Chapter 207: Sensory Overload.

I stared at the jar full of the liquid that came out of my belly button. It was like I could feel its presence, even if I closed away all of my senses. I knew this was no illusion because I’d tried sleeping right next to several containers of the thing. I dreamed of myself; the love, the joy, the the violence, and my iron will that allowed me to control it. This hellixir mirrored all that I am, but no one else could get any visions quite like it.

Ragnar had the same Mutation, being an imp now and all, and I couldn’t parse his hellixir like I could mine either. I could only get the vaguest sense that I wasn’t sure was even real.

I grabbed another jar, and filled it with hellixir from what had become of my belly button. This was a bit gross… but also funny!

I then produced another mass from within my Hell of Creation, only this time what came out of my belly was not a liquid heavy like mercury, but instead a solidified and uneven white bead that was even heavier. It was just a condensed form of the same substance, but certainly more powerful for it. The connection I could feel to the crude thing had been strengthened too..

I chucked the bead into another jar and walked over to Moonwash. My Hell of Creation was tired, for there was a limit to how much hellixir I could produce at once, and no amount of regeneration or healing would change that. It should be fully replenished by tomorrow, thus my new routine to gradually build a stockpile of this Material.

The Hell of Creation Mutation was actually somehow already Level 80 and ready to evolve the moment I got it, thereby making it my ‘strongest’ Mutation right now, but I naturally refrained from letting it take the next step just yet. Despite all my new advantages, I would still prefer to evolve all my Mutations at once, as that had worked so wonderfully for me so far. I would not miss out on evolving past being an Archdemon out of something so petty as a lack of patience.

“So,” I asked as I sat beside my girlfriend by the scorching hot forge. She was nearly as tall as me now as she had finally evolved past Level 80. Her being smaller was nice and cute, but a bigger Moonwash was cool too! “What’s the progress today?”

“I’m testing more ingots,” she said as she added a trace amount of liquid hellixir to a molten mixture. My girlfriend stirred the pot, and then added some more of my essence after a moment’s deliberation. “This one became more brittle when the hellixir was added in, so I’m trying to use less of it.” She pointed at another pot of liquid metal, then another. “That one’s good for wind resistance, and your hellixir messed that up. This one did get less tough, but its natural heat-storing and retaining capabilities got a good upgrade. These ones are cursed, and the curses they possessed have all clearly gotten stronger. Those are the best archetypes to use with your hellixir so far.”

“Obviously,” I chuckled and began to help her with the forging process. I could feel how the molten materials moved and shifted while they were still in their pots. I described to Moonwash what further changes occurred when they were poured into moulds, then quenched. I worked with the raw ingots, and felt their shape and makeup in my mind. Everything altered by my hellixir was laid bare before all my senses.

I swung my new hammer made of the same material, and achieved a leap in my smithing prowess that almost felt unearned.

That was fine. I could learn from this advantage, to perform well even without it. If I even needed to, because I might not ever use other tools for anything important. My own gear shall be the very strongest of what we could possibly create.

The teleportation finished and we arrived somewhere in the barrier range. I and Moonwash dropped from the hidden canopy and set down our large bags. I took out a spear from one of them and held it in my hands. It was a weapon I had no training in whatsoever, yet in this moment I felt so connected to it, a shadow of what Devilcalibur felt like in my palms.

I swiped the spear once, and I knew exactly where it was in relation to my body. I performed a thrust, and easily identified a hundred imbalances in my stance. After only a few minutes, my usage of the weapon grew by leaps and bounds.

We had come here to test our newest creations.

Moonwash was already hard at work making notes, despite how robust her memory should actually be, let alone the perfection of my own. I described to her in detail all the sensations I felt as I continued to train with the spear. I didn’t think I’d be bringing it to any serious battle, but it was still… nice, to learn a bunch of new ways to break my enemies.

And it was that, which I put into practice right this moment. I swiped casually at a bear, and its guts spilled out. I shoved the spear towards the wolves I’d and three of them were skewered in one thrust. I fought a Level 80 arbeast with it, and the weapon that should’ve been so-so pierced far deeper into the woodlike exoskeleton than I would’ve guessed. Almost any weapon made of hellixir became stronger in my own hands.

The substance could clearly do more than that, given how it was even necessary to create new demons, but those were experiments for another day.

Today, I learned to use all manner of weapons. How to throw knives, how to behead with a chakaram, the best way to crush with a hammer, and more. It was honestly a whole lot of fun, and I happily bragged to Moonwash who had watched me do all this as I progressively got covered in more and more blood gore.

“Did you see that!? Did you see!?”

“Yes. I did.”

“And?”

“I did great work on the mace.”

A silence passed and I kept staring at her expectantly.

“That’s all?”

“You were wonderful.”

“Yay” I pumped my fist and squeezed a heart dead.

The City of Equals: Bessiahorn.

