Jake swiped his blade at the nearest walker, opening up its stomach. The mutant took a couple of steps forward before collapsing to the ground, dead. Even before it tumbled down, Jake had already engaged two more walkers that had just reached him. He slashed his claws across one mutant’s throat and stabbed the other through the chest. Both were dead within seconds.
His sense of hearing picked up a disgusting wet sound as one of the nearest replication pods blossomed open like a flower, causing the transparent liquid within to splash outward. From the pod emerged a fully developed mutant, this one a leaper breed. It bent its knees and launched itself toward him, propelling its body through the air. Jake sidestepped, swinging his sword, catching the leaper in midair. The tip of his blade 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 lurching at him. Jake easily dodged the swipe of its claws and immediately countered, swinging its blade upwards, slashing the creature from its crotch to the edge of its sternum. The coils of steaming intestines fell out of the mutant’s torn midsection. 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, collapsing to the ground face first, and Jake finished it off with a stab through the back of its neck, severing its spinal cord.
The remaining mutants came at him from different directions. A few other replication pods opened up to let fully developed creatures step out. The life-giving liquid splashed 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 blade 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 blade, cutting through the flesh of its neck, nearly detaching the creature’s head from its body.
This battle was no different from countless others he’d participated in as a morphus. He easily dodged enemy attacks and countered with his own, using his claws for slashing and his blade 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 one mutant during the recent battle, and now the pods were in the process of creating fresh specimens. Each contained a creature in the early stages of development. Jake took a step toward one of the pods and slashed at it with his blade and claws, tearing it to shreds. The shredded pieces of the torn pod dropped to the floor as the pod’s liquid splattered every which way. The underdeveloped mutant fell to 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 can now proceed to the next one.
A sparkling line similar to the one that 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 turned at a junction to lead into an empty 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 consisted mainly of shattered concrete and twisted rebar, leaving him puzzled because he didn’t understand why the guiding line had led him to this particular spot. There was nothing of use there. Suddenly, wisps of bluish energy emerged from the depths of the shaft, causing fragments of concrete to float upward right before his eyes. Animated by magical energy, the concrete shards started to converge, drawing closer to one another.
While the magic was at work, Jake was enveloped by a reverberating hum emanating from all directions. A tingling sensation coursed through his skin as if the very air within the elevator shaft had just become electrified. The pieces of concrete continued to drift together, connecting with each other, forming a makeshift platform that appeared precarious and unstable. Composed of various concrete chunks fused together, the platform was adorned with a labyrinth of cracks. Jake was sure the platform would crumble back into a heap of individual concrete pieces if he dared to set foot upon it.
After a few more moments, the transformation process was complete. As Jake had anticipated, the resulting platform appeared utterly precarious. Did the System really expect him to stand on it? In the next instant, a sudden flash of light momentarily blinded Jake. As his vision cleared, he saw the platform now looked very different from a second before. It now appeared seamless and intact, no longer resembling a collection of separate concrete pieces fused together. Additionally, Jake noticed four enigmatic symbols etched into the corners of the platform, each emitting a subtle, ethereal glow.
Jake believed that now the platform was stable and secure enough for him to step onto without any risk of it breaking or collapsing. But before doing so, he decided to check the status of the challenge. He summoned it with a thought.
Tower Climb Progression
Remaining Time: 5 hours, 52 minutes, 31 seconds
It had taken him less than ten minutes to eliminate all the mutated life forms on the first floor. However, he had a feeling the difficulty of the challenge would increase exponentially with each subsequent floor.
With that in mind, he entered the elevator shaft. As he stood on the platform, the four sigils at the corners glowed even brighter with bluish energy, and the platform began to ascend to the next floor.