Might as Well

Carnage.

That was the only word Sam could use to describe the situation he found himself in. Endless waves of mysterious monsters, dripping black ichor while their roars echoed around in the empty dimensions.

Most of the smaller monsters that recklessly threw themselves at the wind barrier Sam erected were minced instantly into unidentifiable chunks that by now almost coated the entire platform with small parts of it slipping through the dense blades making up the barrier and falling on the ground or sometimes splattering either Sam or Lauren.

Thankfully, his Clean spell was strong enough to remove the filth from him, because he just knew that the liquid would somehow cause some kind of debilitating condition if left alone long enough. Thus, he made sure to shoot a few Clean spells at the other man, just in case.

The smaller monsters were ground into dust by the barrier, but the bigger ones needed his own intervention. He flew around the platform, sword in hand, falling on the bigger monsters, cutting them into pieces only to watch the pieces gather and form new monsters.

And as the fight went on, the shape of the monsters slowly began to change.

They started out as cat-like, with the usual four appendages: tail, head, eyes, and teeth, but as time went on, they slowly morphed. Some lost half the appendages, turning more into a naga-like form, though with fur instead of scales, while some gained even more legs, becoming weird and very creepy centipedes covered in fur.

Then there were the giant ones, covered in segmented armor, made from the same liquid, yet having the property of proper armor plates, making Sam work to get through them.

Following them were the gorilla-sized and shaped monsters, with lions, rhinos, and other animals being imitated by others. The flying ones ranged from cat-shaped monsters with wings, to pelicans the size of small airplanes carrying smaller pelicans in their beaks dive-bombing the barrier.

‘Fucking bizarre…’

The worst was that Sam had absolutely no idea what the monsters were. He didn’t read about anything like that in the library at Nowhere, nor did the other Sam see them during their life.

‘It’s as if the system had figured out what I know and now it is setting me up against new monsters to give me a handicap…’ he mused as he danced between two gorilla-shaped monsters as they used their gigantic arms to slam down on Sam, intent on squashing him. ‘Or maybe nobody managed to reach this quest and thus the monsters were never revealed?’ He shook his head as he raised his empty hand to conjure a shield to block a glob of black liquid that one naga-like monster spat at him. It hit the shield and sizzled against it, much like acid would, but the shield held. ‘No, that’s not it. The gates were set up and used by everybody, so the quest was completed…’ He lashed out with his sword, obliterating the monster and several behind it. His clones refreshed the moment the cooldown was over and were running around distracting them with Lucky jumping in and out of shadows.

As he tried to work through the conundrum, he noticed that the attack of the mysterious monsters abated for a moment. He hit himself with another Clean spell and turned back to the master of runes who was still visibly straining with his magic around the crystal in the middle of the platform. The blue light radiating from the crystal was picking up speed and the runes appearing and disappearing around them were also visibly bigger and denser to Sam’s senses.

“How much longer, sir?” he asked, despite knowing that if things followed the usual gaming conventions, then there would be at least two or three more waves. But he wanted to build his rapport with the man, so he would ask these useless questions.

Apparently, he didn’t manage to mask his true feelings as Fitzgerald sent him an amused look before answering.

“I’m around twenty-five percent.”

“Three more waves then?”

The man shook his head. “No. It isn’t linear. Currently, I’m laying down the foundation, so naturally, it went slower. But now that I did that, the spell will go faster.”

“Ahh! So how many waves should I expect?”

Still casting the magic, showcasing his incredible talent and ability, the man turned to him with a smirk. “Maybe two… One like the first one, and a big one as a finisher.”

“What makes you think that, sir?” Sam asked curiously. He knew to expect the last wave to be bigger – probably with a boss monster – but that was because of his experience with playing games.

“Come now, young man…” Fitzgerald spoke in an admonishing tone. “I’m not blind nor clueless. Whatever intelligence is behind those creatures obviously doesn’t want us to activate the crystal. But at the same time, something is preventing them from entering the dimension we’re currently in. I don’t know if it is some kind of dimensional law or maybe they don’t wish to pay the entry price… However, I expect that the closer we get to finishing this spell, the more desperate they will become.”

“Maybe even desperate enough to pay the price of entry,” Sam finished the thought.

Fitzgerald just smiled. “Indeed, my young friend. Indeed…”

“Maybe they also want to escape?” Sam voiced his latest thought.

The grin on the other man’s face vanished, to be replaced with a deathly pallor and a frown.

“That’s…very probable…” he finally said after a few moments.

Sam just reached forward and patted the man on the shoulder. “Don’t worry, sir. Lucky and I will deal with it!”

“ARF!” came from Lucky, who was currently peeing on one of the giant menhirs.

A shaky smile returned to Fitzgerald’s face, and he opened his mouth to presumably respond, but instead, his mouth snapped close and he whirled back to the crystal as the eerie blue light radiating from it began to intensify.

“Round two, my friend! Be ready!”

Sam nodded at the man, raised his sword, and turned his back, ready to welcome the next wave of monsters.

Thankfully, the second wave was almost the same as the first one, only with more monsters. And bigger monsters. However, functionally they were the same, so Lucky, Sam, and his barrier made short work of them.

