The Systemic Lands - Chapter 613: Day 5,104 (2) – Critical Failure

“I am just getting started.” I was completely lying, but hopefully it would buy me some time to get away.

“AND YOU ARE BUT A MEWLING BABE. REDIRECT. PULSE.” I quickly leapt into the tunnel as gravity was redirected towards the sphere. It took a moment to make sure I didn’t fall back down into the boss chamber. A massive pulse of white energy covered the entire chamber. “HOW ANNOYING. BEAM.”

Air Burst. I quickly moved down the tunnel I had come through. A massive white beam, as thick as a bus cut through the terrain. Air Burst. It followed me for a second, before stopping, leaving a huge cut in the block terrain behind me.

“BEAM.” I needed to get away. I couldn’t win this fight.I was almost hit, since the beam could track me easier at a distance and move less during the second it was active. Air Burst. Air Burst. I shot out of the massive hole that was made towards the outside.

“BEAM.” I reached the outside just as it was unleashed. My right foot was trailing too far behind and completely vaporized, leaving a smoking stump behind. Air Burst.

“BEAM.” I was high up in the air and dodged using my skill. But it was close. The golems on the ground all began anti-air fire as well. I was turned around, and couldn’t tell which direction I had come from as I was trying to survive.

“BEAM.” Another close miss. I was spamming my skill to gain distance while juking left and right to avoid the aerial fire. Thankfully I had enough height already I couldn’t be hemmed in. I was rapidly running out of energy, since I had to use my skill each time I wanted to change directions.

There were no massive beam attacks. I landed just outside the block terrain on the goo terrain. The block terrain behind me started moving again, as I kicked off the gooey terrain. I felt energy trying to enter me, and had to mentally focus to try and not absorb any energy. There was a trickle coming from somewhere else. Also, the pain I was feeling was quite bad.

I had mostly stopped bleeding, but my injuries were bad, very bad. If I didn’t have such a high Body stat, I would probably be dead right now. At least I had one foot left. I was cursing myself for not yanking my other foot up in time. At least whatever the sphere had done, cauterized the wounds for the most part. One eye, one foot, lots of holes, but still two hands and I was alive.

The challenging part was resisting taking in any outside energy. It was tempting, but I couldn’t risk it. Why have energy out here but not in block terrain? Why did skills still work if they were from the Almighty System? There were a lot of questions that were bouncing around my head.

The most important one was, why was the sphere so weak? Anyone else would have thought I was crazy for thinking that, but I went into this situation expecting a god and I got a super strong monster instead, maybe a demi-god. But that sphere felt far too weak to be considered a contender against the Almighty System.

Unlike many other people I had seen and experienced the power of the Almighty System firsthand. If you could create all of this, zones and monsters, you aren’t going to struggle against that sphere when I could damage it. It had to be like an virus or something specifically designed to target the Almighty System. It clearly was familiar with the Almighty System based on its comments.

But there was an immune response before, why no immune response now? Why was the Avatar taken out so easily and no warning? I didn’t like any of this. The only way to get answers was to defeat that sphere and it wasn’t simple.

My first thought was to have some kind of reflective shield like the interior of the chamber, but those last attacks made that idea a joke. And it just spammed them. That lent credence to the idea that the sphere was sandbagging for some reason and only got serious after I damaged it slightly. That meant I screwed up my one good chance to launch a major alpha attack if that was the case.

And the other issue was why was the difficulty set to a standard I could barely reach. I didn’t think the world revolved around me, even if it felt like it sometimes. For the power level of the sphere to clearly match me, when I had been thinking about how there were no more peer opponents for a while, made me question everything.

Was this all a simulation in my mind? The pain felt real, but the fact that my head wasn’t hit in the last exchange could just be chance or it could be the simulation altering itself. I had never given that idea credence in the past. That I was the only one in a simulation. Now though, it just seemed too good to be true.

A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

Everyone seemed real, emotions, and knowledge that I wouldn’t have. The only way to tell if this all wasn’t a simulation just about me was to die, which should break things. And that was the one thing I would never willingly do. I didn’t believe in coincidences, and this sphere seemed like a timely coincidence. Why now after the monster was dead? Why not for the last ten years or so?

If it really was the calamity that happened before, its actions made no sense. That could also be the fact that I was missing a lot of data. A tremendous amount of data. I had no idea of what was going externally to the Systemic Lands.

