Chapter 151 – Strangeness

John kept an eye on his Mana Protection. Once it reached maximum capacity, they would enter the battlefield again. Standard safety procedures, and all of that.

“I want more of these,” Sylph whined, eating what John had told her to be the last gummy bear. He felt like this day was the opening of Pandora’s cookie jar for a future sweet addiction for Sylph.

“What’s so great about this stuff anyway?” Salamander asked. She had tried a gummy bear herself, but hadn’t found it particularly to her liking. From the slime lady at John’s side (actually more on John’s side, she was feeling lazy/affectionate and had attached herself to him for the time being) came support for that question.

“They are sweet and sugary and woah!” Sylph said, “Gnome, you explain!”

The earth spirit, hand in the bowl, was startled as everyone’s attention shifted to her. “I, uhm, they are, like, tasty?” she stammered.

“Gnome doesn’t count, she is heavy,” Salamander waved it off.

“Wha- NO I AM NOT!” the stone elemental shouted in response.

“Yes, yes, you are, you are made from rock,” her burning sister stated drily.

“I am unsure how Gnome being of heavy material relates to her liking gummy bears,” Aclysia chimed in.

“It is a joke about her being fat,” John explained, “which you are not, Gnome, so no cause for concern. Salamander is just out to tease you.”

“Partypooper,” the blaze elemental complained, “could have annoyed her for at least another five minutes.”

John’s Mana Protection hit maximum charge. “There is no time for that. Everybody remembers the strategy?” Affirmations all around. “Then let’s go.” John reached for the doorknob.

The entrance flew open, almost hitting John’s face. Surprised, he stumbled backwards. Undine on his side made a disgruntled sound, complaining about the shaking.

Outside the door was a seizure inducing cacophony of colours and images. In the door itself stood a remarkably unmemorable man. He could have been literally anybody else, the kind of person one didn’t even notice while walking through the streets.

“Whoops, not at all where I wanted to come out, oh and hi John, I am in a hurry so we’ll talk again next time,” the man said and quickly closed the door. John didn’t even have the chance to use Observe.

“What was that?” he wanted to know from Hermes.

“Probably somebody who met another version of you,” The god of messages shrugged, “I told you that door is enchanted to invite people from wherever, not the first time it brought in some dimension traveller who got tangled up in the spell.”

“Hold the phone, dimension traveller? As in, there is more than one?” Obviously, that was a common theory, particularly when it came to the kind of fantasy realm he found himself in. Guessing and knowing were, particularly when it came to finding out there were parallel versions of him, incredibly different.

“Yup, have fun with that bit of trivia,” Hermes answered, “not like it will help you with anything, dimension travelling is a skill so exceedingly rare I doubt that you will get any use of it. I interact with a lot of them because of what I do and even I see only a couple a year.”

‘Okay, so that’s the existence of parallel dimensions and other versions of me confirmed,’ John thought. ‘Wonder how they are doing?’ Looking at his own luck in life, he was sure that the answer was ‘not so hot’. Then again, who knew how far the divergences could go? Some ‘hims’ would probably be so changed by circumstances that they had nothing in common.

John carefully reached for the door again. No surprise this time. They looked out into the alleyway; he spied the shimmering directly in front of the door. The Heat Strikers were ready to attack them the moment they stepped outside.

There was only one answer to this problem. “Aclysia, if you may,” John said and allowed her to take the lead.

“As you command, Master,” Aclysia said and readied Ashkandi.

“Please visit me again!” Hermes shouted after them, when the Artificial Guardian tackled the mass of near invisible enemies. The rest of the group charged through the opening she cleaved.

In the alleyway, they found the wall Gnome had erected torn down, cut into small chunks. ‘So it was at least a bit of an obstacle,’ John thought, ‘but we don’t need it for the plan, so whatever.’ They formed a circle formation with Undine at the centre and then the plan went into effect.

It had two steps and, like all good battlefield plans, was simple. John gave Gnome his mana and the stone elemental burst open the floor around them. Where concrete had reigned, loose dirt instead spread, leaving only a firm patch in the middle, where the party stood.

Next, he gave mana to both Undine and Sylph. Although she was now a mending elemental, Undine still had her basic water skills and so, out of her liquid feet, she spread a constant flow of water that ran off the solid platform they were standing on. “Who is in the mood for rain?! NOBODY, but Johnnie says that’s the plan so, I guess, here is rain!” Sylph blabbered and did her part by conjuring a low hanging cloud that filled the alleyway with a sudden rainfall.

John was very happy with how that cooled down the oppressive heat of the level, but that was just a pleasant side effect. The earth got turned into a soggy mud field, on which the footsteps of the Heat Strikers were easily seen. The splattering mud also got stuck on their bodies, making it that bit easier to spy them, especially after Sylph turned down the rain a bit. Now that they could make out their adversaries the rest of the encounter was quite easy in nature: They would only have to stand their ground.

“I hate this,” Salamander gave in to protocol, as the Heat Strikers trampled through the mud towards them. John let loose a Mana Ray on one of the monsters. Aclysia cut them down whenever they entered the extra marshy area around their position, where Undine’s water had done its job. Sylph did very little in this fight, only occasionally annoying enemies with weak attacks as most of her mana was sacrificed to keep the soft rain going. Gnome stomped once and a wave of mud formed as the stone underneath upheaved violently. Multiple Heat Strikers were hit and completely revealed to the party. Gnome punched and missed, she punched and missed, she… “For fucks sake, Sis, get it together!” Salamander screamed, aimed for the being’s head and blinded it with a fly-by fire wave.