Sam mainly used the event to practice large-area effect spells to kill as many monsters as possible. He conjured twisters made of deadly blades, rained down spears made from both wind and shadows and used the force generated by the big gust of wind to smash the monsters into puddles. He created constructs from wind mana, creating blenders around him, chains from shadows to slow down the approaching horde, and spammed his clone skill as much as possible. He wanted to make sure that the AI responsible for the clones would learn as much as possible.

He could already see the clones doing evasive actions, dodging and leaning out of the way of swipes coming from giant monsters as they tried to devour them.

‘Hopefully, when the skill upgrades, they’ll be able to cast spells…’ he mused as he swung his sword, sending forth countless wind, shadow, and illusionary blades at a swarm of monsters with the bodies of crickets and the heads of cats. Covered in scales.

Truly bizarre…

He had great hopes for that clone skill. The person who popularized the skill in the other Sam’s life mostly used close combat rogue and assassin skills, so the clones did the same. Sam really wanted to see what would happen if a mage like him evolved the skill…

Suddenly, he thought of something and grinned evilly.

First, he cast a giant storm in front of him, granted him a few seconds of peace, and then he began to concentrate. He first summoned as much wind mana as he could and formed it into a tightly locked ball until it took almost half of his concentration to keep it contained. Then he summoned one of his shadow clones and layered it over the ball of pressurized wind mana.

It took some effort and a lot of mana, but eventually, the two spells merged.

Sam grinned, dismissed the storm in front of him, and sent the clone forward.

Naturally, all the monsters savaged by the storm instantly rushed forward, probably thinking he got tired. They spotted the clone and their limited intelligence wasn’t enough to spot the trap. They pounced with deadly accuracy and intent, crushing the construct and breaking the containment of the over-pressurized wind mana.

BAMMM

Sam let the echoes of the explosion wash over him, idly casting a small shield above his head as the monsters began to rain down on him and grinned.

“Now we are cooking!”

Sadly, the raining monsters then gathered into pools, and soon more monsters, albeit smaller ones began to emerge.

Sam didn’t mind, as he had a new toy to play with.

Soon the platform was awash in the sound of explosions as he continued to experiment.

“What’s the plan after we escape, sir?” Sam asked after the second wave died down and he cleaned himself, Lucky, and a thankful Fitzgerald.

The man hummed thoughtfully as he twisted his hands this and that way, summoning even more runes, and peered at something that only he could see.

“Naturally, I’m going to continue my experiments,” came the matter-of-fact answer.

“What for?” Sam asked, even though he already knew what the result would be. But for the sake of chain quests, he had to do it.

“To connect the world, my young friend…” came a rather subdued answer from the man. “It has always been my dream to make sure that everybody could stay connected.”

“Ahh, like the giant gates in the capitals?”

Lauren nodded. “Yes, but smaller and more affordable. I studied those gates, even helped to maintain them when I was a young man,” he explained. “But they work on a different principle than my creation. For a long while, it was just a theoretical experiment that I played around with when I had some free time, but thanks to the Fracture, my research received a rather large boost. I’ll probably have to bring in some other people once we’re out of here, but with the information I gathered here, I feel very optimistic about my goals…”

“Could I help?” Sam asked, hoping to initiate the next quest, or at least lay the groundwork for it. However, his hopes were crushed by a rather condescending snort.

“You don’t have the knowledge to even understand the underlying principles of my devices…” came from the man, his eyes never leaving the slowly pulsating crystal, the light so strong that his face looked completely blue. “But maybe I could give you a few lessons after we’re done here and see where life takes us… What do you think?”

Sam grinned. “That sounds excellent! I have so many questions…”

Fitzgerald returned the grin. “I’m glad to see your enthusiasm, but sadly, we should focus our attention on other matters…”

“The last wave?”

“Indeed, young man. And I feel it’s going to be a big one!” he warned Sam with a challenging look.

Sam just smirked. “Leave it to me, sir!”

“Good! I’m looking forward to it!”

The last wave didn’t have many monsters.

Sam saw a few droplets appearing and slowly forming into monsters, but most of his attention was on a giant, disgusting pustule of the mysterious liquid that seemed to extruding from the black void surrounding the gray platforms.

Just to be sure, he fired a few spells at it, trying to get in a little damage before the main event, but the magic slid off the thing without having any effect.

‘It seems I can’t cheese the fight…’ he mused as he prepared himself.

Lucky was stalking around, ready to assist, and he was preparing his clones filled with pressurized wind mana compressed to the smallest possible size.

They didn’t have to wait too long as the extrusion into the dimension popped like some kind of zit – causing a shudder to run through Sam’s spine – and a giant draconic head appeared.

Sam’s heart skipped a beat as he saw the head but then the rest of the body emerged revealing a serpentine form, showing that it was just an extremely big snake with patches of fur, made of solidified black gunk, and eyes shining white, radiating fury and greed.

Focused on Sam and Fitzgerald, but most importantly on the crystal in the middle of the platform.

Sam gripped his sword and grinned.

"Oh, this is going to be good!"