Earlier, as his thrall spoke to the priest, the survivors had huddled tight. David’s voice was a bare whisper. “When I move, Son, blast me with your strongest laser. Don’t let up. No matter what happens.” He turned his head toward Mara. “When I signal, send the zombies. Hit and run. Drain the ugly pope. Don’t worry about the backlash. I’ll handle it.” His eyes flicked to Jamie. “Jamie, you handle the imps with the wargs. Box them in with ice. Crush them. Blind them.” He looked at the group. “Someone tell Chloe she’s on healing duty. Don’t let him kill Chloe. I’m going to take a closer look at the weapons. Let’s sacrifice Harris.”
“Attack him?” Harris stiffened, his eyes widening. “Sacrifice me? What the hell are you talking about?”
“Trust me,” David said, his tone flat. “This is the best option.” The unspoken follow-up thought was immediate and clear in his head. Actually, you shouldn't trust me at all.
Then they separated.
Now, the forest held the aftermath. The spatial explosion had ripped apart the space the floating pope's shield had occupied, engulfing the abyssal priest. The backlash, due to proximity, had partially struck David.
David was on his knees, Son’s laser still pouring into him. His entire right chest and arm were gone. The spear in his remaining hand was a splintered ruin, the head a twisted lump of metal. The pain was an all-consuming fire. A second of healing felt like minutes. His body was rebuilding a lung, scapula, humerus, and radius from nothing, using the laser's heat as a brutal catalyst. The sensation was his torso cavity violently reorganizing itself around a screaming new organ while bone extruded in jagged, white-hot spurs before muscle and nerves webbed over it.
He’d planned for this, even asked Mara to try to send him a sliver of life force to keep him conscious—but it was worse than fire, fire had barely made it past muscle and fat. He was regrowing nerves. It was shock territory, a line away from total mental shutdown. He clung to consciousness by focusing on the torrent of energy, forcing the nightmare process forward.
Through the swirling dust and smoke, three hulking flesh golems rose to their full height. A javelin, thrown with telekinetic force, struck one in the chest. The colossal zombie’s warclub smashed into the leg of another. The zombies came to support him.
Then the air itself tore. A wave of force blew the remaining dust and debris away in a ring.
The level 17 abyssal priest came into view.
It was on the ground. Its robes were shredded, hanging in burned tatters. One arm was bent backwards at a grotesque angle, bone visible through torn flesh. The leg on that same side was missing from the knee down, ending in a cauterized, smoldering stump. Tears and gashes covered its body, weeping oily black fluid. It was furious. It screamed, its voice a shredded, multi-layered howl. "YOU LITTLE BURROWING VERMIN! I WILL UNMAKE YOUR LINEAGE!"
In seconds, David’s body finished its grueling recovery.
He hacked, spitting out a mouthful of regenerative sludge and blood. His new arm twitched. No notification had appeared in his vision. The bastard's really still alive. He pushed himself to his feet, his body shuddering from the trauma. He looked at the mangled, shrieking priest.
"Good," David said, his voice raw. "I was hoping that wouldn't kill you."
The mangled priest tried to lift into the air. Its personal shield flickered, sputtering to life against the constant drain Mara was pouring into it.
David was already moving. The zombies, the warg, gunshots—the sounds of the others fighting the golems and remaining imps blurred behind him as he crossed the distance with a burst of superhuman speed. He spun his demonic energy field, pushing it out of his body until it stretched to a fifteen-inch-thick haze around him. He channeled the excess—Son’s heat, his own demonic portal skills—into his hands and hacked at the sputtering shield. To his surprise, channeling the heat energy through the field produced fire. Flames erupted from his arms, licking at the shield, making it stutter and dim.
He stomped down on the priest’s good knee. A wet crack echoed. He sliced with a hand wreathed in black energy, and flame, a portal tearing the creature’s uninjured arm from its socket.
The priest’s mouth opened. A beam of strange, silent black flame erupted, blasting a perfectly circular hole straight through David’s newly-regrown chest. The beam continued, piercing the air and blackening a massive, steaming section of a distant redwood trunk.
