Esper Labyrinth - ESP - Superhero - LITRPG

The massage parlor was exquisitely designed. From the fountains letting water flow down intricate dioramas near the walls to the scents wafting up from bio-engineered flowers placed in adjacent interior gardens. Everything within the space gave off the feeling of controlled nature. Chaos being subverted for the benefit of one's own relaxation.

An excellent choice if I was to judge, as I lay there on the bed being massaged by a pair of robots.

"Oooohhh." I murmured. "Oooh I wish I didn't have Shifter and Enhancer right now. This would probably feel even better."

The two robots made a pleasing sound. Singing out a nice catchy tune from their speakers.

"Our pleasure sir!"

"I'm glad you're having fun!"

"Because life is short."

"And every second should be worth living!"

"And every second is worth living!"

"At Jonesy's Massage Parlor!"

"The number one massage parlor in Sweden!"

They kept working as they spoke. My back muscles unyielding as they did so. Yet I could still feel the vibrations travelling through me. Gently caressing my cells. Despite those cells having the relative toughness of hunk of titanium.

'Nah. They're tougher than that.' I chided myself. 'Slab couldn't even bruise me when we tried to spar. And that's saying something given how far he's come.'

"Me oh my sir! We're detecting some greatly elevated stress levels!"

"Don't go trying to drink your woes away!"

"You're likely to get liver cirrhosis if you do!"

A few down, the Seeking Drake barked a laugh.

"Oh but these things are funny aren't they? What with their metal shells and empty minds."

"I dunno about empty minds. The AI seems pretty advanced." I countered.

"They are far more A than I. My little monkey friend. And besides, I don't know why anyone would willingly subject themselves to this travesty. Why I could very well whip us up a couple of organisms whose entire existence was centered around the administration of pressure and perfumes. I can see it now. A mass of nerves to control the muscle and find new ways to render aid. Perhaps a single stem going up and down a central stalk. With branches of cartilage and muscles similar to tongues. With taste buds too, so they can measure your stress levels better. At certain points, my little darlings can practically taste discomfort. They could outdo these soulless slaves of yours without any effort."

I didn't even bother raising my head to speak back at him.

"Thank you for the offer. But I don't know how I feel about being licked clean by semi-sentient meat puppets. Perhaps another time."

"Oh come now. They wouldn't salivate or anything. It is just that animal tongues had the perfect blend of muscles for functionality and flexibility. You can use it as a blueprint to make all sorts of goodies."

"I too, will pass. I think." A bipedal salamander with translucent skin spoke up between us. "It isn't as though I don't appreciate the gesture. But I would much rather not be near any Shifter shenanigans yet."

The Drake let out a sound that others might have confused for the screams of a thousand tortured souls writhing in Pandemonium. One which I knew meant he was slightly peeved.

"Didn't Sully pay you upfront?" He asked, feigning incredulity. "He paid me upfront. Oh Sully, you tease. You shouldn't hold back when it comes to our dear, beloved allies. How are we going to win this war if there is no trust between us?"

It was a good thing that I was very adept at using Shifter to hide my emotions, because otherwise I'd be retching at the mere notion that the Drake would think himself more trustworthy than me. All the more so because at this point, he was probably right, given my little string of errors.

"Crushing Void was paid upfront." I corrected him. "As were you and just like all the others. I am not in the habit of keeping my allies weaker than the enemies we're going up against."

I paused while the robot to the right tried to push down harder on flesh so tough a railgun wouldn't bruise it.

"I assume our ally here was merely expressing some personal preference."

"I was." Crushing Void said quickly. The bristles at the sides of his body shivering slightly, as they always did when the smaller creature feared for its life.

"I meant no offense, master Drake. I too recognize the potency of Shifter abilities as well as your own supremacy in the Type and as my senior in this endeavor. Please accept these humble apologies for any perceived transgressions."

