows.”

Alarm bells rang through Talia’s head. Had she actually given them away by using the Skill?

Suddenly, the little man started to suck in air, and the shadows were drawn toward him like a human vacuum. “I can’t make shadows like you, but I can do other things!” He declared.

“Oh, I like it. Good job, Arthur! Now I see the pretty girls. They can’t hide from us!” The balding mental mage said, licking his lips.

Suddenly, the world turned into waves of colors bashing against each other. Laughing clowns swam like dolphins through the water, splashing in and out as colors filled every inch of Talia’s vision.

Not good.

She had experienced this before, and Talia knew exactly what had happened. She wasted no time activating her shadows and pouring a stupid amount of mana into them. Power flooded into the Skill, and it spread far and fast, turning the entire cavern dark.

Breaking his line of sight had weakened the creepy bald dude’s power, but it hadn’t broken it. Once he had formed a mental connection, it wasn’t severed so easily, and the mental assaults continued, confusing Talia with melting and spinning colors.

With no bearing on her surroundings, Talia had only one option: to fly backward through the tunnel, and hope that the cover and distance between her and the mental mage broke the mental Skill’s hold over her.

But before she could make it to safety, danger panged. Her senses went wild as she felt an aura descend upon her. But the mental assault had left her in a state, and she was unable to defend an attack she couldn’t see.

Desperate, she raised her shield Skill, the only thing she had left in her arsenal. Black, shadowy shields materialized around her. And only a second later, she felt the stabbing blow shatter her powerful defensive Skill with a single strike.

Talia gasped. The next hit would be against her. And if it was as powerful as the last, she doubted she would survive it.

But just as the aura of killing intent filled her with dread, the mental Skill flickered.

Between the darkness of her shadows and the growing distance between them, the Skill had lost enough of its potency that he grasped some understanding of her surroundings, and she raised her avatar’s sword just in time to deflect the incoming blow.

But she did not expect what followed. The dagger that landed against her avatar’s sword was incredibly powerful. Far too powerful for a weapon of its size. It was as if the strength of a much larger weapon had been concentrated down into the dagger’s tiny pinpoint end.

She had never felt anything like it, and the strike threw her completely off balance, sending her swirling down toward the ground, where she crashed against the trash floor.

She could feel him. Swooping down for another attack, she was not ready for it.

“Talia, the shadows!” Shouted Soohyun, and Talia blinked.

In an instant, she realized what was going on. Her shadows were affecting her own allies' ability to join the fray. Soohyun didn’t possess an ability that allowed her to fight through the obfuscating shadows as the little impish rogue did.

In an instant, Talia reduced the shadows, but kept a thick cloud of them hanging around herself to defend against the mental mage.

Before she even realized what was going on, Soohyun had thrown herself at the little man who was no longer shrouded, intercepting him before he could land his follow-up attack.

Soohyun’s massive blade slammed against his dagger with impressive force that sent a shockwave rippling outward, and turned the little man into a bullet, sending him flying straight across the entire cavern.

Talia gasped at the sheer power of the attack. Soohyun’s sword was comparable in size to that of Talia’s avatar, but it looked so much bigger wielded by the tiny frame of Soohyun. Not only that, but when it crashed against the little man’s dagger, the results were nothing alike.

For as big and powerful as the avatar’s sword was, it was ultimately a different build. Soohyun’s was pure strength, and it showed.

But most importantly, the mental mage’s attack had been broken, and her mind was free. However, she didn’t want Soohyun to be caught by the same Skill.

She waved and screamed, “Watch out!” hoping to warn her. As long as Soohyun didn’t get caught by the Skill, she felt more than confident dealing with that bald bastard. However, the situation would quickly veer south a second later.

But the moment she glanced across at the mental mage, ready to cut him down and make him pay for screwing with her mind, she saw something far more concerning.

Their power radiated across the cavern before she even spotted them. And the mental mage felt it too, as he turned back toward a shaft that disappeared into darkness at the far end of the cavern.

The next moment, they appeared. It was the royal guards alongside a child ant, and they looked excited about what they saw.

Hegemony Blanc threw back his silver hair and took a step forward. He stood beside the child ant, who he waved off, directing the pint-sized ant to go hide in an adjoining tunnel as he and Jigsaw Tyrant calmly marched forward.

“Who do we have here? The circus?” The mental mage teased as she felt mana surge within the man. There was no doubt that he had activated his mental Skill, but he was too slow.

