Dropping the not dead Babel Fish back inside its fishbowl. I headed back over to the cart, picking up the phone, I started pying. I had already spawned in I might as well go until I die.
As far as the Babel fish went, he wasn't dead (he's breathing at least). However, from the looks of it, he seems to have entered something like a state of shock. He did technically connect with every matrix he has, and every one that could theoretically exist. Physically, I can't see anything wrong with him, besides his higher consciousness becoming non-functioning. It most likely overwhelmed him. Which might end up being a boon for me, if he still works like any other Babel Fish. He just unfortunately drew the short end of the stick and became a vegetable (possibly). Only time would really tell on that account, however.
(I mean, I might be able to speed it up and heal him by dropping some healing potion in the water, but it's all currently being occupied).
With the phone in hand, I sent my blood colored avatar blitzing its way inside the early areas of the nest. Skipping past the first areas I made my way down the path I could remember. But I soon found several bck Vigor Ants trailing behind. It seems that despite having 9 Speed, I wasn’t as fast as the ants with their six legs. As I continued pushing forward only a few of them remained, but were quickly gaining on my heels.
As I approached the end of the current tunnel, I thought it was time to remove the stragglers. Having the avatar make a quick shift over towards the wall, running up the curved surface, its speed slowed just enough to nd onto the closet ants’ back. Atop the ant's back, a decisive strike was delivered to its neck, severing its connection with the rest of the body. The ant's speed kept it going several more paces as it skidded into the ground.
“Yeesh…” I know that I’m stronger now, but these ants are like walking tanks. The fact I can put a hole in the back of its head, even if it’s a weak point, really drives home how much stronger I am now. In the same vein, I’m not going to be doing nearly as much damage to a legendary level creature as I am to these mortal level ants.
With the ant’s death, an announcement ribbon appeared on the top of the screen—this time, I could read it: “Killed: Vigor Ant.” As the announcement finished traveling across the screen, the ant's body disappeared, leaving nothing behind. Turning around, the next ant was only a few moments away.
Once it was close, it lunged forward, striking at the avatar with its scythe-like front legs. In response, I had my avatar move just enough for the leg to graze across its torso, doing substantial damage to my HP bar. At the same time, the blood spouting from the wound swiftly coiled the ant’s sharp limb before constricting around its joint.
The next move happened in an instant; the constricted joint gave way as my blood severed it from the body. My avatar then spun it around before driving the severed limb into the ant’s head and neck, beheading it.
“Killed: Vigor Ant.” Again, nothing dropped.
Summoning my Bloodborn, I waited until the remaining ants were closer before having it possess one. Once the little red blob entered the ant’s body, the ant dropped down to the floor like a puppet losing its strings. Its movements became weak, despite all the force it gave to move, but there was no helping it now.
For the remaining ant, I spent some time practicing my control of the avatar without using the controls a little more before I tried to end it. Taking the blood that leaked from my avatar, I sent it forward in a final strike, unfortunately, and somewhat unsurprisingly, my blood couldn't penetrate its hardened carapace. Instead, leaving a crack and some damage. With the small amount I had, there just wasn't enough to create the force needed to break through. But it was still effective when it came to tearing apart their joints and weak points.
Once the final ant was dead, I returned to the Plumber badge while waiting for my Bloodborn to consume the remaining ant and restore my lost HP.
Besides the transtion function, the badge also came with several others, accessed by pressing different sections along the outer ring. One of the more interesting ones was the mapping function, which spoke the most to me for its usefulness.
Feeling along the outer ring of the badge, there weren’t any buttons, so it must be touch-sensitive. Fumbling with it for a bit, I started hearing static. Releasing my grip, it stopped. This was another function of the badge; with two or more, they can function as phones or radios. Checking the page again, beyond being universal transtors,
They can act like a Geiger counter, fshing red and beeping when detecting radiation.
Function as a two-way communication system with other badges, even providing video feed.
Can hack/bypass electronic locks, which can be used for several things. such as hacking and subsequently upgrading internet modems, and energy weapons. Though the ability to access the ‘Extranet’ that goes along with this function will go unused outside of its home universe. Regardless, I’m going to apply these liberally, this one is absolutely going on the modem outside, once the gummy wears off.
Checking the game, the ant was dead, and my lost health had been mostly restored while I was busy fumbling with the badge. Sending my avatar deeper into the tunnels I continued messing around with the badge in my hands. While my avatar ran between the various tunnels I continued exploring each point on the badge.
I found that by pressing a section on the top right with my index finger, ring finger on the top left, and thumb on the bottom, pressing and holding these three sections brought up a holographic map of the area, projected from the green hourgss. The projection was a circur shape with a mono green color palette dispying only the room around me. In the center of the map, the badge represented itself with a fshing red dot. Shifting my fingers, I started to hear the radio buzzing again.
As for my exploration of the tunnels, ducking between the small offshoots to avoid the rge open areas and the rger groups of ants, I slowly made my way deeper, killing ants here and there in the process. I even found my first red ants and made sure to kill them.
Sadly, they didn’t drop anything.
I had also spent some time testing my Bloodborn’s new regeneration skill; honestly, it was more efficient to have it possess one of the ants if I needed to heal. Not only did doing so take the ant out of commission, but it was both faster and more efficient. Once an ant was possessed, my avatar would regain not just health but also Ki. Perhaps when in a long, drawn-out boss fight, the slight regeneration might come into py. Otherwise, in continuous combat, where you spend most of your time running around, it was better to run into a group of enemies, kill one with a Ki skill, possess another to knock it out, and fight what remains normally. So far, this appears to be the most efficient method.