The Seeking Drake accepted the apology with cool courtesy, even though I knew full well that being praised so enthusiastically by a fellow Savant would have made him all kinds of giddy.

'Though that still begs the question. Is Crushing Void really so submissive, as is typical for his species, or is he just smart enough to play along with the Drake's very public vice for acknowledgment?'

I thought about it for a second and decided that it was probably the latter case. His species may be generally meeker in character, but one didn't slaughter their way to ruling a faction without some measure of wit. The Crushing Void was a Projector on top of that, so he would have had to watch out for countless assassination attempts if he merely went threatening people with death, as the Golden Cruelty was so very fond of doing.

Speaking of the lady, she was here too. Laying on a bed of perfumed warm towels on the opposite end of the room. Not saying a word unless she was directly addressed.

'Great. Now I have to watch out for her too.' I groaned internally.

Now, I didn't think she would turn on us. Not after seeing [Eternal Silence]. Because as far as she was aware, I still had the power and I could use it whenever I felt like it. Not the most benevolent and prosocial way to gain loyalty, but hey. I'd still take it if it meant coming out of this whole mess with humanity in one piece.

No, the issue was that I had no idea whether she meant to fight other Savants properly or if she meant to ride out the whole conflict while stroking the Drake's ego for brownie points. Knowing her via the predictions I'd made before the whole debacle with the other Sullys, I'd say the latter was more likely. But then again, she did come to our little powwow wearing what was left of one of the masters who had been trying to take out a planet Earth, so maybe she was serious about going all the way.

'Time will tell I suppose.'

"Are you enjoying the massage master?" One of the robots asked from the side.

"Your muscles do seem awfully stiff."

"We can't tell whether we're getting through to you at all."

"Are you suffering from some hormonal disorder?"

"Are you ingesting human growth hormone?"

"Abusing steroids is bad. M'kay?"

The Seeking Drake groaned.

"See, this is why I never let these metal hunks of junk touch me. I'll birth my own massage parlor thank you very much."

Both Golden Cruelty and Crushing Void kept their silence.

"Well I happen to enjoy robots very much." I said at last. "I can appreciate how much work went into those arms of theirs by the way they move and how they react to my own movements. They're not just going through patterns, the pressure pads can move around their base and adjust themselves to a person's shape and muscle makeup on the spot. That speaks to me on a personal level. There is a team of engineers out there who came together to design a masseuse who wasn't just good enough, but perfect. I have to respect that level of commitment if nothing else. They sure don't make robots like these in my world."

"Hmn?" Crushing Void spoke up. "This isn't your world master Sully?"

"No. This is Olga's world. She's my friend from the Tutorial."

"Should we bring her to this meeting?" The translucent salamander asked.

"No. She's… upset right now. Something happened to her friend Prudence and she's out of commission for the foreseeable future. I'm sure she'll come around, but I felt it best to ask her to wait in another dimension."

'Far away from mind-reading range coincidentally.'

Golden Cruelty and Crushing Void didn't know about my little lapse or about the Troubadour. The latter still very much playing that fucking lute of his above the skies of my world.

Personally, I liked that arrangement and I meant to keep it that way.

What they don't know, won't hurt them. More importantly, while they don't know, they won't get any funny ideas about hurting me while I don't have access to Telepath. Not that I'd be an easy target regardless but you could never be quite sure what was going through a Savant's head at nay given time. Not with one hundred-percent accuracy anyway.

'My goodness do I miss reading minds. You never thing about how much you take it for granted until you have to wrangle people who stand to gain a lot by backstabbing you.'

You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

I banished those thoughts and addressed the robots as they were speaking again. Asking me how they were doing for the umpteenth time.

"Oh don't worry about that my new little friends." I assured them. "Just keep doing what you're doing. I'm having a blast."

"Glad to hear it." A familiar voice spoke up from the doorway.

I opened my eyes and looked up from where I was laying down face-first on the comfy bedding.

"Mercy!" I smiled. "It is so nice to see you doing well! How have things been?"

