Chapter 504 - Through the Gauntlet (Patreon)

The ground rumbled, telling Zeke to jump.  He did, slamming into the side of the wall, then springing forward.  He sailed through the air, shouldering his way through three grasping statues before hitting more than thirty feet from where he’d started.  He tucked his shoulder, rolling to dispense his momentum, then springing to his feet at a run.  He barely cleared the area before the ground behind him completely disappeared. 

“That was close,” Eveline said unhelpfully.

Zeke ignored her.  If he stopped moving, there was a chance that the traps would catch up.  Or enough of the seemingly endless number of statues would grab hold him and wrestle him to the ground.  One or two wouldn’t be enough.  Even ten wouldn’t do the trick.  But a few dozen, all piled atop him and latching onto his arms and legs?  That would slow him down enough that he’d be helpless when the back wall caught up.  Or when the ground opened up.  Or his least favorite, when the two sides of the tunnel decided to slam together, smashing anything slow enough to be caught between. 

The entire corridor was riddled with traps and obstacles.  Some of them, Zeke had seen in time to avoid them, but with most, he’d had to adjust on the fly.  He knew it was only a matter of time before one of the traps surprised him enough that he was unable to adjust.  When that happened, he would die. 

So, his strategy was to pour on the speed and hope to outrun the traps before they had a chance to fully activate.  And for the most part, it had worked so far.  The only problem was that the mobile statues that had detached from the walls had figured it out.  Now, instead of attacking to kill, they were hellbent on slowing him down – or, if they could manage it, stopping him altogether. 

It was a nightmare.

Still, Zeke was nothing if not persistent, so he continued forward, never letting his momentum dissipate even for a second.  The first thing he had tried was to use [Shifting Sands], and it worked just like normal.  However, that strategy had very nearly gotten him killed.  The moment he sank through the ground, he realized that it only extended for a few feet before disappearing into nothingness.  After that was an expanse of open air.  And if it wasn’t for the time dilation portion of his skill, Zeke would have fallen into it.  But as it happened, he’d had just enough time to stop himself and climb out.

So, he had only one option available to him. 

He had to play the game as it was meant to be played, fighting his way through the army of mobile statues, never stopping lest he fall prey to one of the many traps waiting to kill him. 

But there was another problem that he hadn’t foreseen.

Maybe he should have, though.  Because the traps were speeding up, and with every hundred feet or so, the statues had gotten larger, more numerous, and far denser.  It wasn’t difficult to imagine that, eventually, they would be capable of slowing him down just enough that he fell behind.  And then, it would be over.

Perhaps he would survive the subsequent fall, but something told Zeke that wouldn’t be the case.

Zeke continued to charge through the statues, shattering them with his immense momentum.  He hadn’t really played football back on Earth, but, in that moment, he felt like what he thought a running back would feel as he crashed through the opposing defense.  He didn’t bother swinging his hammer.  There was no time for that.  He could only lower his shoulder and trust his herculean strength and the momentum of his charge to see him through.

A few times, he was forced to slow by particularly dense statues, but he managed to shift just enough to make it past before the traps caught up.  Still, by the time he finally reached the end of the corridor – which was miles long – each step was an exercise in frustration, taking the full weight of his power. 

And then, he finally broke through, stumbling into an open chamber.  The rumbling suddenly stopped, and Zeke fell to his knees.  His body bore hundreds of gouges where the statues had latched onto him.  He’d had no choice but to rip them free, but large chunks of his metallic flesh had gone with each dislodged hand.  [Hand of Divinity] helped, but even his recently upgraded skill had fallen short when weighed against the constant damage. 

But now that he was free of the press of stone bodies, the skill had the chance to catch up, rapidly rebuilding his torn body.  But the word “rapidly” was relative, and it still took a few minutes before he was able to push himself to his feet.

“All shiny and new,” Eveline remarked.  Her voice was still a little hoarse from the damage she’d incurred from being so close to the eruption of [Wrath of Annihilation], but she was much better than before. 

