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Writing this chapter required quite a lot of concentration, lol.

In Danish there's a phrase, "hold tungen lige i munden", which means to keep your tongue straight in your mouth. It doesn't really translate well, but just imagine that I wrote this while poking my tongue out my mouth to not lose track of the many details. Editing it was kind of arduous to make sure everything made sense.

Anyway.

Next chapter will arrive on Monday, November 2nd, but if you're in the mood for Halloween eldritch horror, please go check out the event that goes live tomorrow on Royalroad here: https://www.royalroad.com/fiction/194191/2026-halloween-eldritch-horror-anthology-coming
If you drop a follow, you'll get a notification when all of the short stories start dropping. I have written one of the two introductory shorts.

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Chapter Two-Hundred-and-Eighty-Seven

< < Now Entering > >

< Stage 7 >

< The Floating Sea of Gold >

< 3-day Timer >

Golden light filled Adam’s vision as he opened his eyes. Unlike the previous two visits to this stage, he was now standing at the helm, the Creaking Madam’s wheel in his hands. Below him, a player that wore Adam’s real face and body ran down the wooden deck to adjust the control lines for the mainsail. Another identical copy of him crawled up the ratlines, while Adam tweaked the controls for the fins on the side of the airship. Two more copies of him came up the stairs from below deck, and the one on the ratlines started crawling back down. There was a fifth copy of him that had also been on the main deck, and as Adam tried to figure out what weapons and relics they all had, the five creepy clones walked up the steps on either side of the helm to stand around him.

The cutscene prevents my true sight from activating, but I’m sure three of these people are actually women.

How fucked up to alter their appearances just to try and unsettle me.

As the cutscene puppeteered Adam away from the wheel to stand with the others in a circle, he quickly scanned their builds as best he could.

The first player had Blood Mage sigils, but of a kind that Adam didn’t recognise, meaning it was an unknown evolution. They also had the Crawler’s Eye focus, which would make them invisible and immune to physical damage for fifteen seconds. Their relics were: two blood fist rings, a blood mage choker, the stone talisman on their belt, an overflow diadem around their brow, and a thorny-looking red suit of crimson glass that had to be a gift from the Flayed Lady.

< < Relics > >

< Overflow Diadem (Uncommon) — Activate to immediately deliver all remaining damage of Afflictions, dealing 10% increased damage for every Affliction affected. Breaks after use >

< Stone Talisman (Uncommon) — Sacrifice the Relic to curse a target with Wither, increasing damage inflicted to the target by 50% with the next attack >

They’ll probably be the one to run away, given the ability to turn invisible. I doubt the rings are for actually attacking, they’re more likely to be for supplying blood, since they have a forty-five-second cooldown.

The next ‘Adam’ had a normal facial structure despite their hands clearly being the claw weapons of the Beast Class, and on their hip hung a Summoner wand for the Evolutionist evolution.

Which means that Beast is likely evolved into Pack Leader just like Ilya was.

< < Evolutions > >

< Evolutionist — Unique Skill ( Evolve ) | Evolve a summon. 100 Mana cost >

< Pack Leader — Increase summon count by 2 >

Since they had what looked like a thorny fusion of the wandering eye necklace as well, that would put their summon count boost to plus four thanks to having plus one from Invoker, meaning the wolf tooth relic that they had access to from Pack Wolf would be able to summon six wolves. They also wore Alepheria’s mandate, the true flame’s icon, a fetish of sloth on their belt along with the wraith lantern from Summoner, cruel summoner’s gauntlets, skittish skaters, and slavedriver’s kilt.

I think their necklace must be a fusion between the necklace of thorns and the wandering eye.

This is a pretty serious summoning build, much more impressive than Ilya’s, but then again, his seemed more melee-focused. If they’d been able to wear the queen’s pendant, it would have been even stronger.

< < Relics > >

< Necklace of Thorns (Rare) — All summons are thorny, reflecting 20% of damage inflicted to them >

< The Summoner’s Wandering Eye (Rare) — Increase Summon count by 1 | Summons die in one hit >

< Cruel Summoner’s Gauntlets (Rare) — All summons explode on death >

< Slavedriver’s Kilt (Rare) — Sacrifice nearest summon to negate an Affliction. 1-minute cooldown >

The third player also had a Summoner wand, but this one was the Erudite Archmage evolution, which let the caster instantly cast a spell at triple its cost, and on their back was the familiar Elemental Avatar staff that Beck had been fond of, since it allowed him to imbue his body with an element to gain resistance to it.

Their relics consisted of the mage aspirant’s cowl, a stone bracer to lock down Adam’s relics, curse-giver necklace to make him take ten percent more damage, the skittish skaters, and the mana shield ring, which would consume seventy-five-percent of the wearer’s mana to deflect an attack.