It was a ‘city’ that occupied several different mountains, and housed other definitely city-sized settlements that were very separate. I could see the different colors and design philosophies from up here in the air, and I wasn’t alone as a great many harpies were flying around the place. This place was an ‘alliance’ of sorts, where all the remotely close Duarchies had gathered to jointly exploit the Folded Planes Wonderzone.

I carried Moonwash through the air and we dropped down to the embassy district of the Jilder’s Duarchy. It was really a city of its own by size alone, complete with the even more ornate buildings of the harpies, and a more ostentatious dwarven settlement right below. No smoke came out of the surrounding mountains, as no Duarchy that hadn’t even mastered smoke management and enclosed recycling would be allowed this close to the Folded Planes Wonderzone.

We landed gracefully, to the tune of some harpy diplomats who had already recognized us and facilitated our arrival by informing the many guards that we were their guests.

“We greet the Demon Queen Haell Zharignan.”

“Please, follow us. We have been eagerly anticipating your visit.”

“Sure. Thanks.” I smiled and allowed them to lead the way.

We walked instead of flew to a solid-looking pyramid building, where mine and Moonwash’s presence were registered at the wide and clean reception hall of gleaming marble and jade. Our guides didn’t leave, and instead gave us a tour of the Jilderian Embassy District after our records were done. I and Moonwash explored the markets and assessed the value of the things on sale, though neither of us were a merchant at heart. My girlfriend couldn’t help herself and already bought a whole bunch of Materials, and the stuff made from them, such as clothes, jewelry, weapons, and more. The bookstores were particularly interesting, and we bought the more extensive guides and beastiaries available here, instead of in the far-off heart of the Harfet-Dargo Duarchy.

Really, it was a wonder that Harfet-Dargo had a presence here at all, despite how far away the Folded Planes was from them. Several long and extensive roads had to be carved across a long stretch of mountains and valleys to keep them connected. Harpies often flew between these far-off places and independent duarchies to bring news and maintain a good cycle of communication.

The tour finished by the day’s end. I found that the place was more diverse than any duarchy I’d visited so far, as I saw a pair of elves and a good number of other species here. We stayed in a great and luxurious hotel for the night, and come next morning, we were ready to set out for a new wonderzone, just the two of us.

We arrived at a mountain overlooking a sudden break in the great Impenetrable Barrier Range. The mountain range was just… for a massive area, and instead replaced by a strange twisting terrain of sparse dull grey forests, rocky outcroppings, and dusty sand. All of it looked strange and hazy, as if bent and smeared in unnatural ways. I saw a bird go in, and it suddenly stretched, then compacted into a blob, vaguely appeared like a regular if deformed bird again before it dove into the canopy that coiled like tentacles.

“Exciting!” I laughed and led the way with Moonwash following right behind. I suddenly turned around and slashed at a foe that wasn’t there. It was only a strange bend in space. I I’d detected something through my localized dimensional scanner… and it was just that, a random bend in space. They only got more numerous as we traveled down the sparser green forest. It made me jump at shadows, it felt like I was surrounded.

“You’re funny,” Moonwash commented drily.

“I’m happy to entertain!” I shouted back, though she was right next to me.

The forest around us had disappeared by now, replaced by the bare stone of the mountainside and the occasional plants of strange properties and grey-ish colors that we harvested as we walked. Other parties and expeditions came down the mountain from the staging ground above, or made their way back up, but they all looked like I was viewing things from bent and misshapen glass when seen from this far away. The sun itself was bent into a crescent shape one moment, and then a shuttle the next. I could feel the nearby spatial bends that were the cause of all this, but it actually confused me more than anything! I lost my footing one too many times, and I would’ve outright tripped had my reflexes not been as good as they were. Moonwash found me funny again as she was also thrown off balance, but definitely fared better than me without an extra particular sense to confound.

These were far from all the challenges that we faced throughout our descent, as monsters we’d never encountered before attacked us. From a gorilla whose punches carried with them a power that tried to pull apart whatever was struck, to a small grey squirrel that actually managed to get a surprise attack on me!

“Fuck,” I muttered and crushed its head. It did wound… my pride a little to have almost been taken by surprise by something not even Level 20, but it was this damned environment! I’d sensed so many false positives with my dimensional scanner through this whole trip already, that my alertness had grown dull. The extra sensory organ that had allowed me to navigate even the Lost Reflections now proved to be a liability!

But I knew it didn’t have to be. I just wasn’t used to it. I didn’t know how to interpret these ever-present spatial anomalies. And they certainly had a physical effect, as it could feel like I was moving through jelly one moment, and then travel one good leap with a single step the next.

It was my dimensional scanner that would allow me to navigate this terrain properly, if I mastered it.

I would certainly do that in time, but for now I decided to rely more on my other senses and my instincts to keep an eye out, as it was never a good idea to let our guard down. The duarchies believed this wonderzone to be the most dangerous they’d ever encountered, and I could believe it.