“How long was I in that hallway?” Zeke asked.

“An hour or two?  Maybe.  It’s hard to say.”

Zeke glanced back, but there was no hall.  Instead, there was just a gaping hole in the wall, beyond which was nothing but blackness.  It was a reminder of what would have happened to him had he gone even a little more slowly. 

Taking a deep breath, he looked around the chamber in which he now found himself.  It was a circular room with a diameter of about a hundred yards, with a domed ceiling and enormous tile floor.  The walls bore one layer after another of intricate runes, and the tiles alternated between dull green and dingy off-white.  A sense of age hung over everything, as if Zeke was the first person to set foot inside the chamber for thousands of years. 

In the center was a large pillar from which hung hundreds of bodies, each in an advanced state of decay.  The ones near the top were little more than skeletons, but the lower Zeke looked, the more intact they were until, at the very base of the pillar were figures that looked like embalmed corpses.  They were all human – or human-like – but otherwise, Zeke couldn’t see any identifying features. 

“That is disturbing,” he said.  “What do you think?”

“That I don’t like this dungeon,” Eveline answered.  “Those are runes on the wall.  You see that, right?”

“I did.”

“What about the tiles?”

“Nothing there, but there might be something under that layer of dust,” Zeke answered.  “The pillar has runes, too.”

“I see them, too.”

“How do we want to do this?  Circle around the outside?  Or do you think we just step forward and hope we can take whatever comes?”

Both options held merit.  Circling around meant they would stay further away from the corpses – or the pillar, which gave Zeke a bad feeling – but it would also put him closer to the runes themselves.  When he looked upon them, he couldn’t interpret their purpose, but they definitely sent a shudder of cold fear up his spine.

“Straight ahead,” he said when Eveline didn’t offer an opinion.  Zeke had seen a lot since being reborn, and many of those experiences had been quite disturbing.  Yet, the chamber seemed far more distressing than even the pieces – which were creepy enough – warranted.  Still, Zeke didn’t see much in the way of options.  He couldn’t go back.  Instead, there was only one way forward – another exit on the other side of the room.  So, that was the goal, regardless of what oddities the dungeon threw at him. 

He stepped forward, his foot falling on one of the white tiles. 

And the pillar in the center of the room creaked, shuddering slightly and sending the hanging corpses to swing a few inches. 

“That’s not a great sign.”

A great screech sounded from behind.

Zeke whipped around to see a huge, black claw emerge from where the hall had once been.  It latched onto the ledge, four-foot talons scratching grooves on the nearby tiles.  A surge of power washed over Zeke, making him feel weaker than he’d felt since being reborn.  It was only an illusion. He’d lost no stats.  But relative to what he felt of the creature currently dragging itself from the depths, he was nothing more than an insect.  He’d only seen a single talon, but Zeke knew that if he fought that monster, he would be squashed. 

That brought his path into focus.  He needed to cross the chamber, and as quickly as possible, lest he be destroyed.

So, he quickly jerked his attention back to the task at hand and stepped forward.  However, the moment his foot grazed the green tile, it crumbled.  He almost fell through, but he had enough strength to keep himself from tumbling into the square hole.

Thinking quickly, Zeke adjusted, aiming for the next closest white tile.  When his foot fell upon it, it remained solid.  However, the pillar creaked again, though this time, it didn’t stop.  Instead, the column twisted, and the corpses suspended from it came alive.  Only then did Zeke notice that each one was hung from chains.  The pillar continued to twist, though Zeke couldn’t afford to pay it much attention.  The powerful monster had pulled itself further from the depths, spurring Zeke forward.

He leaped to another white tile.

The speed of the pillar’s rotation increased, and the centrifugal force separated the chained corpses from the surface of the column.  He leaped to another tile, and the monster dragged itself up.  Zeke didn’t dare look back, but he could feel the creature’s murderous gaze.  It was all hate and mana and resentment, and Zeke had no intention of letting that monster catch up.

He jumped to another tile. 

