Chapter 1173 – Prep Grinding 14 – Creator of the Twisted City
On the roof of the building, he stood alone. The cape of the figure they had caught a glimpse of earlier fluttered in the wind. Waving, untarnished white revealed the right arm of the figure and showed the black lines that slithered over it like tiny serpents. Dramatically, the figure turned around, facing the party that had just emerged on the roof.
His body was entirely made from silvery-white plates that interlocked and layered to form the body of a man. Broad shoulders, covered in pads to which the cape was attached, accentuated his broad build. At easily five metres tall, he was the largest humanoid they had faced so far in Ohmior. His hands were empty, as he made a dissuading gesture. “Fear not, I cannot attack you yet,” he told them in a calm tone, his blue eyes glowing calmly. “I stand here, until you are ready to aggress.”
“You’re kinda chill for being made so we can punch ya,” Rave observed.
The Creator shrugged. “I’ve been made with more intelligence than other enemies you face, but in the end I’m here to be challenged.” He turned to look at the city again. “I’m your enemy by design and I will fight you, because it is as certain for me that I must do so as it is for you to breathe. Distantly I understand how odd that is. How I’m both the creator of this city, of my beloved Ohmior, and yet merely another piece in it, no different than any stone except for my designated importance. I have driven back the void; I remember the day I slammed my fist into the core of its corruption.” He clenched his right hand, the only part of him not stainless silver. “Yet, I also know that I am not real.”
“Sounds like Gaia is being quite cruel,” John remarked.
“I do not think so,” the Creator shook his head, “I lack an understanding of how this is cruel. I do not suffer from my condition. I only wonder how I will feel, should I succeed in killing you and becoming real in your place. In the end, I truly am just a set-piece that can talk, created to be a challenge to overcome.” He turned back to them again and snapped the fingers of his left hand. “If you wish to die and let me acquire free will, by all means!” he declared, while a segment of the roof began to rise, with him at the very edge. “Otherwise, I will do as is my purpose: fight you!”
‘I wonder if any Raid enemy that gets enough intelligence will become self-aware,’ John thought. ‘It’s a tad too meta for me.’ “What do you think about this, Lorelei?” he asked the seer. Because of her connection to Gaia, he wondered what her opinion was about this.
“It strikes me as odd that the Lady would give this being the mind to understand its own situation. Yet, its lack of will to do anything beyond its programming marks its words as true. It is an obstacle, not a person,” Lorelei responded. “To project upon it more is unnecessary.”
‘She can be quite cold in her analysis,’ John thought. It wasn’t something he disliked, especially in this case where it mirrored his own opinion. They were looking at an enemy with meta-dialogue. No matter what he said, the Creator would still execute his abilities on the cooldowns he was given, in phases that were pre-programmed, and with no adjustments between fights. “What do you see, Lorelei?”
“I see... movement...” Lorelei answered quietly, swaying as if she was standing atop unsteady ground. John kept an arm around her, ready to catch her. “Constant movement across the city. Tilts and turns, wherever you go. I see an exposed core, after much combat has been done, and a difficult trip to get there. An unblemished Creator stands at the end of the untreaded path. A broken Creator stands at the end of the path successfully taken. Then there will be heat. Constant heat, power uncontained, until it is done.”
John let out a long sigh.
“Did I say something that displeased you?” Lorelei asked.
“Yeah, but not like you are at fault for the future or Gaia’s design decisions,” John responded. “It’s just that, what you said makes it sound like there will be a parkour segment in this boss fight. Combat, parkour, and then some kind of DPS check at the end.” Sighing again, he rubbed his forehead. “If we’re lucky, it’s the kind of parkour where only one person needs to make it across in time. In any case, you might want to leave.”
“It would be a waste of time to stay,” Lorelei agreed. Her second sight was wonderous in its capabilities, but even it was limited in its range. If they flew around the entire city during the boss fight, she would likely get bored just standing there. Better to go home and keep bonding with the other haremettes – perhaps watch a movie or just enjoy some eroticism. “I wish you great success, Ma- John.” She turned and bowed before the rest of the group. “You too, sisters.”
“We will have an intimate talk about what you missed later,” Siena said and waved goodbye to a blushing Lorelei. “Do we tease this any further or do we start now? I wish to be done with this Raid.”
“Well, there’s another boss after this,” John told her.
“Ya sure?” Rave asked, looking at the Creator of the City.
