The Chameleon Loop

Liam’s second attempt went little better, he sprinted too quickly and was unable to deflect the stinger into the wyvern’s mouth, taking it through the spine a few seconds later.

His third attempt saw him time the stinger almost perfectly, deflecting it and mounting the wyvern’s skull. At which point he realized the wyvern’s hide was as perforated as the sun. And took the stinger through his thigh where it stuck. Of course that resulted in the wyvern flicking him into the nearby wall, killing him quickly. A minor blessing given the iterative nature of his regression.

How many times have I been burned alive now? Twenty? Forty? I can’t tell, I’m not even surprised when I lose feeling in my arms or legs from the minotaur. Thought Nox.

He reset a fourth time, and decided to risk it all, this wasn’t a game, he wasn’t hunting colossus, nor was he Kratos. This wyvern would kill him a hundred times out of one hundred times in a fair fight. He’d tested those scales three times now, no paltry Mbar was going slip between those overlapping shields, and not even Taylor’s glowing longsword or Jamal’s spearthrow could pierce them outright. Their one conquest had been a fluke. Sheer dumb luck that the spear had found a weakness exposed by absurdly incredible circumstances.

So Nox created an equally absurd attack strategy.

“Cmon you dumb chicken!” Shouted Nox, sprinting at the wyvern with all his speed.

A roar to make women weep and children cry erupted from the wyvern’s throat in response to his challenge. The window he had been hoping for. Both of Nox’s feet left the ground, sending him soaring down the wyvern’s throat. An Mbar in both hands.

Surprised by its prey leaping bodily into it, the wyvern could do nothing but swallow. I really hope this works, cause if this fails i’ll have to try going in the other end. Thought Nox.

That thought drove his daggers and granted his feet strength. He kicked out, foot connecting with the wyvern’s uvula and triggering a spasmodic contraction of the throat. Muscles bunched and knotted, only to be slashed apart by an angry Mbar or used as a stepping stone for Nox to leverage his weight into each slash. Four slashes in stomach acid, mingling with bone fragments and chunks of familiar scales, washed over Nox’s body, burning away the skin anywhere it touched. His clothes began to moke, and the wyvern thrashed, foolishly failing to throw itself against a wall.

You should have killed me while you had the chance! Thought Nox, slashing through another wad of knotted muscles. Blood began to fill the esophagus, forcing Nox to take one last breath, or risk inhaling bile and blood. A potentially lethal concoction.

Claws shrieked against scales as the wyvern tried to extricate the demon inside it’s throat. One of the wings connected with Nox’s extended slash, snapping the Mbar’s blade along with his forearm which snapped backwards. Exposing both the radius and ulna in a double compound fracture. Had he not been forged in the pits of Loki’s regressionary hell, he would have screamed. Instead he sank his free hand into another knot of muscle and kicked off the wyvern’s throat.

Stab, kick, slip, kick kick, repeat.

Ten iterations of that informal mantra and Nox’s head connected with the Wyvern’s uvula, triggering another wave of bile that launched him clear of the wyvern’s mouth. Fangs raked against Taylor’s breastplate like nails on a chalkboard, triggering the wyvern’s jaw to release him. Bile made his clothes smoke, eating through them in seconds.

But Nox could do nothing more than gulp down the dungeon air. Crawling across the floor with one arm. Behind him the wyvern thrashed, breaking crystals and stalagmites with it’s death throes.

[wyvern soul +1] appeared in Nox’s mind, a prize that made him laugh with the strength of a dead clown. Howling with laughter until darkness took hold of his mind and the world faded from consciousness.

—

He’d expected to repeat his cycle of doom, only to awaken between an onyx cluster and a mana crystal cluster. Everything was experiencing a low grad of pain, but the most concerning thing was his complete lack of clothing. Not a single thread remained on his body, including his leg and arm hair. I probably look like a roswell grey-man alien. Thought Nox, raising his hand and encountering a blue tarp that crinkled under his touch.