Still, it still came down to winning. Even if this was a simulation of one, with just me, I needed to win regardless. I couldn’t just give up, since I could die if the simulation ended, and I didn’t triumph or gave up. That might be a failure condition.

“Ahh,” I tried to scream in frustration, but spewed out blood instead. I began coughing violently, but still kept moving as I coughed out quite a bit of blood. Freaking disco ball of death. The first thing would be to disrupt the terrain. Just destroy the reflective surfaces. That granted the sphere too big an advantage. Second, bring a really big and powerful bomb. The mother of all bombs.

If we could get an airship close, then the beam cannons could do good work at bringing down the sphere. That was the other problem, it was just me. If Michelle was there, the entire fight could have swung a different direction. While her summons would be easily defeated, they would be good distractions and foot holds in the battle space.

I would need an entire crate of bombs and to just chuck them while attacking. That shield was incredibly strong as well. I had been watching closely. While other attacks had shown up in disturbing the local energy, the skills just formed instantly. The only exception was the massive beam attack, which took a moment to charge up. But most of the time was on the travel time outwards, not the charge up time.

They were all incredibly fast and powerful attacks. The smaller beams cut right through me. It wasn’t annihilation energy either. I had been watching carefully, but it was something else. The blinding light made it too hard to get any kind of reading as to what was going on. Even after the battle, I still felt like I was seeing spots.

That attack that got me from behind, really carved me up, since it went through my shoulder, jaw, and eye. I needed to watch out for lengthwise attacks the most. I had been protecting my head and heart, but just the sheer level of damage I took while avoiding anything critical was a lot.

The sheer volume of the small attacks was concerning. I could avoid the big attacks at close range. Destroying the reflective terrain and then engaging at close range would be the correct battle strategy. That would limit the spread of close range attacks. It was the bouncing that got me, not the initial attack itself.

That area burst was dangerous, but could be countered by annihilation attacks to disrupt a portion to get through. Then there was the issue of its shielded defense. Since it had a super beam attack, it stood to reason that there was a super shield. The regular shield appeared a set distance away.

If the sphere made some kind of super shield and sent it at me, then there was a big danger of being hit and not being able to dodge. Not a burst attack, but a stronger directional pulse at short range. Enough spread I couldn’t dodge easily at close range. Like an eighth of the sphere’s outer edge would be enough to catch me.

That would have enough area to catch me, while being too strong to disrupt. I noted the attacks the sphere called out were a lot stronger. But that was probably the echoes of energy rippling outwards due to the attacks that I was picking up on. That was probably from wasted energy being put into the super attacks, which was spilling outwards.

I frowned at that conclusion. The Almighty System’s energy control had to be immense. Since it was applying stats to people, monsters, zones, and everything else it had to have more ability than every single skill and meta-point combined.

For something that was its enemy having such slopy control seemed questionable. It didn’t make any sense. The Almighty System not acting and being hamstrung by such an opponent was mind boggling. The Almighty System could just send in a horde of level 7 and higher monsters to deal with the issue.

It brought up the question if this was a ploy by the Almighty System. The Avatar was disabled. But loads of people had been killed, which also didn’t make sense. The one thing that made the Almighty System angry was when stores were damaged, now stores were damaged. Was this a field boss type of event?

But why kill so many people? The Almighty System was incredibly fair and uncaring towards everyone. At least that was what I had thought. This entire fight and everything that was occurring was messing with my head. I double checked for any holes, but there were none through my brain. Everything about this was completely throwing me off, and it wasn’t just the fight.

None of this made sense. I thought I was intelligent and a competent individual, but right now I felt like the rug had been yanked out from under me. Everything I thought was true wasn’t. This sphere and everything surrounding it was a paradigm shift. I always thought myself a smart person able to process new information, but this shook the very foundations of everything I knew.

I didn’t even know what to compare this situation to. The closest I could come up with was the feeling I had when I had first arrived to the Systemic Lands, but far worse. At least then the loss of understanding was about new things. This was new, but I already had information I thought was true.

That brought up the question of if I should even fight and risk another confrontation. If it was a field boss or something like that, would it give a meta-point? That might be worth the hassle. I wouldn’t say no to another meta-point. I shook my head, this entire situation was screwing with me as I hopped across the gooey landscape.

I would get back to the Forbidden City, heal up, plan, and then figure out my next move then. Trying to think while hurting, missing an eye and foot, and having to retreat was not a good time to rationally analyze everything that happened. That was the advantage of working with other people, getting lots of advice, both good and bad.