In a flash that caught them all by surprise, Jigsaw Tyrant activated some kind of lunge Skill that came with a crack of thunder. And just like that, he was standing over the man, his snake head plunged deep into the man’s neck, fangs pierced deep.

Within less than a second, the mental mage was seizing up. The poison was corroding his veins. He fought it for a moment, fiddling at his pockets for something, but it mattered little. Within another couple of seconds, he was writhing on the ground, convulsing.

“Shit!”

This was bad. Really bad. And Talia did the only thing she could think of, and created a wall of shadows between them and the royal guards.

But with a simple flick of his wrist, Hegemony Blanc summoned a wall of blue energy that cut straight through the shadows, dissipating them in seconds.

Talia’s eyes widened, but she didn’t give up. She tried to summon her shadows again, but the blue light fought them away before they could do anything useful.

She had seen this Skill before, back in the ant hive. Back then, she had thought it was purely some kind of barrier, but apparently, it also had some dispelling effects. Perhaps some kind of counter to area effect Skills.

Soohyun turned back to see what was happening after slamming the little man through another wall. She didn’t seem to take them as seriously as Talia and charged straight for the royal guard’s barrier. A split second later, her sword came crashing down against the barrier. Blue light shuddered out, and a crack of energy blasted out, sending her hurtling backward.

“Oh, hoho. Didn’t think that would work, did you?” Hegemony Blanc smiled as he calmly marched forward. “Pathetic. You should have known you stood no chance against us after the last time we fought. But I suppose we can entertain beating you a second time. You know what? I think we’ll string you up and slowly kill you in front of your bulbous boyfriend when he returns. See how he likes watching a loved one murdered before his eyes.”

“Yeah, I like that idea! For mother,” hissed Jigsaw Tyrant, foaming at the mouth. “Make ‘em squeal!”

In a flash, Hegemony Blanc shot forward, but Zero intercepted him with silver light, perhaps the only one able to keep up with the ant’s speed. However, the wolf couldn’t handle his flashing karate strikes, and a blur of action followed that forced the wolf to retreat with grievous wounds.

Then, he continued for Talia. The ant’s first attack crashed against Talia’s newly raised shields, and the second destroyed them with a flash of light.

Talia was about to counter with her own attack, and her shadows managed to wrap around Hegemony Blanc, catching the ant by surprise. But before she could land her strike, Jigsaw Tyrant passed straight through her recently broken shield barrier, and a crack of thunder followed.

Her attack wavered as she felt the ant hit her, and it knocked her weapon off path, but it still grazed the silver-haired ant, splashing blood across both of them. But her situation was much worse.

Talia felt the poison flood into her body as Soohyun screamed and her sword grew even larger and crashed down against the blue barrier, and surprisingly, it actually managed to destroy it.

Unfortunately, defeating the barrier meant little. With Talia on the ground, fighting the powerful poison, both royal guards rushed toward Soohyun in an instant.

She was formidable, that much was obvious. The sheer power of her attacks might be unmatched. But for all her power, she lacked speed, and that was a vital problem against the two royal guards.

That was simply too big an ask, and within seconds, she was on the defensive, unable to mount a proper offense. She was doing everything within her power just to survive as wounds started to mount and cover her tiny body.

Talia fought back against the poison, struggling to her feet as she downed an antidote potion. It stemmed the immediate danger, but she was still in poor shape.

Nonetheless, she gritted her teeth and defiantly marched forward.

Shit! No choice. Gotta fight like this.

A karate chop cut straight into Soohyun’s stomach, piercing through it, and Hegemony Blanc threw her toward the ground with a whip of his wrist.

Before she even hit the ground, a crack of thunder sounded, and Jigsaw Tyrant flashed toward her to land the killing blow, but inches before hand, Zero's sharp fangs hooked around the ant’s snake neck, twisting it as he pulled the royal guard down, and drawing blood as he bit down.

But Hegemony Blanc was right there. He crashed down against Zero, heel pressing on the wolf’s neck as he drove the animal down into the ground, and held him there.

“So troublesome,” Hegemony Blanc hissed, making Zero squeal as he pressed his heel harder against the wolf’s neck. “Time to die!”

Talia’s eyes widened. She needed to do something. She couldn’t just watch Zero die before her eyes, but just at that moment, she felt something.

It was an aura. And it was powerful. But perhaps most importantly, it was traveling toward them, and it was moving damn fast.