She stared down at me. Her ape-like face hard. Her eyes harder.

"Oh don't be like that." The Seeking Drake interrupted. "He did his best. And hey! It all worked out in the end didn't it? I mean, from where I'm laying down here it looks like we've more or less eliminated good old Hazi-boy's numerical advantage when it comes to people who can actually fight back. You should have seen most of the riff-raff they sent my way when I popped out into Ulnakar 4. Bunch of Tier 6 nobodies from a hundred different sub-factions. I haven't had that many people volunteer to be cushions for a long, long time! I was over the moon!"

She stared at him the hardest.

"We do seem to be winning." Crushing Void pointed out. "And I don't think our main forces have suffered casualties. On the contrary. We seem to be drawing in those who intended to remain neutral."

Golden Cruelty said nothing. But her silence was deafening.

"Okay. Okay. I get it. Things did kinda spiral back there." I admitted. Winning the award for greatest understatement in the entire history of the multiverse in one fell swoop.

She stared back at me.

"Okay. Okay. So Frigid Bloodline was a traitor. So what? We got it handled, didn't we? He's not going to be an issue anymore and we've worked our way through some, what? 40 of the masters we foresaw as problems? More?"

I stopped to purr as the massage bots went to work on my shoulders.

The Drake looking as disgusted with them as everyone else did when looking at his pet projects.

"Oh my goodness. I should open a massage parlor in Pandemonium. Don't want to be without this when I leave this mortal coil behind. Ooooh. I'll bet Cultist Sully would have been less of a twat if he had something like this."

She stared harder. They all did.

"Oh okay. I lost control back there. Okay? I fucked up. There's no other way to say it. I got myself a nice little ace in the hole and I did wipe out a whole host of masters. But it cost too much."

I drew in another breath.

"I wasn't trying to wipe away entire universes. And if you need proof, I would be more than willing to show you my memories."

Consequently, this would also let me share all the unimaginable agony I'd endured for a brief few seconds. Showing that I had indeed been punished for every single instance. Over and over and over again. And that on top of showing that I didn't want anything to do with what ended up happening.

I sighed, despite myself.

"Oh sweet Buddha. I just realized I'm trying to distance myself from the responsibility. Again. I promised myself I wouldn't be doing that."

"Sir, please settle down. Your shoulders are stiff as steel." The one robot spoke.

"You'll give yourself a heart attack at this rate sir!" The other one added.

The savant known as Benevolent Mercy didn't so much as whisper. Her silence dragging on longer and longer.

Then she too sighed.

"I don't know what's worse. The fact that this conflict has killed so many innocents, or the fact that I'm trying to justify it to myself."

She walked into the room and sat atop one of the massage beds. Waving away a robot leaping to attend to her every want and need.

"I knew there would be collateral damage. Deaths. I knew and I still chose to get involved."

"You didn't have a choice." I told her truthfully. "Even if you didn't ally with me from the start, the temptation that Telepath and Projector savants would face with eternal life around the corner would be too much. For the opposition, if not for them. Hazimon's loyalists would have hunted you down for the mere suspicion that you would ally with us. I know this now because I reached out to some of the ones that turned me down originally. Whether because they didn't feel like getting involved in a fight between savants or because they were hedging their bets."

"Hedging their bets?" She asked, curiously.

"Hmn? Am I not translating that right? Sorry. Let me explain."

I purred again as the robots switched gears to a new mode or something. Applying enough force to snap a normal human's spine in half.

It felt amazing.

"Harrowing Wail and Silent Stillness joined me from the start. They didn't need much in the way of convincing and you can ask them yourself when they get here. The former because he really got shafted by an up-and-coming master training under Hazimon after providing tutelage and the latter because he is scared to death of dying. Something about how his Projector senses show him the world constantly enduring entropy just really does not meld well with consciousness in general."

I waved at my new amphibious friend.

"Crushing Void here was similarly inclined, though I understand his species is just really scared of death in general."

