Chapter 69

  Jake swiped his bde at the walker, opening up its stomach. The mutant took a couple of steps forward before colpsing to the ground, dead. Even before it tumbled down, Jake had already ewo more walkers that had just reached him. He sshed his cws across oant’s throat and stabbed the other through the chest. Both were dead within seds.

  His sense of hearing picked up a disgusti sound as one of the replication pods blossomed open like a flower, causing the transparent liquid within to spsh outward. From the pod emerged a fully developed mutant, this one a leaper breed. It bent its knees and uself toward him, propelling its body through the air. Jake sidestepped, swinging his sword, catg the leaper in midair. The tip of his bde dug into the creature’s flesh, gouging a long gash along its body. It fell to the floor, but before it could get up, Jake stomped on its head, smashing it apart like an overripe melon.

  In his expanded field of vision, he spotted another mutant lurg at him. Jake easily dodged the swipe of its cws and immediately tered, swinging its bde upwards, sshing the creature from its crotch to the edge of its sternum. The coils of steaming iines fell out of the mutant’s torn midse. The creature’s legs tangled in the mass of guts dangling from the vertical gash in its belly, causing the mutant to stumble. It tumbled forward, colpsing to the ground face first, and Jake fi off with a stab through the back of its neck, severing its spinal cord.

  The remaining mutants came at him from different dires. A few other replication pods opened up to let fully developed creatures step out. The life-giving liquid spshed outward, coating the floor and making it slippery. One of the walkers lost his foothold and crashed to the wet floor just before Jake. He stabbed it through the back of its head, his bde breaking through its skull without much trouble. He then jumped to the side so as not to let the mutants surround him. As he passed one of them, he swung his bde, cutting through the flesh of its neearly detag the creature’s head from its body.

  This battle was no different from tless others he’d participated in as a morphus. He easily dodged enemy attacks and tered with his own, using his cws for sshing and his bde for stabbing. Even though he was greatly outnumbered, the low-level mutants posed no threat to him at all. He killed one ex-human after another until there were no more left.

  After all the creatures were dealt with, Jake turned his attention to the replication pods. Each of them had released at least oant during the ret battle, and now the pods were in the process of creating fresh spes. Each tained a creature in the early stages of development. Jake took a step toward one of the pods and sshed at it with his bde and cws, tearing it to shreds. The shredded pieces of the torn pod dropped to the floor as the pod’s liquid spttered every which way. The underdeveloped mutao the floor with a wet thud. Jake stomped on the embryo of the creature, turning it into a formless pulpy mass. After that, Jake proceeded to deal with the remaining replication pods.

  Once he was done, a notification popped up in his mind.

  Multiple enemies killed. +550 XP

  Then another system message emerged in his head.

  Floor 1 cleared! You ow proceed to the one.

  A sparkling line simir to the ohat had led him here materialized in front of him. It stretched diagonally across the lobby before leading into one of the corridors. Jake followed it. The shimmering path tur a jun to lead into ay elevator shaft just before disappearing.

  Jake came to a stop at the entrance of the empty shaft, gazing down at the pile of debris below. The rubble sisted mainly of shattered crete and twisted rebar, leaving him puzzled because he didn’t uand why the guiding line had led him to this particur spot. There was nothing of use there. Suddenly, wisps of bluish energy emerged from the depths of the shaft, causing fragments of crete to float upward right before his eyes. Animated by magical energy, the crete shards started to verge, drawing closer to one another.

  While the magic was at work, Jake was enveloped by a reverberating hum emanating from all dires. A tingliion coursed through his skin as if the very air within the elevator shaft had just bee electrified. The pieces of crete tio drift together, eg with each other, f a makeshift ptform that appeared precarious and unstable. posed of various crete ks fused together, the ptform was adorned with a byrinth of cracks. Jake was sure the ptform would crumble bato a heap of individual crete pieces if he dared to set foot upon it.

  After a few more moments, the transformation process was plete. As Jake had anticipated, the resulting ptform appeared utterly precarious. Did the System really expect him to stand on it? In the instant, a sudden fsh of light momentarily blinded Jake. As his vision cleared, he saw the ptform now looked very different from a sed before. It noeared seamless and intao longer resembling a colle of separate crete pieces fused together. Additionally, Jake noticed four enigmatic symbols etched into the ers of the ptform, each emitting a subtle, ethereal glow.

  Jake believed that now the ptform was stable and secure enough for him to step onto without any risk of it breaking or colpsing. But before doing so, he decided to check the status of the challenge. He summo with a thought.

  Tower Climb Progression

  Floors: 1/10

  Remaining Time: 5 hours, 52 minutes, 31 seds

  It had taken him less than ten mio eliminate all the mutated life forms on the first floor. However, he had a feeling the difficulty of the challenge would increase expoially with each subsequent floor.

  With that in mind, he ehe elevator shaft. As he stood oform, the fils at the ers glowed even brighter with bluish energy, and the ptform began to asd to the floor.