And in doing so, the ball of blood that I typically accumuted over time was growing well. Now that I could use it properly, instead of trailing behind my avatar, it was now being worn as a liquid armor around the upper body. After a few encounters to accumute, I could now use it effectively to break the ant's carapace and turn it into a spear shape to effectively use Penetrating Pierce, which could kill an entire group in one attack. I could also change it from defensive armor into mobility assistance; by shifting the majority of it into tentacles, I could bounce off the walls or use it to grapple ants.
On the topic of drops, it’s not that nothing had dropped after running around killing everything that crossed my path, just a few attribute crystals that are now worthless to me. They could be used to restore Ki, so they were completely worthless.
Finishing up the test encounter, “The flying ant was supposed to be around here somewhere.” I mumbled, having spent over ten minutes looking around different tunnels searching for the correct path. I was pretty deep within the nest now, even so, I was still on the first floor, and the only path I knew down to the second was beyond the Silver-Winged Flying Ant. At my current speed, it might take another half hour before I finish searching every offshoot tunnel.
After killing its test target, the little blood orb the game recognized as my Bloodborn returned to my avatar's side. Looking at it for a moment, “I wonder if it can possess my blood?” I knew it could reenter my avatar to provide the regeneration effect, but wouldn't it also apply the blood manipution skill if it merged with the rge pool?
Removing the blood armor around my avatar, it once again pooled into a rge ball. Having the little ball enter the rger one, a rge pair of eyes opened on the rge ball.
After messing around with it, the rge orb wasn't just a size increase for my Bloodborn. Due to its presence and abilities, the blood pool had an increase in strength and stability, and it provided a slow regeneration effect. Additionally, constructs were more solid and harder to destroy. All while the smaller spirit could escape from any point across its surface.
As I spent some time shifting the rge orb into different shapes, I got an idea. (Who needs a stand when I can just make one?)
The rge blood orb behind my avatar began to twist into a rough humanoid shape. Unlike the thin, child-like form my Bloodborn has started naturally taking, this was a much more muscur, masculine frame with a rge barrel chest. Even so, the chibi art style of the game minimized this appearance to a degree. What I was left with was a bloody, red upper body of a man, about twice the size of my avatar. Two rge, mostly defined arms and mostly defined abs, a square face, with the same six hair tendrils, just a bit longer, now ending at his jaw. As I zoomed in on the screen, looking over his face, I noticed the 7-pointed star that normally sat atop his forehead had shifted. Two of the points had grown long, now appearing like a rge upside-down V-shaped scar across both glowing eyes.
Doing a few more tests with this Bloody Avatar, I found that its range had suffered greatly from the merger. Barely being able to leave more than a few feet but is strength had increased substantially. The next group of ants I came across were all crushed to death under fist. (Still no drops however).
As I continued to explore, I found that turning one of its arms into a spear could also effectively unch Penetrating Pierce. Now, however, it was more like firing a cannon down the tunnels, killing anything in its path.
After some time to experiment with the regeneration skill, now constantly active. It remains more effective to release the merger and absorb any of the remaining ants that could survive combat, primarily for their Ki, as firing off Penetrating Pierce required 4 units of Primordial Energy. One shot could effectively end two or three groups at a time, so Ki became an even greater priority, while the additional health regeneration just became an added bonus.
My exploration, with the twin pair of bloody red avatars, I didn't need to worry about most encounters anymore. Even when meeting rge groups of 6 or 7 ants, they would be crushed under foot. Or shot with a cannon strike. I was quickly making my way down the rge tunnel checking one offshoot after another.
On one of my return trips to the rger tunnel, I noticed the number of ants had increased. Not thinking much about it, I quickly killed several of them before noticing the number starting to spiral. “Ah, shit,” I mumbled seeing that I got caught up in a horde once again.
The number of ants rapidly began increasing. I was able to fend them off at first, simply crushing or swatting them away as I ran away from the ever-increasing horde. But the numbers continued to climb. Using Penetrating Pierce once to carve a path to retreat.
“Killed: Vigor Ant. Killed: Vigor Ant. Killed: Vigor Ant. Killed: Vigor Ant. Killed: Vigor Ant. Killed: Vigor Ant. Killed: Vigor Ant.”
A nonstop ribbon and announcement messages were ringing as I once again shot out the skill to halt their pursuit.
In the end, I was once again surrounded as the horde continued to grow. Fending them off was about all I could do; inevitably, I was going to die. But something strange started to happen. The mass of ants started to congregate in some sort of strange amalgamation.
“What the fuck...?”
At least several dozen ants had simultaneously come together to form a giant five-fingered hand.
“They could do that?” I asked, completely baffled, knowing what was about to happen. The amalgamated ant hand was brought down upon my avatar.
The screen didn’t even dull before the next screen appeared on the phone, a bck screen with the words “You Died” in the center, coupled with my pancaked avatar, appearing right behind it.
I sat for a moment of silence, looking at the screen before shooting from my seat, “HOW IS THAT FAIR!!” I shouted angrily before slinking back down, accepting my defeat.
“What the hell even is that?” I muttered before I started thinking.
(How does that even work? A construct formed to take down stronger foes? Its trigger is… hordes? Why? Does it require a certain number of member units or a specific amount of energy? More so, how would they know how to do that? I know their giant ants, but they don’t seem that smart. Are they receiving a commander’s assistance? How?)
END