That allowed Gnome to get in a punch that broke right through the being’s chest. John forgot sometimes but Gnome was the party member with the second highest Strength Stat. If only her Agility had caught up, “S-sorry,” Gnome apologized to Salamander.

“Shut up and PUNCH STUFF!” the blaze elemental shouted, clearly in a sore mood from all the rain and general water around.

“Y-you know you shouldn’t talk to me that way!” Gnome stood her ground, “I-I-I-I am still older than you!”

“And you think that’s why anyone should listen to you?!” Salamander turned with a twitchy eye and flew over to the stone elemental. She grabbed one of Gnome’s twin tails and started pulling, “As if the rain wasn’t pissing me off enough, now you come with these bullshit arguments, when you should just…-“

Salamander’s annoyed tirade was suddenly interrupted by a swat that saw the blaze elemental flying into a puddle a few metres away. “Bad Salamander!” Gnome shouted and then stomped, saving her sister from the watery grave.

The fire spirit coughed two times, dried the mud off herself and then mumbled, “okay, okay, sorry, you are the chief, Gnome.” Despite her quiet tone, John spotted something like a mild smile.

John would have applauded Gnome’s ability to act against her bully but he was currently occupied with slicing apart one of the Heat Strikers with a Mana Blade. He would have acted against them distracting each other in the first place, if the Heat Strikers hadn’t been such absolute glass cannons. Without their invisibility they were barely a threat and because they were mindless monsters they ran at them without a care in the world. Getting cut down in droves, they kept up their suicidal charge until the Wave was over.

‘That sounds not that bad actually,’ John thought while looking at the name. He had been fooled before however, so he remained on guard.

A sudden shockwave rippled through the city, blowing away Sylph’s cloud. The noises of crashing cars and explosions echoed throughout the streets. John, curious, got moving, surrounded by his summons and Aclysia.

The streets were a mess, burning car hulls everywhere, pressed together like accordions. To John’s left a house seemingly randomly lit on fire, elsewhere a window exploded into fine shards. Streetlights sprang to life, wildly changing between colours. As the name of the boss indicated, the city was pure chaos. They only had to find the thing.

John noticed something running out of the burning building. A human wearing black clothes that hid the whole body from view. A scarf and glasses that also made his face unrecognizable. The green glow behind made it pretty clear that this was not a human however.

“Why does he have to look like a member of Antifa?” John sighed. “Political commentary? Really, Gaia? Also he drops NO money but his legendary drop is the Communist Manifesto! How am I supposed to take this seriously?”

The answer to that question came flying in the shape of a Molotov cocktail. “I got this, see, see?” Sylph chirped and sent the projectile flying back in a gust of wind.

An explosion big enough to still damage John’s shield by 160 points exploded in the Citychaos Elemental’s face. John did not expect that to actually hurt it but as the cloud of ash and dust slowly cleared, the revealed boss did look like he was at the very least bothered by the attack.

“Good job, Sylph,” John complimented, very happy to not have been the centre of that explosion, “You keep reflecting that.”

“Aye, Johnnie, can do that, caaaaaan dooo, can I? Yes, I can!”

“Shut up, Sylph,” Salamander said, engaging the enemy.

Aclysia did the same, so did Gnome and they were facing an absolute…

Weakling of a boss.

“I don’t get it,” John scratched his head. The scene before him was absurd. The entirety of the gathered combatants were kicking the daylights out of the boss, like it was just a mundane guy. He almost expected to be surprised by the black bloc turning around the corner. However, it was just that one guy. One guy with no abilities outside of throwing an easily countered Molotov cocktail. The defeat followed swiftly.

‘So, the core floor boss of this one is super easy and the other one I haven’t even faced, weird,’ John shrugged it off and left the barrier as soon as the timer for the next Wave showed. Once back in the main barrier he pulled out Mono, despite Magoi being present as always.

“Sorry, I need whatever power can be offered to me, right now,” John defended himself from the judgemental stare.

Magoi, after a short delay, just let out a long sigh, “I have no idea how strong this Thana thing you are about to face is, so maybe you do? Let me warn you however that your new golem will be very interesting to whoever runs a mana factory. Even more than you are,” he told John.

“How come?” John wanted to know.

“Because it is hard to keep a human of your power sedated. A golem with that kind of power core, however, can be exploited. You call her an Artificial Spirit but that really is nothing but a golem with will. Not to mention that she is living material, so they can feed her whatever they need to get mana out of her,” Magoi explained. “They would consider her a way to transform enchanted items into raw mana and basic materials. Inevitably, she would break from that sort of exploitation.”

“Well, she is bound to me, so it should work out fine,” John said with conviction.

“Don’t let arrogance be your undoing, John.” With these words the disappointed Fateweaver left.

“Should you maybe not have revealed me?” Mono asked in an apologetic tone.

“No, he would have found out anyway eventually. I try to be honest,” John answered with a smile, “Now come, we have stuff to feed you and then we need to resume grinding.”