"It is the end that comes to us all." He said in response. "The infinite blackness. At once, you go from being someone, something, to being nothing at all."

"Hence why you should put more effort into mastering your Shifter powers!" The Drake chided. "You little rascal! They're not simply a way to keep yourself from aging! Think of all that your flesh can do now! Think of what you may become with the slightest whim! Think of the potential!"

He was almost shouting at this point.

"Aren't you bothered by the way all your kind get all kinds of cancers by merely stepping into daylight without cover? Haven't you ever imagined being something else? Something greater? Haven't you thought about improving on the basic, pitiful template you were randomly assigned at birth?"

He almost looked ready to spit.

"Everyone is born with flaws. Physical and mental. Only through continuous evolution can you truly approach perfection! Do not resist the change! Become the change! Adapt and thrive!"

"I will master Drake!" Crushing Void spoke without missing a beat. "I will truly appreciate these gifts I've been given! I'll even get to approach your resplendence someday. You'll see!"

'Okay, he has to be sucking up to him on purpose.' I decided. 'There's no way you get that good at manipulating the Drake's ego without it being on purpose.'

I decided to keep talking with Mercy.

"But what really sold him on our side was that he too saw the writing on the wall. Namely, that we wouldn't hunt him down and kill him because we feared him going to the other side. The other side would. You'd think that would have been enough but others kept getting ideas."

"Who?" She asked.

"Endless Rampage had that [Endless Frenzy] combined ability and I figured it would be really, really useful against masters ranging from the 9th to the 7th Tier. Since it's a [Presence] power that sends people into a mindless blood-fueled hysteria. Those advanced masters who weren't quite at the top were the kind Hazimon's faction might deploy as decoys assisting their real power players and savants. If all went well, he'd be clearing entire battles by himself before leaving with a Projector power I provided. Sadly, he had other ideas."

"Letting us fight it out with Hazimon and then support whichever side looks to be winning." She deadpanned.

"Precisely." I confirmed. "Very logical course of action if you think about it. He still has a shot at immortality if we win, but he doesn't have to risk his own significant faction by leaping in to fight alongside us."

She huffed.

"I don't suppose things are going all that well for him?"

"I'm pretty sure he's dead." I said casually. "Can't really confirm at the moment, but he's not here to join us so I'll assume I'm right. Not that it matters in any case because we seem to be winning the war handily."

"Really?" She asked. Not looking convinced. "Then explain to me how my species just lost five worlds."

"Easy. Hazimon's faction showed up and either sent strong people down to kill your people or else carpet bombed the planets from low orbit. The fact that you're here suggests that they didn't take the particular universe those planets were in however. I'm guessing you don't take kindly to people blowing up your species."

She didn't say anything.

"Which meant you killed them right back." The Drake said with approval. "Good. Now all you need to do is unleash a super-plague on the worlds those ships came from. I guarantee people will stop trying and get the message. Worked for me after all."

He paused and looked off in the distance. As if to remember.

"If you need some inspiration, I have this little thing I call the Drake's Rotbreath. Threw it at Hazimon when he was coming after me the one time. Of course it did nothing to him, but the fool didn't check his Symbiote and the thing was infecting all sorts of people wherever he went for something like two months. Entire solar systems and System instances started erupting with the plague. People bleeding from their eye sockets, their nostrils, their pores, their genitals…aaah. It was glorious. The whole dermis slowly turning into slurry over the course of weeks. The exposed muscle growing fresh tissues to replace the…"

"Okay, I think we got it. We'll keep it under advisement." I cut him off, leading him to pout.

Then I turned back to Mercy.

"Don't bother feeling ashamed Mercy. I'm also in the habit of getting just a tad bit upset when someone starts wrecking the people I love. Call it a basic simian ape instinct both our species share. You kill one ape and all the other apes go all crazy monkey mafia on you before you know it. It's not a bad instinct to have. In fact, I would argue that this fierce empathy and loyalty is exactly what makes us, well, us. Different from the likes of gnomes."