David hacked, a wet, grating sound, then grinned. He inhaled sharply. The injury sealed instantly. In the cavity, he felt a new heart form. And with it came a surge of energy, cold and vast and infinitely dense, far stronger than anything he’d ever felt—stronger than demonic energy, purer than heat.
“What was that?” David said, his voice guttural. “That’s much better than any energy I’ve ever felt. Do it again.”
The priest faltered. For the first time, its expression held raw fear.
David, wreathed in fire and the swirling black haze of his field, stomped on its stomach. He tore off its remaining leg. He placed a boot on the side of its head. He breathed in, pulling a constant stream of heat energy, life force, and demonic power from Mara and Son into himself, mingling it with the strange, potent energy now circulating from his new heart.
“Teamwork’s a beautiful thing, isn’t it?” David said. “Tell your creatures to stay still. Tell them not to fight back. Or I press down and turn your head into a pancake.” He leaned his weight slightly onto the foot. “That’s a flat food, by the way. You won’t like it.”
The priest looked up at him with pure, unadulterated hatred.
David increased the pressure on his front foot, ready to simultaneously stomp down and open a portal where its head was. He was prepared to sacrifice his entire foot in the process if the creature tried anything shifty. After a second of tense indecision, the priest’s eyes flickered to the energy and spatial magic David was channeling into his sole—the same kind that had just torn it apart. The hatred in its gaze warred with a sharp, survivalist fear.
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It spoke. The words were guttural, incomprehensible, a rapid chant of magic.
David saw in his peripheral vision the three flesh golems freeze in place. The imps, however, only slowed, their movements becoming somewhat sluggish as they fought against the command.
David shifted position and tilted his head slightly, keeping the priest in his line of sight. An imp was blinded and tangled up with Jamie and his ice. Jamie's really putting in the work. He gets help first. He sent the thought to his thrall.
The thrall moved immediately, crossing the distance with swift purpose. It brought its armored fist down in a powerful hammer strike directly onto the top of the imp’s skull. The impact produced a wet crunch. The imp staggered, its movements turning clumsy and uncoordinated. A gurgling screech escaped its mouth. The thrall stepped forward, planted its boot on the back of the dazed creature’s neck, and shoved its face into the dirt, applying steady pressure until a sharp crack silenced the imp.
Another imp lunged toward Mia. Her Scottish Fold cat launched itself from her arms, latching onto the imp’s back and sinking its teeth and claws into the glowing tattoos before scrambling to rake at its chest. “Damn,” David said aloud to the creature under his magically charged foot. “That’s one impressive cat, right? Check out those paws.”
The imp grabbed the cat. David told his thrall to
On the other side, the fight was ending. Mara was unwounded, Theo’s armor was dented, Corbin seemed fine. Chloe was unconscious on the ground. Harris was sporting a large black eye, swelling, and definitely missing a finger or two. The two groups and their zombies finished off the static flesh golems and sluggish imps. Jamie and Rhea struck relentlessly while Corbin’s shots hit eye-sockets.
[You have defeated a Flesh Golem Lvl 5]
[You have defeated a Flesh Golem Lvl 7]
[You have defeated a Flesh Golem Lvl 12]
All of the creatures were dead.
David checked his status. He’d made sure he struck golems running in. No level up notification. Zilch. Nada. No tallied experience.
Is the fight not over because the priest is still alive under my foot? Is that the system rule?
Everyone surrounded the downed, bleeding abyssal priest. David kept his foot on its head. “Hold up,” he said, looking at Mara. “Keep the zombies between everyone and the bleeding pope. Don’t want any surprises.” He looked back down at the priest. “Okay. Now you tell us what we want to know and you get to live. What’s a ‘piece’? Lie and you die.”
The priest coughed, a wet, bubbling sound. "A piece… is new pieces of the dungeon. Potential in living form, they do not live long. That is all I know. They are the key to becoming the new floor sovereign, the new administrator. A key to connecting with the realms and all manner of gods, not just the cowards who flee from this one. With a piece, and the right knowledge, any creature here can ascend, claim the role. But the methods are lost. Enslave, possess, consume the soul of a piece under the right conditions… the ways are forgotten. There have been no new pieces for millennia. Only those on higher floors, or the sovereigns themselves with a direct line to the dungeon god’s agents, will truly know."