They should go down easy. I just can’t let them cast any spells on me or use that bracer.

Second to last was a type of build that Adam was completely unfamiliar with. The player carried a bronze sword and shield, which looked Roman in style, though the shield had a very sharp edge, which would make it dangerous for bashing attacks. Alongside the sword and shield was a Woodsman axe, but with a peculiar appearance to it and a head made of beautifully-shaped stone.

It wasn’t until Adam saw the relics that he understood what the build might be based around, because the player wore a blink ring, the boomerang pendant, a duellist’s glove, deathguard’s cold gaze, slothling spring boots, a stone bracer like the previous player, flesh smith’s robe, pugilist’s belt, reckless warlord’s cape, a nose ring, and two first strike earrings.

< < Relics > >

< Blink Ring (Uncommon) — Charged attacks are performed instantaneously when you blink >

< Boomerang Pendant (Rare) — Returns thrown objects. 15-second cooldown >

< Flesh Smith’s Skin-Robe (Rare) — Reduces damage from elemental effects by 40% | Reduces Dodge chance by 15% >

< Spirited Defence Nose Ring (Rare) — Successfully blocked attacks stagger the attacker and increases the following attack’s damage by 10% >

< Reckless Warlord’s Cape (Epic) — Reduces Defence by 25% | Verbally taunting foes makes them inclined to attack you >

It’s a throwing build, with a shield either for defence or also for throwing.

I don’t understand why he has the pugilist’s belt though, unless it somehow counts for throwing a shield?

I might have to kill him first so he can’t taunt me to allow the others to strike me from behind.

The last player had the enlarged gladius from Blade Savant and two daggers that looked to be a final evolution of Exploiter, which meant it was a parry-focused build.

< < Evolutions > >

< Blade Savant — Unique Skill ( Full Counter ) Perfectly neutralise an attack with your blade and respond with a counter-attack that reflects its Damage and Afflictions two-fold >

< Exploiter — Successfully parried targets take double damage from your next attack >

I’m guessing Full Counter is actually considered a parry, which means that if they successfully parry me with that skill, a counter-attack will deal quadruple damage…

I wonder what the evolution of Exploiter does. It’s probably parry related, but in what way?

Their relics were: parry bracer for extra parries, vigilant fighter’s vambrace for weak points created on parry, aristocrat’s porcelain mask to predict Adam’s movements, forlorn cuirass, and skittish skaters.

Just when he thought that was it, Adam realised that the enlarged gladius weapon didn’t have the right colour, and instead it looked like it was made of lead.

That’s gotta be the lead coating weapon relic. He’s going for one powerful attack to destroy all my cores in one go.

< < Relic > >

< Lead Coating (Rare) — Increases the impact of physical weapon attacks by 50% | Lowers attack speed by 50% >

Adam quickly rethought his plan for how he wanted to handle this.

Meanwhile, his five clones just stared at him.

Then the cutscene released its hold on them, and Adam’s lighthouse effect cast its glow across all six of them, halving the damage of the first source of damage they would take.

Adam’s true sight also activated, revealing their original appearances to him. All five of them were teenage girls, all clearly chosen because they looked younger than they were, even though only those eighteen and older would be in the Trials.

But the pause it gave him was only a fraction of a second before he transformed into shadow and fired off his spider ring web, which tripled mid-air thanks to Ghost. He activated his nightwing cloak and then shot across the short space between himself and the shield carrier, throwing his four traps around him and activating his fetish of sloth to target the Blood Mage just as she went invisible, though he could still see her.

Time seemed to move in slow-motion as he flew forward, and he wondered if it was due to his battle perception getting better.

The Summoner created six black deadly-looking wolves and five slothling dervishes, flinging her hand to Adam in a killing command. At the same time, the Archmage partially absorbed Adam’s shadow magic with her cowl, which in turn pulled itself from the wand in her hand to her body, coating it in a layer of darkness.

Adam’s phantom webs landed on the Archmage, Summoner, and Defender, wasting their lighthouse boons. The Blood Mage hopped over the edge of the airship and vanished from sight, with Adam’s imp chasing her, and the Blade Savant managed to step out of the way of the webs. Thanks to the phantom element, the skittish skaters they wore didn’t register them as attacks, though both the Archmage and Summoner dodged a trap flying at them, which, coincidentally, put the Summoner’s face right in the path of a phantom trap chasing the real one she’d avoided.

BANG!

[Four traps triggered. 400 Points rewarded.]