The motion caught the attention of Ruby, who was now fully clothed, and wore her hair in a clean ponytail. As if her black day had passed and she’d somehow been able to clean herself.

“About time you woke up! It’s been over a day, time to rise and shake that tight ass of yours.” Called Ruby.

My tight… What? Did I wake up in prison?

Liam rolled to the side of his broken arm, finding it entirely intact. Alongside most of his equipment. Did Ruby say I've been out for an entire day?

“Where are my pants?” Asked Nox, blindly groping over his gear.

Ashley caught his wrist and guided it onto the spare set of fatigues he carried. Though her fingers felt like crystal hammers, unyieldingly hard, with fingernails that left indentations on his skin. Very nearly puncturing his recently healed dermis.

Her transformation had been remarkable, lo longer was Ashley his sister, but a demon possessed monstrosity. Black mana crystals, Onyxium –if Nox correctly recalled the sapien term for it– lined the inner crevice, absorbing the ambient mana and making the crawlspace livable. He dressed quickly, armoring himself with Taylor’s breastplate and another Mbar.

“Alright, lets reach the ziggurat and kill a minotaur.” Said Nox. Secretly only planning to stack souls.

His plans were expertly foiled by Shakko-Ashley and Ruby, who reallocated their supplies, whomever could utilize their talents to expend mana were forced to carry extra backpacks filled with little more than C4. Giving him a double burden of C4, which he wasn’t entirely displeased with. While the others had emptied their backpacks and stuffed them full of the onyxium crystals. Since the onyxium absorbed mana it could act as an improvised buffer for them, absorbing radiant mana and slowing the crippling effects of mana sickness.

To further foil his plans, the fox spirits could see through the darkness, and knew the labyrinth’s many twisting passages and avenues, having haunted the maze for millenia. Once Shakko combined their knowledge with Ashley’s divination the labyrinth became a solved puzzle. Ruby had awoken new powers as well, and cloaked the team in a shadowy mist, concealing their light from the wyverns. And soon the remaining members of the kill team were standing atop the labyrinth wall, overlooking the blood drinking plains of grass and the ziggurat of light.

That was too easy. We walked here in less than a half hour. But… We’re here. I can finally unlock the minotaur’s soul.

[Error: Insufficent Mana]

—

Tamamo no Mae could not believe her good fortune. Not only did the human named ‘Ru-bi’ accept her possession willingly, but the woman burned with the soul fire of a Divine cultivator. One who had mastered their inner ki and afflicted the world with their will.

Yet, this girl stood apart from all sects. Alone, separated from her family, ‘ska ool’ whatever that was, and lived in a camp of strangers… Little more than a nameless sect. There were no masters, no training, but they did consume juice of divine herbs, known as ‘there rap ee’. Why it had to be applied to the arm with a special tool was a strange development for Mae, one she would have to discover at a later date, once she allowed Ruby’s mind to assume the posture of dominance. Then she would have unmonitored access to Ruby’s memories. As it was, this world was different from the one she had left behind. Humanity itself had changed. Not everyone was a person, though the distinctinction between homo sapiens and homo venatorus meant nothing to Mae’s ancient intelligence.

What she did understand, was Ruby’s black day. A trite purification ritual practiced by many cultivators, and one that Mae had endured hundreds of times before. Experiences she wielded to full effect as she guided Ruby’s body and soul into harmony with her inner ki.

When they awakened, Mae was utterly confounded by Ruby’s might, where she had been a high ranking cultivator before the black day, now she rivaled the emperors. Mae had finally ascended to the highest realms, and now needed to escape.

Shakko only sweetened their circumstances by possessing his own ‘homo venatorus’. Another being far more powerful than any cultivator Mae had ever encountered in her ten thousand years of existence. Except for the Sphynx builders whom she’d avoided all costs. For their power was invisible. It twas the ender of nations of the bounty of heavy and it came in a day to leave just as quickly.