The pillar turned, and the chains extended.  That’s when Zeke was forced to pay attention, because they swung hundreds of feet from the column, screaming through the air like living flails.  One hit him with enough force to knock him onto one of the green tiles.  Panic suffused Zeke’s heart as he fell through, but at the last second, he narrowly managed to grab hold of the edge of the next white tile. 

Something grabbed him from down below, spurring him to yank himself back to the surface.  It was just in time that he had to leap over another swinging corpse.  If he’d had time to analyze it, the pillar and chained corpses would have reminded him of the old chair swing ride he used to see at the county fair. 

Only with more corpses.

And a little more potential death.

The moment Zeke landed, he once again leaped to the next white tile.  And again after that, ducking under another swinging corpse.  Each white tile he reached caused the pillar to swing even master, and the decrepit dead bodies screeched the entire time.  Behind him, the monster had finally climbed free, though its pursuit was blessedly slow.  That was the problem with being so large, Zeke reasoned.  Every second, it was hit by another corpse, proving that the room’s dangers weren’t limited to Zeke himself. 

Regardless, he knew it wouldn’t be slowed for long, so he continued on, feeling like a character in a platforming video game as he tried to time each leap so that he wouldn’t be dislodged from the tile by one of the swinging bodies.  But once he got the hang of it, it wasn’t so difficult.  Disturbing.  Nauseating.  And disgusting.  But not that dangerous, once he knew the rules.

So, of course, the moment he grew comfortable, the dungeon decided to change things up.  Suddenly, one of the skeletons dislodged from the spinning pillar, launching free to land on the next white tile in Zeke’s path.  It threw its arms out wide and screeched at him before letting loose with some sort of skill that sent billowing frost erupting from its gaping maw. 

That cloud hit him like a solid thing, nearly knocking him from the tile.  However, that wasn’t the worst part.  Instead, that distinction belonged to the fact that, after only a moment, it felt as if his legs had frozen in place. 

Fortunately, if Zeke knew anything, it was how to deal with ice.  So, he embraced his domain, [Aura of Desolation].  Hellfire bloomed all around him, and his body erupted in red-and-black runes.  That was enough to free his legs, and before the skeleton could repeat its attack, he leaped forward, bringing his hammer down with enough force to shatter a mountain. 

And the skeleton blocked it.

Then, it slammed its fist into his hip, very nearly knocking him from the tile.  Zeke took it, feeling his body crack under the blow.  But still, he kicked out, aiming at the monster’s leg.  It cracked under his metallic foot, and as it fell, he kneed the thing in the face, sending it flying backward until it landed on one of the green tiles and fell through. 

That’s when the other skeletons landed on white tiles all around him.  Seven of them.  All just as strong as the first, and breathing clouds of frost in his direction.  Activating his other domain, Zeke leaped into battle, swinging his hammer with ruthless ferocity.  The first skeleton he reached was a little slower to react than the first, and Zeke dispatched the thing in short order.  However, the next one in line put up a much better fight.  Still, in a battle, Zeke was in his element.  Even with having to keep one eye on the oncoming monster and another on the tiles – while also keeping track of the swinging corpses – Zeke was more than capable of carving a path through the skeletons.

And that was precisely what he did.   

One after another fell before him, shattered and broken or sent careening over the edge and into the abyss below.  And Zeke never slowed.  He didn’t dare use his damage skills, but Voromir’s ability was definitely on the table.  He used it to strike from a distance even as he fought against another one of the skeletal creatures.  And finally, he leaped to the last tile, grabbed the final enemy, then tossed it back at the pillar.  It hit with a resounding crack, but Zeke wasn’t paying attention to it.  Instead, he only had eyes for his destination – another hall that loomed before him, dark and menacing.

He dove through the opening, and a large stone door slammed into place behind him.  A moment later, it shuddered as something enormous smashed into it, sending a cascade of dust and stone to fall to the floor.

“That was close,” Eveline said.

“Yeah,” Zeke agreed, rolling over as he tried to catch his breath.  “This dungeon sucks.”