The explosive activation removed the front-half of the Summoner’s face, because even though the phantom trap’s damage was a third of normal, it had hit her face where the forlorn cuirass ensured she received double damage. However, instead of vanishing, all eleven of her summons turned red from the true flame’s icon triggering its last stand effect. They shrugged off every bear trap they moved through, along with the webs, not triggering Adam’s point reward for any of them.

Adam swung his left fist wearing the hand of the mad witch around the side of the Defender’s shield, while summoning all three of his crawler’s arms into the air above the three players, making them as large as they could go and sending one down towards each of them in turn. They moved slowly, but would chase their targets since he had commanded it.

With a blink, the Defender was able to get his shield in the way of Adam’s fist and the sound of the impact rang like a loud gong, sending a backwash of air across the airship’s helm.

He blinked to instantly defend??

Then the effect of the Defender’s nose ring kicked in, and Adam involuntarily stumbled back a step as though he’d been shoved, before a cloud of frost enveloped him in an instant as the Archmage burned her mana to instantly cast the spell.

Adam’s dodge didn’t trigger, since it wasn’t a direct attack.

[You have been afflicted with Frostbite. All forms of regeneration have been halted for 30 seconds.]

[You have been afflicted with Curse. Damage taken increased by 10%.]

[Body of Sloth triggered. Speed bonus set to 0% for 1 minute.]

Since Adam was still a slime elemental at his core, despite the shadowy transformation, the ice slowed his body down significantly and prevented him from transforming or reshaping himself. He managed to teleport behind the three players with the night moth’s bracelet, but then the Defender spun around with a blink, before another blink had his shield instantly colliding with Adam’s body in a furious explosion of fire and lightning that destroyed two of his cores. Just like the cloud attack, Adam’s dodge didn’t trigger.

[You have been afflicted with Conflagration. You take 20 points of burn damage per second for 10 seconds.]

[You have been afflicted with Electrification. You lose 25 points of Mana per second for 1 minute.]

The stone bracer on the Defender’s arm vanished as it was triggered.

[All of your Relics have been put on a 30-second cooldown.]

Adam activated his Euphoric Tinkerer skill and was just about to summon a bunch more crawler arms in the air, when the same affliction hit him again, as the Archmage used her stone bracer as well.

[All of your Relics have been put on a 30-second cooldown.]

Then suddenly the Blade Savant was there, grabbing Adam’s shoulder and ramming his sword into his body to destroy another core and delivering a fourth affliction, which was quickly followed by a fifth thanks to the electrification.

[You have been afflicted with Paralysis.]

[You have been afflicted with Mana Exhaustion. Stamina reduced to 0% and all recovery rates lowered by 90% for the next 20 seconds.]

[Warning! Health below 40%.]

I think the mage stole my nightwing protection with her cowl, Adam belatedly realised.

But then a loud crunch came from the Archmage, as Adam’s crawler arm finally reached her. She would have been able to notice it thanks to her cowl, but she hadn’t been looking up.

A second later, the same sound came from the Defender as she was pressed flat with a scream that was cut short. Unlike the appearance that had been moulded to look like Adam, her voice was that of a teenage girl.

Because of Adam’s spiderwebs ‘holding’ them, neither of their skittish skaters had been able to save them.

Instead of finishing Adam off, the Blade Savant ran away, only to trigger her own skittish skaters to avoid a trap she stepped on, and then being pressed into a smear by the crawler arm descending upon her like the sword of Damocles. The last thing to go was her screaming face.

But Adam didn’t have the comfort of revelling in his victory, as the red-glowing summons finally descended upon him.

He tried to retrigger his moth bracelet to teleport away and hopefully letting them time out to save him, but he couldn’t. The paralysis prevented it.

Not even his mirror mask could help him.

A fourth core exploded as a black wolf chomped down on it.

Then all eleven summons expired, and their combined explosions took out the fifth and final core.

And then Adam died.

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I started including references to relics and evolutions that are mentioned in the rewrite of Book 2, and I figured this was a good place to try it out in Book 4, since many of the relics and evolutions have either only been seen once, or their last showcase was +60 chapters ago. I think, especially for a chapter where the understanding of the builds is kind of integral to understanding the challenge, having this kind of info up front, rather than being something you have to retrace or hunt down yourself, makes a lot of sense.

Personally, it's one of my main pet peeves with reading LitRPG, since I'm not super fast as a reader, and so often when I get to a section in like a book 7 that references something from book 3, I just wonder how the hell anyone is supposed to remember that if the effect/power of something named isn't actually shown again. I'm personally trying to avoid that, because there's such an overwhelming amount of relics and skills in Loopshard, and I just don't think it would be very fun to need a companion book with the wiki next to you while reading, lol.

But please let me know what you thought.

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