Escape, we need to escape this pit realm. Thought Mae, guiding the other hunters through the dungeon, Ruby’s power felt boundless. Whenever Mae wished for a barrier one appeared, and was created exactly how she imagined it. Ramps became stairs, with added rails for safety and texture for traction. Spells of healing, protection, foresight, and guidance all bounced around in Ruby’s mind, powers she invoked without incantations or words of power. She simply altered the world, more swiftly than Mae ever hand, before this dungeon.

Here her powers were enhanced, but ineffective, forcing her to cower and slink, a natural disposition for foxes, but not for Mae. Bah, this is nothing like the forbidden city, nor like the palaces of Japan. Wyverns cannot banter, nor can my corrupted children sharpen their guile against the whetstone of wit. Thought Mae, leading the hunters through the maze.

Her cloud of shadows should have only concealed herself, but with Ruby’s raw might at her beck and call, the cloud covered almost a dozen warriors. Safeguarding them over the treacherous walls and to the pillar of mana. Until today this pillar had burned like a star, viciously flaring towards her whenever she was weak, or mocking her for never being able to master the boundless nexus. Yet Ruby’s body was blind to the nexus, she was merely a heavenly cultivator returning to her divine abode.

“Alright, anyone who can’t moderate their own mana, just stick your heads in and withdraw. After that, set up the ping pong game we discussed on the way here.” Said Nox, Jumping off the labyrinth wall and landing easily.

He’s an odd one… A master of no skills but a possessor of too many, like a hidden master who conceals their own strength while guiding others along the Daoist path. No matter, mighty as he is, and talented as he may be, Nox Hawke is only a human. When our time comes, he will bend to our whiles, or break. Thought Mae, nonchalantly hopping off the marble wall and onto the carpet of vampiric grass.

Mana empowered her body, immediately filling her with enough raw energy to create another Shakko. Fire filled her veins, churning her soul with the reason she had never come here before.

This place was hell.

Not in a metaphorical way, no, this ziggurat represented Satan’s forgotten closet, a place for him to dump spoils and forgotten servants, but not so forgotten that this place was out of sight. If Mae had to pick from Ruby’s memories, this was like the ant farm in her third grade classroom, an artificial preserve for the rulers of this world or the next to store their nic-nacs and eternal servants. The ziggurat was proof of that. Even across the acres of sawgrass, Mae could tell it had been torn from the human realm, with its preserved stones and even so slightly skewed foundation. And the ridge of dirt that crept up the lowest level of stone, a sure sign that the ziggurat had been dropped in place as one monolithic structure. The interior probably won’t correspond to the exterior, like cracking open an orange and finding an entire watermelon within, despite the difference in size.

But Mae had more pressing concerns as her mana peaked, flooding her circuits with red hot severity. She took a single breath –ignoring the blood dripping from her nose– as her head threatened to explode, and focused on creating a barrier around herself, not just any barrier, but a sealed mesh an inch away from her borrowed body. Mae had the expertise to create such an elaborate construct, and now Ruby had the poser. It winked into life around her, draining her mana to habitable levels and encasing her in a mystical faraday cage.

Clapping echoed across the sawgrass, ricocheting off her new barrier. She took a bow, pleased that the human’s recognized her magnificence, until she saw the source of the applause. She had been the first to cross the threshold. Nox, Taylor, and Jamal had followed her closely and now stood at her side, but there were no hunters in front of her.

She tried not to let her terror show as her eyes fell upon the lone figure ahead of her. He sat atop the ziggurat, wearing a horrendously bright and chaotic shirt that Ruby’s mind told her was a “hawaiian shirt”, as well as uncouthly short trousers that left little to the imagination concerning the man’s gender. Loose sandals covered his feet, yet provided no security, or any back. This man appeared to be on vacation, not sitting in a pillar of the precursor to hellfire. Only one being would dare be so bold.

The devil himself was applauding her.