David looked at the creature, then at the surrounding survivors. "Let me get this straight. You, the ogre, the army—everyone with a pulse and a plan sees us as a promotion." He thought of the ogre’s behavior. That's why the big guy was so disappointed. He was checking the product quality.
Evans’s voice cut in through the tension, low and hard. "How did we get here? Who’s responsible for this?"
The priest’s breathing was a wet, labored rasp. It spoke slowly, each word an effort. “I do not know how pieces arrive. There are only beliefs. On this floor, the common belief is that the gods send them. You are sent to grow. To become stronger. To empower the dungeon once it finally consumes you. Your purpose is to grow, and then to be consumed.”
David stared down at the creature. "So we're fertilizer with a consciousness. And you're the gardener trying to figure out which bag of shit makes the best roses."
It paused, gathering strength, its one good eye fixed on David. “Other factions… they believe differently. Some say you are sent to reach the gods, to become their eternal slaves in a higher realm. A reward for the faithful. Others… a more radical sect… they believe you are sent as anchors. To drag the gods down to this realm. So the dungeon can consume the gods who fear it. But these are philosophies.” The priest’s voice flattened into a grim finality. “For most who dwell here, among the blood and stone, you are not a philosophy. You are food.”
As David thought, ‘Sounds like the local theology department is having a real rough century,’ the priest's words settled over the group like a physical weight.
Henderson was the first to break the silence, his voice small and strained. "They think we're… what? Like… livestock?"
Corbin rubbed a hand over his face and let out a hard, weary exhale. "Jesus Christ."
Jamie stared at the ground, his usual optimism gone, his face pale. "No. That's not… we're not that."
Mara's sharp features twisted in pure disgust. She looked from the mangled priest to her own hands, as if seeing them for the first time. "I'm not… God. I'm not food."
Harris's boardroom composure shattered. He stared, his face draining of color, then turned sharply away as if fighting nausea. When he spoke, his voice was tight and thin. "That's… that's not possible. That can't be why."
Theo shifted his grip on his massive greatsword, his knuckles white around the hilt. "Screw that," he muttered, the words thick with anger.
From where she lay on the ground, Chloe stirred weakly. "What?" she whispered, barely audible.
Rhea said nothing. Her lips pressed into a thin, bloodless line. She just looked at the priest with a new, cold, and utterly grim understanding. Her voice cut through it, flat and precise. "How do we leave?"
The priest’s single good eye rolled toward her. It let out a pained, wet rasp that might have been a laugh. "Leave? I do not know. No one leaves. Perhaps… perhaps one of the great beings on the higher floors will have the knowledge. If you can reach them. If they do not eat you first."
Henderson’s face contorted. The color drained from it, then rushed back in a furious, blotchy red. “Food?” The word was a choked whisper. Then his voice ripped through the clearing. “Are you kidding me? Levi bled out for that?!”
He lunged past David, his scavenged sword raised for a wild, two-handed chop at the prone priest’s head.
David didn’t move. His foot stayed planted on the priest’s skull, his eyes never leaving the creature’s face. He tracked Henderson’s charge in his periphery and did nothing to stop it. He wasn’t an idiot to look away from a cornered animal for even a second. He leaned in to his Battle Sense and felt what would happen next.
Theo moved. He stepped into Henderson’s path, his massive greatsword coming up not to strike, but to intercept. Henderson’s furious swing smashed into the flat of Theo’s blade. At the moment of impact, Theo’s deflection skill activated. There was no loud clang—just a weird, muted thump as the force of Henderson’s own attack was inverted and dissipated, leaving him stumbling sideways, his arms numb, his sword nearly flying from his grip.
“Think, man!” Theo grunted, shoving Henderson back a step with the flat of his own blade. “Don’t kill it! Not yet!”
David leaned forward an inch, increasing the pressure on the priest’s head. His voice was flat. “Now tell us about the floors. And the gods. Tell us everything."
How do you like the pace?