"Please don't start." She placed her hands on her face and I thought that she was about to weep.

"Mercy, mercy. I get it. Okay. I really do get it. Things have spiraled so out of control that it isn't even funny anymore. We, or more correctly, I have done some heinous shit. I regret it. I do. I keep going back and beating myself over the head with the fact that I could have done better. It's a fallacy I can't seem to get away from."

I waved the robots away and stood up. Letting Buddy cover my torso back up and walking towards the center of the room.

"But I'm at the point where I keep pushing forward. Because looking backwards will only cost me time. Time I could be using to win and make sure humanity can survive. The way I see it now, that's my greater goal. Everything else is secondary and if I want to feel bad, then I can go ahead and feel bad for myself AFTER humanity is saved and Hazimon is defeated."

"Really?" She asked. "Is it really that simple?"

"Hey, don't look down on simple." I countered. "You of all people should get where I'm coming from. We've both seen the perspectives of people from all across the multiverse. From the birth of babies to funerals where the whole family gets together. We've seen the grief of every single person who loses someone and we know the weight of our actions. But that's all in a micro level. Draw back far enough and you can see it from a macro level."

"Please don't." She begged. "You sound like Hazimon now. The parts of him I didn't like."

"He wasn't exactly wrong about everything." I followed up. "I don't hate the guy."

"Speak for yourself." The Drake interrupted me.

"I just fight him because he tried to threaten humanity first. I didn't choose this war. I'm just ending it. But anyhow, macro level. We are pitted against the others for the future. They want to continue to have their status quo. We, that is, you and me, want our respective peoples to be safe from harm. You needed a way to keep protecting them since, you were going to die without Enhancer or Shifter and I needed a way to keep Hazimon's loyalists from following through with his will. We could theoretically have peace if the other side backed off. There's nothing that forces us to fight, save for the other guys wanting to kill us."

If the Golden Cruelty had something she wanted to say, then it remained unsaid.

"Okay then." I clapped. "Time to strategize now that most of us have arrived."

I waited until all eyes were once again on me.

"How do we feel about going in the offensive?"

The world was burning. The skies afire as multiple ships were struck down by beams of power.

Every minute saw more of them trying to flee. Gigantic metal hulls vibrating with stored power as engines powered on. All systems coming online while engineers ran up and down their ships' inner skeletons.

Then the Drake would do that breath thing again and spew out more of Randall's death beams. Death beams that I'd given him.

Then the poor spaceships would undergo a tragic re-arrangement of their respective parts.

It was a tragedy, to say the least.

Firstly because those spaceships were, well, spaceships. Machines so advanced that it boggles my puny little mind.

I mean, yeah. I'd experienced so many different minds so far that I could probably re-arrange the entire ship from memory, but that didn't diminish the beauty of the thing. It enhanced it, if anything.

There was a certain grace to the way it had been put together. Each individual component 3d printed out and subsequently assembled by tiny robots so small they made Anezka's nanomachines seem big and clumsy by comparison. Those robots would then solidify together as the inner layer of the ship. Becoming a sort of living and reactive tissue that could move in order to react to problems like hull breaches as they arose.

But of course, that didn't matter.

Crushing Void was waiting above orbit to turn any ships that did flee into scrap metal. I still didn't know quite how he did it, but there was something about the rapid application of pressure on ships that would turn each hull into a miniature sun. The particles being compressed to such an extent that they heated up and threatened to expand suddenly. And expand they would, because the bipedal amphibian was throwing clusters of those things down towards the batteries firing at him.

Not that they were likely to do anything. Indeed, none of the defenses we'd found here had done anything. Same with the defenses we'd passed on the last shipyard we'd come across.

The Savants hadn't been there. Nor any masters worth mentioning.

Which begged the question.

'Where are they hiding?' I wondered to myself. 'What are they planning to do next?'