We reached the foot of the mountain and finally arrived at the Folded Planes proper. The area we entered was mostly a desert terrain, but with all these rocky outcropings and arches. One of them crumbled right before my very eyes as a big mass of tentacles climbed a rocky spire. The monster was a destrapus, and anything close to it was torn apart by great and constant spatial forces.

“I want that,” Moonwash said.

“Already on it.” I was jogging before she spoke. The formation of stone crumbled, and I split the Level 40 creature in two with my greatsword.

Both sides began crawling in different directions.

I grabbed one, and sure enough I felt a pull on my flesh as it latched onto me. The monster wiggled in pain from how my very cursed armor reacted. I bled inside the cursemetal, for the destructive spatial phenomenon could partially get through defenses, retain enough power to cause some minor quickly-healed cuts even if I used blood magic to make myself tougher.

I walked over to the other one and stomped it, but now it’s latched onto my leg too!

I sliced off limbs with a dagger, but even those crawled like a worm for a few seconds longer until they finally ceased. It did prove at least, that this creature could be killed. I also noticed that one of the big bodies was rotting faster, and it wasn’t the one I stomped.

I focused on the curse of dismemberment, the desecration of life, of growth that wasn’t healing but rather the opposite! My will caused the flesh of both destrapus bodies to peel apart from each other, and Moonwash came over to gleam all the information she could while they still lived.

Finally, the one on my hand died, and my girlfriend shifted all her attention to the one on my hooves. We talked about why this more injured one lasted longer, and I confirmed that I should have been using the same amount of magic on it. She removed her gloves and felt the destructive force on her skin as she allowed herself to be hurt. I frowned, but it wasn’t like I had any room to talk .

A pitch black worm suddenly shot out of the ground, and my eyes fucking widened at how I’d let monster get the jump on me! But even worse, it wasn’t me it wanted to get a jump on, but Moonwash! I didn’t have time to grab Devilcalibur, so I just punched towards it, but I actually partially fucking missed! The thing just seemed to be constantly shifting in size, growing larger one moment, and smaller the next. The environment worked against me, and just altered the course of my fist enough to still gouge out great amounts of flesh, but not stop the from getting its maws on my girlfriend!

She blocked with her armguard, and crushed the monster’s head with the other.

The holoworm recoiled back, for worms could survive devastating injuries, but that only gave me the opportunity to enact my vengeance!

Its guts rained down around us as Devilcalibur ate through its massive amounts of biomass.

The holoworm tried to dive back down and escape, but I just crushed and sliced and burned and decayed so much of its flesh, that it could no longer move.

I growled and screamed at the corpse, until a thunderclap made my head and my tense nerves snap towards it.

Moonwash lowered her staff after she’d thunderstruck a Level 40 warfist. The same kind of monkey as earlier, whose every punch caused chaotic spatial events. “You can carry on if you want.”

“Huh? I…” I looked down at the unrecognizable mush that remained of my enemy. “I… No, I’m good. I’m good. BUT WAIT THAT’S NOT THE POINT!” I rushed towards her, and began checking over her arm where she should’ve been bitten. “Are you okay? Are you hurt? Are–”

“I’m fine.” she shoved her armguard right into my eyes. “The armor held.” And it did. I might not have noticed the scratch at all, had I not been looking for it.

“Ah… Right, that’s good.” I nodded to myself, then said more softly. “Right. You’re an evolution above me again. I keep forgetting.”

“Don’t forget these things. They’re important.”

“Yes Ma’am.” I mocked salute, right before we got to the grim work of butchering all our new gains.

“You know that holoworm would’ve been very interesting, right?” Moonwash said as we chatted. “They have this cool ability to apparently squeeze into smaller and smaller holes with their variable size, which is what allows them to tunnel faster.”

“Yeah… Sorry. I should’ve seen the beast. Space is just fluctuating everywhere.” The unnatural bends in reality were moving. And they were present underground too.

“It’s fine. You could’ve killed it sooner, right?”

“Yes…” I admitted.

“Be more careful next time. Don’t torture the animal. It only ruins their remains." She paused. “That said, it isn’t like I couldn’t have told you to take the fight more seriously, but you looked like you needed it.”

“Nah. It’s probably worse if I indulge those impulses too much.”

“Is that how it works?”

“Maybe. Or maybe not. I’m doing just fine either way.”

“I’m glad. Now help me catch another holoworm.”

“Okay! That I can do!”

How was I supposed to hunt something I couldn’t even find? Urgh. Now I couldn’t even replace the thing I ruined.

Oh well.

“Let’s do this tomorrow.” It’d been three days already.

“Okay,” Moonwash agreed, and we gathered up our things.

A great and weight suddenly slammed into me and I screamed, “WE NEED TO GO HOME NOW!”

Moonwash dropped all of her luggage and latched onto me with all her limbs.

My muscles tensed, and my nerves stretched taut, for every second that this damned teleportation wouldn’t fucking finish!