Although the initial shift was dizzying, worse was that being upside down exposed them to the towers below. Their rate of fire was toned down remarkably, compared to what the flying members of the party had to endure when they distanced themselves too much from the platform. After being upside down, the platform turned to one side, then the other, before stabilizing along the regular axis again. Dodging the tower shots from different angles pulled their attention from optimal damage dealing for a little bit.
Gradually, they whittled down the boss, until the next part Lorelei had prophesied happened. Armour battered to a moderate degree, the Creator suddenly shoved all of them back with an energy wave and then smashed the platform apart. The segment he was on, by far the largest, flew away, while all of the pieces the group were on consolidated into one new platform, which served as the starting point for the parkour segment. Hovering skipping stones appeared between them, buildings of the city below, various large platforms in the sky, and the one of the Creator.
Alone on his platform, the Creator’s outer plates unlocked and spread out as if they were in zero gravity. Inside was a human skeleton with an open ribcage. A core of metal and magic was where the heart would be, exuding calm golden light. The visual language was clear, even at a distance: the boss was healing himself and they had to reach him before he recovered too much health.
There was no definitive path, but there was definitely a way over there. Obviously, Metra tried to cheese it by just Tearing her way all the way over, but a general aura kept her from teleporting, just like it kept the flyers floored. They all had to do this with jumping and running.
Which just meant that Sylph, Siena and Beatrice pulled ahead of everyone else. They had to find their way and dodge the constant turret fire – which actually turned out to be too much for a few of the slower members. Gnome took a threatening amount of damage and John had his HP greatly diminished as well. Didn’t help that they got really close to some of the turrets on a few occasions.
Once the first of their speedsters reached the Creator and slashed at the exposed core, all members of the party were once more bound to the floor and flown up to the boss platform with it. All the shards fused to the segment the Creator had departed with earlier, adding up to the previous size. From there, the fight continued as before, the Creator slightly restored yet still battered.
John had expected this core phase to occur once, so their resources were strained at this point, especially after Undine healed him and Gnome. They kept going. Obviously, they kept going. After two days of stomping their way through boss fights and various environments, they finally had something that offered an actual threat.
The frequency of the platform repositioning increased and now it rolled as well, further adding to the confusion. None of them were deeply distracted by it, they had seen their fair share of mind-bending stuff, but it did pull a little of their attention away and that was enough to raise the difficulty. The battery fire ramped up about 50% as well and that was an actual and clear threat.
They lost a few party members, but made it to the intermission phase again. Platforms scattered all throughout the sky and near the roofs of the Twisted City of Ohmior, allowing for a multitude of paths. The layout was notably different than before. Doubting their success in this attempt, John decided to take a stint and check on something. The paths that lead close to the towers could be used to actually get straight to the towers and there was a core inside that could be destroyed with enough effort.
‘So those that aren’t good at crossing the distance quickly are expected to instead take care of these towers so the increased fire rate doesn’t get overbearing,’ John realized.
Since they had done barely any of that, when the core of the boss was struck for the second time and the platform reformed, they had to deal with so many towers at full fire rate, that the bombardment forced a wipe. Their level was advanced, but not advanced enough to make it through that.
They reconvened in the house, took a lunch and fuck break, discussed strategy, and went back in within an hour. Excitement at a challenge overcame any frustration at the loss. They knew they had gotten further in than they had any right to, just because they were still above the intended level. At least that power gap had shrunk to a degree where they were properly punished for not interacting with mechanics.
The second attempt went a lot smoother. They had their dedicated damage dealers from the start, so they made it to the first intermission about 25% faster. During the parkour phase, they analysed the layout as quickly as they could and sent teams to every one of the towers they could reach, while Siena alone was to get to the boss. The reason why she was chosen for this job was due to her invisibility making the turrets ignore her.
They were still on a timer because they didn’t want the boss to heal too much, but they took the liberty of properly taking out all the turrets. When they then ended the intermission, the Creator was almost fully restored. The advantage was that the turret fire was definitely lessened. There was still some, not all turrets had been in range of that parkour segment.
There were two more intermissions, both times they did the same thing. Then the last part of Lorelei’s divination came true, as the Creator, now badly damaged, began to emit blue fire. It poured out of the gaps and holes in his plates, while the raw heat went even further and damaged everything around. The group piled on the damage however they could.
On the second attempt, they killed the Creator of the City.
Not quite the challenge they had hoped for, but a lot closer.